#i mean just looking at the IP they have lined up for each episode and its like...

[gikairan]

That Secret Level TV show has an episode for Concord, and we all know how that debacle went down a few months ago....

But they also have an episode for a game called "Exodus". Which is announced, but little else.

And, like.... why would you do that? Make TWO episodes in your anthology TV series about... stuff that hasnt released yet? Because you just dont know whether anyones going to care about the IP or not.... Hell, we dont even know if Exodus is going to make it to launch, because stuff (especially new IPs) can get cancelled at any stage of completion for no reason.

All i know is if it flops, i'm going to consider this TV show the reason. Its Simply Cursed

[henlp]

Most anime is bad.

It's fair to say anime's success in the West, starting in the 80s-90s but gaining mass recognition and appeal in the 2000s, mostly comes from a wide range of premises for stories told, and how emotional payoffs are (for the most part) earned by the writing, be it hype moments, shocking scenes, or the often-expected bittersweet finale.

However, in spite of these positives, it's very frequent that the story for an anime/manga/novel/game/etc. ends up being bad; and for the longest time, I couldn't figure out exactly why. Even a decade ago, when I was far more lenient and forgiving to the content I consumed (because I had yet to achieve the jaded, joyless state I find myself in <current year>), I could tell something was amiss.

Think I first took notice of this when the era of the Big Three was coming to an end, with One Piece carrying on as Fairy Tail instead took the shovel to the head. Alongside Bleach and Naruto, these three manga series all suffered major issues in their final arcs, so blatant that it became too difficult to accept. Something stank in Denmark Japan, and it made no sense why these (supposedly) good series where floundering as they neared the finish line.

A few years later, with more media under my belt, out came Black Clover. Both my weeb cousin and a good friend had spoken highly of the series, alongside many of the places I used to check for animus, so I watched the OVA... and hated it. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with the pilot for the story, mind you, at that point it was only the screeching from the protagonist that bothered me. When the series proper began, I made the conscious effort to try and power through in spite of the awful first impression, to see what the hype had been about... and I still wasn't seeing it. In fact, the story's erratic and hyperactive pacing, alongside its cheap animation, made it almost impossible for me to watch. Only by virtue of the previously aforementioned hype moments on occasion and the catchy OPs did I stick around long enough for the story to get interesting and for me to have any investment in the characters. It didn't get good, but it had at least become tolerable. Lucky for me AND it, I was still at a point where I wouldn't drop shows as easily.

It wasn't looking good for my outlook in regards to japanese entertainment. Even if I would end up consuming more anime than any western shows (at least animes don't fucking despise their audiences), my eye kept getting more critical, and I kept getting less adventurous, due to several shows disappointing. But I still couldn't figure out why this was. If anime and manga were appealing to me still, why was I less inclined to give 'em a pass, why was I more and more dissatisfied. And then I got my answer in 2021, thanks to two shows: Jujutsu Kaisen and the second anime adaptation of Shaman King.

A story's quality can generally be quantified based on three things: characters, world, and plot. Each informs the other two, and a good story never has one of these working against the others. But it can also happen that all three work in their own right, but not in tandem. A fourth, rarely-considered factor for evaluating story is EXECUTION. So when it comes to anime, manga, novels, games, etc, the problem usually is in execution. You could argue that there are different cultural sensibilities for storytelling in Japan, or corporate factors interjecting themselves in the process; but that would be an explanation, not an excuse. And nowadays, enough japanese creators quote some of their influences as not just being other japanese creators, but also creators from around the globe (past and present). There's not this magical bubble keeping the Land of the Rising Sun ignorant of other types of storytelling and development processes.

So how did I arrive at this conclusion thanks to Jujutsu Kaisen and Shaman King 2021? Both shows suffer terribly when it comes to execution of their stories, although in different ways:

-With Jujutsu Kaisen (at least the anime, I've not read the whole manga), there were several instances where I found myself asking "Did I miss an episode or something?", because you frequently had characters reacting and conducting themselves with one another as if there was a deluge of development between them off-screen. No better example than EmoBangs McGee, who becomes BFFs with the protagonist in less than 5min, later having a fight that was probably meant to be very heart-wrenching, except there was no development for their relation (and powers), so it made no sense for them to act in that fashion (if this is different in the manga, by all means let me know);

-With Shaman King 2021, meanwhile, I was well-familiarized with the characters, the world, and the plot. I knew the main elements of the story, I had in fact rewatched the show in the past decade, and in spite of filler content and Black Sabbath cameos, still remembered it strongly. But as I am watching the new show, the word that comes to mind is "cheap": cheap animation and rushed pacing. Maybe this is due to certain events, or the studio trying to rush past the initial stages of the story, but still. All it had to do was clear the filler, give each scene and character the love and care they needed to make their moments the best they could, and let it go from there. It's been twelve years since FMA Brotherhood, if you're going to be a greedy bitch and redo an anime adaptation, there's no excuse for it to be of such low quality.

As you can see, both failed in execution, with the latter in its new adaptation and the former (possibly) in its original format. When I realized this, suddenly the fog dissipated, and I could see why all those stories had failed: Bleach failed because its power creep and character conflicts were executed horribly; Naruto's atrocious pacing (in both manga and anime) was done solely to extend the story needlessly; Fairy Tail's final arcs (although not only that) dropped the ball because Hiro Mashima was actively trying to ensure there were no sad elements to the story or the end of his characters' arcs; Black Clover‘s poor execution came in how its first few arcs play out, trying to speed up through the world-building, which left most characters too anemic and underdeveloped until far later into the story.

But of course, this is an issue that exists in far more IPs than just the ones I’ve mentioned so far and others of the same caliber. It happens with the cream of the crop as well: Boku no Hero Academia's more recent decisions have been executed very poorly, when they were just a single step away from being done very well; post-timeskip One Piece has relied too heavily on characters having skills and forms that we aren't familiarized with, and fights that don't resolve in a smart fashion, but due to nakama power fueling Luffy; season fucking 2 of One-Punch Man is the poster child for terrible execution of anime adaptations, considering the original webcomic, the manga, and season 1. This issue is (almost) everywhere, and yeah, I get it: anime and manga are produced through such a hellish process, that a lot of times the authors or production staff don't have the time to go through their stories to make sure everything's on the up-and-up. Yusuke Murata is not exactly a common example, of someone that's allowed to go back to both redraw and rewrite entire chapters; and I am somewhat glad that, at least when it comes to JUMP, they seem to be getting slightly more lenient with the talent and their teams if it means better results in the long run.

However, the issue persists. I neither know nor think that anything can be resolved even if the extremely demanding workload of manga/anime production were to be alleviated (we've had plenty of examples in the West, of media that has all the time and money in the world, still imploding and salting the earth around it), but at the very least, it can be something that creators who are not under those retraints to take into account, so as not to make those same mistakes.

Do not try to subvert conversations that SHOULD be happening, just because in anime there's a stereotype of scenes where everything stops in its tracks just so characters can have a conversation, be it executed well or poorly (an aspect I'd wager stems from when the source material is manga or a novel). Don't think that because a character's power level let's them blow up the moon from orbit, that immersion can't be broken if you don't justify how they might struggle against another on the same tier. Be wary of the very common issue with 'Wanime' (Western animation using the anime style), where creators completely put aside depth for spectacle, to the point that it becomes indistinguishable from a parody show such as Megas XLR.

Always remember, execution is the be-all and end-all to every character development, emotional payoff, hype moment, world building, and plot progression. Think about every scene, and if it actually informs the audience of what should be happening. If it doesn't, then you'll have to try and fix it before, not after. And if you can't do it (which is fine, most of us are fucking dumbasses), now you understand why even a lot of shonen action series have a bunch of slice-of-life, semi-filler scenes interjected in-between big events, so that you can have context and weight to what will transpire.

[myheartrevealedocs]

Untouchable - Ch 7: The Fisher King: Part 2 (S2E1)

Summary:  A Spencer Reid x OC fanfic that retells select episodes, starting in season 1, from the point of view of Lydia Ambers, a forensic scientist.

Warnings: mentions of death, swearing, death threats, graphic injuries

Ch 6 | Ch 8

~ ~ ~

When Lydia got back to the conference room, Spencer was the only one there. He stood directly in front of the whiteboard, murmuring to himself. He’d written ‘Possible Book Titles’ across the top, but so far had nothing listed.

“The rest of the team leave you to figure this out on your own?” she asked.

He startled slightly, not having heard her walk in. “Um, JJ and Morgan are going to interview Rebecca Bryant’s parents… and Hotch and Gideon are interviewing the guy who brought the numbers to Haley.”

“Someone found him?”

“He turned himself in,” Spencer explained. “So, now it’s just me and the evidence boards.”

“Now it’s us and the evidence boards,” she corrected. She sat down and picked up the medication bottle from the table. “Sorry I stormed out.”

“Sorry you were so stressed,” he mumbled. “We didn’t mean to push you.”

“You didn’t. It was important for you to know. I’m just… so done with this, you know?” She stopped herself. “Sorry, of course you do. You were on vacation when you got these weird messages. I was just home doing my schoolwork.”

“Lydia, stop apologizing,” he argued. “This is very stressful, we’ve all been here a long time, and you got a package delivered to your door. I can easily understand why that’d freak you out.”

She shrugged. “I just feel like I should be able to piece together these clues the unsub’s giving us and I can’t.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” he agreed, indicating to his empty list.

She looked over the label on the bottle in her hands. There was a patient name, a doctor’s name, drug, and an RX number. Prescription bottles always had more than that. They had instructions, pharmacies, manufacturers, fill dates, expiration dates.

“This number must mean something,” she wondered out loud. “He didn’t put any unnecessary information on it, but there’s a long RX number.”

“Read the number out loud,” Spencer told her.

He wrote it across the board as she went. “3-1-5-1-2-1-2-5-3-2-0-1-5-1-8”

“Okay,” he stepped back. “We can start with the basics. A equals 1, Z equals 26.” He got to work, writing the corresponding letter underneath the number.

C-A-E-A-B-A-B-E-C-B-

He stopped at the zero. “That’s definitely not a word. But some of the letters have double digits, so… let’s see if we combine everything we can combine…’C’ stays the same. The 1 and 5 could be fifteen, which is ‘O’...” He began again.

C-O-L-L-E-C-T-O-R

“Collector?” He stepped away. “That mean anything to you?”

Lydia shook her head.

“Alright. Collector. Collecting things. He’s collecting things.” He snapped his fingers so sharply Lydia almost jumped. “Collector! Baseball cards, music boxes, butterflies, skeleton keys. These are all things people collect!”

“That can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

He shrugged. It was basically impossible at this point to rule anything out.

“Medieval,” she rambled. “Collectable things. Numerical codes. What else have we got?”

“We’ve got this note from the music box?” he offered. “I think I’ve heard it somewhere, but I can’t place it… And I think the book was published in 1963.”

“Why’s that?”

“That’s the year on the baseball card, but it’s not the year Gideon went to all those games. If the unsub knows Gideon likes Nellie Fox because he went to almost all the White Sox games in 1959, why give him a ‘63 card?”

“Okay,” Lydia agreed. “So, the type of butterfly JJ got, that probably means something too, because she collected butterflies, not pale clouded yellow butterflies.

He nodded. “Let’s get Garcia to look up some of these things and see if we find anything.”

She followed him out as he dashed towards Garcia’s office. He was very stiff and awkward when he was in a rush, she noticed, but he refused to run through the office. She was glad for it at the moment, seeing as with her foot, she probably couldn’t keep up with him, but it was almost comical, the way his feet skipped underneath him with repressed anticipation.

Garcia looked up when they walked in, then turned back to her computers. “This guy is infuriatingly good. He routed his IP through major corporations, crisscrossed it through countries, bounced it off satellites-”

“I thought you already tracked the hacker,” Spencer said, pausing behind her and glancing over her shoulder.

“No, I only found what he wanted me to find,” she huffed. “Apartment where Giles was dead. Reid, a hacker capable of getting into my systems is going to have amazingly sophisticated equipment. Did Giles’s apartment have that?”

“He didn’t have a couch,” he responded.

“Exactly. Giles was a smokescreen I should have seen through. But now I have this glorious program I wrote, tracking the hacker through his other identity: Sir Kneighf.”

“Sir Kneighf?” he cried.

Lydia’s eyes widened. “The doctor on the prescription bottle!”

“The what?” Garcia flipped her chair around and Reid leaned over to see the name on her screen

“K-N-E-I-G-H-F. That’s an odd spelling.”

She waved him away. “Do you need something?”

“Yeah, is there a database, which lists all the books published in a given year?”

“Individual publishers have lists, but I don’t think there’s anything like a master one. Plus it would depend upon the year, because the further back you go, the less likely there’ll be any database at all.”

“1963.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, ok, that would be an example of extremely less likely.”

He hummed in contemplation. “Could you do me a favor? Type something into a search engine for me?” She pulled herself back up to the keyboard. “‘Never would it be night, but always clear day to any man’s sight’.”

“Okay, that’s from a poem, ‘The Parliament of-’”

“Fowls!” He jumped in recognition. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! Chaucer! My-” He hesitated. “My mom used to read me that. It’s widely considered as the first Valentine’s poem.”

Garcia chuckled. “Your mom read you Valentine’s poems? Hello, therapy.”

Lydia smacked her over the shoulder.

“Chaucer. Chaucer. ‘Parliament of Fowls’.” He began mumbling to himself again, trying to fit pieces together. “It has to be at least 283 pages long. Something published in 1963… A butterfly indigenous to Great Britain. Why? Something born. Something from Great Britain… Medieval. Chaucer. Chaucer was Middle English. Middle English spelling of the word Fowls… F-O-W-L-E-S…”

Lydia thought he was losing it, but somehow, this rambling was productive, because he blinked and ran back over to Garcia’s side.

“There- There was a contemporary british author-- Fowles. John Fowles. Will you type it into a search engine?”

“Uh… He wrote The Magus, he wrote The French Lieutenant’s Woman-”

“Anything in 1963 published in Great Britain?”

She narrowed her search and her computer started beeping. “Yeah. The Collector.”

Lydia wanted to scream. Finally, they were on the right path. “Are you serious? The code on the bottle was the book title.”

Garcia clicked on the book and the cover photo showed up, which ruled out any chances of the book being a coincidence. Three objects were displayed underneath the title of the book: a butterfly, a skeleton key, and a blonde lock of hair.

“I’m gonna start calling libraries. We need a copy of that book immediately,” Lydia said, leaving abruptly.

~ ~ ~

“Hello, my name is Lydia Ambers, I work for the FBI. We’re in desperate need of a very specific book to help us on a recent case. We’re looking for a copy of The Collector by John Fowles, but it has to be a copy that was published by Jonathon Cape. Would you have any of those?”

Lydia followed Reid and Garcia to one of the interrogation rooms, to talk to Hotch and Gideon about their findings, but she was thoroughly distracted by her call and ended up stepping on their heels a few times accidentally.

“According to our database, we should have two copies, but it’s going to take me a while to search for them. Can I call you back once I’ve found a copy?”

“Yes, thank you.” She hung up and promptly tripped, falling between Reid and Garcia’s shoulders. She would have run directly into Gideon if Reid hadn’t grabbed her by the arm and held her up steady. “Sorry!”

She shuffled back behind her two friends and let them talk to Hotch and Gideon.

“We know what the book is,” Spencer explained. “The Collector by John Fowles.”

“You sure?” Gideon demanded. They were both clearly on edge. Hotch had his arms crossed which didn’t look comfortable in his suit and Gideon was punchy. She didn’t fail to notice the way he and Garcia avoided each other's gazes, Garcia more than him. He was still pissed at her and she was probably thoroughly embarrassed. And hopefully, a little pissed too, because Lydia believed he’d been way too harsh on her.

“Not absolutely. Not until we see if the code works, but Lydia’s called four separate libraries to search for the 1963 edition published in Great Britain.”

“Well done,” Hotch complimented the group, tiredly.

“Agent Gideon,” a woman called, approaching the group of them, “there’s a call for you on line two. Says it’s extremely urgent.” 

“Is there a name?” he asked.

“Sort of. He calls himself the Fisher King.”

Lydia groaned before she could stop herself. Everyone raised an eyebrow at her.

“Sorry. The Fisher King is the one who guards the Grail. You know, the one that ‘Sir Percival’, over there is supposed to find.” She pointed at Reid, who was grabbing the notepad the woman had in her hands.

“This could be the unsub, guys,” he confirmed. “‘Sir Kneighf’ is an anagram for Fisher King.”

“The Fisher King is at the end of all Grail quests,” Gideon agreed.

They rushed to the bullpen, all crowding around a nearby phone.

“Line two trapped and traced,” Hotch demanded of one of the nearby agents and Gideon put it on speaker.

“Gideon.”

“What I had to do was not my fault,” the unsub replied, his harsh voice unmistakable.

“Excuse me?”

“It was distasteful and barbaric.”

“Who is this?”

“No one else had to be hurt.”

“Call yourself ‘The Fisher King’?” He was trying to throw the unsub off his rhythm. Gideon had been training her to speak to hostile people and profile what responses to give them, so she followed along his game.

This guy had clearly planned what he wanted to say and expected them to shut up and listen. If Gideon made him interrupt the strict script in his mind, he might slip up and give information he didn’t want to or forget his point.

“I told you there were rules.”

“I’m actually more interested in exactly how you got all those burns.” Different tactic. Make the unsub think we’re closer to catching him than he thinks.

“Remember this next time you decide to step outside my instructions,” he warned. “Agent Greenaway did not have to die like that.”

The phone buzzed as he hung up the call.

~ ~ ~

After many attempts at calling Elle, Hotch got ahold of Agent Anderson, who was in charge of taking her home. Anderson explained that Elle had been shot and the ambulance was on its way to a nearby hospital. And then, he and Gideon were off, leaving Lydia, Spencer, and Garcia to work on piecing together this mystery.

“Mrs. Valez, are you there?” Reid asked, putting the librarian who’d just called them back on speaker phone.

“Yes, Dr. Reid. I am. I have a first edition of The Collector, published in Great Britain in 1963.”

“Wonderful.” As they spoke Garcia cleared off room on the whiteboard to copy down the code. “Mrs. Valez, I’m going to read you a set of three numbers. The first is going to be a page number, the second a line number on that page, and the third, a word number in that line. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“All right, the first is page 222.”

“Page 222, got it.”

“Line 23.”

“Line 23. Got it.”

“What is the 16th work on that line, Ms. Valez?”

“The.”

“The,” he repeated. “Great.”

Garcia wrote it up on the board and Lydia suddenly very much regretted not going along with Gideon and Hotch. But just in time to save the day, her phone started going off with a call from the unit chief.

She dismissed herself quickly and stepped outside to answer.

“How’s Elle?” she asked, figuring greetings could be dismissed for the time being.

“She’s in surgery. Ambers, I need you to go to her house and look for any evidence you can find. And if you can, I need you to tell me what exactly happened when she got home. Anderson will meet you there.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get back to you when I have something.”

She quietly signalled to Reid that she was leaving before grabbing her FBI windbreaker and latex gloves and running off to the elevator. She hadn’t taken a company SUV since her first case (after which she learned she wasn’t supposed to be driving them on her own because she wasn’t supposed to be unsupervised while working), but she figured that, if caught, she would be forgiven, given the circumstances.

The street was littered with cop cars by the time she got there and it took a minute for them to recognize the car and jacket she was wearing and let her through. Once she had parked, she ran across the front lawn and inside, looking for Anderson. Right now, the only reason she hadn’t been thrown off the scene was her jacket and until Anderson arrived with his badge and the orders to clear the place, she was at the local PD’s mercy.

“Excuse me, miss,” a man called to her as she walked into the living room. She shut her eyes tightly. Damn it.

“Hi. My name’s Lydia-”

“Ambers,” Anderson greeted her, stepping past the cops to speak to her. “CSU’s on the way, but Hotch wanted you to survey the scene before they processed it.” He turned back to the officer she was just speaking to. “Hello again, Detective Markes. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask your team to leave, as you’re currently on a crime scene under federal jurisdiction.”

As he went on to argue with the detective, Lydia flipped around to make her initial determinations. Elle had lost a lot of blood. Lydia could assume she’d been shot in the abdomen, because it was the only area of the body where she could survive long enough to get to the hospital and into surgery while she was losing blood at that rate. Elle had a comforted seat built into an indent in the wall where the blood trail started.

The coffee table was awkwardly placed in the center of the room, so the paramedics probably moved it to get to her. And from the marks on the carpet, it looks like they had to drag her body onto its back in order to perform CPR. Then, there was the looming note on her wall in blood: RULES.

“Can I do anything to help?” Anderson asked. When Lydia looked up at him, it was clear to her that he’d been crying. His eyes were rimmed with red and his voice was shaky.

“Did the police tell you what happened?”

He nodded, rubbing his forehead tiredly. “There is evidence of forced entry on the back door. The unsub probably broke in and waited for her to get home before he shot her. She dialed 911 herself before she passed out. And her badge and gun are nowhere to be found.”

“She dialed 911 before she passed out?!” Lydia exclaimed. “Unless the unsub let her… but no, he thought she was dead. He was in the room with her and wrote in her-” Lydia took in a deep breath and started to put her gloves on. “Try something with me, Anderson.”

~ ~ ~

“What did you find?”

“CSU lifted a partial print from the unsub’s message,” Lydia told Hotch, driving back to Quantico.

“What message?”

“Rules,” she responded. “This is about the press conference.”

He sighed. “Did they get anything from the print?”

“They aren’t sure if it will be enough, but they’re running it through their systems now.”

“Good. And what did you find?”

Lydia’s breath hitched. “Me?”

“I asked you if you could figure out what happened. How did the unsub get the upper hand and shoot Elle?”

Lydia glanced at her phone, which was on speaker beside her, as if Hotch would be there looking sternly back.

“Here’s my theory,” she began. “We know he broke in through the back door and waited in the house. If he was in the dining room, he would have been able to hear her set her stuff down and lie on the couch. Now with her eyes closed, he’s able to walk into the room and aim a gun at her before she can react. At some point, Elle makes a move off the couch and he shoots her. The blood pattern indicates she was falling when she got hit. That makes me think her gun was on the table across from her. But anyway, she’s shot and is lying on her side, between the seat and the table. Elle has got to have an insanely high pain tolerance, because she was still conscious when he wrote on the walls in her blood. But somehow, she had him convinced she had died when he left. Then, she calls 911 and passes out.”

“Good work, Lydia. When all this is over, we need to talk.”

Her phone beeped to indicate he had hung up and it took everything in her not to pull over and call him back immediately.

A talk? What the hell did that mean?

~ ~ ~

When Lydia finally made her way back to the bullpen, she was exhausted. So, it was a bit of a relief to see Spencer there at his desk, simply toying with a pencil between his fingers.

“Did you go to Elle’s house?” he asked, softly, as she took off her jacket and placed it on her desk.

“Yeah… It’s a crime scene.”

He nodded, understanding what she meant. It was bloody.

“How did the book code go? Did it work?” she inquired.

“‘The path to the end began at his start to find her first calm her long broken heart’,” he recited. “‘She sits in a window with secrets from her knight. Is it adventure that keeps him out of her sight?’”

“Any clue what it means?”

Reid opened his mouth to explain, but Garcia approached and started talking to him. “She’s okay,” she said, sitting on the edge of his desk. “Your mom. Agents picked her up.”

“Your mom?” Lydia startled. “What happened?”

The panic in Garcia’s eyes was evident. “Lydia! Sorry, I didn’t even realize you were back yet.” Her eyes darted between the two of them. “I’ll… I’m gonna go now.”

“No, no, no!” she assured her. “It’s fine. If this is private, I can leave.”

“It’s not private.” Spencer looked slightly amused by the anxiety both girls felt, but it didn’t last long. “It’s… pertinent to the case.”

“Is everything okay?” Lydia asked him, standing up next to Garcia at his desk, so that the conversation didn’t drift around the room.

“She’s flying here right now,” Garcia explained, and Reid nodded, looking down at an evidence bag.

It was the poem they’d found in the music box. The valentine’s one that he’d said his mom read him.

“I forgot she used to always read me this poem.” He sighed. “It’s funny, huh?”

“Funny?” Garcia asked.

“I should have realized this sooner,” he admitted. “I mean, nobody knows things like the fact that JJ collects butterflies except for me. People tell me their secrets all the time. I think it’s ‘cause they know I don’t have anyone to betray them to… except my mother. I- I tell her pretty much everything.”

“I don’t think anyone would mind,” she grinned.

“Do you know that I write her a letter everyday?” he continued.

Garcia’s eyes watered slightly, but her smile didn’t let up. “That’s nice.”

“It depends on why I write her.” His eyebrow furrowed. His demeanor had changed considerably and Lydia started to piece together what she had missed.

This unsub had gotten all this info on them from his mom. Maybe he’d been stealing her letters or just talking to her, but he knew her and that’s why Reid was bringing her to Quantico.

“What do you mean?” Garcia asked.

“I write her letters so I won’t feel so guilty about not visiting her.”

The girls exchanged a look. Reid had just been in Las Vegas. He said he was going home. So, why was he claiming he didn’t visit her?

“Did you know that schizophrenia is genetically passed?” he asked, randomly.

At least, she thought it was random. Until Garcia gasped under her breath. She excused herself quickly, leaving Lydia with the fidgeting doctor.

“Spencer, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she spoke up. She kept her voice low and her town concerned, undemanding.

He was clearly on edge. He wouldn’t look up at her, eyes focused on the poem in his hands. “‘The path to the end begins at his start’... I’m the ‘him’. And my start is my mom. So, she’s the key to lead us to the Grail. ‘She sits in a window with secrets from her knight’. The doctors tell me my mother loves to sit by the window and read my letters.” He dropped the bag suddenly and clasped his hands together. “Lydia, my mom is a paranoid schizophrenic who lives in a mental hospital.”

His knuckles started turning white and the muscles in his arms shifted under pressure. He was getting tense. Lydia knew exactly what he was doing. Normally, when she felt her anger manifest itself physically, she would excuse herself to blow off steam, but something told her Reid wasn’t about to find an empty hallway and start punching the walls.

But even with that knowledge, she never would have consciously done what she did to calm him. Her impulses took over and one of her hands reached out and settled itself on top of his fists. She bent down slightly, not forcing herself into his line of sight, but making it easier for him to turn to her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “That must be hard on you… does the rest of the team know?”

He shook his head, turning one of his palms over to hold onto her fingers. Lydia’s heart sped up, but she swallowed down her feelings. He was looking for comfort, not a relationship. Besides, they weren’t even holding hands, really. He was just grazing his thumbs over her knuckles.

“Lydia,” he began, finally meeting her gaze. “Earlier you left because Hotch brought up your mom…”

Here it comes. She braced herself for the inevitable question.

“...and when you came back, you had bruised knuckles.”

She almost choked on her own saliva. He wasn’t going to ask about her mom? And how had he even noticed that?

Awkwardly, she slipped her fingers out of his grasp. “I wasn’t hitting anything alive, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she informed him, suddenly closing off again. “I just had to let off some steam.”

“Lydia, I wasn’t insinuating anything-”

“It’s fine, Spencer,” she replied, far too quickly. “If you need any help with anything before your mom gets here, let me know. And if I get any updates from Hotch or Gideon, I’ll tell you.”

He spun his chair around in an attempt to stop her, but she was already leaving, trying to look dignified as she walked into the conference room. She didn’t want to make him feel guilty when he was already dreading his mom’s arrival, but she couldn’t have that conversation when there was work to do.

It wasn’t until she was staring at the evidence boards that she realized, there really wasn’t any work to do.

What was she running from?

~ ~ ~

After hours of pacing and repeating the clues the unsub had given them outloud, Lydia had ended up back at her desk, absolutely drained. She pushed everything aside and lay her head down. She’d just been… off today. 

She felt so guilty about abandoning Spencer. He needed more help than she did. His mother was involved in a murder case and probably wasn’t stable enough to look out for herself. And Lydia was just wallowing in her past.

She had no right to do that to him.

So, what was it? As far as she knew, Spencer didn’t even know her mom was dead. He had no idea what the mention of her mother could do to her. He wasn’t pressuring her to tell him about it. And even more so, she’d never struggled to tell anyone her mother was dead before. Her first day in Quantico, she told Gideon and Garcia.

Lydia rarely talked about the cause of her mom’s death. If that’s what the team needed to know, then she could forgive herself for being on edge, but they didn’t. No one had asked her to say out loud how her mother had died. And if they did need to know, Hotch, Gideon, or Garcia could probably tell them. Her mother’s death was definitely in Garcia’s files.

What is it? She asked herself. What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you just-?

“Lydia!” Garcia cried. Her head shot up to watch the blonde woman running by, making a beeline for the conference room.

She ran after her, just catching up as she opened the door and grabbed the attention of Spencer and an older woman with a pixie cut.

“Reid, I got to the end of the IP string,” Garcia started, barely even noticing the other presence in the room. “Sir Kneighf? The Fisher King? His name is Randal Garner. He’s Rebecca Bryant’s biological father.”

~ ~ ~

Once the air in the room had settled, Spencer introduced the other woman as his mother, Diana Reid, before quickly distracting them with work. Lydia sensed that he didn’t want his mother to be a part of the conversation.

Lydia stepped aside to call Hotch, listening to their conversation as she explained to him what they’d found.

“Our file says that Rebecca’s father’s name is Joseph Bryant,” Spencer argued. “Who’s Randal Garner?”

“Rebecca’s mother and brothers died in a fire when she was four and her father was so badly burned that he couldn’t take care of her, so he gave up parental rights and she was adopted by the Bryants,” Garcia informed them.

“Okay,” Hotch responded over the phone, pulling her back to the conversation she was having. “I’ll tell Gideon and be there soon. Find out everything you can on this guy.”

“Doing that as we speak,” she replied, putting her phone back into her pocket.

“I can’t believe she’s real,” Diana mumbled.

The three of them trained their eyes on her.

“What do you mean?” Garcia asked.

“Whenever he talked about Rebecca, he never said she was his daughter.” She said all this directly to her son, her stance nervous, almost defensive. “He said all his children died in the fire. He spoke of a Rebecca, more in the abstract. I really thought she was a metaphor and not an actual human being. An ideal.”

“A grail,” Reid said, confirming her thoughts. This man honestly didn’t see her as his daughter anymore. His daughter had died. And this girl was a prize to be won. “He thinks he’s the Fisher King.”

“Who does?” Morgan asked, entering with JJ.

“Randal Garner, our unsub,” Spencer responded.

“He believes you’re all modern-day knights of the round table,” Diana explained, gesturing around the room.

Derek raised a hand and they could see his question about who this woman was coming a mile away.

“Uh, Derek Morgan, this is my mother, Diana Reid.” Spencer ran around the table to step between his colleague and his mom.

“This is your mother?” He pointed at the woman almost accusingly, but seeing Spencer’s tight smile, pulled back and said, “Ma’am it’s a… it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Finally, the last of their group stormed in, Hotch’s footsteps audible from across the bullpen. “So, where are we on finding this son of a bitch?” he demanded.

“Gideon?” Lydia inquired.

“Hospital.”

Everyone sat down around the table in time with one another.

“I rechecked all the clues,” Spencer began. “There’s nothing that points to an address.”

“The adoption records for Rebecca listed an address of the fire, so I made a call to Nevada, and it’s vacant. No one ever rebuilt,” JJ continued.

“Nevada?” Hotch scoffed. “So we don’t even know what state he’s in?”

“I’ll search the tax records,” Garcia offered. “See if he owns any property.”

“Excuse me,” Diana said, catching the attention of the team. She was leaning forward in her seat in the corner of the room.

“Mom, do you want to wait out-” Spencer started, trying to usher her out of the room, but She was already making a move towards Hotch.

“Just before the agents got me from the hospital,” she fumbled for something in her purse, “a man delivered this to me. It’s a photo of a house with an address on the back.”

She held it up for them to see the scrawl on the back of the card: 1024 Winston Dr., Shiloh, VA. 22485.

“Shiloh, Virginia?” Morgan muttered. “That’s only ten miles from here.”

She flipped over the photo. The house looked more like a castle, with multiple stories and barred windows. It was made with gray bricks and black roof tiles with a circular extension that looked like a tower.

The team filed out quickly, with the exception of Spencer, who was telling his mom to stay put until he got back.

Garcia ran back to her office and Lydia sat at her desk, still unable to go on raids with them.

Almost over, she told herself. This whole thing is almost over.

~ ~ ~

“We’re sending Rebecca to the hospital now and then we’ll be back,” Hotch informed her. “Any news from Gideon?”

“Elle just got out of surgery. Doctors say she’s gonna be fine.” It was already the next morning and Lydia couldn’t wait to go back to her apartment and sleep for the rest of the day. “Randal Garner?”

“Dead,” he responded and Lydia didn’t bother to ask how or why. “Why don’t you start clearing off those evidence boards?”

“Yes, sir.” She put her phone down and walked up to the round table room.

When she got inside, she startled to see someone else there. Spencer’s mom sat on the sofa underneath the window and was writing something in one of the journals she brought with her. She hadn’t seemed to notice Lydia walk in.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Reid,” Lydia started, politely, walking over to the evidence boards. “I forgot you were still here.”

After a second of silence, Lydia got to work, making piles of evidence, pictures, and all the pins they had used. She didn’t take the woman’s silence personally, knowing that schizophrenia could cause dissociation. She figured she’d leave her to her journaling for now.

As she was finishing up, however, the woman looked up at her, an eyebrow raised. “Is it time for lunch yet?” she inquired.

“What?” Lydia asked softly.

“I’m lecturing everyone on Tristan and Iseult,” she explained, scanning her journal suddenly like an analysis paper. “They’re all gathering in my room after lunch.”

Lydia was intrigued. Clearly, Diana was not in touch with reality and Lydia wasn’t sure how best to deal with it, but her curiosity won over her common sense.

She wanted to know who Tristan and Iseult were.

“I’m here to attend the lecture, ma’am.” She smiled and sat down on the floor, like a kindergartener.

“Let’s get started, then.” She went on to talk about the basis of the myth: Tristan was sent to bring Iseult back to his uncle, King Mark of Cornwell, with whom she was to marry. On their journey however, they consumed a love potion (whether or not they were aware had varied throughout history) and fell for one another. They were forced to have an affair behind Mark’s back, despite them both holding a lot of respect for the king, because the effects of the potion were too strong for them to ignore. When the king caught them, he sentenced them both to death, but Tristan escaped and saved Iseult and they ran off together. When King Mark finally found them again, Tristan agreed to give Iseult back to the king and flee Cornwell so long as neither of them would be harmed. And eventually, he found another young woman named Iseult and married her instead.

Diana was just beginning to explain how this compared the Arthurian legend and the love triangle between King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, and Guinevere, when Spencer walked in.

“Mom, we found her. Rebecca’s safe.” The two women turned their heads to the newcomer and Spencer flushed, seeing Lydia sitting quietly on the floor across from his mother. “Lydia! I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

“Young man, we are in the middle of a lecture,” she reprimanded. “May I ask why you’ve so rudely interrupted us?”

Lydia covered her mouth to suppress a laugh and Spencer looked shocked by his mother’s scolding. “What?”

“I am giving a lecture on Tristan and Iseult,” she repeated, impatiently. “Are you here to attend or do you want to just keep standing there and gawking?”

He seemed to understand his mother’s headspace, but his confusion returned when he remembered Lydia. She gestured for him to sit with her, smugly, and turned back to Diana. “You can continue Mrs. Reid, he was just late.”

“Has he read any of the material?” she asked, suspiciously.

Lydia raised an eyebrow at Spencer, teasing him despite the fact that she definitely had not read whatever it was that Diana would have previously assigned.

His face was gentle, almost unsure, and slowly he sat down besides Lydia. “I’ve had them read to me.”

Lydia knew he was talking about his mother. He’d grown up listening to her read valentine’s poems and old mythology. It was honestly really touching and she wondered if she should leave them to have a moment together but couldn’t bring herself to get up.

“Wonderful,” Diana sighed. “That’s the best way, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am. By far.”

They sat there for a few more minutes, listening to her thoughts and analysis of different versions of the story. Lydia would glance over at him at times, checking to see if he was still smiling, which he always was. Sometimes he’d catch her in the act and they’d share a look of amusement before turning their focus back to their temporary teacher.

Unfortunately, it had to come to a sudden end when Hotch walked in.

“Ambers.” His tone was serious. “I was worried you’d left. I need to speak with you.”

Lydia could see Diana’s frustration at yet another interruption, so she quickly stood up.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Mrs. Reid,” she apologized, shuffling out behind her boss.

He nodded for her to follow him to his office. Was this about what he said earlier? They needed to have a talk?

She wondered if it was possibly the fact she took out an SUV again despite being informed not to after the last time. Or it could be about her harsh comments that morning towards Gideon and around Haley. Or even worse, about her mom and how she stormed away.

She sat across from him, waiting for his exasperated voice to come through, but it didn’t.

“Lydia, I think we need to have a discussion about your future,” he started, unexpectedly. “I created an internship into the team for you because we’ve never had the need for a forensics expert before, but for these past several months, you’ve been an incredible help. You’re knowledgeable in crime scene analysis, lab work, and, as you proved today, profiling. So, I’ve brought you here to tell you that I’ve discussed with Chief Strauss the possibility of giving you a full-time job in the BAU and she has agreed to speak with you and myself about creating you a position as a government contractor. You can’t apply to be an agent until you’re 23, but I want to be able to lift the restrictions on you and have your help on the cases I see as necessary. If Strauss likes you, you’ll be allowed to make calls for yourself, carry a badge, take the gun qualifications tests, and work without agent supervision, which if she asks, you haven’t been doing already. Would you be interested in such a position?”

She blinked, completely floored by the offer. “Agent Hotchner, I… wait, ‘proved today’?”

It was not what she wanted to say in the moment, but it had thrown her off slightly.

“Today, you walked onto a crime scene and told me an hour later exactly what had happened. You could identify when and from where the unsub entered the room, how Elle was positioned when she got shot, and what happened between then and her call to 911. Yes, I asked you to go there as a scientist and to look for evidence, but when I asked what you thought had happened, you became a profiler and you’re clearly fit to join the team. Again, you becoming a profiler is something we can discuss but not act on for another year, so hopefully contracted work is okay with you.”

“Okay with me?” she laughed. “That sounds amazing. So, just like I’ve been doing in the past, I’ll only be called in when you want me on a case and not for any office work?”

He nodded. “This is dependent on Strauss’s approval, but yes, that’s what we discussed.”

Lydia grinned. “So, how does one get Strauss’s approval?”

~ ~ ~

Lydia didn’t get back to her apartment until around 6 AM and promptly slept for most of the day. She was startled awake by her ringtone in the early afternoon and prepared herself for Hotch to ask her to come back in, but it wasn’t him. Interestingly enough, it was Spencer whose name popped up on her screen.

“Hello?” she answered, sitting back against her headboard.

“Hey, Lydia. Sorry, I’m sure you’re still exhausted after everything. I would have waited a few days to call you, but if I don’t do this now, I’m not sure I ever will.”

Her eyebrows knit together. “Is everything alright, Spencer? Did you make it to Las Vegas okay?”

By the time she’d finished talking with Hotch, Spencer had left with his mom and she’d heard that he was planning to fly with her back to the sanitarium, because she had a fear of planes. After everything, she expected him to stay with his mother for a few days, so she hadn’t thought she’d be hearing from him anytime soon.

“Yes, I’m fine. I’ll be back in DC tomorrow. But I have something to admit to you. I didn’t realize this earlier, but I know why Randal Garner sent you what he did.”

Lydia’s breath hitched. “What do you mean? Have you… did Garcia tell you?”

How did he know? Maybe he’d just guessed with the whole scene she made about the bupropion. Garcia had told her that she wouldn’t spill any of her secrets. But would Hotch or Gideon tell him what happened to her mom?

“What? Garcia didn’t tell me anything. I think you should wait for me to explain, so that you don’t accidentally tell me something you don’t want me to know.” His tone was joking, but there was a wavering nervousness that she could hear over the line. “Lydia, when you worked that poisoning case… on the jet back the whole rest of the team was asleep and you had a conversation with Hotch. You said that seeing an orange prescription bottle made you angry because it reminded you of your mother… I overheard that.”

She waited a minute for him to go on. She thought for certain he was going to say he’d figured her whole past out. He was going to tell her that he’d profiled her fidgets and glances and found out every last detail of her mom’s death, but he didn’t. That was all.

“That’s okay, Spencer,” she reassured him. “It wasn’t… I’m not keeping secrets from the team, I just don’t really like to talk about it.”

She faintly heard him huff, frustratedly. “No, I mean, the unsub got all this information on us from my mom. From all the stuff I’d tell her about my team… I told her about you,” he admitted. “I told her about how I’d overheard that conversation and I’m so sorry that you had to go through all this because of me.”

Lydia’s fingers ghosted lightly over her face as she processed this and shut her eyes tightly. It didn’t bother her as much as she’d thought it would, in fact, she didn’t seem to mind at all. The only thing on her mind when he said that was her stupid crush and the fact that he’d been writing to his mom about her.

She shook it aside. He talked about the whole team. It wasn’t a big thing. But… the unsub had, in his fantasy, assigned them two characters who were in love…

“I really appreciate the thought Spencer, but this isn’t your fault. I never said anything to Hotch about the bupropion, so you couldn’t have known about that. The unsub probably just did some research on me or looked through my files. Even if he chose the bottle because of your letters, he had everything else to torment me. Please don’t put this on yourself or your mom.”

He hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t hate me?”

“I can change my mind if you’d prefer,” she laughed.

He joined her for a moment, but fell silent far too fast. Lydia suddenly racked her brain for whatever she’d done to cause him to freeze, but hadn’t come up with anything before he spoke up again.

“Hey, Lydia? When I get back to DC, do you, uh… want to get something to eat?”

Lydia’s heart stopped. She wasn’t a profiler and definitely not an expert on asking people out, but she wasn’t about to let this crush rot in her brain. These past few days were torture enough. “You mean, like a date?” she prompted.

Bad move on her part. He flipped suddenly trying to deny it and she had to interrupt him before he hung up on her in mortification. He was so flustered she wasn’t even sure he was speaking English.

“Spencer. Spencer!”

He tried to mumble a quick apology, but she wasn’t about to let him close off just like that.

“Spencer, I’m not going to get food with you unless it’s a date. I don’t play mind games like that.”

“You wha- So, you’d like to- I’m sorry, it’s just… Mind games?” he finally spit out.

He was a funny one. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen so quickly for some dork. When she was a kid and all the other girls would ask her ‘What do you want your future boyfriend to be like?’ she never recalled saying, ‘A real mess. Just a true goof.’

“Yes, Spencer,” she responded. “Mind games. Getting food together could easily be misinterpreted as a date and I want to go on a date with you. But if we’re going to do that, we need to both be on the same page about it. If we go get something to eat, will it be a date or are you just suggesting it to be nice?”

“I would like that. I mean, yeah… it’d be a date. If you want! I don’t wanna pressure you or- are you sure that a date is-”

“I’m still fairly new to the Virginia-DC area,” Lydia interrupted, knowing that if he wasn’t able to form a complete sentence, he’d just keep starting new ones. “Is there anywhere in particular you want to go?”

“Um… well, what do you like?”

A grin graced her face, glad to hear him finally calming down. “I’m sure whatever you like I’ll enjoy as well.”

This was it. She’d scored herself a date with the bumbling boy genius.

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 26: 2x08 I, Mudd

Finally getting to this week's episode of TOS.

I remembered I, Mudd being basically fun but not exactly my favorite, and that's still my feeling.

This is the angriest I've ever seen Spock. "Labels do not make arguments." And then how McCoy realizes as soon as he gives his impression of the android how badly he's fucked up but he just has to keep digging that hole.

McCoy commits a micro-aggression lol.

And when Spock talks about McCoy's "beads and rattles"--that voice is 100% the tone Vulcans used to use before they killed someone.

That android looks so familiar. I guess he's not actually a common ST actor but he looks a lot like the common ST background actors.

"Scotty, the intruder's in your area" while Scotty's already on the floor. He got the memo.

"Tell security we found the intruder." We know the situation isn't that serious because Kirk still has a sense of humor.

I like that Spock appreciates that the android doesn't refer to Spock as part of "humanity." And he's definitely interested in the android.

I feel like it shouldn't be this easy to get control of a Federation star ship. Like Mudd is NOT that smart.

I can't believe Spock's first instinct is to try to meld with the machine. Stop being such a slut, Spock.

"He appears to have turned himself off."

Right there on the bridge!! Where he just stands in front of the doorway for 4 days, the least convenient spot.

Kirk is so relaxed about this mission. The ship's been captured and is rigged to blow but oh well! "We're going on a trip." "A gracious invitation." It's like he can already sense this episode is going to be nonsense all the way down.

JAMIE. How dare??

The last time we saw Mudd, Kirk was volunteering to be a character witness for him. Oh where did it all go wrong?

Spock is "ill equipped to appreciate" the ladies. Makes him sound gay.

How much do I LOVE that the VULCANS caught Mudd? He tried to steal Vulcan IP and they didn't like that. I want to know everything about Vulcan society tbqh.

So gross how obvious it is that Mudd is fucking the androids.

The irony of Mudd's situation: a prisoner who can have whatever he wants, but still a prisoner.

Kirk is not amused by the sexist wife android.

This is basically What Are Little Girls Made Of? but like.. not as good.

Kirk doesn't like androids, clearly.

This whole bit about how Uhura could live forever in an android body... First, her interest in the pretty girl androids is very Gay. Second, interesting that this is appealing to her? Third, so this is Dollhouse but with androids. And finally... I feel like this is very not in keeping with the rest of the universe. Like nothing else they can do is on the level of making people immortal. It's such an outlier skill/offering.

Replacing the Enterprise crew with androids--Kirk doesn't like that.

Better than Leningrad...

I am intrigued by the concept that the androids both want to serve and want to study people. Like it does make sense, they can't serve if they don't understand, but it has just that little bit of subtle creepiness to it, which I appreciate.

Kirk cannot be bought. I love episodes where everyone else is, to some extent, tempted by something, like utopia or soft animals or android servants, and Kirk is just like "I'm already living my best life as Captain of the Enterprise so thanks but no thanks."

Spock stepping in to this conversation just reads to me like the smart kid in class waving his hand to answer a question. Like he was not involved in this but he hears a question and he must answer it. "I know what human unhappiness is!! I know!"

THE ENTERPRISE IS A BEAUTIFUL LADY AND WE LOVE HER.

There is nothing tougher to overcome than a sense of purpose. Love that line. Honestly, among other things, I think it describes Kirk and his heroism well. He has a sense of purpose!! And he cannot be swayed.

And now the androids are becoming more like the threatening robots you expect: humans are imperfect/flawed/lacking in logic, can't be trusted to roam free, but are easily pacified with baubles and shiny things, so the robots will make everything better by simply distracting them with whatever they might want, thus saving them, and the universe, from themselves. “You species needs our help…We shall take care of them  You will be happy and controlled.”

I wonder a little bit if this is what happened to the Makers. Like, I know their official cause of death was Exploding Sun/old age…but as my mom pointed out, if the robots DO have the ability to grant immortality in the form of robot bodies, why didn’t the Makers take it? Because the robots made life boring?

Kirk admits to no longer be amused. Uh, yeah, this USED to be hilarious, but is it still hilarious? No.

Pointy-eared thinking machine. YOUR pointy-eared thinking machine, specifically.

Kirk and Spock are operating like a hive mind.

Spock would NEVER sell false patents to Amanda, she is awesome.

And now we’re officially in “Kirk versus the machine and Kirk wins” territory. I do like this type of narrative, so this isn’t a complaint.

Finally, he’s fully enjoying himself too.

I love the fake out with Uhura “betraying” them.

…Okay this is just wacky lol. That’s my only commentary.

Can you imagine the Vulcans seeing this? Not only are the humans acting strangely but SPOCK is too. He’s playing along with the fun and games! How weird of him.

And the head of the androids bites the dust, done in by the old “liar lies” conundrum.

The satisfaction Kirk gets from saying "I am not programmed to respond in that area."

And now he gets to listen to the soothing sounds of Bones and Spock gently mocking each other.

Some of Mudd’s androids have the same dresses as the women in Mudd’s Women.

Not super keen on Mudd's eternal punishment being having to live with many versions of his irritating wife.

And that was the ep. I don’t have much else to say about it. I think What Are Little Girls Made Of? did the androids who’ve outlived the civilization that made them concept a lot better, and overall, as far as sci fi narratives go, this ep didn’t contribute much of anything that hasn’t been said or done before. Not that every story has to be ground breaking, but I just mean, as a sci fi story, it wasn’t fantastic, and as a humorous story, it was… decent, but maybe not as much my thing? I don’t know. Surreal.

It does bother me that we never find out how Norman got on the Enterprise in the first place lol. Like, does Starfleet not have security measures? Can anyone with a uniform just beam right on?

Next ep is Metamorphosis, which, while it does have some uh problematic gender stuff, is also all about LOVE and has my favorite Kirk speech in it so it’s one of my faves. 

[marshmallowgoop]

Kill la Kill the Game: IF: “Quick” Ending Thoughts

I’ve been thinking about Kill la Kill's OVA because I finally finished IF. I've definitely wondered if the game's story would mess me up as badly as that extra episode did. 

Dramatic, but the OVA really put me in such a funk when it dropped. Thoughts of rewatching it turn my stomach. 

But in the end, while I do have gripes with the game's story mode, it ultimately doesn't make me feel sick like the OVA does. I'll write my in-depth thoughts eventually (maybe after eight months again), but tl;dr, the game does what the OVA doesn't: it respects Senketsu as a character.

And since my own investment in the anime overwhelmingly stems from Ryuko and Senketsu's partnership and camaraderie, for me, personally, the game's simple choice to honor that Senketsu is a person is... meaningful. It's what I wanted from the OVA.

I'll save most of my blathering for that future blog post, but I do want to highlight some of my favorite moments from Ryuko's final two IF episodes because it's fresh in my mind, and, well... I just want to gush for a bit. Major spoilers for the game to follow.

✄ First, I think it's hard to capture Mako's "Hallelujah!"s in a 3D format, but these lines are cute:

Mako: I bet Lady Satsuki just wanted some friends, too! And now, she’s got a whooooole buncha naked friends!

I've said similar things before, but I love how Mako doesn't hesitate to see Satsuki⁠—who is so often treated as greater than human—as an ordinary girl who just wants friends.

✄ But more to my main motivation for this post, Ryuko and Senketsu's interactions are the real fanservice of Kill la Kill. (For me, anyway!)

Senketsu: What do you mean? What edge?

Ryuko: Senketsu... I got a batshit-crazy idea.

Senketsu: Don’t you always?

Ryuko: You know it! Anyway, do you think you can do what it’s doing?

Senketsu may worry (and who wouldn't for this girl?), but he also admires Ryuko's creativity and ingenuity, and it's so precious.

✄ I really don't have a lot of constructive things to say about their moments together. Ryuko and Senketsu are just absolutely adorable in these final episodes.

Ryuko: There’s nothing the Primordial Life Fiber can do that you and me can’t. Nothing.

✄ Babies. 10/10/ A+.

Senketsu: Reckless is our middle name!

Ryuko: Damn right!

✄ Seeing Ryuko smile in Senketsu-Kisaragi is such a joy, too. That didn't really get to happen in the anime.

Ryuko: I guess this future can happen, too!

✄ And while I do get a kick out of "more comfier," Ryuko talking about how good Senketsu-Kisaragi feels makes my heart melt.

Ryuko: This is... Senketsu-Kisaragi... It feels way warmer and more comfier than usual. I feel unbeatable!

Did I lose way too many Bloody Valors and go for this line more than I should have purely because it's sweeter than sugar? Yes, yes I did.

✄ They remind me of a butterfly, especially from a distance. That Senketsu's teeth come to resemble wings makes me so emotional. Their good communication allows them to soar, or they're both emerging from their chrysalis, flying out into the world....

Idk symbolism, but I love.

✄ IF excels in the details. Subtly emphasizing Ryuko and Senketsu's growing bond, Senketsu speaks more when playing dual-wield Ryuko, and his sp.C complaint that Ryuko's making him dizzy changes to support. With Kisaragi, for the first time, Senketsu has something to say for each super.

Ryuko: Let’s go all out!

Senketsu: I’m ready!

Ryuko: Let’s fly, Senketsu!

Senketsu: Right, let’s step on it!

✄ Senketsu also speaks in Kisaragi—also for the first time—during normal battle. I caught the lines, "Don't bite your tongue!," "I'm starting to sweat!," and "Leave it to me!" 

Senketsu telling Ryuko not to hold back with “Don’t bite your tongue!” might be my fave, but the lines all highlight how their teamwork has grown.

✄ I'm really bad at RPS, so I lost this final battle, um... a few times, let's say. But one thing that got me is that even when fallen over, Ryuko and Senketsu would still float. Not even a KO can bring them down!

✄ On that note, I'm sure I'm the only one who finds this amusing, but that Ryuko casually floats along in Senketsu-Kisaragi just 'cause she can makes me smile, especially considering her angry stomp-stomps only moments before. They flyin' now.

✄ That Ryuko seems so offended that Houka would say Junketsu-Shinzui is stronger than Senketsu gets to me, too.

Houka: It’s [Junketsu-Shinzui’s] way more powerful than your Senketsu.

Ryuko: Do I look like I give a damn?!

✄ But back to the battle, of the three options that can trigger the SEN-I-SOSHITSU, these lines are unquestionably my favorites:

Ryuko: If I get to be like this someday, then I’m all for it. But first things first! I gotta get back to reality and make sure I get it!

Just Kill la Kill me with cute, why don't you?

✄ "Ryuko! I can feel your blood surging!" is a line that sounds like it shouldn't be adorable, but it is so adorable. They are adorable.

Senketsu: Ryuko! I can feel your blood surging!

Ryuko: We got a lot riding on this. We can’t lose this one!

✄ This makes me feel so many things.

Ryuko: Hey... Senketsu? When this world disappears... what’ll happen to us?

✄ Kill la Kill makes me feel so many things. It's weird to have finally played to the end of IF after all this time. It's weird that there's no content waiting for me anymore. 

The game got mixed reception, but if this is it for the IP, I'm good. Unsure, but hopeful. That's a nice end.

Ryuko: Oh.

✄ tl;dr, I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion, but to me, the story of the Kill la Kill game is a more satisfying send-off for the series than the OVA.

[recordtank4]

The Several Advantages Of Peptides.

What Are The Types Of Sarms, What Are Sarms Uk.

Content

Peptide Modifications.

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Types Of Ipeds.

Never-ceasing Science The Reaping Machine 120 Caps (ostarine).

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View your outcomes with doctor's advice, monitor any type of modifications with time as well as see the renovations you can make to your health and wellness with easy way of living adjustments. A great way to improve your performance and also get outcomes is to understand what's going on inside your body. Look past just the expense of SARMs to determine what you are mosting likely to make use of.

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Although the companies included speak about a market worth $1bn, to accomplish anything near to this worth any item would certainly need to show amazing effectiveness as well as it seems most likely a variety of smaller sized products will certainly arise. Offered previous scientific experience it does seem most likely that progress in this complicated illness will certainly be step-by-step. Taking a different method is PsiOxus with MT-102, an anabolic catabolic changing representative. Patients are presently being hired for a dual blind, placebo controlled stage II research study in 132 clients, with either colon or non-small cell lung cancer. Information on endpoints including a six minute strolling examination and staircase climb should be offered next year; if favorable the company will certainly seek a companion. In the meantime, data need to emerge from the mid-stage pipeline, possibly from Acacia's APD209 prior to the end of the year.

Peptide Adjustments.

The item is a combination of 2 repurposed medications-- a beta 2 adrenoreceptor agonist and a progestogen agonist. Most cachexia research is being conducted in cancer patients however any kind of effective medicine would also likely be utilized in conditions such as renal illness and persistent obstructive lung illness, where individuals regularly suffer from losing. More comprehensive possibility also depends on related conditions such as sarcopenia, muscle wasting in the elderly that is thought to impact a quarter of men over the age of 60. Cachexia is mostly connected with cancer cells; prices vary with tumor types and the phase of the disease. For example, while around 80% of pancreatic cancer cells patients are likely to deal with wasting it is no place near as usual in less aggressive tumor types.

Hold out for a great product so you can get truth value it needs to deliver. All products detailed as well as provided through SteroidsUK are planned for research purposes just. Products provided by SteroidsUK are not planned for usage in food or as any kind of sort of medicine.

New Items.

A large dosage may be absorbed one go and infusing can result in serious infection, particularly hepatitis and HIV if infusing devices is shared so tidy devices ought to constantly be utilized. Troubles such as sleep disorders, confusion, anxiety as well as paranoia might additionally be experienced.

They are cheap as well as quickly available to subdue testosterone production. Research made it known that many individuals use the SARMs in the dose range between 10 mg and 25mg. Touchdown on this page means you might need to know a few aspects of pure SARMs. We would favor a remedy to your search and also reward you with outstanding top three pure SARMs for bodybuilding. There's no big key that the SARMs can function properly to boost body language.

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Information that GTx will begin 2 stage III researches with its novel muscular tissue throwing away therapy, Ostarine, is encouraging progression for cachexia research. The condition affects a big percentage of cancer cells clients along with patients with lung as well as kidney illness, brings a significant death risk and can badly crimp lifestyle, but has few reliable treatments.

Authorities are responding very quickly and also catching defrauders offering fake SARMs. Manufacturers need to examine each product in independent labs, which should give their consent for sporting activities supplements to show up on the marketplace. Without it, customers might doubt the accuracy and also safety and security of the product as well as not buy it. Some SARMs had actually been examined years prior to they were authorized for usage. Although costliness is a loved one term, many users will certainly concur that the rates of SARMs are high.

Our items are not planned to treat, protect against, alleviate or heal any type of condition or medical condition as well as are for research study functions just. Raising understanding of the health and wellness results of PEIDs is a key focus of ASADA Chief Executive Officer David Sharpe. One recent term paper found that youngsters given synthetic human growth hormone are at substantially greater danger of creating cancer in the long-term. Various other research performed on hormonal agent peptides has actually revealed users go to raised risk of hypertensive episodes, haemorrhage, water intoxication and also even fatality.

Never-ceasing Scientific Research The Reaper 120 Caps (ostarine).

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What are antimicrobial proteins?

Abstract. Production of antimicrobial peptides and proteins is an important means of host defense in eukaryotes. The larger antimicrobial proteins, containing more than 100 amino acids, are often lytic enzymes, nutrient-binding proteins or contain sites that target specific microbial macromolecules.

Ibutamoren or MK 677 has actually been shown to increase IGF-1 levels by 60% in 6 weeks. It is a non-hormonal and also therefore needs no PCT after the cycle is over. It will radiate more-so if ran in conjunction with SARMS S-4 and also Cardarine (GW ). This would be similar to a SARMS triple pile that is usually ran with Ostarine, except there is a possibility of more size being placed on while reducing. To conclude, the pure SARMs are not restricted to the ones stated over, but the ones provided are the leading 3 pure SURMs for muscle building. To comprehend even more regarding other health problems and its services, check our system for even more interesting information. Ostrarine is one of the best-knownproducts that are widely utilized in this century.

Besides, each type of SARMs has its method of usage as well as a number of procedures to increase performance. You either dose once or twice daily to execute its feature to contentment as well as integrity. If you disable this cookie, we will certainly not have the ability to save your choices. This means that whenever you visit this site you will require to allow or disable cookies once again. Purely Needed Cookie must be enabled whatsoever times to make sure that we can save your choices for cookie setups. It suggests that buyers have appropriate defense when purchasing sporting activities supplements, both online and offline.

Popular brand names warrant it with boosted demand for these prep work and the greater rates of resources as well as job. Yet, 99% Purity Oxytocin reviews to on-line shopping is, a lot of fraudulences happen on the web. If you do not want to be scammed, ensure that on the internet sale is lawful in your nation. Lastly, seek previous users as well as check their experiences with a specific supplier and items. The safest way to acquire something is when you can check the item right away. When it involves SARMs, one requires to understand what to examine, such as seals or how the print on the tag was done. They ought to be well informed regarding items, brands, as well as everything else that interests them prior to getting.

For a few of the most effective medications, the examinations were also pricey to conduct at amateur level. Readus's wish to go quicker was at the origin of his use of medicines, as well as a large component of the benefit was emotional. Staite was too old to transform specialist, and also despite having the medications he was a nation mile off the very best in the sport. Despite exactly how far from centrally manage Shop Ipamorelin Online - pharmalabglobal are, though, professional athletes who dope often seem to intend to make a step up to the next degree of rate and also competitors, whatever it may be. Picture they coincide type of medications that reproached biker Lance Armstrong was outlawed for using to win 7 Tour de France titles. Currently imagine that several of the fastest riders in this pleasant neighborhood competition have used medications to improve their efficiency. The British Military takes a zero-tolerance method to substance abuse.

Peptides: What are they, uses, and side effects - Medical News Today

Peptides: What are they, uses, and side effects.

Posted: Wed, 16 Oct 2019 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Readus found that a great deal of the advice regarding dosages and discovery he got was wrong, implying some professional athletes fell short drugs tests regardless of all their efforts. For endurance athletes, the medications that were preferred one decade earlier are still the ones that are prominent today. Eventually EPO is merely perfectly fit to improving performance. Olympic cyclist and also former doper David Millar determined the similar sensation-- vitamin injection became his entrance to drugs.

There are many reasons you should use only real SARMs products. Really usually, the checklist of active ingredients found in these imitations is incorrect. A survey by PHI at Liverpool John Moores College-- Steroids and Picture Enhancing Drugs 2013 Survey Outcomes-- provides comprehensive info on the level and qualities of using these drugs in the UK.

How many types of peptides are there?

There are five different types of peptides used as skin-care actives: signaling peptides, carrier peptides, enzyme-inhibiting peptides, neurotransmitter-inhibiting peptides and antimicrobial peptides. When skin is injured, proteases break down damaged tissue into different peptide fragments.

Mechano growth element which is derived from IGF-1 as well as assists with tissue repair service as well as adjustment. Development hormonal agents like AOD-9604, which has weight loss homes and is used by professional athletes to raise power-to-weight proportions. Efficiency and image enhancing medicines are taken by individuals who desire to boost their physical appearance and/or improve their toughness and showing off performance. Essentially UKAD acts upon tip-offs, similar to law enforcement, with online forums and sites marketing medications a primary source for finding prospective culprits. Don't be fooled right into believing whatever you review online is true, though.

Medications influence the fitness and integrity of service individuals and have a destructive result on operational effectiveness. Fail a drugs examination, as well as you can anticipate to be released from the service. Experts such as physio therapists suggest people on just how to reinforce muscles after an injury or operation. They will evaluate the patient as well as deal recommendations and instruct them in exercises that can be made use of to strengthen certain muscle mass teams. Muscle mass are affixed to bones so solid muscle mass can support joints and also various other parts of the skeletal system. For people that want to build the strength of their muscles for fitness gains, they might speak with an individual instructor who can tailor a workout programme to the specific with goals to safely work in the direction of.

[dramagaming598]

How to make a gaming tournament website

Of Wolf's Gaming Weblog

It is time to recognize the finest gaming blogs of the year. EDIT:I utilized to watch the Feedback video more than at G4 just about every week, but it really is gone down hill the last few occasions I watched it and now that Adam Sessler is not on it and they have that girl from IGN that everyone hates in each episode I just cannot be bothered to watch it any far more. Nonetheless worth going back and watching some of the older ones even though. Klepic used to be on that show and back then in the early days was when it was the ideal. Back when they essentially talked about gaming news with some semblance of intellect alternatively of just gushing about whatever game they are told is cool this week.

The near future promises a bunch of new possibilities for Pc and mobile games. It suggests we will take pleasure in high good quality gaming content material no matter what device is utilized. Hey guys! I am seeking for indie gaming blogs out there that are genuinely great. There is an endless provide of gaming sources on line if you know exactly where to look or who to get in touch with.

I got into action games late but when I did it absolutely changed how I viewed gaming forever. The game which brought me round was Viewtiful Joe. Here was a game with a deep and open-ended combat method which seemed to be built as a implies for the player to express creativity. This program is then pitted against opponents and obstacles which have been designed from the ground up to interact meaningfully with the core method. The course was fixed, but the strategy for dealing with that course was absolutely down to the ingenuity, talent and inspiration of the player. You play like you have a enormous audience watching and the game continually entices you to improve the concentrate is not simply on obtaining the player from A to B, the focus is on receiving the player to play Viewtifully”.

Right now is the day! I will be progressively releasing the names of the best ten gaming blogs of 2014. Seeking over this list, I am positively blown away. So quite a few amazing posts this year! If you had been disappointed by the Ennies… if you assume that the actual deep thinkers in gaming commentary never get the consideration they deserve… properly, people, we are going to repair that.

Green Man Gaming is a international pure play e-commerce and technology enterprise in the video games business fuelled by an unhealthy obsession with bringing the magic of games to everyone. The company's geeky knowledge, data and IP sit at the core of the small business and is what drives it to turn out to be a technology leader in the video games ecosystem.

27 Ways To Improve GAMING

CrystalSkull is packed with adequate attributes to help you create almost any variety of gaming web page with WordPress. The integrated critique method means your content material will rival the articles discovered on the leading gaming overview websites. With CrystalSkull, you'll be capable to build your personal custom criteria for your evaluations, then add a score for each and every item, just before awarding a final overall rating for the overview.

The theme functions Unity 3d ready design, HTML5 games' full-screen compatibility for mobile devices as effectively as MyArcadePlugin compatibility to allow you to build an amazing arcade expertise for your viewers. Gameleon characteristics a myriad of add-ons and selections to assure that you can share an exquisite gaming experience with your visitors.

Paul: Green Man Gaming, like many data driven technology marketplaces, was born in a spreadsheet and continues to this day to be heavily information dependant. The enterprise utilizes historical analysis of correlated data to create forecasts of client behaviour, as nicely as actual-time data streams to augment those forecasts in real time.

Augmented reality games are becoming a front-runners of gaming sector. Today, this is not just the fantastical idea. AR games let you to fight aliens, capture fantastical creatures, defend kingdoms in the real globe. And all of this is feasible with no super highly-priced headsets - just an AR-enabled smartphone or console is expected. Wolf's Gaming Weblog is on a run to give you the most correct and truthful reviews on the top rated games in Xbox 1, Individual Laptop games and Board games. With this site in your bookmarks tab, the climate is often excellent to get your hands on some on the net games.

We're going to the International Festival for Business enterprise this month and will be hosting a one of a kind occasion Inspiring Entrepreneurs '˜Going Global' exactly where top rated business enterprise people will tell us the secrets of their good results. A single of these entrepreneurs is Paul Sulyok, CEO and Founder of Green Man Gaming Green Man Gaming is a pioneering, worldwide eCommerce technology organization that has gone from strength to strength considering the fact that its launch in 2010. We asked him how he did it.

One more of our best gaming influencers for 2018 is The Rad Brad We had to incorporate this channel due to the fact The Rad Brad is a specifically well recognized YouTube gamer. He produces an unbelievable amount of hugely-top quality, enjoyable content material. It's no wonder he's identified for producing the ideal video game walkthroughs on social media. The Rad Brad has helped to make a quantity of influencer marketing and advertising campaigns a true accomplishment.

As for the other topic E­sports seems to be expanding and expanding, and with it Youtube. Video critiques from individuals like AngryJoe let folks connect a lot more with the reviewer, and via that subtantial followings are built. Written media, on the other hand, is struggling, which is poor news for me since I'm not quite enough for Youtube! Sadly, although, we're nevertheless seeing plenty of hostility inside the gaming community, which the media loves to focus on.

Alia Lia” Shelesh, improved known as Sssniperwolf is the 1st female gaming influencer on our list. She began her YouTube profession by playing initially-individual shooter games like Contact of Duty, Halo, and Far Cry. Her account now consists of vlogs and different video games that she plays and has more than 7 million subscriptions.

Substantially, for many of these people, their mobile phone will be their initially computer system - a so-referred to cross768.online video games blog as ‘mobile-initial generation' - so most of the items we do on desktop or laptops, they will be undertaking on mobiles, again like all their gaming. Right here is a few of the most properly-identified gaming web-sites where you can get the latest news from.

The future of gaming is a planet exactly where you are empowered to play the games you want, with the people today you want, whenever you want, wherever you are, and on any device of your deciding on. Our vision for the evolution of gaming is similar to music and motion pictures — entertainment should really be readily available on demand and accessible from any screen. Nowadays, I am excited to share with you 1 of our crucial projects that will take us on an accelerated journey to that future world: Project xCloud.

[takerfoxx]

Magia Record, Season 1, Episode 1, First Impressions!

So, the long-awaited spinoff to my favorite anime has arrived. Magia Record, adapted from the mobile RPG, the first proper Puella Magia animation since The Rebellion Story.

Now, let’s just get this out in the open: I have kind of a weirdly complicated relationship with Magia Record. On the one hand, though I’ve never begrudged its existence, I just wasn’t interested in playing it. Those hero pull RPG’s have never been my thing, and I try to avoid purposefully addictive games...so they wouldn’t take time away from the addicting games I already have. Besides, it centered around a new group of characters that I didn’t know or care about, didn’t seem to have anything to do with the plot I really wanted to see continue, and seemed to be taking place in a previous timeloop or something. And after getting burned in Oriko Magica and A Different story, I wasn’t in the mood for stories that could just end in another Homura reset. Plus, there was a period where people kept trying to get me to play it despite me being openly disinterested that only made me stubbornly refuse to play it. So when it got a stage musical (what?) and later a full-on anime adaptation (what?!) when Rebellion was still hanging unfollowed on and that Concept Movie thing never going anywhere, well, it made me just a little salty. Not even the promise of the OG squad in supporting roles wasn’t enough to get me excited.

But on the other hand, once I got that out of my system and had some time to think about it, I realized that I was looking at it all wrong. Sure, Magia Record might not be the Puella Magi content I was hoping for, but its existence and continued popularity was nothing but a positive. By getting a foot in that very popular brand of game market, it ensured the franchise’s continued popularity, pouring money and attention into the IP. And studios capitalizing on its popularity with a bunch of different adaptations would only fuel interest in an actual Rebellion follow-up. So this was a good thing. I mean, Gen’s apparently burnt out on the franchise and SHAFT has had a ton of internal issues, so keep things going however you can, right? Play that long game. 

And when the trailer finally dropped, it did get my interest. It seemed to be adhering to the original show’s creepy, surreal tone, which was definitely a plus, and a few of the images looked really cool.

And now the first episode is here, so I can finally enjoy the Magia Record story without needing to play the game.

So let’s go! Spoiler time.

All right, so here’s everything about Magia Record I already knew from picking up details here and there. First, it stars a girl named Iroha, who’s...well, I don’t want to say Diet Madoka, but it’s clear that she’s supposed to be reminiscent of Madoka with her design and demeanor. Anyway, unlike Madoka, Iroha is already a magical girl and has been for a little while, enough to know the score, at least as much as the Incubators want her to know. And her sister is apparently missing, so it’s her goal to find her. And there’s this city of magical girls which have their own society (which, okay, is a really cool concept), and a bite-sized Kyubey is running around for some reason. Also, the outfits are a bit racier than the ones we’ve seen already. Midriffs galore!

Anyway...

So, I do like that it just takes the idea that Iroha’s already made a contract and just runs with it. There’s very little in the way of explanations, it just assumes that you’ve seen the original show and jumps right into things, which I definitely appreciate. I mean, there’s a bunch of girls doing sort of a Greek Chorus, talking over the action and kind of explaining things to each other, but that’s about the extent of the catch-up. And the resulting ambiance is delightfully weird.

That’s something I really noticed, in that the whole feel of this episode was actually more in line with the first half of The Rebellion Story than it was with the original series. Like, not quite as weird, but weirder than the show, sitting kind of in between with what I can only describe as casual surrealism. The camera just lingers in things that we would find weird but none of the characters so much as notice. Whether that is a sign that this world is still more different than ours than we’ve been led to believe or that we are in Homucifer’s new world remains to be seen. Regardless, there’s an air of dreamlike melancholy that hangs over the whole thing.

Something that was very interesting is that while, yes, Iroha does have a missing sister, she apparently lost her memories of not only her, but whatever her original wish had been in the first place, pointing to a connection between the two. Not even her Kyubey (and it’s finally established that all Incubators are called Kyubey, and they really do have a hivemind, which divorces Resonance Days even further from canon) knows what’s up, as he doesn’t remember either.

But as she’s trying to piece together why she can’t remember her wish or what these dreams of a shadow girl mean (it’s her forgotten sister, duh), she still has to carry on her normal life, which now includes going to a boarding school. And I’m just gonna say it: her teacher is hot! Don’t lie, you all saw it too. And naturally, her Puella Magi problems are interfering with her schoolwork. 

Meanwhile, while defending a train from a cool looking salamander witch, she meets and befriends another magical girl named Kuroe, who’s been having major buyer’s regret, seeing how her wish was to go out with a boy that she had a crush on and with whom she has since broken up with. It really goes to show how exploitative the Incubator system is, as that is the sort of witch a lot of kids that age would make. Don’t make contracts with minors, you fuck! But anyway, apparently several magical girls have been having a dream about a little girl calling them to a city called Kamihama (insert Dragon Ball Z joke here), where they would be “saved,” whatever that means. 

Anyway, the two of them are later attacked by the same witch while again on the train, as it seems it was holding a grudge against them and was waiting to set a trap. It also confirms that witch labyrinths can be ambulatory, as it straight up traps them in it and flies through the air, preventing them from killing it as they don’t want to go splat.

It takes them for a rough landing, and then something happens that was perhaps the first thing to make me think, “Okay, now that is cool!” Another witch shows up, this one a sort of pastry walrus, forcing the two labyrinths to merge. But instead of combining into a Walpurgisnacht, the second witch straight up rips the first one in half! And it is metal as fuck!

But then a new magical girl shows up to kill the cookie walrus, saving the pair. And apparently they’ve been dumped in Kamihama itself, and it’s not the safe place it’s made out to be, and our new friend has already claimed part of it as her territory and she’s getting pissed about all the other magical girls getting called there, as it means more competition for her. But she cuts our two leads some slack and even gives them the grief seeds, provided that they fuck off.

And later, Iroha finally has her own Kamihama dream, where she sees multiple magical girls being called to the city, and in that dream she finally remembers her sister’s name (Ui), and her wish (for Ui to be cured of some illness), causing her to wake up.

Interesting. 

So, that’s our first episode. What did I think? Well, I liked it! I enjoyed the slow pace, I liked how it just let us sit there and soak up the weird at various stages, I’m interested in the plot and want to see where it goes. And even if they won’t be leads or continue their main storyline, I am hoping that the OG squad show up as they did in the game.

If there was one thing that didn’t really work for me, it’s that they kind of recycled the original series’ soundtrack instead of making something new. I get that they want to lean into nostalgia for people like, well, me, and it certainly fits the mood, but I wonder if they should have worked harder to establish their own identity. But that’s a minor quibble at best, barely a nitpick. 

So yeah, I’m on board. Let’s see where this goes.

[theonyxpath]

Or at least the Hunter Kickstarter nears its end!

With only a few days to go, we’re thrilled with how Hunter: The Vigil 2e has been received, and how your pledges have enabled us to create a lovely looking version of the book, get it into stores, and fund some sweet extra projects to further flesh out the game line.

Like all our KSs, that’s a bunch of extra heavy lifting, but it sure is worth it!

Hunter: The Vigil 2e, is the last of the big core game books for 2nd Edition we needed to update, so HtV2e really represents a milestone! Back years ago, as we pitched and re-pitched a 2nd Edition for Chronicles of Darkness, then known as nWoD, it would have been hard to imagine getting to this point. The obstacles seemed insurmountable. So, yes, it is very sweet to look at the shelf and see us with all these fresh new 2nd Edition books and lines.

Since we started doing our new lines and 2e updates on Kickstarter, we’ve also used KS to give us the chance to put out useful Stretch Goal reward books. Various game line Companions, Ready Made Character books, Jumpstarts, and more! Which means that now we have a ton of CofD projects that came out of KS Stretch Goals to get caught up on (just look at the Progress Report below), so we’re focusing our efforts on those and a couple of the bigger supplements right now.

Memento Mori art by Drew Tucker

We’ve had some great feedback on how Hunter: The Vigil 2e has been updated from first edition. Not all positive feedback, but critical feedback that actually goes into why a previous version worked for the poster. Something that developer Monica Valentinelli appreciates, as it’s commentary she can review and consider. Much appreciated, as it’s often a tricky situation when doing a new edition.

Which is not an uncommon situation for Onyx Path, considering we started our efforts way back with the V20 game line. We started with basically an assemblage of previous editions with only those changes we needed to make, and each 20th Anniversary core book moved the dial more towards actual new editions. (In fact, the devs for both Wraith20 and Changeling20 were told to think of them as the new editions both lines never got back in the day).

Meanwhile, we fully intended that Exalted 3rd and CofD 2e would be created as new editions, although we were still restrained since there were lines the IP owners didn’t want us to cross. After all, in the end, it’s not our stuff but game lines that we were shepherding. Which is fine and I think our teams walked those proscribed lines pretty darn well.

Our own stuff, Scion and Trinity: Continuum and Scarred Lands, have started with new editions of established material from previous editions, with the same balancing act, and now are moving to new material. Scion with books that expand the basic set-up from the core four books – Origin, Hero, Demigod, God – and Trinity with expanding the Continuum starting with Assassins.

You can check out our monthly PDF releases for Scarred Lands to see where the inevitable Travis Legge is taking that world; what previously unexplored parts we’re now visiting.

And then with Realms of Pugmire and They Came From Beneath the Sea!, we are creating new worlds, and so while the challenges of adapting from an existing setting or game line aren’t there, there are other kinds of challenges.

But those sound like a blog for another time.

Terra Firma art by Sam Denmark

One of our across the board challenges is something I hit on last week, and that’s getting out the word when any of our new projects goes live. We have this blog every week, and the Wednesday On Sale blog that Impish Ian puts out that trumpets what is now available every week.

Every.

Week.

For pretty much the whole time we’ve been in business, we have made _something_ available for you to get a hold of every single Wednesday.

With our kookie production schedule, that hasn’t always been easy! But we thought, going way back, that having a regular release day was important for all of you folks. Maybe it’s just my old “comic-book day” giddiness coming up from my past to haunt me, but knowing there’s something coming each week is pretty cool. I think, at least.

Right now, we’re pushing hard to get the word out about a specific _way_ you can get our books, and using V5 Chicago By Night as our shining example, by which I’m talking about our books being sold in your local game stores.

The more our community members go into their local stores, the more those store owners will start to ask their distributors to get those books from our sales partners. That’s Studio2 in the US and Modiphius elsewhere. And while ordering, they might become aware that Studio2 also has Scion 2e, Pugmire, Changeling: The Lost 2e, etc!

So, it’s a continual building thing. But you only need to make that initial ask at the store. Or if they have it, and you buy it or even just talk about it in the store, that will clue in the store owner that there is interest in the book, and they’ll tell the distributor, and so on.

These are the traditionally printed and bound books that we are talking about here. We still have PDFs and PoDs on DTRPG, but these are books that were made in order to get a whole bunch of them into stores – so let’s make that happen!

To bring it all together – if you want V5 Chicago By Night, and you should as it is the most universally praised V5 book we’ve seen come out yet, then please:

First check your local game store.

If they don’t have it, please ask them to order it.

The store can order from their distributor, who will order from Studio2 in the US, and Modiphius anywhere else that’s not the US.

You too can order the book from Modiphius‘s website if you are not in the US. If you are in the US, you can order it from Indie Press Revolution.

And as always, the PDF and physical book PoD versions of V5 Chicago By Night are available on DTRPG.

Chicago Folio art by Michael Gaydos

So that’s the big push. Here’s a couple of other things we talked about in the meeting today.

We’re prepping for the Legendlore KS, as that is supposed to start pretty soon. One thing I’m really interested in, to continue our talk of updating game lines, is Legendlore‘s core intrinsic idea of transporting you, the player, into a fantasy realm. What does that mean today vs when the comics our game is based on were originally created last century?

Developer Steffie de Vaan has carefully built this very core idea into one that works for all people who might be into playing – folks who dig roleplaying what they might be like in the Legendlore world, but also folks who want to pick who they could be in a fantasy world. The key idea is to have this movement from our real world into the game world happen in a way that is fun for the player, not a forced situation that might cause folks harm if they feel excluded or shamed by it.

Another thing is that I’m working on illustrating a project, and in order to do it, I dug out the original art from my archives so I could figure out how I did the art back then, and do it again. I’ll let folks figure which project I’m creating the art for:

Last week I mentioned that if you have questions about Onyx Path, our creators, business practices, whatever, that you can come to us with questions. I included the names of the main folks who cover our game lines, the person who looks at how all our various pieces work together, and my own email address separated out on one line so it would be easy to catch.

This invite was to both our fan community, and to our creators. So far, no one has in fact contacted us, but we want everybody to know that this is an ongoing thing, not just one blog and done, and that the door is always open.

It’s pretty simple: we want everybody involved as we ride, boldly ride, towards:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition for Chronicles of Darkness has only a few days to go! We’re headed towards 400% funding and are over 1700 backers and are shooting right through Stretch Goals, like the Storyteller Screen Stretch Goal, the T-Shirt, and the Tending the Flame: Cells chapter for the Hunter Players’ Companion! With lots more to come!

Join the Vigil!: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/339646881/hunter-the-vigil-second-edition-tabletop-roleplaying-game

Next Kickstarter: Legendlore!

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday the Onyx Pathcast Terrific Trio look deeply into the dreaded METAPLOT – what is it, really, and how to fight it and how to use it! As always this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

Tune in for even more shows on Twitch this week! We’re going to have V5, Chronicles of Darkness, Scion, Pugmire, our two excellent chronicles of Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition, MORE Vampire: The Masquerade, Changeling: The Lost, Changeling: The Dreaming, Mage: The Awakening, Scarred Lands, Werewolf: The Forsaken and a third Vampire: The Masquerade game! 

I’d like to shout out again to the Hunter: The Vigil games running this week, which along with the Kickstarter have proven very popular! You can subscribe to our channel over on twitch.tv/theonyxpath to catch up with any episodes you missed!

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find the following videos uploaded last week alone (for a largely Pugmire-themed week!):

Pugmire: Paws & Claws: https://youtu.be/XOzLa9NadOw, https://youtu.be/bAcPMFpk1D8, and https://youtu.be/e4bfrCS6YFA

Changeling: The Lost – Littlebrook Reunion: https://youtu.be/wipvrJqvm8c

Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale: https://youtu.be/OAiD9mAjbeo

Scion: Behind the Screen: https://youtu.be/v9Wo38rl5-Y

A special shout-out to our Last Faerie Tale Changeling crew have been producing some superb content for us!

We’re back with the Onyx Path News broadcast live from our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/zKo1h7bLPE0 Matthew discusses new releases, Kickstarters, and other projects currently being worked on!

Do subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!

The Story Told RPG Podcast continue with their excellent Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition chronicle right here: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/the-78-laments-episode-3-riders-in-the-sky

And if you missed it, here’s the Story Told‘s review of Trinity Continuum: Aeon http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/episode-40-trinity-continuum-on-overview

Red Moon Roleplaying‘s V5 Cults of the Blood Gods “The Family” chronicle continues on their YouTube channel, Spotify, their website redmoonroleplaying.com and everywhere else good podcasts might be found! https://youtu.be/3w3x6j4APBc

More new Occultists Anonymous for all you Mage: The Awakening fans out there:

Episode 84: Summons, Seers, & Souls The cabal gather together, working to help Network summon forth an Imp from Pandemonium to gather information about their new Seer ‘ally’. Atratus reaches out to the Free Council for their input as well.https://youtu.be/sDt8WvOqW5o

Episode 85: Remodeling Plans Songbird is accepted at the table of the Thunderbolt Guardians who are masterminding the assassination attempt on the Vampire Prince, though Red Dread is not pleased. Wyrd and Atratus discuss a dive into Wyrd’s Oneiros. https://youtu.be/5qLaBZEP6Cc

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero AND Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we will be releasing the Advance PDF of Distant Worlds for Trinity Continuum: Aeon on DTRPG!

New Mysteries, New Worlds, New Aliens, and Alien Heroes!

Distant Worlds expands the setting of Trinity Continuum: Æon with new worlds, new alien mysteries, and rules for playing actual aliens, the secretive telepathic Qin. Inside, you will find:

• Further information about the eight extrasolar worlds described in Trinity Continuum: Æon, including new dangers and new opportunities for adventure.

• Detailed write-ups of 10 new planets, including one that is home to a recently contacted intelligent alien species.

• New technologies for interstellar travel and colonization, as well as a wealth of new devices created by aliens, and new Edges and Paths specifically for interstellar explorers and settlers.

• The secrets of humanity’s alien allies, the mysterious Qin. This section includes descriptions of four Qin interstellar colonies as well as rules for creating and playing Qin characters and for designing and using custom-made Qin biosuits.

Conventions!

More conventions will be listed for 2020 in the weeks to come-

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

RUST (Working Title) (Scarred Lands)

Under Alien Suns (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

The Book of Endless Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Second Draft

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Development

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Manuscript Approval

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Post-Approval Development

Scion LARP Rules (Scion)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Editing

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Buried Bones: Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Post-Editing Development

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Indexing

They Came From Beneath the Sea! (They Came From…!)

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant – Pinging some bigger names in comics… granted guys I’m a fan of, but still bigger names.

Hunter: The Vigil 2e (KS) – Almost done on KS.

Cults of the Blood God (KS)

Mummy 2 – Starting to contract the rest of it.

City of the Towered Tombs – Recontracted.

Let the Streets Run Red – Contracted.

Deviant

Legendlore (KS) – Contracted for KS, b&w art coming in, color sketches too.

Technocracy Reloaded (KS) – Art out for WW approval.

TC: Aeon Terra Firma – Contracted.

WoD: Ghost Hunters (KS) – Cover contracted.

Tales of Aquatic Terror

Pirates Extra Adventure – Loboyko lined up for this one.

Scion Titanomachy – Just got art notes today.

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad – Ongoing.

Contagion Chronicle – With Josh, interior proof coming.

Vigil Watch – Ongoing.

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers

TCFBtS! Screen and Booklet

Ex3 Lunars

Scion Companion

Proofing

Dark Eras 2 – Sending back to Aileen for errata input.

Trinity Continuum Aeon Jumpstart

Chicago Folio – Awaiting errata from dev.

Pirates of Pugmire – Aileen inputting changes from proof 1.

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed – At WW for approvals.

CtL Oak Ash and Thorn – Inputting proofing comments.

Geist 2e fiction anthology – Going to WW for approvals.

At Press

Geist 2e (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition) – Shipping to backers, PoD proof ordered.

Geist 2e Screen – Shipping to backers.

DR:E – Shipping to backers, PoD files uploaded.

DRE Screen – Shipping to backers.

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties

Memento Mori – PoD proof ordered.

Wraith20 Anthology – PoD proof ordered.

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 – The Silence of Our Ancestors (Exalted 3rd Edition) – Backer PDF being sent out.

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds – Advance PDF for sale Weds on DTRPG.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Almost just went with our first birthday today, but saw a few more relevant to our (my) interests and so have added them in with notes:

1904 – Dr. Seuss, American children’s book writer, poet, and illustrator (d. 1991). Has anyone _not_ been influenced by his work? If not, perhaps you will and your heart will grow three sizes that day.

1922 – Bill Quackenbush, Canadian-American ice hockey player and coach (d. 1999). Honestly, I have no idea who this guy is, but love that his name sounds like a character played by Groucho Marx.

1930 – Tom Wolfe, American journalist and author (d. 2018). Perhaps the person who was the inspiration for the Tremere and/or Ventrue illustration in the very first edition of Vampire: The Masquerade. Also did some writing.

1942 – Lou Reed, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor (d. 2013). Take a walk on the wild side.

1952 – Laraine Newman, American actress and comedian. Under-appreciated original Not Ready For Prime Time player on SNL.

1962 – Jon Bon Jovi, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor. WW legend Chris McDonough is JBJ’s biggest fan, and looks a lot like him. Also, pretty sure Chris is the artist who did the clan pics mentioned above.

1980 – Rebel Wilson, Australian actress and screenwriter. Loved her in Pitch Perfect 1&2. There is no 3rd one.

[nemetonisevilpassiton]

Where we’re going we won’t need Eyes to see - a teen wolf meta

With Teen Wolf meta we have this tendency to name check Event Horizon (1997) and run off without explaining it - especially in regards to the episode “Ghosted” where they were in Canaan which uses a lot of the same techniques and tropes. But before I explain how Teen Wolf got there we have to explain Event Horizon.

A friend of mine once called Event Horizon the greatest horror movie almost made, and that sums it up nicely.

Following the success of Mortal Kombat [1995 starring Linden Ashby] the studio gave give the director Paul WS Anderson [the Resident Evil guy] a budget of 60 million dollars, the large soundstage at Pinewood and Carte Blanche to deliver an R rated horror. The film he delivered was 121 minutes long and X-rated. It was externally editted down to 91 minutes or 96 minutes depending on region and legend has it that most of the narrative exposition went out of the airlock. As gory as it is - and it IS - it was much much worse and it’s entirely possible that this studio inflicted hatchet job is the reason Event Horizon has the cult following that it does.

Anderson did not waste a dollar of the money he was given, everyone in the film is a noted character actor and most of the dialogue makes them feel real [with the exception of one distinct line which is just hilariously bad]. The ship was a set [there is minimal cg and it’s bad as you’d expect for 1997 but it’s things like a floating water bottle] based on actual gothic architecture specifically notre dame. The crew of the Lewis and Clark [the rescue ship] is seven people because they were meant to represent the seven sins - maybe in the longer version they did. The “stranger” in their midst is Doctor Weir, who following the suicide of his wife whilst he built the Event Horizon, became obsessed with the ship is the one who wants to bring it “home”. The shot of the rotating space station where Weir is based was a miniature. As most of the effects were practical, as opposed to CG, they stand up to modern scrutiny.

The film was a critical and commercial bust, but over the years since it’s release it’s been insanely influential on the field of Sci Fi being responsible for IPs such as Warhammer 40k, Deadspace and even the Alien franchise [which Anderson dipped his toe in with Alien vs Predator] and is considered one of the greatest Lovecraftian horrors ever made.

Event Horizon is not a great movie, it’s…. I’m one of the people who adore it, as scary movies go it never fails to make my skin crawl but let’s get into the plot.

The Event Horizon was an attempt at FTL travel, instead of going really fast it punched a hole through the universe creating a worm hole that would allow the ship to exit somewhere else with a device called “the gravity drive”. On its test flight it vanished. Seven years later it reappears where it should have with no crew and only a mild distress signal. Weir (Sam Neill), the original creator takes the crew of the Lewis and Clark, a rescue ship captained by Miller (Lawrence Fishburne), to bring it back.

On finding the ship the youngest member of the crew, Mr Justin (Jack Noseworthy), goes into the drive room in full EVA and is dragged into the black liquid at its heart. He is rescued by Cooper (Richard Jones), but when they confront Weir he denies it’s possible despite that they could not have known what to describe. Justin is comatose. They find a recording of screams which has a latin phrase which DJ (Jason Isaacs) translates as save me. The med tech Peters (Kathleen Quinlan) starts to see visions of her son covered in sores. Weir starts to see his dead wife as she was when he found her but with empty eye sockets. The ship starts to pull at their sanity damaging the Lewis and Clark, Smith (Sean Pertwee) refuses to leave the Lewis and Clark and in the middle of that Justin gets up and puts himself in the airlock, setting it to open.

All of the characters are shown to have a dark history but because of the editting we often don’t know what that is. We know Peters has left her terminally ill son because of her visions. Miller tells us about a crew member he had to leave to die in a burning ship. Weir has his guilt over his wife, but the rest was cut.

They find the ruins of the old crew with a tape showing them dismembering themselves and each other and it turns out the translation wasn’t save me but save yourself from hell. Fans have actually translated it more accurately as save yourself from the fire.

Miller comes to the conclusion the best thing to do is go home and blow the ship from orbit but Weir refuses to go. He takes one of the explosives from the nave hallway and blows up the Lewis and Clark and Smith, this sends Cooper into space [where he has the worst line in cinema, seriously https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUozFOlxVnM] and Miller and Starck [Joely Richardson] confront Weir on the bridge where he has ripped out his own eyes. DJ is found disembowelled over the medicine table. Distracted by Cooper’s return Weir fires a rivet gun at the ship’s window causing the decompression to suck him into space. Miller tries to use the explosives along the nave corridor to separate the ship from the gravity drive which he considers the source of his evil but he is separated from his crew by a burning man who turns into Weir. They fight, the corridor explodes and Miller is sucked into the black hole.

There is a gotcha ending where Starck sees one of their rescuers as Weir but wakes up screaming before the very ominous door closing.

So what happens? what is the one sentence synopsis?

See that’s where Event Horizon sort of wins. On its surface the ship went to hell and became alive and is now luring people in and trying to drag them into Hell. Except even within the movie that explanation doesn’t make sense. The characters talk about the lack of good air, that they are running out of air and it turns them on each other to an extent so did anoxia cause the hallucinations combined with the very gothic imagery to create a mass hysteria? Is it a pseudo Catholic vision of Hell where the characters unable to deal with their own guilt at ultimately tortured? Maybe? Was it all of the above? I don’t know. Other people have amazing explanations of what happened and here’s the reason why Event Horizon freaks some people out and others are meh, it’s not that easy.

It has holes and contradictions and huge chunks obviously missing. It has a narrow focus and it never lies to the audience, it misleads them by assumption but it’s consistent. Weir is the hook character we expect to be the hero, he is the outsider amidst the crew of the Lewis and Clark, he is the one with the answers and the refusal to see alternative answers. He has the most fleshed out back story but he turns into the human manifestation of whatever is going on with the ship yet he is the one who becomes the face of the villain. The ghost apparitions are genuinely disturbing. The quality of the acting could carry a much weaker script. The effects are excellent and the gore is astounding, and best shown briefly [although production stills are available if it was too quick for you]. The Lovecraftian questions are presented and NOT answered. They are isolated in a place where they are in constant danger and the hallucinations mean even their thoughts are unsafe.

Did the ship go to hell? Or was it an explanation Weir made up when he broke? Or is this a purgatorial nightmare where Weir is sent out to fetch more victims for the ship? Is he repeating this ad infinitum with this crew or is it a new crew every time? Is the she Weir speaks of the ship or the manifestation of his wife, Clare?

The film doesn’t answer any of these questions. They are all valid ways to see the movie. And based on Anderson’s filmography the reason that these all DO work is because the film was butchered like one of the ship’s crew.

Recently they found a copy of the uncut film in a salt mine in Transylvania so maybe we’ll see it.

But people who take it on surface value that the ship went to hell and is now evil wooo, generally just dismiss it as poor. It is clearly a mishmash of things Anderson thought was cool instead of deep, sets are so Alien inspired that the xenomorph could pop out of any of the lockers and no one would be surprised. The ship’s set is so gothic Dracula could be drinking tea in the med bay and it would make perfect sense. Yet it somehow, probably despite itself, works.

So back to Teen Wolf.

Event Horizon clearly had its shadows over the production and it’s in the ambiguity more than the cinematography [which owes its debts to Silent Hill]. What Event Horizon managed by accident [Anderson couldn’t have pulled it off deliberately] Teen Wolf tries.

Every character in Teen Wolf, no matter how minor, has a backstory but it is not one we are necessarily given. They have their own stories which intersect with the story we are being told. If we look at the chimera, for example, we saw Tracy’s complicated relationship with her father, we saw Lucas and his boyfriend, Corey, and Corey before we knew he was a chimera told us about Lucas. Caitlyn’s girlfriend Emily was taken by the Darach but she was nervous about her first time having sex so Caitlyn tried to make it special for her. This makes the characterisation rich and this one of the complaints about the show. We learn as much about someone who gets murdered five minutes later as we do about the show’s mains. Beacon Hills feels real because the people in it feel real.

Teen Wolf offers a surface answer which does not hold up to scrutiny - at all -ever and which is often ridiculous. @Sublimeglass refers to this as the show vs tell, Teen Wolf tells us one story and shows us quite another. Solutions to problems are often best guesses with the information that they have and are often contradicted seasons later as characters learn more.

The main character is presumed to be the hero but by the end is very clearly the agent of whatever it is that is going on that wants conflict - however defining that very clear presence in Teen Wolf is like getting rid of glitter, you know it’s there but you’re never going to get it out of the carpet.There is clearly an evil presence, and it is clearly in the water, specifically the lake beside Lydia’s lake house [which Lorraine set up a mountain ash barrier to protect her from] but the character’s don’t know it’s there. I am not saying that Scott is evil or villainous in this - that’s a very different meta - but instead that he is continuing the war that existed before him. He is recruiting a character like him to carry on the story. He is repeating the cycle like Weir sacrificing another crew to the ship.

One of the arguments with EH is that the ship is freeing them from “the fire” which is light and energy, which is complicated, basically that our universe with its physical reactions is Hell, and that by removing the flesh [I did mention Hellraiser was a huge influence, right, and the video game Doom 3] you could be “free”, and there is a similar idea in Teen Wolf where characters try to escape the detriments of flesh - Gerard looking for a cure for his cancer, the dread doctors extending their life, the attempts to build a better beast for their own immortality, the leonmensch trying to capture the Wild Hunt.

Yet if you reduce Event Horizon to “the ship went to hell and is now evil” the two do not match but both are phantasmagorical.

Phantasmagoria is where one or more reality might not be real but is instead a dream/hallucination that is indistinguishable from reality, and thus brings the “reality” in question.

In Event Horizon this is several dream sequences, Weir and Starck both have nightmares whilst in stasis. This means when Clare starts appearing to Weir and the child appears to Peters we are primed to know they are not real and this knowledge means we’re primed for a scare even when the subject is not scary, such as Peter’s visions of her sick son.

In Teen Wolf we have several sequences that are not “real”: Scott’s visions of the school bus attack; Stiles’ visions of the bandaged figure; Scott’s dreams of killing Liam with the mute. Then we have sequences where reality is much more loosely defined in Motel California - where the characters hallucinate - and Ghosted which is the most obvious point for the Event Horizon characters.

We also have flashbacks which are subject to the “Rashomon effect” where several variations of the same narrative are shown and the whole is unreliable [the Fox and the Wolf, Blitzkreig and Visionary] What we are shown in Teen Wolf is only slightly more reliable than what we are told, and the telling is from Scott’s point of view - although it is unclear if it is only the last episode, the last season half or the whole show which is narrated. Personally I think it’s the whole. Either way Scott is an unreliable narrator. We cannot trust the narrative as it is presented even if it didn’t openly contradict itself.

The Lovecraftian parallels have to be mentioned even if when it comes to writing Teen Wolf meta I find him popping up like a particularly obnoxious infestation. Combined with that is the heavy influence of Hellraiser [3 metas later I am quite confident that Hellraiser was involved] and the whole is unsettling if not disturbing or scary.

The visual language of Event Horizon is medieval gothic, with columns, long empty corridors, flourishes and twists and the ship itself is a cross based on Notre Dame. In Teen Wolf colours have meaning, characters have symbolic associations [although unlike the intent for Event Horizon they do not represent anything as overt as the seven sins. They reveal the characters but not general themes.] Each of the first five seasons has a symbol which is represented by Godai, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Void [if six has one I haven’t cracked it yet but it is probably the ethereal or the other] and the cinematography is certainly as deliberate.

I can’t just end this meta because it’s one of those as soon as you see the movie you can see the parallels because they’re pretty much laid out on a plate but the two are so different that unless you sit down and think about it you’d never consider it.

I can’t say that Beacon Hills is a phantasmagorical town that exists outside space and is poisoned by its proximity to Hell - but I can’t say it’s not either because of the ambiguity and contradiction. I can’t say Weir is a victim driven mad by his own guilt or the ship possessed him because of the same contradictions.

Event Horizon managed what it did despite itself. Teen Wolf might have done the same.

[exid-though]

I’m new to exid and kinda confused, can you help me with the girls’ names/nicknames?

YEAH okay so 

Solji the beautiful siren with the chubbiest cheeks in the world and the prettiest lips known to man was born Heo Solji and she just goes by Solji but because she’s the mom of the group since she’s the leader and is really caring and cuddly but also can be scary she gets called lots of “mom/mother” nicknames like the girls straight up address her as “mom” a lot during Showtime EXID like literally instead of Solji they would often yell “mom” to get her attention it’s adorable. And ofc fans call her mom for the same reason so like Heo Mother/Mama is something we say a lot, “mama Solji”, etc. Soul.G was her DJ name or something like that? some type of stage name years ago but now she does just use Solji. Heo Bad Gas was something that existed like years ago from way back in like 2012/2013 because when they dieted and ate boiled eggs she got really bad gas. They mentioned it during the first season of BUTBUT TV but don’t actually use this often? It was really just a let’s make fun of each other thing for the moment ips? Mostly just things having to do with mom and also Baby Heo she’s said before is one of her favorite nicknames of hers. I mean she is straight up the cutest woman in the world and she’s the youngest in her family so Baby Heo somehow fits her like just as much as mama Solji and all those.  ummm when she first debuted she introduced herself as “EXID’s Honey Vocal” for obvious reasons come on  and I tag her memether I think? don’t I lol? yeah anyway cause she’s their mother and she’s obsessed with memes, the other members (Hyelin I think but maybe Elly idk??) revealed that Solji sends tons of memes to their group chat. She’s also nicknamed Tweety I forgot about that one cause she looks like Tweety lol and the girls said she looks like Piglet too. And the animal she looks most like is a sloth? that was also lowkey about her being tired all the time while she was sick though so idk if that’s entirely fair lol. A koala is another one that one’s more fair too lol we’ll go with koala. 

LE is the rapper ofc her real name/birth name is Ahn Hyo-Jin and her English name is Ahn Elly. When she was an underground rapper before she joined EXID she chose Elly as her stage name which is also why some people get confused and say “Elly is her old stage name not her name/english name/etc” but it was/is her English name she confirmed it on an early season of BUTBUT TV when talking with Hani, her name on instagram is also literally “ellybaby” and “Ahn Elly” like she only really seems to use LE as a stage name and people call her both Elly and Hyojin off stage cause both are right ig? But yeah so LE is LE, Elly, and Hyojin all and then when you get into nicknames and not just like other names ig? she got nicknamed Elsa after Frozen’s Elsa a while ago cause she looks like her lol. Daisy Duck also because she looks like Daisy Duck but I haven’t heard anyone use that in a long time? “Elly/LE baby” or “Elly/LE baby the crazy” is a nickname that’s a reference to a line she had in a song where she started her verse with “elly baby the crazy”. I tag her euterpe because that’s the muse of lyric poetry and Elly writes all of EXID’s songs to date and has written for other artists as well. She’s so cool. She’s the “Tom” to Jeonghwa’s “Jerry” because she’s like a grumpy cat that likes to beat up Jeonghwa the mischievous mouse. idk what else? She’s the dad of the group like Solji is the mom? Oh and she first introduced herself as the group’s “Charisma” just like Solji is the group’s “Honey Vocal” and it makes sense cause she’s scary af. Or at least it seems until you realize she’s a giant softy and cries just as easily as Heo “crybaby” Solji herself. 

Hani’s real name is Ahn Hee-Yeon, but she does mostly go by Hani. In the same episode of BUTBUT TV (I really wish I had screenshots I mean I might but I don’t think I do but like idk someone will find it eventually) that Elly said Elly was her English name, Hani said that around the time she was born (I think it was either that or right before or right after or maybe just before?? so just know that at some point lol) her parents lived in the US and they liked calling her Hani/Honey growing up cause it’s their favorite American/English term of endearment and she mentioned even family and friends call her Hani more often than they call her Heeyeon normally but they’ve also seemed to be calling her Heeyeon more often and that was a while ago so maybe she’s just moving from it a bit? Or they’re just like eh we need to call you Heeyeon to properly yell at you when you do creepy shit. She was nicknamed Ms. Puff a long time ago during like their debut year because of her hair and face at the time she looked like Ms Puff. She was first introduced as the group’s “Brain” because she’s super smart, has a high IQ, enjoys studying/studies really well. She’s also very meticulous and perfectionistic? don’t know if that’s a word but you get it. So generally she’s a giant nerd she also literally wasn’t/isn’t a good dancer so she takes notes on what exact angles and movements make her look best while dancing and it’s clearly worked out well since a video of her dancing saved the group from disbandment lol. Because of that video too she’s nicknamed “Fancam Goddess” by like media people and stuff in Korea. She’s nicknamed Ahn Hyung by a lot of people because she’s “manly” or whatever. Which she isn’t really she’s just awkward and likes girls. And she’s good at sports but like Sistar are sports goddesses and they’re not called manly like Heeyeon is it’s just a combination of her being awkward and sporty and chill and people thinking that’s not feminine so it must be manly. anyway. She actually doesn’t seem to mind that much and embraces that nickname a lot and EXID as a group go with the jokes about them being more like a boy group than a girl group because they’re all such dorks who don’t know how to protect an image so it’s not really as annoying to me at all as it would be should any of them esp Hani have ever said they thought it was dumb. moving on though cause that’s a whole other topic. So she was actually originally “EXID’s Brain” from debut and onward a bit until she started introducing herself as EXID’s “Brain and Rose” because she thinks she’s as beautiful as a rose/a rose fits her really well and that over the years changed to her just introducing herself as “EXID’s Rose”. This was literally her own braggy decision and that’s why you might see someone say she and Elly too actually are the braggy members of the group bc like they are?? Heeyeon can’t stop complimenting herself and Elly literally said there’s nothing she can’t do but we stan confident queens who know their self worth.  always. 

Hyelin is the cute little small baby one who’s absolutely wild and uncontrollable so she is either called something cute like her original introduction being “EXID’s Cutie” (but I also remember her being “EXID’s Cute Bad Girl” around 2012/2013 idk why but like I remember that being a thing she said and not just cutie idk) or “My Way Lini”/”My Way Hyelin” because she just does what she wants. Like she’s the second youngest (oh yeah fake maknae too that’s a thing ig?) but who can really ever be mad at Lini? She curses on national television and their own leader is laughing about it she does what she wants and she gets away with what she wants. She not only curses and uses slang and dialect a lot but she also kinda just… generally says what she wants. She openly stated her eyebrows were tattooed, talked about what plastic surgeries each member should get, allegedly picked up a microphone at a show cause she heard fans talking shit and literally said “to all the fans of monsta x, we aren’t dating” and like??? that’s not something she wouldn’t do so who’s gonna deny that really? She just can’t control her mouth and doesn’t actually seem to want to really? so “my way Lini” fits her really well. She’s nicknamed Lini cause it’s just a cute nickname for Hyelin, Hyelini is also a thing. JjeopJjeop/jjeopjjeopi is a nickname that comes from her chewing really loudly/obnoxiously when she eats. Him Hyelini cause she’s super strong (like stronger than she should be where’d you get your superpowers lini baby??). Him means strong btw it’s not  another manly joke. She’s a good wrestler and beats their own manager at those arcade punching games. Baby bird because she looks like/is like EXID’s little baby birdy. she’s cute and small and they love her sm. Her English name is Jenny but no one ever calls her Jenny lol? Voldemort is a good one that comes from her famous impressions of Voldemort (her Voldemort sunbaenim)

Jeonghwa is nicknamed “maeboli” most famously I think?because she likes to do things that she knows will bother the older members and she literally is always asking for a beating. A radio dj asked for some clarification on this once and Jeonghwa just said “this isn’t a misunderstanding at all, I really do that” like the girl just enjoys making people chase her around and yell at her. It’s funniest when paired with Elly’s personality because she and Elly are the “Tom and Jerry” of EXID. They’re constantly chasing each other around and Elly is Jeonghwa’s favorite victim and vice versa cause Elly keeps fake bugs in her purse to scare Jeonghwa with. they’re just such dorks idk what to say. Jeonghwa purposefully is really loud and her voice is really high-pitched and she uses it to get on the girls nerves. She’s also called “EXID’s Sunflower” by fans sometimes because her and Heeyeon are the visuals of EXID and she’s more of the bright tall cheerful etc sunflower. She’s also called “pure visual” of EXID because her visuals/looks whatever are veery “pure” and innocent looking she’s got sparkly eyes and she’s just generally got a really friendly and innocent look esp compared to Heeyeon’s sharp and sexy look so the sunflower vs rose and pure vs sexy visual thing is probably why they’re both officially the visuals of EXID like imagine choosing between the two of them anyway. She gets called lady and princess Jjong/Park/Jeonghwa a lot cause she’s basically the “most lady-like” out of the members (or so it seems). and she just looks like a pretty lady with her pretty eyes and round face and her long ass limbs that make her the size of a tree. she got called a monkey sometimes during like Showtime years beause of her limbs too lol she’s got long arms and a small face and so she looks like one of those cute little monkeys I forgot what kind though. Merida was a nickname that started and ended with her orange hair from 2017 when they promoted Eclipse but she’s still merida in my tags just cause I still haven’t changed it. I’ll do it eventually. ummmm?? She was apparently Park Foot Odor for some time around debut but she denies this whole thing. That was from the same episode of BUTBUT TV where Solji’s gas and Elly being dirty was talked about too. Also we call her Jjong a lot just like how we call Hyelin Lini. 

There’s definitely more but like I can’t think of them rn? Sorry. 

[mixyns]

tagged by nini (@tanqram) to share the story of how i biased yanjun!

before i start, i want to say THANK YOU ♡ to nini ! i’m really, really glad i did this ! — it reminded me of all the moments that made me fall for yanjun, and gave me the freedom to address even the littlest details that i’ve come to learn & love about him :’) 

Idol Producer Era

to be completely honest, looking back on when i first started watching idol producer, i would have never ever ever expected yanjun to become my bias. but alas... he not only became my bias, but skyrocketed up my entire bias list and became my ultimate bias. 

i distinctly remember that the first video i watched of yanjun was his Upward! Challenge, and my first impressions were:

cute taiwanese accent

beanie man

the guy who told a cold joke instead of using the allotted time to promote himself (reflecting on this, it was actually a very tactful way of promoting himself because it made him memorable ! moreover, cold jokes are such a large part of yanjun, so he was really just being himself :’> )

this video was enough to leave an impression of yanjun on me from the beginning, but it wasn’t enough for me to remember his name. i also didn’t watch his introduction video until waaay after i was into the show, when i really started noticing him. so at this point in my mind, he was really just the ‘cute taiwanese boy with the beanie’. 

it’s such a shame that i didn’t notice yanjun all that much in the beginning. perhaps this was because of the lack of screen time he had, but because i didn’t see ‘cute taiwanese boy with the beanie’ again that much in the first few episodes of IP, he was quickly pushed back into the corner of my mind by the many many other trainees on the show. 

then came the first evaluation in episode 4, and yanjun was in codename contra team a. when yanjun introduced himself on stage, he kept it super brief and cool, only saying, “hello everyone, i’m rapper lin yanjun” and i thought, woah what a stoic guy...giving off such a strong aura despite such a quick and short introduction...and what enhanced his ‘高冷’ aura was of course his handsome face. i feel like the vibe he gave off here (cold yanjun) was so different than the vibe he gave off in the Upward! challenge (soft yanjun), that i literally didnt even acknowledge that this man in codename contra was the same ‘cute taiwanese boy with the beanie’. so i thought i was basically watching a new trainee that i havent noticed before. when the voting results came out for the members, yanjun had suuuch a high number of votes that i was like woooow this guy is really popular, and no wonder, because he’s so handsome :0 its all visuals man. boy was i wrong

i continued to watch the rest of the team evaluations, and yanjun basically didn’t pop back up again until AI NI TEAM in ep 7. and boy oh boy was my world turned upside down. 

if i remember correctly, i watched the clip of the ai ni performance video on youtube before i watched the full episode 7 on iqiyi, and let me just say that tHE MOMENT YANJUN STARTED HARMONIZING TO JEFFERY AND DINGHAO’S FIRST LINES, I WAS JUST LIKE. WHO. IS. THAT MAN. and WHY HAVE I NOT NOTICED HIM BEFORE???? (clearly, yanjun’s image changed so much that i could not link him back to the same rapper guy in codename contra, nor his upward challenge video) and then yanjun’s first line in ai ni just threw me out of the window and like i was sQUEALING the entire time. i’m rewatching it as i am writing this and I still get the butterflies in my stomach....because the concept is so fluffy and cute and i am weak to vocal yanjun. the whole time i was just asking myself who yanjun was, and his voice suited the song so much and i was just practically melting the whole time. (i still am every time i rewatch this performance tbh)

thanks to the ai ni performance, the rest of my idol producer journey was basically a scavenger hunt for every single yanjun moment i could find. i went to finally watch the entire ep 7, and found out how dorky and funny and playful yanjun really is during the training clips of ai ni team, went back to watch his introduction video, and like scrambled to find him in the first evaluation, where I finally realized that THIS IS THE SAME RAPPER MAN IN CODENAME CONTRA, AND HE’S THE CUTE TAIWANESE BEANIE GUY. i basically had an epiphany and was like WOW cute beanie guy is now my BIAS. 

so after ep 7 was when i REALLY really really really REALLY focused on yanjun. i was sososososo happy he and nongnong were both placed in firewalking, 1. bc it was my fave song from the concept song demos, and 2. he and nongnong are so compatible and i love seeing them together.

in ep 9, a really memorable clip was when dinghao was feeling down and the rest of the banana boys sat down with him to talk it out and comfort him. here, a lot of yanjun’s individual commentary was shown and i think this was when i first started to learn about his mature side that was really genuine, reflective, and empathetic to others. around this time was also when i watched the videos of yanjun reading fan letters, and i found how the fans and him communicated with each other was so cute, and how he smiled and laughed as he read the letters was so endearing.... it really showed how much he loved his fans, and how he thought about showing more of himself through the show. theres one part in the video where the fan wrote, “i wish you to fight for more screen time so more people can know about you!” and yanjun just laughed and replied, “omg sorry...i really don’t know how to...*nervously laughs* ok-no-nvm-i WILL TRY MY BEST” and IDK WHY but my heart kinda broke at this moment because i could relate???? like, he obviously wanted to try his best and have more screen time so more people would notice him, but at the same time he’s really not the type to show off, but rather, he’s the type to quietly work hard by himself to be acknowledged, and akrjhgkjhgjkhjjh i kinda had a moment of reflection that i didn’t notice him much in the beginning either because of the lack of screen time, so ;___; this moment really made me realize how he’s always quietly working hard and will show his efforts and thoughts in a more hidden and private manner, but once his efforts reach you, it’ll impact you so much stronger than if he went and announced his efforts publicly. (did this even make sense... do u know what i mean dkjhkhg)

fast forward to it’s okay - i’m still sosoossooso happy yanjun got to be the center. i think it definitely contributed to him rising in ranking and finally placing #5, which no one expected. i’ll never forget the moment he bent down on his knees and kissed the stage, it was really a life changing moment for him. 

Post Idol Producer

after IP ended and yanjun finally becoming a confirmed member, i wanted to keep up with his and 9%’s activities so i started a tumblr. hmmmm... this was when i started actively stalking following yanjun on weibo, and found quirks about him through his posts, and through other fans’ posts about him. for example, he always keeps the messages in his posts short, will express his thoughts in hashtags (much like tumblr, but he’s so much more poetic about it lol), will share songs with fans frequently, will share the books and movies he enjoys, will always wear the gifts that his fansites gift him to confirm that he’s received them, loves art&literature, is quiet and reserved so he may come off as cold but is actually very thoughtful and warm and always thinking about those around him, always tries to read his fans letters because they energize him, loves taking long baths to destress.....

and the more i found out, the more i realized that other evanisms also love the same things about yanjun - that he’s so much more than just a pretty face. he’s introverted, which makes his actions more complex as they are motivated by a deeper meaning he wishes to express. he prefers staying at home and engaging in activities alone rather than going outside, which makes fans more intrigued in what types types of books and movies and music he likes, all the more to better understand him. evanisms all really empathize with yanjun because of his sincerity and transparency with his words. what he says hold so much truth, and it’s hard to stop yourself from dissecting it sometimes. 

even though now i’m not as caught up with his activities as before, i still really really love and respect yanjun as both a person and an artist :) i really look forward to his future, i’m sure big things are in store for him. 

- miki

[queenofnohr]

Last Encore was............ a weird experience? And I don’t mean that in a “lololol sooooooo weird I have obviously never had a shaft experience in my entire life” kind of weird. SHAFT is my fucking brand, man. Spring quarter I binge-watched all of monogatari because of how on-brand it was for me. I love their weird conceptual symbolic bullshit and their playing with framing and style even when they aren’t switching up the actual artstyle, but i digress.

Opinions for like the first......... 5ish? (Shinji’s Floor and Dan’s Floor) episodes under the cut. I actually wanted to just do everything but those two arcs get me so heated I needed to rant about what was wrong with them.

Basically, for me:

1st episode - cool. loving purgatory.

2 - 5 episodes....... just felt like a gigantic waste of time tbh. Namely because at that point in the series it feels like there isn’t a clear vision for what needs to be told; SHAFT is weird, yeah, and “hard to get” or whatever, but for their own IPs, at least, it’s clear that they DO have a vision, even if they have a roundabout way of getting there. Shinji and Dan’s episodes feel...... floundering. There isn’t enough substance for them to anchor themselves other than “ooooooooh what could be gOiNg ONNNNN?!?!” and to the viewer, it’s annoying. Even on a rewatch, where it technically makes sense now, there’s not enough emotional depth to any of it to warrant...... anything, really.

At that point in the series it’s clear that the target audience isn’t “new viewers” or else literally nothing makes sense, but it’s also EXTREMELY alienating to anyone who played the OG EXTRA because, at least in that point in time, it feels like almost a..... slap to the face? One of the most striking parts of EXTRA is that very first week; we see Shinji, known Mother Fucker with a face and personality so punchable it really doesn’t matter if you played FSN or not who........ turns out to be 6 years old. And, unlike in other Fate installments, Masters do not have the liberty of saving other Masters. Part of the tragedy of EXTRA is that no one (save for clown and pre-CCC Gatou - but even then he’s just like an idiot, and like....... Julius, until you learn how fucked his life is) actually deserves to die. Many of them (including Shinji) don’t even realize that it’s really fucking real that you’re going to die if you lose. Talking to NPCs and seeing them have to take lives and how they react to all of that is a fundamental part of the story...... as is seeing the school slowly grow more and more empty, one by one.

And looking back on that, on the original, emotional impact, Shinji’s days especially just feel like a complete waste. They spent two episodes on him to do what amounts to absolutely nothing. At least Dan, while his storyline here kind of feels like a huge slap in the face, still had some emotional depth by bringing up his wife and the verrrryyyyy last second and like. that one line with robin.

And in both of their cases I feel like too much is wasted keeping everything a mystery from the viewer. Alice’s arc works and works AMAZINGLY because you’re seeing it from her perspective. I honestly, honestly think that Shinji and Dan’s arcs would have benefited from and least partially being from the PoV of Drake/Robin respectfully. We still wouldn’t need to know everything that’s going on, but seeing how the way things “should be” in their eyes vs. Kishinami’s reality would have provided emotional depth while also hinting at the nature of this story pre-Alice arc. Or, even if they wanted to keep the mystery, having shots of Shinji thinking about Rider - because we KNOW Rider actually Kind of means a Ton to Shinji ala CCC - and how maybe not being worthy of her help in favor of half-baked data he got from other Masters actually does kind of hurt. Maybe hurts in a very Shinji tch-ing about how worthless the “shadow” servants are, but still thinking of her wistfully nonetheless. Same with Rider maybe looking on and some reference to him being a “stupid kid who never learns”. Even that, with just like two extra scenes showing them thinking of each other with all the baggage that comes along with that, could’ve given more depth to the eventual team up and conclusion of their arc. As it stands it was just....... nothing.

Dan...... Dan was done dirty tbh. They spent a lot of time with PUNISHED DAN without any, like...... explanation or redemption??? Dan is a good man and he deserved better. Like, even if you want to make him PUNISHED EDGELORD you gotta balance it all out with flashbacks of who he should’ve been and/or Robin purposefully sabotaging himself and DRAWING ATTENTION to the fact he could’ve won “like this” - aka shady dirty way he’s known for - rather than trying to fight head on (they sorta did this in his last fight with Saber, and it’s reaffirmed when he goes to Dan’s grave and says something along the lines of “Looks like I’m really not cut out for a fair fight) but there’s no attention brought to it in scene and................. tbh Shaft ain’t really known for action scenes so while I noticed it, it was still kinda like “oh, did they mean to do this or.....” and then at the end of the episode like “oh i guess it was intentional” but at that point the emotional impact it could’ve served ESPECIALLY if Robin had purposefully “thrown” the battle by fighting fair and openly because he wanted to honor the man he once served, even if he could’ve totally bested Saber - that would’ve been MUCH more impactful than what actually happened.

and, in the end, I guess my grievances with those two arcs are summed up by - EXTRA was never the journey of just one person. In OG extra, Hakuno is forged in the flames of the trials they must go through. No Master’s story is ever shafted because by shafting them and the emotional impact they bring to the table, you also shaft Hakuno’s emotional development; by writing strong antagonizing Masters, by making them complex and emotional journeys, Hakuno also benefits as the protagonist. Their choices, their pain, what they choose to do or not do is weighted by the experiences they have over the course of the game with these other Masters. So when whoever did the script for the first two Last Encore character arcs - because that’s really what each floor is, a character arc - says “making this soooooo mysterious is worth more than making a complicated narrative” it does Hakuno an injustice in that his story isn’t furthered as far as “deaD FaCE?!?!?!” “so...... much........ hate...... why.......................” goes

[johnboothus]

Next Round: Can Palate Club Blend Algorithms and Sommelier Expertise Into a Wine Club?

On this episode of “Next Round,” host Zach Geballe chats with Jennifer Estevez, co-founder of Palate Club, to discuss how a custom algorithm and sommelier experience intertwine in her app. Using her own sommelier background, Estevez collaborated with data scientists to match consumers with the right wines for them.

She explains that the algorithm was created to help consumers understand integral components in wine such as acid, tannin, and sweetness. Finally, listeners will learn how Estevez sources her wines — partnering with producers from various countries and never using bulk wines.

Tune in and visit https://www.palateclub.com/ to learn more.

Listen Online

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Or Check out the Conversation Here

Zach Geballe: From Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe and this is a “VinePair Podcast” “Next Round” conversation. We’re bringing you these conversations in between our regular podcasts so we can explore a range of issues and stories in the drinks world. Today, I’m speaking with Jennifer Estevez, the co-founder of Palate Club. Jennifer, thanks so much for your time.

Jennifer Estevez: Thanks so much. Excited to be here.

Z: Yeah, we’re glad to have you. Let’s start with just a little bit of background about you. How did you get involved in wine, and what were you doing professionally before Palate Club?

J: Yeah, absolutely. I got involved in wine when I was 21 years old. I ended up working at a Ritz Carlton as my summer job and had a delicious glass of white Burgundy for a wine training that our wine director was hosting. It was just delicious. It was a Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey Saint-Aubin. I still remember it, and it made me fall in love with wine and the potential of wine. I loved it so much that I ended up moving from where I was, which is Arizona at the time, and just picking up with $450 and a suitcase and heading out to San Francisco to try to dig into the wine world a little bit further. Once I got to San Francisco, I worked around the city at many different wine bars and Michelin Star restaurants. One of the most memorable was RN74 and Michael Mina. I just dug in from there, continued my studies, and got my advanced sommelier certificate around the time that I also began consulting on restaurants and hospitality programs. My genesis into Palate Club was really synonymous with my genesis into my company OMvino, which I realized around that time there were just a lot of needs that were specific to the food and beverage industry that weren’t being met. Marketing communications in the food and beverage industry via OMvino were definitely something that was a need, and they needed people who understood food and wine. Similarly, in the online wine club space, there was just a gap between that true consumer connection and these online wine club applications that were over-promising and under-delivering.

Z: That’s actually a great lead-in to where I wanted to go next. We have certainly on the podcast talked about wine clubs in the past. Anyone who likes wine and is on social media gets lots of ads for them. I think one thing that is interesting to talk about is, with some of those other clubs, they claim to be able to match you with the perfect wines and say to leave everything to them. Let’s start, first of all, with how Palate Club works. How does the matching component of it work from the customer standpoint?

J: Great question. With a lot of these other wine clubs, they try to either do one of two things. They try to define the consumer profile, and they try to define the wine profile. There are really no online wine clubs out there besides Palate Club that I’m aware of that are doing both and have the data to back it up. What makes Palate Club really special is it was created by wine professionals along with professional data scientists. Essentially, what we did was create a custom algorithm in IP where we could input up to 200 scent and taste characteristics about each bottle of wine and to the back end of Palate Club. So the wine profiles are very detailed and we put a lot of time and thought into what characteristics of the wine matter for the consumer palate. Then, the consumer portion of the experience is very easy. They rate things on a scale of one to five, so we just put time into analyzing the data that came up and understanding what trends were occurring in these different patterns that we were seeing — so we can more accurately adjust the algorithm to really deliver a satisfying consumer experience, just as if a sommelier was selecting these wines for these people. We also create great wines and we source great wines for Palate Club, which I think between those two things is the really big differentiator between us and our competition.

Z: Sure. So let’s start with one part of this that I’m particularly interested in, which is this idea of all these different components — smell, taste, etc. — that you and your fellow wine experts at the club have assessed these wines on. When you first started out, how did you figure out which ones really mattered?

J: When we were going through the process of creating the systems in the back end of the app, we really had to think about what do consumers really look for, and what parts of the sensory experience are important to them? When we’re looking at things, it’s not as important in the wine, for example, if you get a note of blackberry. We do put that in as a descriptor but where does that factor into the overall relevance of this bottle profile? It’s definitely lower on the list of priorities, but things such as complexity, acid, alcohol, tannin, structural components of the wine that every wine has our higher priority in terms of determining what people really want and what people really are paying attention to. Often, why we feel that Palate Club is so relevant is that people don’t understand what these really important integral components mean. Many times when I worked in a restaurant as a sommelier, people would come up to me and they’d say, “I want a sweet, dry wine.” I would think “OK, we understand that those two things do not work together, but how can we figure out what you want?” We try to figure out and fill in around that as sommeliers. Now from a data perspective, what these people really want based on these ratings. Again, the things that all wines have — tactile sensations and objective qualities such as alcohol, acid, tannin, and structure — all of those things are relevant. One thing that we also found was complexity. Complexity is a really important weight in the conversation as well. Defining that complexity is really important to have sommeliers who understand the bandwidth and the spectrum of complexity to put it in properly from a data perspective.

Z: Very cool. OK, so we’re going to diverge a little bit from my planned line of questioning because now I’m just curious about this. I’ve long believed as a sommelier and wine professional that the way people are taught to learn about wine overly emphasizes flavors and aromas. We’ve all read the tasting notes that are preposterously specific about the exact kind of wild mountain strawberry that you might find in a wine. What really drives people’s preferences is, as you described, much more the structural elements of the wine that most people don’t really learn to identify. Does that sound right? Do you find that those structural elements are a much better predictor of whether a given customer will enjoy wine or not than mulberry, or whatever?

J: One hundred percent. I think that those arbitrary tasting notes are like arbitrary wine critic scores because they’re very subjective, just based on people’s personal preferences and descriptions of the wine. That’s why I think that when you look at apps such as Vivino, it is very interesting from a technological standpoint. They crowdsource the ratings from the people who are creating these ratings on the app using keywords. How accurate is that in benchmarking what the actual wine qualities are? It’s not. When you’re looking at things that are really important to the wine, again, the objective qualities such as acid, alcohol, tannin, and sweetness are very important, along with the main characteristics. We basically create different overarching categories that we also found were very important that were not just objective characteristics. If the wine was more dominant towards earthy characteristics, we could basically tell that by a percentage rating when we rate the wines. That would be something we’d gravitate people towards who have earthy palates. For example, when I’m talking about earth, let’s say this wine has mushroom, umami, savory, meaty characteristics. Those are some of the primary dominating descriptors. Instead of just picking out one of those singular things and saying this blackberry or this mushroom note is the most important thing, we look at these percentage values and see where that arc goes and see that this is the dominant characteristic of the wine. What’s the dominant characteristic of these people’s palates such as the blackberries, the chocolates, the blueberries? Does that stand out more? Do we gravitate them more towards fruit and sweet flavors, and not compound sensations? That’s how we clump all of these different profiles. It’s just creating these generalities between scents and taste that create different subcategories. Also, using those objective characteristics that are inarguably there for every wine. Does that make sense?

Z: It does, yeah. Not being a data scientist, it only kind of makes sense, but the wine part of it makes sense to me. I want to ask a couple of more questions along these lines and then maybe we’ll talk about some other elements of Palate Club. I know we spoke prior to this about a little bit of the program as well. One thing that you mentioned then that stuck with me is this idea that, through data that you collect from your customers, you can start to see that there are these clusters of wine drinkers that have similar tastes. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about how many of those categories there are? Are they roughly equal in size? Is there one big category and a bunch of subcategories? How do you see the wine-drinking public breaking out?

J: Yeah, we’ve divided it into eight main categories and then people can also take a look at their detailed profiles and see what characteristics come up from a percentage standpoint and what those characteristics mean in the app. For the general categories, we give them fun names like the Sicilian and the Sexy Beast. We give people these categories to think of themselves in terms of their wine palates, but we also give them more context to what it means. If you go in the app, you can click on all of these different descriptors and tactile sensations and ask, “What does this mean? What does it mean that I like medium-plus acid? How is that relevant, and what wines does this correlate to?” We’ll have some Q&A there. I went in the app myself in the early days of the Palate Club and wrote in different descriptors, and we’ve revised them many times over. To answer the other part of your question, there’s not really a trend. That’s the thing that people really get stuck on. I think often, they don’t know what they like and why. People’s tastes are so diverse. We’re often so much more open to different types of wine than we think. It’s really individually based on what people’s preferences are that they may not even understand. The world of wine is so vast.

Z: Yeah, that’s a fascinating point that I’m curious to hear more about. One thing that I think you and I probably have both experienced in our time working the floors of restaurants is, you go to a table and you get a sense of what people liked to drink in the past. You have to make a bit of a decision as a sommelier or a person recommending the wine. Do I want to say “Oh, do you like Napa Cab? That’s what you’ve said to me. Great, here are the seven Napa Cabs I have. Which one is in your price range? I could also talk a little bit about them and we’ll differentiate.” Or, you might also have to make the decision of, “I’m going to try and see if I can’t open something for you that you might not be familiar with.” Maybe it’s a different Cabernet from a different part of the world or a different variety entirely. Part of the hard-to-define skill of a good sommelier is knowing when and where to make those suggestions versus when to get what the person wants. Then, also kind of the actual accuracy of those suggestions that go outside of someone’s existing flavor profile. How does Palate Club balance giving people more of what they’ve already shown they liked, versus potentially allowing them to explore something that might be a little less familiar?

J: Yeah, absolutely. That’s something that I definitely think we tried to create and we’ve had really great feedback from our current customers on it. What we have is a randomization option, and the option isn’t totally random. We’re not just throwing bottles out there in your club shipments hoping they stick. It basically creates deviations from your profile. Each time when we have a deviation, we’ll know that these people like X, Y, Z. Now, let’s say they like wines that have earthy high acid, like structured wines. Let’s say they are just Barolo lovers. Now, what can we think about that ties into similar characteristics as Barolo and at least a few of these categories? OK, maybe we’re going to try some Dolcetto or maybe we’re going to try something structurally similar, but from a different region. Whatever it is, we’ll latch on to just a few of those characteristics, and then the system auto-generates recommendations based on that. For example, if you like Napa Cab, maybe you’re going to love some Aglianico. Whatever it is, just something fun and unique from a different area but that has similar structural and taste profiles. It can get more or less similar to what your profile is like, based on the level of randomization you select. That’s an option in the order section when you’re going to your checkout.

Z: Let’s switch things up and talk about the sourcing of wine. Obviously, technology is a big part of this and having the ability to offer quality suggestions is good. At the same time, you also have to have quality wines. How have you connected with suppliers, producers, etc., and what does the catalog of wine such as this look like?

J: Yeah, absolutely. For Palate Club, we have traveled literally all over the world and just met with producers from different countries to try to find really unique selections. We work with small distributors here in the States, and we just try to find wines that are unique and offer value and add a diversity of price points. We favor sustainable and organic, artisan wines whenever possible. Biodynamic as well. That’s really something that we just don’t want to compromise. Many of these clubs just source bulk juice and put a label on it, and it’s just not offering quality. Their user retention is lower because of that. That’s something that we’ve done from the beginning. It was really fun and a pleasure to do. I traveled to Australia, France, Italy, Germany, South America, and South Africa. Basically, with one of the other co-founders of Palate Club, we traveled everywhere just to find these different producers, to build these relationships, and to just champion what wine is really about, which is connection and quality product. That connection and a quality product are not just in the wines, but also for the consumers. It’s really important for us to deliver that whole full-circle experience.

Z: I think another thing that can be potentially challenging for wine clubs online is, how do you establish categories as far as pricing goes? People are going to have different budgets. Is it a narrow price range, or is there a wide range of price points for wines through Palate Club? How does that work?

J: Yeah, absolutely. With Palate Club, beforehand, we were doing a tiered system, so we had just different price point tiers. However, we’re moving away from that. Essentially, people can just set what their budget is and how many wines they’d like to get. Then, we’ll generate wines that are appropriate within that category for their shipment and with their taste in mind. It’s really customizable, and it is really flexible. Again, as much as humanly possible, we want this to be a human experience delivered via an app. We want it to be customized. We want it to be hospitable. We don’t want to have to call five different numbers to cancel your subscription, and we want you to get one that you want. That’s really what we’ve tried to do with those different features.

Z: Gotcha. So you mentioned that the main way in which Palate Club generates a profile for someone is that the subscriber rates wines that they received on a one-to-five scale. Then, you look at that feedback and look at patterns in there. A), how did that start for someone? Obviously, with zero wines that they’re picking blind. And B), how long does it take before you get an accurate picture of an individual person’s preferences?

J: With people who are coming on board via the tasting kit — we have a blind tasting kit that we start people off, with four half-bottles, either red or white. They’re all very contrastingly different, and we use them as bookends for defining your palate. Defining the spectrum, the high/low end of all these different qualities that need to be considered when thinking about what a person’s palate gravitates towards. That is the best way to do it and the fastest way to get a really accurate palate screenshot and just a palate profile built out. The palate profile continues to change and refine itself over time the more wine you drink. It’s really fun, and you get to unlock different secrets about your palate in the app as you go. Then, if people come on through the quiz option, we have a regular quiz and then a connoisseur quiz, which we’re developing. Essentially with these quizzes, again, there was just a missing ingredient for many of these other companies when they’re tying in these quizzes to the wines that they have in their selection. I took a quiz the other day where I was just testing it out. I’m always looking at the competitive set, right? I took this quiz, and I was just checking boxes. Yes, I like chocolate. Yes, I like coffee or whatever, and wondering if it ties into anything factual. I did not select anything that was overly sweet, that was overly fruity. Somehow at the end of this quiz, I got Moscato d’Asti and sparkling Riesling. I was very confused. We do think that the general palate, the general blind tasting is more accurate. Yet, with the quiz, we tie in the questions that we ask about the foods, ingredients, and the things that we have in there to actual data points. If I’m asking you if you like bitter dark chocolate, that means for me that you probably like tannin and more astringent, bigger wines. It’s just something that, again, has to be correlated to more of a data point rather than just a consumer preference when consumers don’t really know. I hope that answers your question.

Z: Well, how many of these data points do you need before you get a relatively accurate portrait of the consumer?

J: It really depends. It depends on how the data points cluster. It’s good when you’re taking in data points to get 10 or 12 at least that are outstanding, important data points. However, it’s really subjective. It is based on what the user’s profile gravitates towards, and it’s harder to benchmark that with the quiz itself. With the profile, when you’re building it from the wine perspective, you just need to taste four wines for it to start generating a really accurate profile.

Z: Excellent. Well, Jennifer, this has been super interesting. For people who are interested, where do they go to find out more?

J: You can go to palateclub.com.

Z: Nice and simple. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciated learning a little more about this. I look forward to seeing as the data evolves further. It’s always interesting. We at VinePair are super fascinated by data and how we learn about ourselves and each other through it. It’s cool to see that people are doing that in the wine club space as well.

J: Yeah, thank you.

Thanks so much for listening to the “VinePair Podcast.” If you love this show as much as we love making it, then please give us a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show.

Now for the credits, VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City and in Seattle, Wash., by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit. Also, I would love to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all this possible and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tastings director who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who are instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Next Round: Can Palate Club Blend Algorithms and Sommelier Expertise Into a Wine Club? appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/next-round-jennifer-estevez-palate-club/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/next-round-can-palate-club-blend-algorithms-and-sommelier-expertise-into-a-wine-club

[ruwithmeguys]

It’s that time where I look at my fic writing schedule - a clue? I have no schedule. What I developed last year is an utter lack of control in when or how I write, so I’m aiming to have that return at some point this year.

Now Arrow could stop after season 7. In fact, it’s quite likely - Stephen’s contract ends after that. If it continues, even if it’s simply for one more short season, we’ll be blessed. But it also means that anything I want to write should be given serious due/consideration in the next 6 months; basically, by the end of S6. The good news about S7 being the possible last season is that, they won’t care about ratings so much. They might go all out in the writing side of things which jazzes me up because this year, the script has been spot on in comparison to the previous seasons. Olicity may get more focus or Dig might take literal flight! Who knows?

(There will always be characters we don’t like/understand and story lines that make no sense. For me, a big one is Curtis. Can he actually have anything of his own or is he so... well, boring, that they have to keep stretching Felicity’s hard earned position into his playground so that he has something to do with his time? Just curious. OTA will always come first for me, but it doesn’t mean I don’t like the other characters. I just wonder why there should be more cast members when they have to steal from another’s spotlights. Writers? Please solve this. I want Curtis to be happy, I don’t need a second sub-par Felicity.)

So! 

IP - my current main WIP. I’m aiming for no more than 15 chapters.

She hadn't known what to do... so she'd said yes. To Slade Wilson. For Oliver and all the people he cared for. But she'd had no idea, no clue, just how far this would go. And that in making this sacrifice, she was playing directly into Slade's hands.

OR, how Oliver would gladly - and literally - go from 'you made me a hero Slade' to 'this is me killing you'.

WWID - It has one last chapters split into 2/3. It was promised by Christmas but personal issues stopped that from happening. But I’m getting to it :)

We all know that Slade killed Oliver's mother: we were there, we saw it. But where was Felicity? What would she have done if she'd known? How would it have changed things?

True Face - I know people don’t know much about this one but I’ve recently re-edited this to make it flow better and am two-thirds through the next chapter! 

Returning to Starling, Oliver Queen faces himself in the black mask of the city’s already established vigilante. A person the city has already labelled with the moniker: Watchman. As they begin to move in sync, he starts to see just what the city really needs and how far it has gone to make the existence of two vigilante’s necessary. At the top of what he didn’t anticipate is a woman who makes the past five years, and all they entailed, suddenly make sense to him. A women with secrets of her own that may connect her to him in ways he'd never considered. In ways that make him... want.

Taken - currently in the air. I want to continue with it but I need to draft WWID first.

(Based loosely on the movie Taken) Despite the breaks in their sibling relationship, Oliver Queen loves his sister dearly and there's nothing more anyone can really say. Then, after Thea leaves for week long holiday in France, the worst happens. Felicity Smoak - his beloved friend - and Laurel Lance - the woman he's secretly and shamefully sleeping with - find out just far he'd go for his kid sister...

How Did This Happen - it’ll be coming around the time I next update IP.

If Tommy and Felicity knew each other, wouldn't she help a guy out and be his pretend date? It all goes swimmingly. But then Oliver's there. With Laurel. But he's looking at her. But so is Tommy. And Laurel. Ergo, problem. Guys, I wrote this today. It might feel a bit rushed. But it wanted out of my head. Read the tags: you'll get it ;)

There are two fics that have been nagging at me especially.

One I ran through a tad with @dust2dust34 after one of my smallish Blood Hands rants and she made me want to write it. It’s basically an Arrow re-write from season 1, which I know has been done before but... this one will basically been from the view that felicity was always meant to appear on the show, i.e. episode one and has agency as opposed to the side role she had. i get the side role. Imagine not having her at all? We’ve been very lucky.

When I started talking about it, Bre suggested all the ways in which it would be different by that one addition and I was shook. And agency in a show like Arrow, on CW, means quite a few different things. I really want to write it but I have to put ducks in a row first.

Another is a fic called Jonas, involving an Oliver (Bratva) who never returned to Starling and a Felicity Smoak who fled the city after serious threat on her life by Moira and Malcolm. I have to wonder about that one a bit.

There are more. 

But.

I am... now. @ash818 I have a very slight obsession with her Legacy Verse. I am, is a one shot following Book Of Love. I want to write a sequel amongst other things, set roughly five or so years into the future of that one shot. But there are other things I’d like to touch upon and may never get to. I love Olicity’s children: Jon and Abbie - Abbie who’s like most of us except full of heart and talent - and I want to know more about their growth but I’m most interested in... Terry. Let’s just see what happens. 

...because Ash is an evil/fabulous genius at creating stories with original characters and making you fall in love with them. This is a small tribute for a fanfiction that has been making me think about it over and over and over... It's a gift to Ash818 for her Legacies Verse series. It's mainly about Terry and if you guys like (and Ash approves) I'd gladly write a 5 part sequel. I'd describe this best as a series of small one shot's regrading Terry and his lifestyle over the years. I REALLY hope I did this justice (FEELING SO FREAKING SICK - THE NERVES ARE REAL)...

I really hope to get these out to everyone. I can only thank you for your patience.

P.S. I’m getting a real kick out of all the reviews headed my way, particularly in re to @eilowyn1 who I both antagonise and satisfy with my (hopefully accurate) portrayal of Laurel Lance.

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Haven DVD Commentaries: 5.09 - Morbidity

5.09 - commentary with Speed Weed (writer of this episode) and Adam Higgs (writer of the next episode)

[This isn’t necessarily word-for-word but hopefully captures the spirit of their discussions.]

SW: We’ve been out of the writers room now for four months and I really miss the show. AH: It feels like a world ago.

AH: There’s Charlotte Cross who went through numerous name changes SW: Oh my god, she was Olivia and all sorts of other names. AH: Carly for a while

AH: This flash-back sequence [Dave’s dream] was a very late add if I recall SW: It was. During prep, we added this in. AH: This was shot second unit with Shawn Pillar. And one thing I’d say about Croatoan is we had two writers who went to UNC and so are very close to the Croatoan legend SW: That’s Brian Millikin and Nick Parker AH: So we checked in with them a lot. This is a longer flashback than I remembered.

AH: If I recall, this is the back room of the Haven Herald? [Where Dave wakes up in the camp bed surrounded by bicycles and typewriters] SW: That’s right. Good old John Dunsworth. He’s a Halifax native, multi-generation. AH: And this was interesting because we had been playing with the idea of Dave, and ‘what is Dave?’ for quite a long time. So we were seeding things for 26 episodes really. SW: Yeah it gets pretty big towards the end

SW: And this scene [Audrey, Nathan and Dwight outside the Gull], my hat goes off to Emily and Lucas because they really wanted this scene. This scene had a lot of business in it at first, and they said; We have this chance to just see Audrey and Nathan just be normal with each other. And it was such a great idea and it was so much fun to write, so I really thank them for giving that suggestion. AH: It’s amazing how beautiful things look. We’re recording this commentary now in March and looking at the news at the moment there are blizzards there. And it’s so summery and gorgeous on screen.

AH: And here’s Laura Mennell [as Charlotte Cross] who I got to work with on another show, Republic of Doyle, so this was fun. SW: We’ve thought in many seasons of Haven, about how the town of Haven protects its secrets, the Troubles, from the outside world. And we’d played with things getting covered up by the Teagues and the Haven Herald and the way they white wash everything in the local press. But we really got enamoured this season with really blowing it out and having someone much powerful come in looking into it, and here we are with someone from the CDC. If of course, that’s who she really is. AH: It’s interesting because this kicks off a story line that runs until the end of the season; this idea of exposure and what does that mean.

SW: Oh yes, all the Mara stuff in these two episodes. I’d forgotten. AH: Oh yes! You did a great job with that. SW: Well, god bless Emily for playing those two roles. I think she had a lot more fun with Mara than she did with Audrey at this point. AH: I think it was nice for her to have a completely different character to live within for a couple episodes instead of just those one offs. And Adam Copeland; it was so fun to introduce a love interest for him.

AH: One of the interesting things we talked about with these episodes is how it’s much easier to hide something a hundred years ago when you didn’t have the internet, news the next, voice recorders, video recorders. SW: YouTube AH: Exactly, so now - how do you keep this stuff hidden?

SW: Ah and here we get to the bears. We had lots of discussions about the bears. The issue was that we needed our people to stop Charlotte from figuring out what was going on in Haven. But that interest of theirs couldn’t trump people dying. So we had to have a Trouble that was clearly a Trouble, clearly supernatural, but where we weren’t dropping a body every act. So that we wouldn’t part ways with our main characters as their primary target is to keep Charlotte from working out what’s going on. So we came up with the bears. There was a lot of discussion as to whether they would be creepy enough, in a Stephen King way. I hope we pulled it off. AH: I think so, in spades. I personally find them super creepy and unsettling.

SW: So that’s in Lunenberg [the outside of the police station], and that’s in Chester [inside the station]. Outside and inside about 40 miles apart. [As Dave is introducing the idea of Chris Brody] AH: I thought you did a great job here, coming up with a plausible, logical answer for what’s going on with Dave. And that’s one of the things I always like; when the backstopping actually makes sense. SW: And we like bringing back old stars from the show. Jason Priestley, it was great to have him back. AH: And this was a good bit of work you did here because, Chris is on Skype but his Trouble is still active here. SW: Right, as long as you can see him. Although we ended up shooting him in an office that also had a brick wall. I hope it doesn’t look like he’s in the next room; he’s not. He’s supposed to be miles away, and he’s actually shot thousands of miles away. Am I allowed to say where? AH: I’m giving a headshake here. But what is interesting here is, Charlotte Cross (if you watch until the end of the first half of this season) is immune to the Troubles. SW: That’s right. So she’s faking. AH: She’s playing another, deeper layer here. SW: That’s true. She is playing susceptibility to the Troubles. Pretty clever of her. AH: Pretty smart. SW: Jason Priestley was such a friendly guy. I really enjoyed meeting him and working with him. Very smart too. AH: And when you filmed his section, you guys got that done in like, 10 minutes it felt like. SW: We did

AH: One of my favourite things that you did in this episode Speed is that Dwight has to cover up the Troubles, but at the same time he sees this woman as someone who, if he didn’t have to be covering stuff up, he would want to go to for help. He respects her. SW: He does, yeah AH: I thought that was such an interesting interplay SW: Adam played it really well.

SW: Really got to shout out to our director Rick for these two episodes who did a great job with these shots with the bears. There were a lot of challenges to shooting this bear and he did a great job. None of this was scripted; Audrey looking into the costume or Nathan gets behind the gash in the head. AH: I remember when we were casting the guy in the bear suit, part of the audition was the jig itself, the little dance. So we had a whole bunch of different jigs to choose from. SW: Yeah and a whole bunch of different bear costumes to choose from. Which was actually a bit of a challenge because, like clowns, bear costumes are often copyrighted. So we had to find ones that didn’t have an existing IP AH: Now what happened to that bear costume? SW: Oh I don’t know. That’s a good question. There was a whole auction of Haven stuff in December. AH: I’ve heard that someone we might know is maybe in possession of this bear costume, but I’m not going to say who. [As Nathan is moving one of the bears around] SW: We don’t get a chance much on Haven to do keystone cops routines but this was fun. AH: I thought you did a great job of mixing humour in with the creepy moments.

SW: The boat that was the Cape Rouge sank in January, a little over a year ago, before we started shooting any of season five. Which is why you may notice there are no deck shots of the Rouge in this season, sadly. Just the interior of the hold here, which is a set AH: Was this Emily’s real hair here? [where she’s having a shower] SW: I can’t remember, there was a whole discussion about it, was it going to be the wig that got wet, but I can’t remember. AH: There are these things that you write into the script without realising and then it becomes really hard to shoot. And then sometimes the stuff you expect to be hard to shoot is easy. Like, getting her hair wet, really? [Because Emily wears a wig as Mara]. And this was a bit of a mirror of an earlier scene in the series, right? In the pilot. SW: Oh, where Audrey was knocked out? Yeah. AH: And Duke changed her clothes.

SW: Oh and here’s the Gull. The Gull was everyone’s least favourite place to shoot, for the crew, because it’s a very small piece of property and there are no real toilets just portajohns, but I love shooting there. It’s just gorgeous, such a beautiful view of the water. Of course, a writer on set has not a lot to do when the cameras aren’t rolling. So you spend a good portion of your day just looking out across the water, which is fine by me.

AH: I like this little romance you’ve got going on here between Charlotte and Dwight. SW: And that you develop in the next episode AH: It’s nice to have these small little moments amid the tension of what’s going on.

[As we see someone in the Gull getting ill with the mystery sickness] SW: Adam and I stayed late one night and watched Contagion. AH: Very informative.

SW: I love Jayne [Eastwood who plays Gloria]. She was a lot of fun to work with AH: The relationship that develops, in this episode and on into the future, between Gloria and Charlotte has also been one of the fun things to deal with SW: That’s true. Looking at this it feels like so long ago we were working on this.

AH: This is a great shift between Emily playing Audrey in the last scene and playing Mara here. It’s like night and day; it looks like a different actress. SW: Yeah. She really looks like she’s having fun in these scenes. This was a long time coming; we really, really wanted to get Duke and Mara on the same page, and these are the two episodes that really do it. The hitching post between the two episodes is the moment where it happens. This episode is about her getting him on her side, and episode 10 is about what happens then AH: Yeah and it really kicks off for the half season finale of where this is all going. And those Duke and Mara scenes I found a lot of fun to write. There’s something nice and bad about them. SW: Yep. He’s our bad boy. They are birds of a feather. I owe a lot of credit to Adam [Higgs] here, Mara’s predictions about what’s going to happen next were his idea. I think they came out of a West Wing episode? AH: Yeah I owe a lot to Aaron Sorkin for that. SW: It really worked.

[As Duke comes out to talk to Dwight and Charlotte outside the Gull] AH: This is a fun scene, and again just the moments of humour inbetween the jeopardy and the stakes that are ratcheting up. *laughs at Duke’s ‘No’* SW: There’s a New York plate on Charlotte’s prius - do you remember how long we talked about where her car was from? AH: Yeah, and then in a later episode we had to really concentrate on the GPS and the location of where she started from

SW: Ah the bubble Trouble [James Banks] AH: Did we end up bringing this Trouble back, in later episodes SW: We talked about it, because of course all hell breaks loose, but no - his Trouble doesn’t go into Duke, so. AH: Oh you’re right, it doesn’t. That was always an interesting thing; which Troubles go into Duke, which ones didn’t.

AH: I remember we changed the act structure of these two episodes a lot, even to the extent of changing when episode 10 would start SW: Yeah, it shifted back and forth, more than usual with these two episodes AH: I think a lot of that was due to the fact there’s so much tension and so many high points where you could go off on

[Audrey talking to the Troubled woman about her bears] SW: These scenes feel so season one or two of Haven. We got so serialised, we didn’t have a lot of time for long curse-whispery scenes, so this was a really nice little throwback. AH: It’s such a tragic curse, the mechanism of it is so sad. We don’t actually see Hank’s Trouble though [her husband] SW: Yeah can anyone guess what his Trouble is? We wrestled with that for a long time, but ended up cutting the scene in which it was revealed.

AH: The symptoms of the sickness changed as well SW: Oh that’s right; it was more of a conjunctivitis thing for a long time. But it turned out that was really hard for them to produce in a way that was cool looking, and lips turned out to be easier for production AH: And it looks great; creepy, but not too supernatural

AH: Was it the table read for this episode where Emily went back and forth between Audrey and Mara? SW: Yeah, it’s the phone call coming up AH: It was fantastic SW: She didn’t have to do it on the day because the scenes were shot on two different days, but for the table read - well we’ll get there in a minute

AH: There’s a nice breaking up of the group in this episode where we see them in different pairs [e.g. Dwight and Nathan working together]. And also the way at the start of the episod they’re having nice drinks on the patio, everything’s copasetic, and by the end of the episode … SW: They’re pretty shattered. It’s true. AH: These episodes really ratcheted things up towards the season finale.

SW: When did we move sets? AH: Oh, when was that? I think it was soon after this. Was it episode 11 that was the last episode we were able to use the police station for quite a while. SW: So, for all of these seasons we’ve shot in a hockey rink in Chester, Nova Scotia. And because we only shot 13 episodes we could start in May and wrap by September. And I only have this by hearsay so forgive me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it the good people of Chester wanted their hockey rink back when it became hockey season. Well, you can speak to that because you’re Canadian AH: We love hockey. SW: So come September we had to … or was it earlier than that? AH: I think it was August, we had to take the sets down, SW: Yeah and re-build them in a new space in Halifax, Nova Scotia. So the sets were taken down in Chester, moved 40 miles to Halifax and put back up; light it and you’ll never know the difference. So the police station here in this episode and the police station later in, say 5.23 - same set, but in a completely different building [and town!] AH: And that was kind of interesting. Because there’s not a lot of sound stages up in Halifax. There’s one, and it’s always in use. So having to find old properties to repurpose - like a hockey rink - and what we ended up using after that was an old hardware store that was closed down for some reason, that ended up becoming our new studio. It’s kind of fun. SW: And the hockey rink was fun. I’d never seen anything like that. Like, the props guys they didn’t have a props warehouse, they just put the props on the bleachers of the hockey rink, all round; 360 degrees around the stages. [Adam talks a bit about the popularity of hockey in Canada and how much in demand time on the ice would be; AH: They’ll open at like three, just to cram people in, and then close at like midnight or something. SW: Three in the morning?!? AH: Yeah. It’s our religion] SW: I think the crew were happy to go back to Halifax, most of them were Halifax based. And the crew, I think especially when it got cold, were happy to be in a big city. Chester is a lovely small town, but when it starts to get cold, it closes down for the winter and there’s not much to do.

SW: So here’s the scene where Emily talks to Emily [Mara talks to Audrey] and what you’re watching here, one side of this is shot on one day and the other three or four days later. So Emily can be entirely Audrey on one day and entirely Mara on another. But at the table read, she was playing both parts and she was just terrific. I wish I had a recording of it. AH: It was fantastic, the back and forth. SW: And it was so fast, and so distinct. It’s fun, and I like the way that Rick [the director] lined up the eyeline; they’re both looking in the same direction, so it kind of reinforces the fact it’s the same person. AH: Yeah all these nice little touches. Oh yeah and here we get the “Audrey Husk” for the first time. Which carried through well, it’s such a good analogy SW: I like how makeup did their eyebrows different; it really works

AH: This was an interesting thing too of ; What if Audrey can’t fix a Trouble? She can’t talk the person down. It’s the first time we’ve seen this where there may actually not be an answer. And there used to be a sequence where we saw Audrey drive out of town to try to get the bears out of town. SW: Yeah, we had in our mind that Hank had the cake eating Trouble, that he was related to the woman from … whatever episode that was. One of our favourite Troubles.

SW: And there the conflict starts [Duke and Dwight arguing in the morgue]. We really wanted to blow up the relationships between our three men. And there’s intern, Vickie, played by Molly Dunsworth who is also our stand in. She lights each scene. She first appeared in Sketchy and she’s just so good we keep using her. Even after bad things happen to her. AH: I just did a commentary with Lucas the other day, where we got to see that scene of her in the future, and it was great, she’s a great actress. It’s nice to see the different shades of Vickie through out the series.

AH: I just love that Charlotte Cross always comes in at the worst possible time SW: Keystone cops. Matt pointed it out, that you’ve actually got the structure of a farce except it’s not a farce.

[As Charlotte is making her way from the morgue to the Herald, on the phone trying to call for backup] SW: We tried to get Stephen King-y here, where she’s stuck in a small town and everybody starts, on a dime, to turn ominous. AH: We originally had a souvenir shop which I thought was super creepy SW: With sea shells and wind chimes and stuff like that AH: Wind chimes, in my opinion one of the spookiest things

[After a gap in the commentary, as Duke, Dwight and Nathan are arguing in the street] SW: I’m sorry we should be talking, I’m listening. I’d forgotten this fight, it’s a lot of fun AH: It’s such a good fight, and they do a great job here. SW: It’s funny, there are a lot of leading men in the world who are short. Lucas is not short; he just happens to be paired with two guys who are pretty big, Adam in particular.

SW: Alright, thanks for listening. We’re going to get some pizza then we’ll be back for 5.10.