#if i still do i have no vhs or why to convert

[seancamerons]

Big Wolf On Campus was such a great show! :D

Oh my Gosh, you watched it? People i know look at me like i have 5 heads when i bring up things i used to watch.

I think I used to watch a lot of the shows airing on that channel back in the day.

The kind of annoying show Angela Anaconda I believe was on that one, and like strange days at blake holesey high? which i think was canadian (rumored to have daniel clarks brother in it) and I saw a familiar face from one of those RFR or degrassi era crossover kinda kids on (or from lifetime movies), also a music driven talent kind of show with fergie's band wild orchid (? for clarity) which was pre-black eyed peas on most saturday mornings. i recall that show being ultra corny tbh, cringier than star search from the 90s, and lastly i remember some show about s club (a band at the time) where they'd sing and have random adventures in miami, florida for some reason and they're like European with thick euro accents but high energy singing and such, i loved them and was obsessed naturally, and still bop to them if they come on spotify.

At night like on my dinky vhs tapes, i would tune in or record movies like Casper meets Wendy (with a young Hilary Duff) or whatever they had on, during their October blocks of Halloweenish shows and films which they still do when they changed over to ABC family & now more recently Freeform.

Aw so nostalgic right now, such good times in the late 90's and early 2000's. Thanks for messaging me, I don't feel so alone in remembering that show.💌😊

[hostess-of-horror]

I've been binge-watching some indie horror games...

Specifically, Amanda the Adventurer and Poppy Playtime.

But I want to talk about Amanda because I have made a theory based on the lore behind it.

[Major Spoiler Warning! Plus, I will be delving into some disturbing or at least unsettling subject matter! If you feel uneasy or don't want to be spoiled, please do not proceed!]

Amanda the Adventurer is the creepy yet tragic tale of a man who had big dreams of bringing joy to local children. Still, he and his adopted daughter were manipulated by the higher-ups of a greedy corporation, which ultimately resulted in cursed VHS tapes that we the player have to solve.

Now, this interesting tidbit of lore seems pretty vague but straightforward, right? Well, it could be if there wasn't a spindly eldritch demon that attacks us when we don't do what Amanda says or mess up any of the puzzles.

We can all understand how Hameln, the corporation that got the rights to the TV show, took advantage of Rebecca Colton, the actress who played Amanda, but there's something that had been bothering me...

Why demons?

Why is Amanda the Adventurer demonic, and what were (or is) Hameln's true intentions? What was happening behind the scenes during the recording session in one of the secret tapes found in the game?

I may not have a concrete theory on this, but I have come up with two possibilities:

The CEO of Hameln struggled to get the corporation back on its feet so much that they made a deal with the Devil to do so but with a hefty cost.

Hameln, somehow, discovered that it was scientifically possible to use demonic energy from Hell and convert it into everyday objects, such as TVs (think of the video game, DOOM).

I do believe that these two theories can be one and the same, either the CEO makes the deal with the Devil and gains very strong yet evil powers or science had evolved into discovering the presence of Hell that Hameln decided to use it to their advantage. Either way, it's all fucked up.

In the recording session tape, we can hear Rebecca saying these words: "Bye yell. Bye yell. Bye yell... Pie man. Pie man. Pie man... Baa Lamb. Baa Lamb."

These words are not just some random words for Rebecca to exercise her voice with... They are the Infernal names of demons used in Satanic rituals.

"Bye Yell" is Bael, the first of the Ars Goetia and Head of the Infernal Power

"Pie Man" is Paimon, the 9th Pillar of the Ars Goetia and the Spirit of Arts, Music, and Punishment.

"Baa Lamb" is Balaam, the Hebrew devil of avarice and greed.

Hameln is tricking Rebbeca into summoning extremely powerful demons to make way for Amanda the Adventurer's "dynamic voice reaction." In other words, they're using the combination of advanced technology and Satanic rituals to create the most interactive kid's show ever to exist.

But that's not the end of it! No, it gets much worse...

In the very first secret tape we find in the game, there's a home video of a mother trying to get her daughter, Lauren downstairs for her birthday treat. But Lauren remains unresponsive, her eyes glued to Amanda the Adventurer. Once the mother tries again, she discovers that she's gone and the front door is left wide open.

Hameln's dynamic voice reaction technology is luring children into leaving their homes and brainwashing them into doing whatever it desires.

There's even a bigger picture to see here: Hameln's ultimate goal is to lead children astray from their parents and their homes in order to collect more victims. More "actors and actresses", including the unfortunate people who tried to bring light to the crimes, mean more souls for Bael, Paimon, and Balaam to consume. An insidious trade deal for money and fame...

----

Another theory I have is the real identity of the Entity, the demonic monster that attacks us at one of the game's endings.

Okay, I know what you're thinking, "But that's Amanda, we know this already! That's her real form! What are you talking about?" And I'd say you're right... partially.

Yes, the Entity we encounter does have some likeliness to Amanda (the little buns on its head), but I don't believe that it's really her.

In the "Everything Rots!" episode, Amanda says at she "sometimes feels [herself] rotting" but "it's far away now." Most would assume she's talking about her body rotting in some buried grave somewhere, but there's a slight detail that may suggest that's not true. Why would Amanda (or rather, Rebecca) say that "it's far away now"?

Rebecca may be stuck within the hellish VHS tapes as Amanda, but her body isn't. We mentioned the recording session tape earlier with her chanting the Infernal names, and this, I believe, contributed to the existence of the Entity. Considering that Hell and demons exist within the in-game universe of Amanda the Adventurer, chanting the names of very powerful demons would attract their attention, right?

What if Hameln, during their production of the TV show, made Rebecca continue this ritualistic "practice" via experimentation and it ended up summoning the Entity? And to add salt to the wound, Rebecca Colton, or rather her corpse, ended up possessed?

Amanda's "true form" is actually the body of a young orphan brought to life as a demon, roaming the earth to satiate its bloodlust and terrorize anyone who comes across the tapes.

Not convinced? How about this?

When the human body dies, it goes through the decaying process, which consists of five stages:

Fresh (Autolysis)

Bloat (Putrefaction)

Active Decay

Advanced Decay

Dry/Skeletonized

Once the body gets to the Advanced Decay and Dry/Skeletonized stages, it rots away until it's a leathery, gray husk of a human being.

And what color is the Entity?

Gray.

----

Now there you have it! My theories and takes on Amanda the Adventurer! I may be taking on some really far stretches in some areas, but I hope you all really appreciate these theories as I did!

[davidmariottecomics]

Keep it Forever? Me and Physical Media

Hello friends! 

I swear that this blog isn't just me advertising that I've got some stuff up for sale on ebay (but also, I totally do). 

As I think I've made pretty abundantly clear, I'm a big proponent of physical media. At a guesstimate, I probably own something around 2-3 dozen VHS tapes, 50-ish records, 100+ video games, 100-150 CDs, probably 200-300 DVDs & Blu-Rays, and more books and comics than I could reasonably count. And that's not even getting into toys and plushies and other physical collectables that Becca and I have strewn across the house or in storage. I am a person who likes to own things. And I'm starting to hit the point where I also need to be a person who doesn't own all things I have. 

Why Physical Media Matters

While I'm pretty sure I've written about this before, doesn't hurt to reiterate why I am such a big proponent of physical media and owning the things you like. 

1. You own the thing. This is probably the single biggest point of physical media to me. You own it. Definitively. You can go and pick up this object that you have and use it. You aren't subject to the terms, conditions, and service changes of companies. If I want to watch Bratz: The Movie or play Super Smash Bros Melee or read��The Lady from the Black Lagoon, I can. I don't have to see if it's currently on a service that I'm paying for or even available digitally. I don't have to worry about limited time availability. I don't have to worry about increasingly clueless executives who in trying to maintain the wealth of stockholders basically erase projects from existence, nor do I have to worry about changes of ownership or site design or functionality or licensing agreements that can take your purchases and just blip them away. 

2. Preservation. Piggybacking right off of that, some things *only* exist as physical media. Or, at least, only officially do. I mentioned Smash Bros Melee because it's a Gamecube era game that only exists on/was released for Gamecube. The game only exists as long as there are people who have working copies. There are books that I own, that, similarly, are no longer in print and have never been made available digitally. While most physical media can eventually deteriorate, there are things I have had for the majority of my life (and some things that pre-date me, honestly) that're still in really good shape because they've been cared for and it's important to me that these things exist and it's cool that I can do a little bit to help that. 

2.5 - As an aside, I do just want to say that I am in favor of digital archiving as a tool of preservation. Between the things that only exist digitally and the things that can have a longer preserved life by being converted to digital, I do think it's an important part of the preservation conversation too. With sort of an asterisk of just because I think most works shouldn't be lost, I don't know that it means they should be digitally accessible if it comes at the expense of the creator(s). Preservation = good. Piracy = still bad. 

3. Tactility and greater use. This one goes especially for books and comics, but I like being able to hold things. I like having my reading material in print so that I can, y'know, consume it on the beach without wifi or power or whatever. While a lot of my physical media is dependent on technology still, there are certain things that are more usable in more ways/places because they're physical. 

Why I'm Clearing Some Out Tho

On the other side of all of this, there are some very compelling reasons not to keep all my physical media. And these are some reflective conversations I'm having with myself. Some stuff's easy, right? Things that are redundant--whether they're exact duplicates of something I already own and somehow acquired twice or, like with some of my Transformers, I don't actually need 6 mildly different variations of Bumblebee--are easily put as something that can go. But once you get past that, for me at least, a lot of it comes down kinda to the Marie Kondo "does it spark joy" method. 

Potentially unfortunately for me, a lot of stuff either does spark joy, or sparks almost a sort of FOMO. Tied to preservation, there are some things that while I haven't really engaged with them in heck, maybe a decade of owning it, I worry that if I got rid of it, I wouldn't have it when I *do* want it. But there are also some things where I know it is no longer meaningful to me to own this thing, but I think it might be meaningful to someone else. 

I know I've written about this before, but I'm not really a Funko Pop guy. I have owned a few that I've thought were neat. But even the one I'd say was my favorite, I found tucked away because it had been on a low bookshelf behind our living room furniture before our last big cleaning/reorganizing session for that room, and I don't think I had realized that I hadn't seen it in such a long time. It wasn't just that it had been tucked away, it was that I hadn't thought to see if I knew where it was in months and months. And so, we're parting ways. 

It is tough--at least for me--to be at the intersection of genuinely believing in the good of physical possessions (and, yes, I recognize the faults in them too), wanting to be a person who does preserve things, and honestly, believing in some part of me that the reason I have all this stuff is I might want or need it in the future. That there could be a reason I held on to the Steve Oedekirk Thumb movie collection that'll somehow be relevant to my job or to finding a treasure chest or something. But also knowing that I need to make some space. And that I could use some extra scratch. And that there are things that I bought with enjoying them in the future in mind, but that I now don't think I'll ever return to. 

Loss and Regret

Nothing that I'm trying to get rid of do I feel like I'm going to regret parting ways with. But I've heard and--to some extent--have experienced that feeling of great loss in the past. I think all of us have had or know someone in our lives who has had some variation on the experience of "my [parent] threw my [toys/comics/books/important childhood memories] away and I used my adult money to try to get them back." Or, closely related the "I [lent out/went on vacation with/otherwise left the house with] my [toys/comics/books/important childhood memories] and they're now lost forever." 

I've had a couple of those experiences. The summer between my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college, I lent a friendly acquaintance who was going to the same college as me a bunch of my Gameboy games because they had just found their Gameboy and wanted to get back into it, and I was mostly playing my DS and only my Pokemon Gameboy games at that time. I'm fuzzy on the details, because it has been a decade now (whoof), but as I recall, said acquaintance didn't remember to bring my games when they came to college and somewhere between when they moved into the dorms and their first extended trip home, their family moved and the games were "lost in the move" and if they were ever found, I was never told. And there were some really good games that I miss even today. 

Another time, we were living out at the ranch and a lot of our stuff was in storage in the barn (yes, I lived on a non-working ranch and, yes, we had a barn). Now, sometimes that meant things got a little gross. There was dust and the occasional bugs or mice that found their way into things. But overall, it was actually pretty secure. That is, until the barn flooded once. And I lost a ton of meaningful stuff: books and comics and toys. In particular, I remember that the flood lead to the death of my Marvel Legends build-a-figure Galactus, which was quite the loss. 

And my third big loss/purge is when the ranch was being sold, I had to go back to the ranch, and to the barn, and go through and try to parse at least some of my stuff down. At that point, I was in college and knew I only had a storage unit to work with to hold this stuff, and I was distraught with changes to my life around the ranch being sold, so I know there are things that basically got thrown away that I probably could've kept or saved or gotten to someone who would appreciate them, but in a wave of angst and just deep tiredness, some stuff just got tossed and because it's been a while and I was a little hazy at the time, I still don't entirely know what all was lost in that either. 

I bring all of this up because, like I said earlier, I know that I and many of us have that experience of losing the things that mattered. And I know when I posted about selling some Transformers not too long ago, I had a couple people reach out to say "hey, I don't want to see you lose something that matters to you if you just need money." I wanna reassure folks that, no, it isn't just that influencing my decisions here. I'm really trying to be thoughtful in my decisions. So, don't worry. ;D

Next week: Inspired by a conversation on Becca's Twitch stream yesterday (viewer discretion advised on this last stream: there's some language and a spooky drawing and a slip of some NSFW art for a sec), I'm going to talk about manuscript wishlists and like ways to maybe find agents and editors that'd be a good match for you! 

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Craig of the Creek (Cartoon), Honkai Star Rail (Video game), My Adventures with Superman (Cartoon), Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge (TV show, my friend Sina's in the finale!!!!), The Broken Room by Peter Clines (Book), Crime Scene Kitchen (TV show), Dumbing of Age (Webcomic), It's Walky/Joyce & Walky/Shortpacked (Webcomics), Solve This Murder (Podcast), Batman: Wayne Family Adventures (Webcomic), Praise Petey (Cartoon), Queen of the Damned (Movie), this very cute Superman drawn by Fernando Luis Cruz during a Superman conversation on Becca's last Twitch stream, this hunky boy Superman drawn by Gigi Dutreix on said stream (and the hunky lady She-Hulk too), The Prank Panel (TV show), Chainsaw Man (Manga) 

New Releases this week (8/9/2023): Nothing from me! Sorry! But...

New Releases next week (8/14/2023): Brynmore #2 (Editor) Godzilla: The War for Humanity #1 (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog #63 (Editor) Toldja I had a bunch in the pipeline! 

Announcements: Becca will be tabling at Cartoon-a Palooza in Temecula on 9/15 & 9/16. It's a cool free all-ages little con, so come on out and see them! I'll be around too, I'm sure! 

Wanna support me? Consider joining my Patreon! Not only do you get the blog, but you get neat extra stuff like Patreon exclusive blogs, sneak peeks on other stuff I'm working on (and sometimes full original comics posted there), and coming up this week, the first of my sharable scripts and pitches! And even more at higher levels! Or, you can buy something from my webstore! Some of the stock on that stuff is running low and not going to be reprinted anytime soon, so prolly a good time to check it out! 

Also, at time of posting, I still have not pulled Kafka in Honkai Star Rail, but when I do (boy I hope I do), I'll let you know.  Pic of the Week: This is just a very nice picture of Nadja. But those Supermans are also kinda the pic of the week!  

[zeydaan-isabella]

Vanquishing Vanity

Commission for Sreck with story written by them and partially by Vinomath

Eliza always told me I looked great for someone in her thirties. Good for!? Thirty is the new twenty. I know I still look good because I still turn heads to this day. I get compliments on my body from horny desperate bachelors. Eyes are usually being pulled down by the “gravity” of my breasts, as one artist said. Not only that, I have opened my own law firm; Jolyne Guerrero Law. I have come up working my way from being an intern and finally broke out as a prosecutor in order to help my clients.

Guess that is why I caved and made a little work out area in my office. All I did was move some of my office equipment to one corner of my room and set up some dumbbells and a workout ball. I know my job as a lawyer does not require any physicality, but I do like to maintain my figure.

Eliza referred me to a specific work out series she found. Apparently it was ripped from a VHS and converted to audio form. For the best there is no visual for me to look at. Always gives me the sense I am being watched and judged. That happens to me enough in the courtroom, I don’t want that in my own home!

I push play on my tablet.

"Welcome to your new workout obsession. By the time it's over, you'll be ready for any fight." the male voice said. "To begin, we're going to be doing some stretches. We'll start with our legs, simply take a step forward and try to touch the tip of your toes."

Easy enough. I straighten my legs and bend down to touch my toes. They were looking oddly red and pointed. I never painted my toenails, but I would have at least trimmed them. My legs are becoming thicker with my feet following suit. Two of my toes merged together on each foot. I hope it is just me not focusing.

"Alright, stretch time is over. Next, we're going to be getting some cardio going. You will jog in place for five minutes before we move on to the next stage. Don't over-exert yourself, keep a slow tempo."

Running in place, my footsteps are becoming heavier. I know I am going to get complaints from the neighbor downstairs. Looking at my feet again, I notice that not only do they look gray, but they are further away from me. Why was I having a growth spurt?

My stomach looks more chiseled. I don’t have a belly or anything, but this is way tighter than it usually is. This had to be the work out working. Right?

"Excellent work, let's keep it up. We're going to be working on the glutes now. We're doing ten reps of squats. Feel the burn!"

As I resume the exercise and try to focus on completing my squats, a rip is heard. I turn around and see a reptilian tail. What is this recording doing to me?! I have to stop! Something is very wrong. I have to turn this off!

"Do not be distracted, every moment you pause your workout is another moment you waste both of our time," the man's voice suddenly said. "If you keep it up, I'll have to get someone else to take over your regimen."

Before I can turn off my ipad and stop the file, the voice became a deep guttural growl "W-what did you just say?"

"What's your name?" the voice snarled.

Odd question. My name is…no. No no no! Why can’t I remember it? This should be the easiest question in the world. I write it every day for my job and my business even has it in its own name!

I grip my head, as a different sensation is occurring. Two bumps formed on my forehead. Bumps begin to widen and sharpen, turning into some kind of horns. The tips of which are sharp enough to cause a drop of blood to form on my finger.

"For every second you're not exercising, more of your mind will drip away, no better motivator than stakes," the voice said with eerie confidence. "Now then, you still have more reps left." The voice went back to the peppy man from the start of the recording.

"I cannot focus on the workout if these changes keep happening!" I retort. Why did it sound so...wrong? I've always had a tail...right? It was weird because I couldn't remember my name, that's it!"

"Three reps to go."

Not wanting to disobey, I continue with the final three reps. My name? Why can’t I recall it? I know I have a law firm so I try to think back to that. If I could just remember the name of my firm I could get some of my name. It was a Jo sounding name. Jodie? Joanna? Jordan? There can’t be that many woman names that start with Jo. I know it is Jol-

"Alright, let's bring things back down to the ground." the voice said. "Get down on your hands and feet, it's time for push ups. Like the squats, we'll be doing ten reps of them.

The next work out instruction snapped me back into reality. Worst of all, I lost that name I thought of. I already hate it when it happens normally, but this felt like dropping a phone in an open sewer drain. I get back onto the floor, hands and toes flat on the ground and begin to push my chest onto the ground.

Around the sixth push up, I noticed my breasts were not hitting the ground as much any more. This tape did something to my girls.

"We're sticking back to the ground because now it's sit-up time! Get that core worked out!"

Perfect, this will at least give me an opportunity to look at my chest. As I figure out how to lay on the ground with my new tail I can finally look. Where did they go? Both were gone, or at least became really flat.

It always annoys me how many co-worker, clients and especially strangers ogle and stare at them. Still I was proud of them. I could not deny they were sexy and that made me feel good. Now they are just gone! I want to cry, but I can’t. I do not want to make these changes worse than they already are.

As I continue to do sit ups, I also notice something odd with my clothes. The lack of them.

My yoga pants are completely gone. Yet, I feel like my butt has some kind of padding that is preventing me from feeling my wood floors. Getting a better look at my leg is much worse. These are tree trunk legs, almost as thick as my torso. In between parts of my legs, there are gray and black scales forming that look inhuman next to my tan skin.

What is more unnerving is the river of red on my toe nails and legs. Like fire is forming on my legs. I am able to briefly touch it and there is some kind of heat coming from it, not unlike a fireplace.

"We're close to the end, let's start winding down." the voice said. "Let's loosen the neck, just simply roll your head along your shoulders in a circular motion, that'll help your neck and shoulders to wind down."

This is a nightmare! I'm not supposed to have scales. I should not be almost six feet nor be completely nude. What did I do to deserve this?

As I continue to roll my neck, my hair is growing longer, blonder, more unkempt. My precious black locks are gone. Before I could bemoan the loss of my hair color, there is a sharp pain and then a rip from what is left of my top.

Cold air from my ceiling fan blows against my sweaty back and a shiver. I briefly look behind and I see some kind of wings. Not feathery or light, it felt firm. Am I becoming some kind of dinosaur?!

"And last one! Hold your arms behind your head and stretch them out. Then after a 45 second hold, raise your dominant arm into the air, while keeping the other one bent." The voice returned to that deep commanding voice from earlier.

None of this is right, it is all wrong. I’m not a man, my hair isn't supposed to be this long, blond or unkempt. I should not have these horns or a tail. Before I could ponder everything about me that was wrong. Wait how did I..?

Nothing. My mind dulled, and I was staring ahead with a blank expression on my face. My arms are held in the last stretch I could remember. Remembering anything else is impossible. All I can do is process what I am feeling.

My face feels like it is being grabbed and pulled forward, like some kind of muzzle. The sharp teeth that were clustered in my mouth began to space out, giving me sharp fangs. Yellow eyes losing their pupils and become pure gold.

More spikes grow around my hairline. Not that it matters as my mane of gold has expanded, losing the tight and trimmed hair I had. Any patch of skin on my body is covered with scales. My legs are already the proper size. Not to mention a cod piece to hide and protect my new “other tail”.

A pulse goes through my body. I feel as if I am expanding. My arms grow longer to match the proportions of my enlarging torso. Any flab from my breasts is chiseled into firm muscle. Pleasant pops in my spine provide relief as I grow taller and taller. My tail has become thicker, I have full control of it. I slam it against the ground.

Finally, blades begin to form on my arms. Perfect for delivering killing strikes to my opponent. My biceps feel incredible as I can feel my arm bulking out with muscle due to this stretch.

My body is perfectly tuned and trained for the fight. I know I am massive and it instills pride in me.

"Excellent work Caesar" the recording said, a small "click" being heard as recording stopped.

I come to. I maneuver my other arm back to my side and start moving my claws, making sure my hands are not stiff.

That damned cat is so slow to get ready. Slow enough to where I finished a work out recording from front to back. No wonder I became absorbed in my meditation. We are in the arena to fight as a test of strength, not of beauty.

Doesn’t matter. Once I am in that ring, I will put her arrogance on display. I will grind her bones into dust under my heel, destroy her fighting spirit and leave her broken. Pantera will regret ever challenging Caesar Valius. The Calamity of the Vanquished Souls tournament. No one will ever take my title as champion!

“Mr. Valius. Pantera is ready for the match.” Ah that is more like it. Eliza is not unnerved by my presence. This is why I respect her, even if she calls me Caesar(ce-sar) as opposed to Caesar(Kaiser). She just calls me Mr. Valius, which I also do not like, but she does not seem to care.

“About time she is ready.” I make my way past the door, Eliza clearing the way like the good handler she is.

My walk turns into a jog, then into a sprint. People make pains to avoid me as I barrel down this hall. People call me a beast. A monster. A demon. All insults that I take as a point of pride. It shows that they fear me, recognize my strength and my fighting prowess.

This is what I live for.

[avaantares]

"But things need to be upgraded to HD because old films look blurry on modern TVs!"

It's almost always the transfer that looks bad, not the film itself. If you go back to the days before home video, when films were shot specifically to be shown on theatre screens rather than compressed down to VHS or DVD (and boy howdy is there a photography difference between the two eras, because once studios started making money on video releases, they stopped making use of the full theatre screen), the first-generation film prints themselves are actually remarkably crisp! What people are used to seeing is bad scans of prints of those films, because when they were converted into home video they were scanned at a lower resolution than actual 35mm (or anamorphic 70mm).

Watching a 35mm print of a classic film like Casablanca on a 33' theatre screen, I was able to spot individual hairs and threads on the actors' costumes. Watching that film on DVD that was digitized from a VHS scan of a second-generation film print, on the other hand, is like looking through a blob of Vaseline. This is why optically remastered film releases were so important -- because they went back to the original film masters, rather than prints of prints of prints, to do the video transfer. (Whereas "digitally remastered" often means "we didn't bother with the masters, we just ran it through a sharpness filter so we can charge you more.")

It's worth noting that the films were that crisp and sharp, but still have atmospheric film grain. Film was an incredibly sensitive medium, and it wasn't until around 2010 that digital camera sensors caught up to the fineness of film (which is why large-format advertising photography continued to be shot on film for years after everything else shifted to digital, because film photos could be enlarged many times more without losing sharpness, while a digital photo would turn into pixels). On properly-transferred film, you get the same vintage vibe without it being a blurry mess.

I am in love w the way pre 2000s films have that hazy feel to them. hd honestly kills the vibe

[mrs-bartowski]

Brace for impact y'all cuz my brain is being Extra Rude this fine Sunday. OKAY, so...

What with Lena's new unemployment status, obviously we have all these hcs about her being unable to afford the penthouse and moving in with Kara.

Then of course we have all the accompanying hcs about Lena's time in the apartment between now and when Kara gets back (blanket sniffing, inability to sleep in Kara's bed, ready-to-pack corner of belongings so as to not alter Kara's home, and all those other super fun things that make me wanna cry).

I see all of those (and love them) and I raise you one: the Mxy tapes.

So, we see right after Mxy leaves when Kara picks up "The One Where Lena Decided To Work With Lex" which is what, in combination with her realization that telling Lena the truth always has "huge" consequences, motivates her to make that super OOC decision to absolve herself entirely of her guilt and tell Lena she'll treat her like a villain if she works with Lex, yes?

Now, what if that wasn't the only tape Mxy left behind? What if he left a recording of each of those alternate timelines because, after seeing Kara twist what she learned to fit her frustration over Lena's continued cold shoulder and hearing what she said to Lena, Mxy decided she might want to watch them again at some point to remember the real takeaway: she's fighting for the relationship that saves the world...

Kara found the tapes stacked on the coffee table when she got home, with a note that said "You found the magic. Now don't lose it." She wanted to get angry, but instead she just put the tapes in a box on the shelf under the TV and tried to forget about them.

----------

Lena's hand shakes slightly as she slides the key into the lock, feeling the ghost of Alex’s hand rest gently on her shoulder as it had when she’d pressed the cold metal into her palm a few hours earlier with a silent offer and an encouraging nod. The door swings open slowly, and Lena is hit by a sudden wave of cold. Not temperature, but energy. It’s too quiet - no NSYNC on the speaker or Bachelorette on the TV. It’s too empty - no smell of fresh (slightly burnt) bread or yarn strewn all over the counter from Kara’s various crochet projects. It’s too...Kara-less.

Lena shakes off the feeling and slides her bag off her shoulder in the corner by the bookcase, careful not to knock Kara’s favorite cinnamon candle off the stool beside her, as she tells Alexa to play Nina Simone. She zips open her bag to pull out her favorite copy of Mrs. Dalloway and finds it missing. Realizing she must have left it in her desk drawer at LexCorp, Lena makes a mental note to send Brainy in after it tomorrow with the promise that he can change all of Lex’s passwords one more time before they leave the game for good.

Lena stares at the blank TV screen for a moment, dreading the thought of watching anything in this room without Kara’s head on her shoulder or in her lap. So, she crouches to look at the shelves of the TV stand, hoping to find at least one of the books she’d gotten Kara for her birthday last year wedged between the latest issues of CatCo Magazine and the recipe books Alex had gotten her in the hopes of spending less money on pot stickers every week.

She’s just zeroed in on The Color Purple when she notices a box she doesn’t recognize laying across the tops of the books on the other shelf. She reaches for it on instinct, then hesitates. She hasn’t touched anything of Kara’s since their falling out, and what if Kara’s “what’s mine is yours” rule no longer applies to her now? She considers leaving it alone and waiting for Kara to get back and explain, sliding The Color Purple toward her without taking her eyes off the box, before her curiosity gets the better of her and she caves, tossing the book onto the coffee table.

She opens the lid and starts at the sight of VHS tapes. Hasn't she taught Kara better than this? They'd converted all her old tapes to DVDs months into their friendship ("Kara, these things deteriorate so easily and the picture quality becomes awful, don't you want something that will last?"). She picks up the first tape and reads the label on the side: "The One Where Lena Doesn't Make It Back In Time." Her brows furrow as she stares, unblinking, at the title - demanding answers she knows only one person can give her.

She glances around, but doesn't see a VHS player anywhere, so she sets the tape on the floor beside her and picks up the next one. "The One Where Lena Can't Save Sam Or Herself." Lena shoves down her growing horror and discards the tape, hoping the next one will be less ominous. She picks it up and chokes back a sob as she reads: "The One Where There Are No Survivors."

Lena can't wait for answers anymore, so she gathers the tapes back into the box, grabs her purse and Kara's key, and heads to the closest library. Lena finds the old CRT sitting on a rolling cart in the back corner of the library, tucked between the stacks of kids' books. She pulls the first tape out of the box and slides it carefully into the slot.

30 minutes later, with tears and too-cheap eyeliner streaming down her face, Lena picks up the last tape. "The One Where Lena Was Never Your Friend." And here she'd thought things couldn't get worse. Lena takes a deep breath as she inserts the tape.

At the sight of the ruin that meets Kara and Mxy, Lena stifles the urge to laugh. Of course this is what a world without her best friend looks like. This exactly how it feels now, and she's only been gone a few weeks.

Lena's breath catches as she hears herself ask "who's Kara?," the mere thought of a world where the reporter had never believed in her, never cared enough to love her, almost too much to bear. Her hand drifts absent-mindedly to her chest as she watches herself reveal a kryptonite heart, and for a moment she can hear the sounds of her own screams as her mother's experiments rob her of the last of her humanity.

She presses her hand closer to her heart, sure that it's stopped beating at the sight of Kara on the ground, in pain at her hands but still refusing to fight her. Feels it shatter when her worst self says exactly the same words she'd said to Kara in the Fortress when asked why she had pretended to be Kara's friend for so long.

And she thinks it might kill her, this agony that's filling her body like acid. She wonders for a moment if this is what kryptonite feels like to Kara. Because it sure feels like her skin is getting seared off her bones and there are nails in her blood and it sure seems like she won't survive watching herself kill her best friend as she lies helpless and desperate on the floor.

And when Mxy pulls them out, Lena's breath returns full force until she's hyperventilating because Kara is gone and she doesn't know how long it will be until they get her back; and she was terrified of what she'd become when she lost Jack but she survived because of Kara; and if this is what losing Kara without ever having her in the first place looks like, Lena has never been more afraid than she is as she realizes what will happen to the world if she doesn't get Kara back. What she'll do to the world if it dares to take Kara from her.

So, when she gathers the tapes and goes to return them to the box and finds a note at the bottom that says "You found the magic. Now don't lose it," Lena promises herself that, for as long as she lives, she will do everything in her power to keep the magic that is Kara Danvers in her life.

----------

Alex knocks on the apartment door three days later and finds it unlocked. She pushes the door open and her hand drifts to her gun, but relaxes as she sees Lena's sleeping form curled up on the couch. Alex approaches a box she knows the contents of all too well and finds it open and empty on the table before she notices the VCR player and tapes strewn across the floor. She smiles softly as she recalls the image of Kara in the exact same position months earlier. And, as she carefully plucks the handwritten note from Lena's clutched fist, she smiles at the knowledge that, once Kara returns, no force in the world will be able to keep them apart again.

UPDATE: Ask and ye shall receive

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

[amispnrewatch]

SPN 1x06 “Skin”

Okay, I’m gonna try to type while I watch this time instead of forgetting this blog exists until the episode is almost over.

You can tell the footage for the previously on segment was saved on a VHS copy instead of the original film that the show was shot with because even in the HD iTunes version I have it looks low quality as fuck. And jumpy in the way that brings me back to my teens watching the WB all the damn time.

I love this song. WTF is this song. Shazam says “Good Deal” by Mommy and Daddy. I… have no comment, except that it sounds like everything I was listening to in college at the time this shit was airing.

Aaaaand not!Dean turns around to face the SWAT team after obviously torturing some woman. THAT is a cold open.

I wanna know what that car is in the background. It’s pretty. Maybe a convertible Impala? They have similar grills. This is not at all important.

Also, I love that with these higher definition versions of the episodes you can see that Sam’s email is lawboy and whatever dot com and that people in the fandom have started calling him Law Boy. It’s hilarious.

DEAN: Well, what exactly do you tell ‘em? You know, about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doin’?

SAM: I tell ‘em I’m on a road trip with my big brother. I tell ‘em I needed some time off after Jess.

DEAN: Oh, so you lie to ‘em.

SAM: No. I just don’t tell ‘em….everything.

DEAN: Yeah, that’s called lying. I mean, hey, man, I get it, tellin’ the truth is far worse.

SAM: So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life? (DEAN shrugs.) You’re serious?

DEAN: Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can’t get close to people, period.

Aaaaand now I have Dean and Cassie feelings again and we haven’t even gotten to her episode yet.

SAM: No, man, I know Zack. He’s no killer.

DEAN: Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you.

Aaaaaand now I have Dean and Lee feelings and we’re nowhere near Lee’s episode in season 15.

YOU JUST BLEW THROUGH A STOP SIGN DEAN WTF.

Little Becky. Oi with the reusing of names.

Of course Sam made friends with a bunch of rich kids while he was at college in a desperate attempt to try to be normal.

SAM: You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack’s house.

DEAN: We could.

REBECCA: Why? I mean, what could you do?

SAM: Well, me, not much. But Dean’s a cop. (DEAN laughs.)

DEAN: Detective, actually.

I love that Dean was like “how dare you call me that.”

Okay, after a bit of research, I totally want to take a day trip to Bisbee, Arizona, but it’s already in the 90s here in the desert and it’s not even May so that trip is going to have to wait until… winter or something. There is no way in hell I’m going deeper into the desert when the weather gets hotter.

It’s a historic mining town tourist trap looking place now which is exactly the kind of shit I love.

SAM: Bec, look, I know Zack didn’t do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he’s innocent.

I mean, not technically, technically you would 1) NOT FUCK WITH A MURDER INVESTIGATION YOU’RE NOT LEGALLY INVOLVED IN BECAUSE ANYTHING YOU FIND WOULD BE INADMISSABLE IN COURT 2) find evidence to provide a reasonable doubt for the jury that he did commit the crime. You know, like a lawyer would need to do, Law Boy.

DEAN: I just don’t think this is our kind of problem.

When I made my husband watch this show with me (he’s seen it all at least once now over the years) this is the recurring thing that drove him crazy.

You guys can’t even go in through the back door? Or shut the front door behind you? Really?

REBECCA: (tearfully) Well, there’s no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in.

Yeah, that doesn’t even really mean that she knew her attacker. Just that it was someone she let her guard down around or got in some other way. See: The Son of Sam and Nightstalker, etc.

Love the pinup magnet on the fridge. I’d throw shade at that, but I have a pinup magnet on my fridge too so… pot kettle and all that.

Okay, both people in the next couple are gorgeous.

And oh wow those special effects changing eyes… wow.

This poor couple. I feel so bad for them in this episode.

How… how are the police gonna explain the way he was able to beat himself over the head with a bat??? I…

I love that 5:30 in the morning on TV is clearly like… 10 AM.

Okay, this is a really unrelated point, but the graffiti on the dumpster here reminds me of the Teen Wolf fandoms use of the name Void!Stiles when Stiles Stilinski was possessed by a Nogitsune… I just spent way too long digging through YouTube and my Tumblr tags from back when those episodes were airing looking for a few specific videos and couldn’t find them. The TL;DR reason I bring it up here is goofball, bi-coded main character guy getting possessed by an entity set on destroying the people he loves. SOUNDS LIKE THIS EPISODE AND A WHOLE LOT OF SPN RIGHT. I love that all these monster hunting shows call out to each other.

This scene haunts me years later and I don’t even WATCH Teen Wolf. I just watched the fandom on Tumblr collectively lose it’s shit then tripped down a Hale Pack fanfiction rabbit hole.

ANYWAY

Back to Supernatural, a show that also treated its fan base, cast, and characters like garbage! Huzzah!

DEAN: Well, there’s another way to go—down. (They look down and notice a manhole.)

I’m gonna be mature and ignore the double entendre there…

But I love that Dean thinks of the world in 3D. Which sounds like a dumb statement to make, but this is honestly a good example of that in action.

SAM: I bet this runs right by Zack’s house, too.

Really Sam, sewers run by houses? SO WEIRD. I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED.

DEAN: You know, I just had a sick thought. When the shapeshifter changes shape—maybe it sheds.

SAM: That is sick. (DEAN puts the bloody pile back on the ground.)

Guys, there is a WHOLE ASS EAR in that pile of yuck you’re looking at. I think it’s pretty safe to assume the shapeshifter indeed sheds its skin like a snake. A much… gooier snake.

Sam’s friend is rightfully pissed at him for fucking with the crime scene.

This is before the pearl gripped guns?! Wow. I never noticed that before.

Also, this whole episode gives me feelings.

++++

Cool. Tumblr mobile ate a whole section of my notes on this when it crashed for NO APPARENT REASON. Love that.

It always boggles my mind that actors can trust the people they’re working with enough to let people “tie” ropes around their neck or put them in actually dangerous positions in a scene.

SHAPESHIFTER: He’s sure got issues with you. You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. With Dad. You don’t think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me. Where the hell were you?

SAM: Where is my brother? (The shapeshifter leans in close to SAM.)

SHAPESHIFTER: I am your brother. See, deep down, I’m just jealous. You got friends. You could have a life. Me? I know I’m a freak. And sooner or later, everybody’s gonna leave me. (He backs away.)

SAM: What are you talkin’ about?

SHAPESHIFTER: You left. Hell, I did everything Dad asked me to, and he ditched me, too. No explanation, nothin’, just poof. Left me with your sorry ass. But, still, this life? It’s not without its perks. (He laughs.) I meet the nicest people. Like little Becky. You know, Dean would bang her if he had the chance. Let’s see what happens. (He smiles and covers SAM with a sheet.)

This exchange is just… so much. So many feelings. And I will forever (unless we magically get a fix-it fic mini season someday…) be SO MAD that none of this got resolved in that pointless, trash heap of a finale.

REBECCA: Okay, so, this thing—it can make itself look like anybody?

SHAPESHIFTER: That’s right. (She chuckles.)

REBECCA: Well, what is it, like a genetic freak? (The shapeshifter laughs.)

SHAPESHIFTER: Maybe. Evolution is about mutation, right? So, maybe this thing was born human but was different. Hideous and hated. Until he learned to become someone else. (REBECCA looks around, uncomfortable. The shapeshifter’s eyes glint silver, and he smiles.)

It always amazes me how much of this show is a pile of accidental queer allegories parading around in an ill-fitting toxic masculinity suit.

Vulcan mind meld! I love nerd!Dean. Also, I’m rewatching Star Trek: TOS with my husband, because that is what my life amounts to these days, rewatching comfort TV and flailing over the bits I love.

This post does a better job than I can do of pairing up screen caps with the dialogue of this next scene. SIX EPISODES IN. They’re dumping all of this character depth SIX EPISODES IN. FUCK THIS SHOW FOR NOT EMBRACING ITSELF.

Okay, I love that he screams back in her face after he threw the phone. It’s not something to laugh at because the situation is horrifying, but I can’t help laughing at it every time.

AND THE WAY THEY CUT THESE SCENES. Going from him winding his hand back to backslap her directly to him dropping the chains on the table to show how hard he must have hit her without actually making the actors hit each other. Good job editing department!

I… don’t understand the shifter’s motivation for killing people. If he can take over people’s identities without killing them, why kill them? Is it just because he’s a homicidal, rapist piece of shit? Cause that’s all it seems like.

How did the SWAT team even know she was being attacked? Why can the snipers aim no better than Storm Troopers?

Ugh, these kind of transformation body horror scenes are exactly why werewolf stories have never really appealed to me much. Like, I could do without watching your ribs move and teeth fall out, dude.

BUT.

THIS FUCKING SCENE.

I looked up the song that’s playing over shapeshifter!Dean being caught by the SWAT team and then going through the grotesque transformation. (And as far as I know, the iTunes version has the original music from the episodes.)

It’s a song called “Mary” by The Death Riders

Who's your mother, who's your mother here boy // Who's your mother, whos your mommy dear // Who's your father, who's your father here boy // Who's your father, who's your daddy dear

Silently screaming // Where everyone knows // Daddy's always watchin' // Where everywhere - everywhere I go

I don't wanna be a freak show pretty boy anymore // I don't wanna be a full time slave // I don't wanna be your midnight cowboy anymore // I just want to be Mary

This is… a fascinating choice. Here are the rest of the lyrics. The song as a whole has a weird incesty kinda vibe to it? Kinda like when SPN tries to straight-wash itself and misses the mark wildly. (Like Dean’s male siren episode.)

The midnight cowboy line reminded me of 12x11 and the bull riding scene with “Broomstick Cowboy” by Bobby Goldsboro playing over it

Dream on, little Broomstick Cowboy, // Dream while you can; // Of big green frogs, // And puppy dogs, // And castles in the sand.

For, all too soon you'll awaken; // Your toys will all be gone. // Your broomstick horse will ride away, // To find another home. // And you'll have grown into a man, // With cowboys of your own. // And then you'll have to go to war, // To try and save your home.

And then you'll have to learn to hate; // You'll have to learn to kill. // It's always been that way, my son; // I guess it always will.

Because, you know, why not add tons of feelings into the lyrics, right?

Props to the people who can embrace their rewatches and reclamations of the show with ease. Because every episode seems to remind me of how hollow and tragic Dean’s ending was and I just… struggle all over again.

Anyway, back to the episode so I can move on with my day.

REPORTER: An anonymous tip led police to a home in the Central West End, where a S.W.A.T team discovered a local woman bound and gagged. Her attacker, a white male, approximately twenty-four to thirty years of age, was discovered hiding in her home. (A sketch of DEAN appears on the screen.)

DEAN: Man! That’s not even a good picture. (SAM looks around cautiously.)

SAM: It’s good enough. (He walks away.)

DEAN: Man! (He follows SAM.)

(CUT TO: Alley. DEAN and SAM are walking. DEAN steps into a puddle.)

DEAN: Ugh, come on.

I love that we get two tiny little back-to-back vanity moments for Dean here. One commenting on the sketch artist rendition of him being broadcasted on the news and the other tripping in the puddle. There is literally someone running around the city trying to kill people while wearing Dean’s face, but Dean is still concerned with how he looks appears to others. He’s still concerned with keeping up his own performance. The shifter left him with just a t-shirt, so he doesn’t even have his usual comfort layers on and at any moment someone could spot him and call the police or try to kill him for assaulting Sam’s friend. His life is wildly out of control in that moment and the only thing he can try to focus on is his appearance (something semi-controllable) and finding the shifter before any of that other shit can happen.

One day I want to put together a like top 10 episodes focusing on / explaining each TFW character from the series. Like the kind of list you could show someone who’s never seen the show, but has OPINIONS about the characters (or who hasn’t seen the whole show and seen the growth they went through… you know, like the people responsible for the travesty of 15x20). This episode would be on that list. I’m not sure how I could manage to make a list of only 10 episodes to understand Dean Winchester by, but eh.

SAM: What are you gonna do to me?

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, I’m not gonna do anything. Dean will, though.

SAM: They’ll never catch him.

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, doesn’t matter. Murder in the first of his own brother? He’ll be hunted the rest of his life. (He picks up a sharp knife and examines it.)

Speaking of season 15 in general, this right here. This was Chuck’s villain story arc thesis statement. AND THEY DROPPED THE GODDAMN BALL WITH IT. I think that’s the thing that honestly pisses me off the most these days (about 5 1/2 months from when the finale aired) is that they tried making the whole thing a tragedy but did such an awful job with it that it just ended up like a deflating condom balloon at a dive bar concert. Disappointing and gross. The finale for season 14 set them up SO FUCKING WELL and it just… didn’t get there.

Becky’s parents are gonna be pissed at how torn up their house is after all this shit…

And you’re not shooting him when you first see him strangling Sam because…?????

I like that he took the necklace back. Also, is this kinda Dean death number .5 of the show? Like it wasn’t him but it was also kinda him. Eh.

At least they left the windshield on Baby this time. Reflections are better than tearing her apart.

[xbaebsae]

Changes and Deleted Content Part 2 - Far Cry 5: Features and Missions

This is a small passion project series of posts where I share some insight of what’s hidden in the game(s) files, but also some general observations. The main focus will be on character changes or deletions with a few words about functions and deprecated missions.

What will not be touched upon are a lot of the things the Resistance Mod on PC restores, namely deleted store weapons and clothes, weather systems and general gameplay related things like skinning animations. I also won’t go into audio files and their content, as @lulu2992 is already working on an amazing series for FC5 that summarizes them per character.

This part will be significantly shorter Edit from post finishing-Angy: This post turned out really damn long despite only discussing some scrapped or changed features and a couple of deprecated mission strings. I still hope you find this as interesting to read as I found writing and investigating it :)

1. Changed and Scrapped Features

1.1 Guns/Fangs for Hire

Just for reference, the release version of the game has 9 unique GFH/FFH available + 3 slots for random specialists you can hire throughout the world.

Among the game’s UI textures for tutorials is this image, showing an earlier version of the GFH screen.

What this indicates is that the planned amount for active GFHs you can have was originally 4; or the top row could function as some sort of favorites tab. We will probably never know for certain. 

Interestingly though, this version has slots for 20 GFHs in total, 18 either filled a character icon or a locked symbol, suggesting the originally planned unique GFH count was 18.

Considering almost every NPC in-game has spawn-able archetypes with battle audio fully in place it is possible that we were supposed to be able to recruit more of them. I will return to the matter of recruitment shortly.

Another thing I’d like to open up for consideration is that there may have been plans for (ex-)cultist GFHs or at least areas where they act friendly towards the deputy. Reason for this assumption is the fact that cultists have recorded lines for when you meet them (spawn them), aim weapons at them (the taunts GFH and friendlies do too), along with idle lines when you use mods to spawn them as friendly followers. The game has no purpose for most of these lines, as you never walk into peaceful cultists outside of the intro. In the intro you have no weapons to aim at anyone, making it impossible to trigger these lines. 

You may argue they were recorded for the arcade, but the Seeds are also featured in it and have none of those. However, they may also be a leftover from scrapped missions that would feature cultists that don’t shoot you on sight. 

Additionally to that early menu screenshot, I have also found an old reddit thread discussing the game’s Uplay page near release because of the following image:

Unfortunately I was not able to find this particular page myself anymore, and knowing how short lived everything is nowadays, it might be lost in time forever. The commenters discuss that the three additional slots here refer to potential DLC characters, but we don’t get to use any of the DLC companions in the main game (nor do the DLCs share the main game’s art direction). So, this might be another indicator for additionally planned GFH/FFH we never got to see.

One of these was likely the Eagle FFH called ‘’Freedom’’ (Character/Unique/FFH_Eagle_Freedom), which was partially restored through mods on PC as its loaders and everything are still present. It is unknown why this was scrapped.

It also appears that there once were inventory (purchaseable?) items for almost each GFH (Boomer and Jess have none), as these placeholder icons exist inside the game’s ui\icons\inventory folder:

Possible functions: Quest items you needed to obtain to recruit them (implying changed missions); Gift items (for potential level up?)

Now to return to the matter of recruitment: Deprecated mission strings suggest that originally you had to hire unique GFHs similarly to random ones; and that was part of quest lines. These lines appear in ‘oasisstrings’, the game’s main language file(s):

HIRE Jess RECRUIT Adelaide Drubman ADD Adelaide to your squad

In light of the old GFH screen I actually looked up the definition of ‘Squad’, and on wikipedia it is listed that a Squad is a team of 5+ members, further strengthening the theory that originally you could have 4 active GFH (plus the Deputy they’d be 5, therefore a squad). 

1.2 In-game Wiki menu

Some of the previous Far Cry titles have a sort of wiki menu that features short bios of characters, explanations of locations, resources and weaponry. New Dawn sort of brought part of this back with the ‘Survival Guide’ (accessible from the pause menu), but 5 does not have this at all. However, in the ui files there are still texture leftovers, implying this feature was planned and it had sections for Animals, Base Jumps, Characters, Destructible Structures, Fish, Locations, Parking Spots (Garages), Plants and Treasure Hunts. The following image shows the ‘undiscovered’ symbols arranged in that order.

Again, no text entries along with a lot of duplicate and unfinished images imply this was scrapped early.

You can view the additional images (minus characters, because they will be handled in the next posts) here.

2. Abandoned Missions

This section will focus on mission strings that still exist in ‘oasisstrings’. For the sake of readability I removed the style code the game uses and the line numbers. You can easily find them by searching part of the text in the files or website listed in References. Please keep in mind that only the mission titles themselves are 100% like that in the files, any assumption as to what they might have been used for is purely speculative, but I attempt to always provide a reasonable explanation with evidence for the theories presented. Also I am not perfect, so it is possible I missed something in-game. In that case please do correct me!

2.1. Investigation Type objectives

There is a set of objectives listed that imply a different setup for Willis Huntley’s mission. It introduces the objectives PHOTOGRAPH, TAG, LISTEN and INTERROGATE:

PHOTOGRAPH potential property PHOTOGRAPH an animal slaughter TAG the target PHOTOGRAPH the target LISTEN to the conversation INTERROGATE the target PHOTOGRAPH cult signs and rituals: BRING the photos back to Willis

The release build mission has you tail someone and steal a VHS tape. None of the above objectives appear. It’s interesting to see that at one point there were mechanics in consideration that included intel gathering.

2.2. Quest centered around Melvin

The only Melvin I could find in relation to Far Cry 5 is Nadine Abercrombie’s grandfather. Melvin Abercrombie joined the cult. It isn’t assured that these objectives refer to him, but if they do it’d mean a potential mission where you speak to a lower ranked cultist.

Please Note that mission strings are not always in correct order.

TALK to Melvin LOOT Melvin's corpse REACH Melvin's house WAIT for Melvin to arrive GO MEET Melvin

2.3. The ‘Redeemer’ Objectives

At some point there was a quest-line revolving around something called the ‘Redeemer’ in Holland Valley. I could not find out what this thing really was supposed to be, but it sounds like it was either a boat or a submarine (???). In this line it appears that the garage in Fall’s End had actual relevance.

FIND a similar engine BRING engine to Mary's garage TALK to Mary's assistant TOW Redeemer Back the Garage (this typo is also in the file) SUBMERGE the Redeemer FLIP the Redeemer upside down GET IN the Tow Truck PUT the Redeemer on the Flat Bed

What this also implies is the inclusion of tow trucks and that there was a ‘Mary’s assistant’ character.

2.4. A few seperate Entries before we focus on plot relevant ones

In light of the afore mentioned wiki menues there is also an objective type that goes very well with its character section:

DISCOVER this character.

This could be attached to unknown entries in the character list.

There also is an unused objective called:

FIND the cow in the field

Which at first glance made me believe it was related to the mission at Cattle co., but it is not used there or anywhere else. I suppose we will never find out what was so special about this mysterious cow.

TAKE Joseph's writings

is also an interesting entry, as it is not related to the mission where you burn his book. This is again an unused string with unknown original purpose.

2.5. Mary May and John Seed

There are two particularly interesting unused mission objectives in relation to these two characters. 

For one, it looks like originally we were supposed to rescue Mary May from John’s ranch:

RESCUE Mary May From John Seed's Ranch

This could either be a replacement for saving her in Fall’s End or it is a mission that appeared later on in which John possibly captured her. It gets more possible applications with the next one, though.

FIND John and Mary May's secrets

Now, this one caught my attention immediately, because there are two big things that come to mind in terms of possible application. It could refer back to the novel Absolution in which Mary May gets captured and tattooed by John, heavily implying that part of the plot that made it to the novel was originally intended to be shown in the game (we will get back to this in the character episode when talking about Holly). 

Additionally, keeping the previous objective in mind, it could also imply that Mary has been converted during her capture (or her capture was planned) and played a different role in the story overall. Of course, all of this is only speculation as we will probably never know, but the objective specifically says ‘John AND Mary May’s secrets’, refering to shared secrets, not just one of Mary herself (which would fit more into the tattoo theory). 

   If you have ever even considered the possibility that Ubisoft might have cut a lot of stuff from the Whitetail region of the game, the rest of this Mission section should finally prove this to you. I’d like to make clear here that this is unbiased. I have tried to dig up deleted content equally in all regions but it just turns out that this is the one they really went wild with. There is nothing that stands out in terms of deleted or changed missions in the Henbane area and the Holland Valley content is mostly not that plot relevant minus the last examples just mentioned.

2.6. Eli and the Wolf’s Den

In the final version of the game we are told that Eli is an important character, but he is not very active in any way. Where Mary May assists you on the way to John’s Ranch and Tracey and the others at the prison fight by your side in defense missions, Eli will stay at the Wolf’s Den and have you run his errands for him. Just like the other mentioned characters he has full fight capabilities though. His AI is capable of using that bow, despite him never leaving the bunker.

As it turns out, he used to be a far more active character and there were multiple ways you could encounter him for the first time. For reference: In the game as it is now you will only meet him when he and his people rescue the deputy after Jacob’s first trial. You cannot enter the Wolf’s Den prior to this point.

Inside the game’s animations folders are these three subfolders including the respective files (JJ and Key03 is how Eli is often referred to in the files, I will get back to this in the character post):

This means there were three ways that you would encounter Eli: Inside a cabin, through being captured in a net or by being released by Perkins. This was most likely Doc Perkins, giving her a bit more significance in the game.

The main cutscene files for these are not present anymore, only the animations remain so I could not find out where the exact locations for these were supposed to be at. I however, loaded these animations into a game cutscene so we get to look at them anyway. I have chosen Jacob’s death cutscene for the simple reason that there’s only the player + 1 NPC, it is daytime and there’s no intrusive DOF blurring everything. The video below shows all of them. 

Keep in mind that only the player animation matters in the first two! Ignore the rest. The third one features Doc Perkins and has her animation applied to her. As you can see it is very very unfinished, but it shows that she possibly unties the deputy or opens an animal cage, then drives away in a car.

This unused mission string supports the theory of these different ways further, as it implies that you met him somewhere and he would guide you to the den:

FOLLOW Eli into the Wolf's Den

There are several other objectives that suggest a more active Eli, who might have accompanied you on some missions:

WAIT for Eli to arrive GO with Eli GO inside the Wolf's Den

2.7. Jacob and the Veteran Center

Before swan diving down a very deep rabbit hole, let’s address this unused mission string first:

TALK to Deputy Pratt

Sounds very unspectacular and like something you would do at some point, but this is never an objective in the game. The intended function will forever remain unknown most likely, but possibilities are vast, especially with the upcoming abandoned objectives.

There are hints at an alternate useage of Jacob’s bunker (specifically called bunker here and not armory). Mission strings are:

FIND a way out of Jacob's Bunker LEAVE Jacob's Bunker

Again, on first sight you’d think these are just what’s there in-game. But they aren’t. During the final mission it goes from RESCUE Deputy Pratt straight to ESCAPE Jacob’s Armory. There is no indicator that you’d need to find a way out. The objectives above hint that it was similar to John’s and Faith’s bunker initially, where you had to do a few more things before escaping. 

An observation derived from the game’s subtitle file is that at one point there might have been a differentiation between ‘Armory’ and ‘Bunker’ as, most likely, a random NPC says "I don't know where Jacob's bunker is. I'm not sure anybody does, but it's out there somewhere." The armory is (other than John’s and Faith’s bunkers) directly next to a main road, next to McKinley Dam. It is quite impossible to miss. Therefore this statement, along with the inconsistent switch between calling it ‘armory’, ‘bunker’ or ‘gate’, could mean there was originally a different bunker and the armory really functioned as such. 

Before moving on to more mission strings, there is one more subtitle entry worth mentioning: "When you tried to arrest Joseph, Jacob got wind of it and things got real crazy here in the Whitetail Mountains." It heavily implies that at some point, Joseph’s family might not have been intended to be present during the opening, and they instead found out about the arrest afterwards. As far fetched as it sounds at first, it does check out with the inactivity and absence of the three heralds after you cuff Joseph (and in case you ever wondered what the three of them are doing while you guide Joseph outside, they de-spawn and are gone as soon as you turn around).

But enough about that and let’s get back to more missions we never got to see.

For instance there is:

GO TO the Veteran's Center

Which, as most of you know, is impossible during the game because you get repositioned everytime you attempt to go close. This string implies a different kind of mission at some point. 

HUNT Jacob

No, this also does not appear in the game. The final mission goes from DESTROY Wolf Beacons to KILL Jacob Seed. Possibility in combination with the previous entry is that you were supposed to follow him back to the Veteran Center and that’s where the final fight would be. It could also imply a different kind of trial.

Small observation because we are talking about the final fight: The Prima Games’ guide (based on a pre-release build of the game, it will be featured more prominently in the next post) depicts Jacob at the bottom of the mountain during this encounter. WIth a lot of perseverance I’m sure you can somehow manage to replicate this in-game. But it is interesting regardless that they chose this image. It might imply that at some point he was not positioned on top of the hill, and instead closer to the area he finally dies in.

Before we move on, here are a few other interesting unused strings:

TRAIN TRAIN yourself INTERACT with Jacob for finishing takedown TALK to Jacob

They imply a different way to end the fight along with the possibility to talk to Jacob at some point (unrelated to each other mind you). I have no clue in what kind of scenario you were supposed to talk to him. The only explanation I have is that trials were possibly supposed to be different at some point and maybe they had more intentions to explore the whole brainwashed aspect of it to the point you casually took strolls around St Francis. Now before you say I just made that up, I implore you to wait till after the next part to call me out on it, because there are reasons I offer that possibility up for discussion here.

TRAIN and TRAIN yourself might not be linked to this region at all. But it is interesting to have these sort of objectives as they form the ‘Train, Hunt, Kill, Sacrifice’ part of the region’s theme, when you refer back to other mission strings: TRAIN (yourself), HUNT Jacob, KILL Jacob Seed.

Now to get to the main part. If you ever used mods on PC that let you access the Veteran Center, you will have noticed that the AI acts very strange. Your assigned GFH might wander around, aim at nothing or even attack civillians. Cultists inside the area will not always attack you, while civillians will do. This is most likely why the developers were so quick to patch out the tricks to access the region without mods.

I have seen multiple speculations circling around, but the one that always struck me as the most plausible one is that there was some kind of mission after Pratt rescues you from the cage. It is a very discontinuous cutscene, in which you transition from the cage directly to the top floor of the Veteran Center, implying there were no problems for Pratt and the Deputy to get there, despite having to cross the entire guarded frontyard and going through multiple building floors to get to the office. So, naturally I wasted some time of my life trying to dig up stuff that proves this theory right and I...well I did find something.

Important note so you understand what’s going on here: It is very common in games to load objects underneath the map (outside of sight of the player) to assure they are properly loaded in when they are needed. I have seen posts circulating around which depicted Pratt underneath the building, suggesting they eventually had an area planned there. The more likely case is that Pratt was loaded there for later use in a cutscene.

Why am I saying that? Well, this following screenshot was taken underneath the map during the cutscene where Pratt rescues the deputy and it transitions to the top of the building. I have changed the time to daytime for a bit better visibility.

What you see here is an entirely unused set of either cutscene or gameplay elements. A truck, Jacob (who’s absent in the cutscene we see), Pratt, a random NPC, a bag, a small table (unseen in cutscene), a single door (unseen in cutscene), a double door and 3 small pieces of paper (only two are in cutscene). I have kept watch on these assets for the entirety of the cutscene and none of them were moved into place. Meaning that all of these were here to be used in either a different cutscene or even a gameplay segment.

It brings me back to the mission theory, where there was a potential stealth segment between leaving the cage and entering the office.  Maybe there was an alternate cutscene for the case where you’d be caught and the one we see in the game is the one after successfully sneaking up there? We will never know for certain again but it is one possible explanation as to why these assets even still exist. It would also check out with the TALK to Deputy Pratt mission string, as you maybe had to speak to him after reaching a certain area.

Here are also some additional screenshots of the room in front of the office:

It was modelled and filled with a few detail props we never get to see much of.

Another potential mission, which would explain the broken AI behavior better, is the already mentioned theory that they might have planned to do more with the whole brainwashing aspect. Cultists inside the Vet Center area do not shoot and are allied, while civillians act hostile, implying while the player is there they are considered to be allied to cultists. TALK to Deputy Pratt, TALK to Jacob or TRAIN (yourself) could have taken place during this also. Something that could support this theory is also this unused timelapse marking days passing:

3. The Game’s Title and Closing Words

Internally the game is often called ‘fc zeta’, ‘zeta’ or ‘fcz’. So *sigh* of course I tried to find a deeper meaning behind it all and came to the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet ‘Zeta’. If you count Far Cry: Primal as a real standalone title, Far Cry 5 is the sixth Far Cry release. But because the Greek were special snowflakes or something, the sixth letter actually has the value of 7. So Zeta is actually 7 despite being the sixth. If you count Blood Dragon as a Far Cry release it’d mean FC5 is the 7th release. However, these theories exclude all the expansions and stuff for earlier Far Cry games.

Another indicator that Zeta might have been more than just a number, is this texture used as a decal on some clothing materials:

I have not found someone in-game who has this anywhere, and they might just disable the transparency and use it only for the American flag. But still, why would they make such a decal texture in the first place? Maybe very early name of the cult or resistance group? 

Before closing this incredibly long essay, here is an old, unused version of the logo found in the files :)

Phew, we finally reached the end. If you made it all the way down here: CONGRATULATIONS you just read a long af essay! Again, i’d like to remind you that a lot of what you’ve read is pure speculation. I tried to prove my arguments as best as I could with evidence that I provided but only Ubisoft knows what really happened. And they are unlikely to tell us.

The next post will focus on the expansive character list and I may split it into parts because there is a lot to say and show about some characters. 

I hope you have a nice day and thank you for reading ♥

_______________________________________________________

References:

text.farcry.info (website where you can look through Oasisstrings yourself!) languages\english\oasisstrings.oasis.bin languages\english\oasisstrings_subtitles.oasis.bin animations\narrative\cin_key03_q01_b00_meet_jj_cabin animations\narrative\cin_key03_q01_b00_meet_jj_net animations\narrative\cin_key03_q01_b00_meet_jj_release domino\user\fcz_proto_ld domino\user\zeta_dlcm ui\resources\textures\04_menu\tooltips ui\resources\textures\06_icons\inventory ui\resources\textures\05_hud\tutorials\_images __Unknown\XBT\AE800D066AB2E84A.xbt __Unknown\XBT\FD080AA2BBABE691.xbt Zeta on Wikipedia (english) Squad on Wikipedia (english) Prima Games guide (2018, collector’s edition, print and digital) reddit.com/r/farcry/comments/89nsf1/so_theres_3_missing_guns_for_hire_here_maybe_3/ __Unknown\BIK\C6AB10EDBC81E933.bik

[thebraingremlinsaremad]

Daily Blog #15: August 22, 2021

Dollar Tree is honestly pretty fucking awesome 👌👌👌

I set my alarm for like 6:25 this morning, but it took 6 minutes for the "Horsin' Around" theme song instrumental to wake me up. I was pretty tired lol. I just dismissed it and went back to sleep.

I only went back to sleep because I knew I had another alarm set for 7:00. That got me up.

I should mention that this was still in the RV over an hour away from the house.

After I got up, I went to go get a shower, and did so successfully.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten my brush this time and had to do it afterwards after my hair had a bit of time to dry, which did make it a little more difficult lol.

I got dressed and grabbed my stuff, putting it into my car.

I made it a point to see and say "see you later" to my grandparents before I left for the flea market.

My dad insisted that I stayed to say goodbye to my mom, so I left.

I did NOT have cell service up there, as was mentioned in my previous 2 blogs of which I could only post today, so finding my way was a tiny bit difficult until I got some service to ask Google to take me to "...".

It worked and I got there.

On my drive, I listened to 1 by Simple Kid, a CD I had previously purchased at a Dollar Tree location.

I got a call from the guy at the flea market saying that I had some people there waiting for me. He asked how far away I was, to which I said "about 10 minutes." Ironically, that call made me miss my exit, as Google couldn't talk during the call, and added about 3 minutes to my arrival time lmao.

I did sell the Xbox that he said someone was interested in. I got $40 for it. I spent 27¢ on it. Pretty good return if you ask me.

I couldn't sell it with anything other than a power cord because the controller and AV cables I had been using to play it there were for my personal console. I'm just glad I can actually hook my Xbox up and stop having to drag them to the flea market along with a small library of games.

Not too long after I sold the Xbox, someone came in and asked if I wanted to see some electronics he had in his car. I went out with him. It was a pair of 3ft speakers and a Pioneer audio system with dual cassette decks (although neither of them works) and a 25 Disc CD-changer, as well as the standard AM/FM tuner. Additionally, there was a Fisher amplifier and AM/FM tuner as well as a Fisher Direct Drive turntable. He said he wanted $60 for em, but before that he casually, and probably accidentally, dropped that he was just gonna take em to the thrift store.

Big mistake.

I got em for $35 lmao. THERE GOES MOST OF MY PROFIT.

Oh well.

I tested everything. As I mentioned, the cassette decks don't work, but everything else does apart from the turntable needing a new stylus.

I posted some new photos of the shop to Facebook, and someone soon DMed me about a stereo system.

I priced everything, and it turns out I have about $300 worth of equipment from that deal, the Fisher amp and tuner being worth about $150.

The buyer will hopefully show up next weekend, for he wants to buy the Fisher stuff ($185 with the turntable), the 3ft speakers, an 8-track deck, and a Kenwood deck we've had for a week or two.

The speakers are listed for $50 (and are worth around $100-150), the Kenwood Deck for $50 as well, and the 8-track for $35. That makes it about $320 in equipment. Since he's buying so much, I'll knock it down to $270 and essentially give him the speakers or cassette deck for free lol.

Apart from that stuff, not much happened at the flea market. I sold some records, cassettes, CDs and I think 2 DVDs. One person bought a VHS tape? That money was the other guy's though. Oh well xD.

I can't say that I didn't miss my wonderful partner while on the trip. I actually brought along the stuffed animal they gave me (who's name is Greg) and snuggled with him both nights.

I was very happy to hear from them UwU.

They let me rant and I let them rant.

I honestly give them too much responsibility over me xD. I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this. HOLD ME TO IT."

I know I can't hold myself to anything I personally say (this blog being the only exception apparently), but I listen to them pretty well I think 🤔. If they tell me, "No, you don't need that VCR," so long as it's not some weird specialty thing, like a worldwide VCR 🥵, I'll be like "Yeah, you rite bro."

I love you man xD. You control my craziness pretty well. I'm so thankful for you UwU.

#relationshipgoals

So part way through the flea market day, I went over to Dollar Tree to buy some snack, but ended up looking through the CDs to see if there was anything good. I took photos of about 18 CDs and flipped through them online for the remainder of the flea market day.

I deleted the photos of the ones I didn't want and kept those that I liked. Surprisingly, I ended up buying 13 CDs there, but not before dropping them on the floor like the dumbass I am.

Also, sorry for all the nerd shit I spilled on your lap earlier. No one cares about amps and tuners xD.

I'M LISTENING TO ONE OF THE DOLLAR TREE CDS RIGHT NOW THO.

I already transferred over to my online library on iBroadcast and put the disc into my CD changer, which is now holding 164 CDs.

Its max capacity is 300 discs 🥵

WHY AM I NERD

Oh well

I like being a nerd gurl

Also maybe a technosexual 👀

I get really excited over some electronics. Like. REALLY excited.

Some editing VCRs are like "Holy shit that is SEXY. Look at those goddamn VU meters 🥵. And hhhh there are like 7 inputs on this thing and individual controls for left and right audio gain, not to mention Hi-Fi S-VHS recording. Hhhhhhhhhhh please gimme 😭. Why are you so expensive?"

I uh, mean, uh, *cough* look, pretty lights.

Oh yeah, I was gonna say the album I was listening to xD. MAN I GOT SIDETRACKED.

It's 37 Everywhere by Punchline. Def give it a listen; it's pretty heccin good.

Another notable album I picked up was Page One by Steven Page. I very much like the first track, "A New Shore." It's quite catchy and he has a great voice imo.

Also at dollar tree, I bought a regular bag of Fieras and 2 bags of Fieras Sticks, which were marked down to 75¢/bag because they're expiring soon.

I honestly like the generic Dollar Tree version of Takis more than actual Takis. They're a lot more flavorful when it comes to the lime, but also hotter at the same time.

Don't get the hot nacho ones tho. Hot nacho? More like hot pile of shit.

HAH

Goteem.

They're not that good xD.

THE REGULAR ONES ARE FIRE THO

"How do you do fellow kids?"

I got home and started working on putting the CDs onto my computer, and then onto iBroadcast, but not without first adding The Music Man to my digital library, something I had neglected for a month or two. The CD had just been sitting there lol.

I also switched my digital file for "The Black Parade" to that of the uncensored CD, which I had purchased before I event started working over 2 months ago.

MAN I'M LAZY

I eventually get around to shit tho lol. I guess it's just a matter of priority.

What usually takes priority is digging through everything to find something that I forgot about but then remembered, making a mess in the process that I would then have to clean up, at least partially.

I think the album just ended. I've been writing for a while xD. I'ma start "I Made You Something" by The Island of the Misfit Toys.

I'll tell you where that album came from in a minute.

In the meantime, where was I?

I kinda lost my train of thought despite reading up to see where I was. Oh well. On I go.

I ate dinner and kept working on those CDs, eventually putting my clothes from the week into the washer.

I FORGOT TO PUT MY SHAPING UNDERWEAR IN. FUCKING HELL MAN.

I wanted to wash em for this week 😭

No tight pants for Leonna I guess qwq.

Meanwhile, the box of my CD album cases is overflowing. I need another box.

I keep all of the album artworks in a big CD folder. That's almost full.

I wanna fill my entire CD changer. That's one of my big goals in life. Idk why, but I just wanna legitimately fill the entire thing.

My clothes are in the dryer now. I don't think I have the time (or energy) to fold them tonight. I'll leave that for tomorrow morning before work.

And God. Fucking. Damnit. I start school again on Wednesday. NOT looking forward to that, and neither are my 2 coworkers. We already have low enough staff, but only the two of them working is gonna be a pain in the ass.

I'll still work Saturdays.

I need to contact my guidance counselor to get out of the gym class I signed up for. I scheduled this shit before I found out I was trans, and I don't wanna deal with the fucking locker room situation 🙄 I have far more important matters.

Okay so anyway, the album I'm listening to came from a cassette. I bought this cassette a few months ago at the flea market along with a few others. The reason I bought them? They were all newer cassette releases from the 2010's, and they're all actually pretty good music from very indie bands.

Currently getting mad at iBroadcast's compression algorithm. It's unnaturally fucking anything over -10db up. Oh well, there's not really anything I can do about it.

I have like 13GB of music on my phone btw. That's about 3.5k songs on 268 albums.

I'm kind of an audiophile, but I'm too cheap to pay for a lossless service. Oh well.

They do actually have a lossless service on iBroadcast, but once again, too cheap.

Someone just sent me a friend request who legitimately posted that BLM and the democratic party are hate groups.

BLOCK.

Goodbye ho.

I don't get that. They call the democratic party a hate group when they hate people like me, and I, being more of a democrat although not fully because the 2-party system is fucked, think nothing more of them than they're very wrong about certain things, especially, as shown, that black people, as well as asian, Indian, native, and people of all ethnicities and backgrounds, are not equal to white people.

Yeh.

Totally.

You go buddy.

Anyway, yeah, I can, and do, convert music and video from analog formats to digital files in order for me to archive and listen to whenever and wherever I please. I've actually made a bit of a business out of it, but I don't get too much work from it. At least I'm not overloading myself xD.

I honestly have so much more to say, but I should probably go to sleep soon.

A few final shoutouts to the following people and companies:

-Dollar Tree

-Steven Page

-Broken World Media

-The Island of Misfit Toys

-Simple Kid

-Punchline

-My incredible partner QwQ I love you so much. Thanks for being the best all the time. I hope I can give you the best life ever.

Anyway I suppose this is goodnight. Lmk if you want a full list of the CDs I bought today! I'll link that song by Steven Page here.

And here's a good song from Simple Kid

I really like music lol. Enjoy these pieces.

Anyway, goodnight lol.

Lots of love,

-Leonna.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Please gearbox I am begging you just change the techspert mod's unique skill... it is so useless with Zane's current skill set at higher levels- and higher levels are when players are mostly going to be using legendary gear

The disparity between class mod usefulness via the unique skills in this game is soooo bad. In bl2 for example I could equip a legendary mod and get +5 in the listed skills the VH already has that I know work and want significantly buffed, because the tier 1 skills on each character were still pretty useful. This game you only get +5 across all listed skills which is fine cuz then u get the unique effect, the obvious draw this time around, but some of them are baaaaad

Tl;dr: I cry but also suggest class mod reworks? That are probably op with the current anointment system but shhh we'll fix that later too. I promise (ʘ‿ʘ✿)

I know it isn't just Zane who needs class mod buffs or reworks (I've seen some pretty bad Amara ones too, I'm sure Fl4k and Moze have some rough mods as well but I have less experience), but as a Zane main with the newest patch, hsgahakwygdiwjdks

Every sntnl build atm already has the drone out constantly without that mod, there's no reason to use it as the skill buffs in this game are not significant enough to warrant it, and the unique skill is useless. The difference between techspert or cold warrior and a mod like Seein Dead or even the executor mod is really sad. Only way the first 2 are viable is if ur playing at early levels and get a lucky or vending machine drop. But u can go to handsome jackpot and get an infinitely better mod there if you've got the dlc cuz the drop rate is incredibly high. I don't get it, those types of mods are basically just filler for the loot pool? Which really shouldn't happen with legendary gear when you have a ton of randomly generated guns for that purpose which is one of the highlights of ur marketing for the game.

If they wanted the mod to be useful for lower level characters who didn't spec into duration skills and don't grind until max level, fine, I guess? But the mod can still be useful for lower level characters AND higher level characters. Maybe change the skill to all of Zane's action skill durations/cooldowns get reset on kill? That'd be an incredible buff and keep the spirit of the mod intact. Hell it'd even buff the barrier since it buffs that trees skills ANYWAY. Srsly tho why it have a zoomer buff if it is a barrier tree mod. I don't get it. It's forcing a very specific playstyle cuz the +3-5 skill buffs are only really useful when u already have 4-5 in a skill outside of, like, brain freeze. If it gave a +5 in every skill like bl2 then I could see using it with zoomer without having to go down under cover but it doesn't soooo u have to get very lucky with the 1 skill u want to use?

Also. Cold Warrior is such a bad mod. I used it a bit after release at level 50 Zane bc I was trying for a cryo Zane and it was okay, but now at 65 with Mayhem 11, it is so bad. Why the random Dots. Zane isn't even supposed to be the elemental character beyond cryo unless I'm missing something Very Important. He had the shock damage when not targeted skill, but then they changed that to cryo (I'm actually a bit salty abt that, shock is great for shields as cryo is not as effective). Regardless he's not the DoT character and giving him a mod that applies random DoTs to frozen enemies is so out of left field. It really feels like a copy of Amara's mods but worse cuz Zane can't buff DoT damage (not that those types of Amara mods aren't Bad themselves, per se, but at least they fit her playstyle and skill set) beyond getting gear that buffs it, but that's trading off potential weapon or AS damage for elemental damage and... No thanks. Not when it's a Random element and not when Zane isn't even supposed to be the DoT character.

Cold Warrior would be a cool (ha) mod if it did other stuff to frozen enemies tho. For example, this is all off the top of my head, not even my job to think about stuff like this:

Allow him to insta freeze enemies using a melee attack with a short cooldown and give him double melee damage to frozen enemies. Give him +25-50% bonus cryo damage/efficiency to all damage dealt with the mod equipped ('oh but 25% damage is outshined by anointments' FUCK YA ANOINTMENTS THEY RUIN BALANCING). Release a free frozen heart nova when Zane is damaged to 50% or lower health that restores health and shields for 25% damage dealt by the nova with a 5-10s cooldown. If you want to keep in spirit with the mod's red text, which honestly I'm starting to think was the main driving factor in the creation of this mod and NOT making Zane a fully realized VH, all cryo damage dealt by Zane has a 15% chance to deal double damage in another random element, with a short cooldown (10s?). Like the hydrafrost gun (I believe that is the one). If ya think that's broken cuz of the current anointments in the game, come join us on the dark side where we advocate for anointment nerfs and character buffs for better balancing of the main game without dlcs.

Anywho, giving that mod Fuckin' Anything creative to buff his skill set instead of tacking on random stuff that has nothing to do with his preexisting skills. That'd be great and it could allow for more builds.

Similarly with the techspert mod, again these are off the top of my head and I literally cannot do testing as I'm not a dev:

Kill Skill: Kills have a 25% chance to refund all AS cooldown and reset all AS duration (least unique but it'd at least stay near to what they wanted the mod to be and would be far more useful during end game as it acts like an actual kill skill- the hexagon can even be Zane's class mod as a tiny icon, it'd be a real cute). As this mod buffs skills in the barrier tree, I'm gonna assume players are using the barrier action skill with this mod: the barrier gains 15% amp damage and amp damage is converted to bonus shock damage. When deployed, the barrier releases a shock nova that drains the shields of enemies near Zane and replenishes his shield by 25% max capacity. The barrier gives Zane 20% bonus reload speed and fire rate (held or not, does not matter). 1x per AS duration, Zane can hold down the barrier deploy key to end his barrier skill and release a cryo nova around it that instantly freezes enemies nearby (so you can throw down ur barrier and use it like a remote bomb for Calm Cool and Collected).

Iunno, some of these prob wouldn't work in practice, but literally anything other than "hey this class mod is Calm Cool and Collected but somehow worse even without the requirements" is good enough for me.

Changes pls :(

[justmeinadaze]

I can't get it out properly but I really want to talk about it. You don't have to read of course. Just some little tidbits about my history and things I'm dealing with currently.

As some of you know, my father passed away about 10 years ago and I don't have a relationship with my biological mother due to her toxic behavior and the child abuse I endured as a kid. I decided to go no contact with her when I started being more open about that time in my life and she refused to go to therapy with me and heal saying that I was lying, all that is in the past, and I wasn't an easy kid to handle.

Like ok am I lying or did it happen but I wasn't easy to handle in the past? Be clear, Karen! Lol.

Anyway, I have a brother from my dad's last marriage who was 8 when my dad died and just recently turned 18. He's about to graduate from high school and he confessed to me that because he was so young at the time, he feels bad that he struggles to remember a lot when it comes to our father.

After 4 years, I broke the no contact and reached out to my bio mom asking her if she still had the old camcorder tapes of me when I was a baby because it had videos of my dad as well. Now I've been asking for these tapes for 10 years and each time she brushed me off. This time I was adamant and countered every excuse she gave me.

You can't find them, I can help you look.

You can't find a place to convert the VHS, I know someone.

You don't have the money to pay for it, no worries I'll pay for the whole thing AND even come get the copies so you don't have to drive or pay for shipping.

She had the audacity to ask why this was so important to me and I told her "because my brother deserves to see and have memories of his dad especially since he can't be there to see him graduate."

That was in June of 2023...I heard nothing back. In November of 2023 I sent her a final message practically begging her not to take out her anger she had for me and my dad towards an innocent kid. My brother's a good, sweet, young man and doesn't deserves this. Again nothing... until today.

"Kathryn, you need to find something else for your brother. I can't give you what you want. Stop harassing me."

My roommate thinks she responded now because my birthday just passed so time to twist the knife. I just don't understand how someone can be that...vicious. I struggle through that in therapy in the sense of I would never do anything like that. She's so petty when it comes to me and my relationship with my father that she would deny my brother, an 18 year old boy who has done nothing to her, the chance to have memories of his dad who isn't able to be there for one of the biggest days in his young life.

It just kills me because it's just another blow not just to me but to him but it also reiterates that I'm nothing like her thank god. I would never do this. I would never intentionally hurt someone especially my kid.

If you have a biological parent like mine I'm so sorry. You deserve better <3. And you're not crazy! I've had to have my roommate remind me of that these past couple of days lol

Something happened today I wish I had an Eddie for... may write it into exist to help me process😤😥

[rodgerdelany]

How do you know you are old? Well, I am reminded every autumn. Normally, it is the big numbered birthdays that show how much time has passed. But today, I am reminded that it was 35 years ago when we recorded our first record. We probably did not think so at the time, but we were very young. At the time of recording, I was 19 years old. Steve was 20, Chris was 18. And, Don was still in high school.

I recorded this video last night using my iPhone and my Close ‘n Play record player. Here are links to much better sounding tracks:

• YouTube - https://youtu.be/6KwRMY-tiaI

• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/album/1Pq0xBaZsESfrY4m1A9mtw

• Apple Music - https://music.apple.com/us/album/rough-mix-single/1179233622

It wasn’t easy to make a record in 1986. That is, it wasn’t easy for an unsigned band to make a record. For the technical and historically curious, here is how the single came to be:

“In the Dark” and “Graduation Day” were recorded on October 22, 1986 at Fresh Tracks Studio on Cheltenham Avenue in Philadelphia. The session was recorded on sixteen track analog reel to reel tape. The session was produced by Bill Romansky who was provided by Dark Records. Both songs were recorded in a one night session lasting about ten hours. The “studio” was a row home with a live room, isolation booths, dividers and a control room on the first floor. The configuration presented some logistical challenges for recording the full band live. For example, Don recorded his drums on the first take and overdubbed his cymbals. To this day, I do not know why we did that. And, Steve used an old hollow body electric guitar with the electronics removed for the “acoustic” guitar while sitting on the washing machine in the laundry room behind the control room. We overdubbed all vocals and electric guitar parts. The tracks were mixed down to a VHS hi-fi tape a few weeks later

Recording ended-up being the easy part. The first step to turn the VHS tape into a record was Studio 4 on North Third Street in Philadelphia where we transferred the VHS tape onto a second VHS tape via analog to digital converters (important later in the story). We may have added overall treatment to the mix such as equalization and reverb as well. Next, we trekked-up to Morning Start Studios in Springhouse, Pennsylvania to digitally edit the tracks - cut noise at the beginning/ end and sped-up “In the Dark.” Then, we took the edited tape to Masterworks in Philadelphia for digital mastering where we were told in Japanese/sort of English that “Graduation Day” was too long for a single. It was a priceless conversation. Finally, we shipped the master to Creative Sound in Los Angeles for pressing of the records. While waiting to receive the records, Jefferies & Manz in Philly printed the lyric inserts and cassette sleeves for our press kits. The entire process took seven months. We finally started selling the records, pushing them to radio and playing as many shows as possible in the spring of 1987.

For the 30th anniversary of the record in 2016, the original VHS tape was transferred to digital files at the Panhandle Studio in Denton, Texas. The file was sent to Discmakers in Pennsauken, New Jersey for mastering and “In the Dark” and “Graduation Day” were finally released for digital distribution – iTunes, Spotify, Amazon… technology beyond our imagination in 1986. The original analog VHS tape was used to transfer the songs to digital files because we could not find a studio that could read the encoding on the old digital VHS tapes. Using the analog tape accounts for most of the reason why the songs on iTunes and Spotify sound different than the old records. Plus, there is analog vs digital, vinyl vs CD, mastering, compression…. We were lucky. After thirty years, there was very little analog tape degradation.

The “process” of making our first record can be characterized as having no idea what we were doing. Releasing two of my all time favorite songs to digital media took another thirty years. When captured like this, it seems like a lot of work for a couple of songs that never got us the “rich and famous contract.” But, it was pretty cool in real time and looking back it was well worth the effort.

Special thanks to all of our friends and family who helped us finish the record. We are thirty-five years grateful to those who purchased the single and to those who are still downloading and streaming our music.

[sabrinamichele]

Dear you,

I’ve meant to write you, so many times…and yet it hasn’t felt right, until now. I want to write to you, before I meet you, as I feel there’s so much I want you to know. About the girl before, the girl that was, before the woman you will one day meet. Tonight finally feels like a good time to at least start. Because tonight I just learned my last living grandparent, my grandma Mae, passed away today. My heart breaks tonight, not just because she is gone, but because you will never meet her, nor any of the amazing people who were a part of that generation, who helped raise me, helped make me who I am today. My heart aches with all that loss. The love, the life, the laughter…a familiarity so comfortable that there is almost a physical ache in the knowledge that it is forever gone. I hope one day to tell you about each of them, to hopefully give you an idea of who they were, at least to me, even if I know I will never do it fully justice. I think that’s why I want to start writing you now. Full well knowing how it must sound, and how it will look, I’m doing this for you, and I’m doing this for me.

I’ve known for just a little over a week now that my grandma had just about a week left. It wasn’t even that surprising; I have known deep down that this was probably coming— resolved myself to it, told myself all of the rational things, “this happens,” “she’s older,” etc., etc. But even still, hearing it out loud, it hit me…harder than I expected it to. And I knew that I needed to see her. I knew this was important. More than work, or the mundane day-to-day things that seem to matter so much—until they don’t. So I went, and I saw her. Even though her body didn’t seem to be hers anymore, and her mind was no longer serving her as it should, it was still her, and she knew who I was, and that was all that I could ask for. To see her, to say I loved her—and to hear her say it back—it was everything. My heart still aches for my parent and aunt and uncle who have been with her non-stop since this started, and the grief I know that they must be feeling too. Grandma Mae had just turned ninety years old. A small woman, but she had a spark. So much spunk and personality there. They lived humbly, my grandpa Vance and her—but you’d never hear her ever in a negative spirit. She always seemed to have a positive thing to say; usually it was some funny story she would be hearing about this, that or the other. “About whichmajigger” was a pretty common saying, because the name of the person would escape her. Mae and Vance lived on a farm about an hour north of the small town I grew up in, in Oregon, in an even tinier town named Halsey. There were many summers when my younger brother and I would get shipped off to our grandparents for a month (or at least it felt like a month). So many memories: That little ramshackle house, the barn, the feral cats that lived under the house—there were always kittens, which I was always chasing in the hopes of catching one to just love on it, to be inevitably scratched up mercilessly by it, drop it, and the cycle would start all over again. The old white, deep clawfoot bathtub that scratched our bottoms raw from the roughness of the tub. Hundreds of VHS tapes meticulously organized and labeled, three moves to a tape, which we spent hours watching in front of their tv in their living room. The dozens of old clocks, that you would hear in their varying chiming, dings, cuckoos, and even bird calls (yes, bird calls) at the top of every hour. I can remember being very young one night, sleeping in the living room at their farmhouse, waking up and just hearing all of those clocks—their ticking so loud in the dead of night that I just sat there and listened. I remember the stories. Oh the stories they would tell us of us “hoodlum children.” Ha! I don’t actually remember this personally, I must have been too young, but I loved hearing my grandma tell it. Both my grandparents had previous marriages, so there were often times I would come to visit that my grandpa Vance’s other grandchildren would be visiting them as well. I think there must have been four of us, all boys, save for me. My grandparents would often take us to the coast in their trailer, all of us kids sleeping on one small kitchen table, converted into a bed come night. Apparently the boys were “little terrors,” the entire time—or so the story goes, according to Grandma Mae—but, even so, they treated me like, “a little lady.” It still shocks me, thinking about it now (especially knowing how incredibly cold the ocean is off the Oregon Coast), but apparently whenever they would take us to the beach, we wouldn’t be there but five minutes before we were all of us, all four boys and Sabrina, tearing our clothes off and running pell-mell for the ocean to get in. *laughs* I think about that now, and I can’t help but laugh. We must have come out of that water completely sopping wet, sandy, and shivering from the cold—probably a complete mess and utter handful—but all Grandma Mae did was laugh when she told the story. I love thinking about her laughing. I will always remember her that way—happy, and just so easy to be around. And I remember she used to sing. I

wish my memory was better, but I think I remember she used to sing to me at night before I fell asleep. I’ve always thought it was my grandma Mae that got me singing when I was a child. Something that so many people didn’t know I could do for years, because I was so terrified of getting up on a stage in front of people and singing. And even now, it seems to be a secret I have kept, yet again—one that breaks my heart. Oh how I secretly long and wish to sing again. I hope to find a way to do so again. My heart feels so big and full when I do. I hope one day to share it with you.

There are so many memories, and so many more I could share. Thank you for listening to these ones. More than anything, though…I have to admit, I hate that you’re not here. I hate it. Six years—for six years I have been navigating being single and dating, and it’s been gut wrenching. I know it’s weird—talking about it, even just acknowledging it—but I make no apologies for it. I only wish I hadn’t had to experience so much heartbreak. I wish I had already met you. I have been looking for you, this entire time—every time hoping it would be you. I do not know why I wasn’t meant to meet you yet, nor why I still haven’t met you, but I find a small measure of comfort knowing I may not have been ready to (yet). But I am now. I am so ready. With that said, I am sorry you will not ever know the girl I was, before. The strong-willed, headstrong, stubborn, full of life girl that I was. She’s still there, I promise. She still has her moments. Haha! I’m sorry you will not meet a girl with the naïveté of youth, or wanting a romantic, “fairy-tale” wedding. I’m afraid I have already been there, done that, and come out the other end. While I may have lost some of that, the girl who wants to be treated special, like she’s the most important, most beautiful woman in the room—she’s still in there. I still have a romantic heart, that still beats, even after having been broken a few times. I just don’t know how much more I can take, to be perfectly honest. I want to find you, I want it more than I can even say…but I also have to protect this heart of mine. She’s so incredibly tired—of being stomped on, of being passed by, of not being taken care of—that I don’t think I can take it another time. So, I’ve stopped looking. And especially here—Sacramento is the worst, or at least it has been for me. That’s not to say I’ve entirely given up…at least not on the idea of you. The hope of you. That somehow you exist—as hard as that is to imagine, well-meaning people continue to tell me that you do. Here’s the thing: I will not settle. I have not settled. I’m here, living my best life, waiting for you to join me in it. I hope that you will. But even if you don’t? I will just keep on living my dreams out—with every adventure, every trip…I just sometimes wish I could have you in my life to share all of them with you. I want that so bad. I hope that one day we can share all of the stories, all of the adventures in life that led to us finally meeting. I also hope that you don’t let the strong woman you meet one day intimidate you too much; at least not enough to not approach me. I hope that you do. I hope you make the first move. I hope you aren’t afraid to ask me on a date, and the next date, and the next. I hope that, no matter when you meet me, you pursue me. And I hope you don’t ever let me go.

Until that day, I know I am going to keep loving the hell out of me, wishing you were here, but continuing on—the strong, resilient, independent woman that I am. I have so much more that I could say, but I think that’s probably enough for tonight.

So with that I will say goodnight.

Love, me.

[catflowerqueen]

In one of my many earlier posts, I mentioned that the Infinity Train, realistically speaking, is going to have to change at least a little bit due to the repercussions left in Amelia’s wake. On thinking of it further, I have to wonder how often that sort of thing happens. Like… how often does the train “update” itself? (Aside from the creation of new cars, which probably happens pretty regularly) Does it ever update itself? Because surely there have been other people who were suffering with the same or similar problems to Amelia. Tulip even mentions some parallels after watching her tape. So, the question then becomes… why was Amelia the first (or at least, the first we are aware of) passenger to actually be able to unseat One-One as the conductor? In all the time it has been around and with all the passengers that had to have boarded it, I find it very hard to believe that no has at least considered it before her. But then I thought… maybe it isn’t that others haven’t wanted to, but that it wasn’t until Amelia that anyone could actually be able to. What if the train doesn’t do regular updates on itself?

Consider the technology we’ve seen on the train so far. Disregarding the specific “themes” inside the cars, they all seem to run pretty much the same—there are orbs underneath the floors and behind the walls that control the scenery, and such things can be changed and accessed through the porters and stewards and changed and manipulated via disconnecting and changing some wires around. Furthermore, the steward can be controlled via specific tones and frequencies. Now, consider what Tulip and Amelia were able to do all throughout book one—they could use coding and engineering to manipulate the train and cars. Amelia used phreaking not only on that one telephone, but all throughout the book. But consider this: She mentioned in her tape that this ability was a new one, implying that it had only recently been figured out. And think about some other technology the train utilizes—while the memory robots and number machine are pretty cool and futuristic, what are they storing the memories on? VHS-looking tapes. As in, an older form of technology.

What if the only reason that One-One hadn’t lost control before is that the train had that sort of technology from the beginning, but humans are only now catching up? I mean, if the train can change its appearance so drastically to lure on passengers (look at how different Tulip’s and Grace’s first look at the train was!), then who is to say it even always looked like a train? All we know about it is that it has been running for at least a century—and as the industrial revolution shows, a lot can change technology-wise in a single century. And the train itself might inadvertently be contributing to that. If people come out of watching movies like Star Wars wanting to create lightsabers, then I find it very hard to believe that no one would have stepped off that train and then immediately started to recreate some of the technology they saw in the cars.

If that’s the case, then it’s highly likely that something like Amelia was always going to happen. If it wasn’t her, it would have been someone else. And they may have managed to screw things up and make even more of a mess than she did, considering all the new technological leaps that have happened in the meantime since she’s been on the train. Again, consider Tulip and all she managed to do. Amelia presumably had to do all her work from the engine car, at least initially, but Tulip was able to repurpose and reprogram things all the way from the ball pit car.

There’s a saying that at a certain point technology can become indistinguishable from magic—and I think that humans are or will shortly reach that point in regards to the train.

And in a way, it might be a good thing that Amelia and Tulip arrived when they did and shook things up, and that One-One actually got the chance to personally interact with and help a passenger—and that it was Tulip who he interacted with. Think about some of the after-effects—now the passengers actually get a video telling them what they are supposed to be doing when they arrive on the train. I’m pretty sure that the main reason One-One recorded those is because of his memories of how lost and upset Tulip was in the beginning, and how her lack of knowledge about the number and what was going on contributed to that. And even if there was some sort of video before Amelia took over, we know that the ones we saw in book two have to be new given that One-One introduced himself as One-One, rather than his old name of “One.” And now that he’s met Lake, and seen that it’s possible for passengers to re-board the train, he will be able to make even more changes to help things run more smoothly and adapt.

And speaking of Lake and Jesse… consider the fact that Jesse brought his cell phone on the train, and was using it to take pictures. Humans only would have been able to do that fairly recently, all things considered. Jesse’s phone may have been destroyed, but what about some of the other people boarding the train? Would the images stay on their phones after leaving? Could their phones automatically upload images to the Cloud even while on the train? How much of Jesse’s early issues with his number stemmed from the fact that his watching that video of his brother over and over again might have made it even harder for him to start to move on—much like the way in which passengers who watch their own tapes risk getting trapped in their memories?

For that matter, why are they even still using VHS tapes to begin with? Is it just for the ambiance or something? I mean, I can see how it might be necessary to have them on physical tapes initially, given the way the passenger farm works, but why can’t the porters convert that all to digital and store it on flash drives/straight into the mainframe afterwards? We know they use computer technology! Amelia was messing around with it when she sent Tulip’s door away! …And are there just a bunch of cars dedicated to holding all those tapes somewhere on the train? Because that’s a lot of tapes to accumulate over time.

Anyways… I guess my point is that the train has its own journey to make in regards to how it functions, and it probably needs to be more active about it, just like the passengers. The world is changing, and it needs to change along with it to remain helpful and grow. And it’s something that was always going to happen from the start.

…I think I might have had something else I wanted to expand on with this idea, but I’m too tired right now to try and remember what it was.

[granvarones]

My love for Selena would begin as a young brown boy growing up in Tucson, AZ. As a first generation Mexican-American, and child of immigrant families, her story of embracing her Chicanaroots is what mirrored most in my life. From my earliest of memories, all I know is singing and dancing like Selena, mimicking her moves, perfecting her vocals…even putting a bandaid on my finger and tying my tshirt into a bra. I never felt freer as a kid than when I was blasting and dancing to her music in the living room when no one was home. If you haven’t guessed by now, I was an incredibly unapologetic and unconsciously Queer child. Me and my brother, who is also Queer, would get up in all the Selena drag and perform, then rush to take it all off when our Mother pulled into the driveway. Selena has always been a part of my family’s life…So much so that my Nana would record Selena’s TV appearances in between home family videos on VHS.

I am a “deep cuts” Selena fan. Before my birth in 1990, she already had many years in the game. Her 80s Tejano music is some of my absolute favorite and probably the most slept on. Watching Selena y Los Dinos evolve from kids with cute matching outfits to full fledge flashy performance attire, modern choreography and sophisticated sound is nothing short of astounding to witness. She truly had an immense love for music. I find myself now as an adult watching her live performances and still in awe of her volcanic talent. Seeing her incorporate famous 80s fashion, big hair, huge shoulder pads, and freestyle dance moves into her Pop/Tejano music has me screaming at my TV! Her “Running Man” was just so fresh!!! She was even brave enough to attempt the “Moonwalk”, and even covered both Michael and Janet Jackson songs, as well as many other 80s top 40 jams. You’ve got to Youtube her singing “Girlfriend” by Pebbles, and any performance of “Enamorada De Ti” will give you all the life!! Whew!!!!

Selena would eventually grow into a massive household name for some Latinx folks in the early 90s. I’ve recently converted all of my family’s home VHS videos to digital, and it was so funny to hear her music in the background at family gatherings as early as 1993. She is undoubtedly the reason that I myself love to sing, why I love to dance, and the reason I grew up feeling like I wasn’t the only Pochx in the world, shit, she taught me most of the Spanish I know today!

It brings me great joy to see that while she was still here with us that she knew how much she was loved. She frequently snatched all the trophies at award shows, and we can’t forget about that Grammy! Her image is now beyond the words legendary and iconic, but meteoric and phenomenal. I still can’t wrap my head around her passing. It’s been 25 years, and I am now about to turn 30, I still weep for Selena as if I somehow knew her personally. I’m so pissed at what could have been. Before her death, she was working with the likes of Dianne Warren and David Morales, both famed and highly coveted and respected musicians. She was going to be a massive star, I just know it. Today her legacy lives on, no Quinceanera, sweet 16, wedding, or even backyard junta is safe from a Selena cumbia. Whenever I go to live music shows where artists perform her music, I cheer with excitement because I never got the opportunity to cheer for her, like I do with all of the other divas I stan for. Her voice, image, laugh, smile, entrepreneurship, hard work, creativity, passion and determination has been and always will be an inspiration to all who love her, and to those who will be introduced to her in the generations to come.

Happy Birthday Selena, we love and miss you so so much. Today I celebrate as I sing and dance in my living room for you, and we are together, siempre.

Written by: Carlos, He/Him/His

Los Angeles, CA

Gran Varones Fellow

[unpack-my-heart]

Above, Beneath, Betwixt, Between

@violetreddie @constantreaderfool @tinyarmedtrex @xandertheundead @mrs-vh @eds-trashmouth @annoyingtozier @burymestanding

Read on AO3 HERE

To: stanelyuris@outlook.com

From: trashmouthtozier@gmail.com

Dear Stan The Reanimating Man,

Howzzit. My name is Richard Wentworth Tozier The First, and I’m being haunted.

Well, haunted is a strong word. There’s a guy that lives in (deads in?) my house who insists he died in the 1940s. I can’t touch him, and he walks through my walls when I’m in the shower and last night he burnt all my food when he floated through the table. Burnt broccoli is no laughing matter, Stanley. So I’m inclined to believe him.

Now, your website has confused me somewhat. Are you a wizard? Do you use a wand? Or are you some sort of reverse exorcist? It says that you’re a ‘corporeal reanimator’ but that just makes me think of Victor Frankenstein and we all know how that went down. I’m getting distracted.

I need your help.

Can you come and visit me and Eds? Eds is the ghost, the dead dude, the broccoli burner etc etc. I’ll tell him about you. I’ll pay for your transport, of course.

I’ve attached my contact details, so please do ring me or reply to this email ASA fuckin’ P.

Anxiously awaiting your response,

Richie

Stan sat back in his comfy office chair and sighed.

A wizard.

Stanley Uris was many things, but a wizard he was not. He was perfectly clear on the website, and had provided a lengthy FAQ that went to great lengths to explain what corporeal reanimation was, and why it should not be confused with magic, witchcraft or necromancy. He was not a necromancer. He was a scientist. A man of rationality, of logic and mathematical precision, and he just so happened to be able to reanimate the dead.

He tapped out a short reply, and hit send, and before opening google to check flight times to Scotland.

To: trashmouthtozier@gmail.com

From: stanelyuris@outlook.com

Dear Richard Tozier,

I’m not a wizard. Please click here to re-read my FAQs. I am a corporeal reanimator. I can manipulate energy, I don’t have a wand, and I don’t know any spells.

I have booked a flight to Scotland that lands next Wednesday at 21:00 (9pm). You can pick me up from Edinburgh International Airport. I’ll be staying with you. I am a vegetarian.

Dr. Stan Uris.

– X –

When Richie had shown Eddie the reply from Stan Uris, he’d expected Eddie to be elated. He hadn’t expected Eddie to immediately disappear through the floorboards.

“Eds! You know I hate it when you do that,” Richie yelled, charging down the stairs into the kitchen where Eddie was pacing back and forth, hands clasped behind his back.

“We don’t know anything about this man, Richie. We don’t know who he is or what his motivations are or what he might …”

“What he might what?”

“What he might do to me,” Eddie finished in a whisper, staring at Richie with eyes as wide as dinner plates.

Richie opened and closed his mouth, failing to find the right words, the words that would reassure Eddie that he wouldn’t let anything happen to him, that he wouldn’t let a wizard zap him into the great beyond without their consent, that he’d fight tooth and nail to keep Eddie right there, with him, in their little house on the moors.

Because that’s what it was, really. Their house. The walking through the walls, the singing jaunty songs at three in the morning when he was trying to sleep, ad the way the ceiling lights would flicker violently when Eddie descended through the floorboards, maybe Richie had grown used to it. Maybe he’d laugh until his stomach hurt when Eddie pretended to get stuck half way through a wall, waving his limbs pitifully. Maybe his heart would beat erratically when he’d slip the oven mitts onto Eddie’s hands and make a show of pulling him out of the wall, and maybe his breath would catch in his throat when Eddie faux-swooned, batting his eyelashes and simpering, “my hero, Rich,” before laughing, high and bright and infectious. Maybe, in the dead of night,  Richie would watch Eddie from his bedroom window as he walked around the moors, as he shone in the dark like a star. A mass of burning rock that Richie had grown … used to. Maybe.

He’d never say as much, though.

“Rich?”

Richie blinked.

Eddie was still waiting for a response.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” Richie said, “I won’t. I won’t let him take you away”

“Do you promise?” Eddie replied, mousey-small and honeyvoiced.

“I promise, Eds. So long as there’s breath in my lungs and blood in my veins I won’t let him take you away from me”

– X –

Stan’s plane was late. Richie had been waiting in the arrivals lounge of Edinburgh International Airport for over an hour now. Mike was waiting in his truck, Mr. Chips curled up on the passenger seat, BBC Radio 4 filtering out of the speaker, a picture of perfect calm. Richie was not calm, having convinced himself thirty minutes ago that sending a stranger several hundreds of pounds over PayPal under the guise of transporting them over an ocean to help him with his ghost problem was reckless at best and downright idiotic as worst.

Fifteen more minutes pass, and Richie was seconds away from turning around and giving up when a man with a mass of curly hair and large, thin rimmed glasses appeared in front of him.

“Richard?”

“Holy shit you came”

The man smiled, a sly quirk of the lips.

“I did. Are you ready to go?”

Richie grinned, “Fuck yeah, now, lemme tell you about my Eds --”

– X –

The drive from Edinburgh to Skye was long, over five hours, but Richie found himself silent for most of it. Banished to the back seat of Mike’s truck at the first rest-stop after Stan complained of feeling car sick, his many attempts to join in the animated conversation between Stan and Mike had failed miserably.

“Yoo’v got a PhD? Are ye a medical doctor or…?”

“My PhD was in plasma physics, so I’d be useless in any emergency that didn’t involve electromagnets”

“So yer a smart one, then?”

“I suppose so”

Mike and Stan continue to chatter, the conversation ebbing and flowing effortlessly. A torturous four hours later and they’d arrived back at Richie’s little house. Richie hopped out of the truck, knees buckling immediately under the weight of his leaden bones. The lights in the house were on, and Richie could see a lacquered shadow pacing back and forth in the kitchen window.

“He’s in,” Richie muttered, gesturing towards the window.

Stan and Mike glanced towards the kitchen, but predictably, Eddie had disappeared. Richie suppressed a groan.

“Have you met him?” Stan asked Mike as he walked back to the truck, swinging the back door open and hauling his duffle bag towards him.

“Nae, I haven’t. I have – I’ve met other ghosts though, other … people”

“Oh?”

“My parents died in a house fire years ago. Ah still see my maw walkin’ around sometimes”

Richie, growing increasingly impatient, cut Stan off before he could reply.

“Maybe we could discuss Mike’s tragic history later? Do you want me to go into the house and see if I can get Eddie to agree to show himself?”

Stan was silent for several moments, pulling various small electronic devices out of his bag.

“No, I’ll go. I want to ask him something,” Stan said, tucking a small black box into the back pocket of his jeans. He held his hand out to Richie, gesturing at the house keys clutched in his hands.

“Are you sure? He’s quite flighty. I really think I should –”

“Richie. It’s fine, I’m not going to hurt him, I just want to talk,” Stan reassured, voice soft but eyes firm, confident.

Richie hesitated, but gave Stan the keys nevertheless.

“If I hear him yelling, I’m gonna come runnin’, though, just a warning”

Stan said nothing, just walked purposefully to the door of the house, opened it, and shut it behind him.

– X –

When Stan had first walked through the door into the house, he’d been prepared to have to stomp right back out again. Most of the people who called him out were frauds, or had particularly noisy water pipes. He’d give them the number of a particularly good plumber, and bill them for wasting his time.

The house was still. Too still.

“Edward?”

Silence.

“Edward, my name is Stan. I’m here to help you. Your friend Richie called me, can you come out?”

Still nothing.

“Okay, Edward. I’m going to turn off all the lights now, is that okay?”

Silence, but then a click, and the lights in the house all flicked off at once. Stan shut the fuse cupboard, and stepped into the centre of the room. The small black box in his back pocket started vibrating violently, letting off a high-pitched hum.

“You can call me Eddie, if you want”

Stan span on his heels, and there he was, as if he’d always been there. A man, around Stan’s height, maybe smaller, dressed in a khaki uniform.

“Eddie?”

“Richie said you wouldn’t hurt me but I don’t think I trust you”

“I know. You don’t have to trust me yet, but I need to ask you a favour. Can you hold this?”

Stan plucked the black box from his pocket and held it out to Eddie, who stared at it.

“What is it?”

“It’s an energy converter. I want to see what type of energy you are, it’ll help me better understand how to help you”

“What type of … energy? What does that mean?” Eddie asked, taking several cautious steps towards Stan.

“Have you ever heard the theory that energy cannot be created or destroyed?”

Eddie shook his head.

“Basically, all living things are infused with energy,” Stan continued, still holding out the black box, “and when living things die, the energy doesn’t just disappear. Sometimes it seeps into the ground and helps trees and plants to grow, sometimes it evaporates into the sky and causes electrical storms and sometimes it gets stuck”

“Is that me? Am I stuck?”

Stan nodded his head.

“You’re stuck, or, your energy is stuck, and the longer you’ve been stuck, the stronger your electrical current has become. What you are now is basically just a big ball of pure energy, and this energy can represent itself in reality as various different types depending on the context”

As he was talking, Stan felt Eddie take the black box out of his hands.

“Good, so in a few moments we should –“

– X –

A few seconds after Stan disappeared into the house, all of the lights in the house turned off at once.

“Are you soft on him?” Mike asked, breaking the silence.

“Soft on Stan? Naw,” Richie replied, knowing that that wasn’t what Mike was asking, but choosing to avoid the question nevertheless.

“Not him. Eddie. Are you soft on him?”

“He’s a ghost”

“That’s not what I asked”

“He’s dead”

“That’s not what I asked”

Richie slumped against Mike’s truck, leaning his head back on the passenger side window.

“I guess I might be just a little soft on him”

“Stan might be able to help ye. He’s smart, he’ll figure it out”

A ball of pure white light shot out of the open living room window, careening into the sky before bursting into a shock of blue flame, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. Richie screamed, slamming a hand over his mouth.

“Eddie!”

Richie and Mike ran towards the house, and started pounding on the locked door with clenched fists.

“EDDIE!” Richie roared again, debating throwing a rock through the kitchen window and throwing himself through it, broken glass be damned. As soon as he’d found a reasonable sized rock, however, the door swung open.

Stan was standing on the other side of the door, a wry smile on his face, and behind him, wringing his hands, stood Eddie.

Mike, unfazed, stuck out his hand, “nice ta’ finally meet ye, Eddie”

Richie slapped at his arm, “he can’t touch you, dumbass”

“I was jist tryin’ tae be polite, he looks like he might boak”

Stan waved his hand, as if to catch their bickering in his hands. Mike and Richie fell silent, expectant.

“I know how to help you”

– X –

It takes Stan five attempts to explain to Richie what he’d already explained to Eddie.

“So he’s just … energy?”

“Yes, Richie”

“So … he could like, power my TV?”

“No… it’s not that kind of energy,” Stan said, exasperated, before picking Richie’s phone up off the table.

“Look, if I pan the camera over you and Mike, you both look entirely normal, yes?”

Mike waved at the camera, and Richie pouted.

“You look lovely,” Stan deadpanned, before panning the camera over to where Eddie was hovering in the corner of the room, “and when I pan it over to him,”

The phone screeched, a shimmery metallic sound, and the same pure white light that had erupted out of the living room window filled the screen.

“In some ways, Eddie is light energy. Here, his energy is made up of photons. He is pure light energy, but if you touch him,” Stan stood up, and walked purposefully through Eddie’s body. Eddie shrieked, and disappeared through the wall.

Stan held up his arm, and motioned to Richie, “touch my arm.”

Richie did.

“Jesus fuck that’s hot”

“Yup. That’s thermal energy. When you touch Eddie, or when he touches you, it burns because his energy vibrates your living particles much more than they normally vibrate, so it generates heat”

“I wish I’d paid attention in physics at school,” Richie muttered, throwing his hands up in the air dramatically, “well, what’s your big grand plan to bring Eddie back to the world of the flesh?”

“I’m going to turn Eddie’s energy back into matter. Have you heard of the equation E equals MC squared?”

“Uh … was that that dude with the moustache?”

“Yes, it was the dude with the moustache. Well, I’ll be using that equation and putting Eddie’s energy through a process that is sort of like the reverse of a nuclear bomb. In his current state, he’s like an exploding nuclear bomb in stasis, so I need to reverse that process.”

At that, a very panicked looking Eddie flies through the wall.

“I’m … I’m a bomb? Could I hurt someone?”

“No, no you’re quite stable, I just need to –” Stan tries, holding his hands up as if to calm Eddie, but it doesn’t work.

Eddie starts pacing around the room, muttering to himself, and it’s then that Richie remembers when Eddie died.

“Eddie, can I talk to you in the kitchen?” Richie asks, not waiting for a response, already half way to the kitchen. Eddie follows wordlessly.

Richie shuts the door behind him, and Eddie floats through the wall.

“Richie, Rich, I don’t want to hurt you, maybe I should leave, maybe I should go out onto the moors, away from everything, away from you, I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want –”

“Eddie!” Richie cut him off, and thrust the oven mitts at a very forlorn looking Eddie.

“You’re not going to hurt me, you could never hurt me. You could never,” Richie said, sincerity dripping from his words like honey. He grabbed at Eddie’s oven-mitted hands, clasping them between his own, and wished for the thousandth time that there was nothing separating them.

Eddie blinked, eyes dry, face perfect, hair perfect.

“Please let us help you,” Richie pleased, “please let me help you”

“Okay,” Eddie whispered, and together, still joined at the hands, they walked back into the living room.