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forgotten-envies · 4 years ago

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No Stronger Thread Than Ours

Thank you @miraculously-purple for the prompt! It’s finally done! It’s ~4000 words and can either be read on AO3 here (x) or under the cut.

Wei Wuxian could only remember one conversation he ever had with his mother. It floated in his mind with little detail, the edges as hazy and warped as a dream. Sometimes, he thought he could recall the deep scarlet of his mother’s ribbon. At other times, her laughter, ringing and loud. Most often, he could not find the event itself, could not distinguish between memory and fabrication and was left with only her message, void in tone but permanent in meaning.

_________

This is your red string of fate. It leads to the one you will love and be loved by.

Wei Ying sat outside the Jiang compound, sulkily watching as a red string coiled, swayed, and darted across the lake. The setting sun warmed his back and cast a long shadow all the way to the edge of the dock. Shijie was inside, meeting her newly betrothed for the first time. Wei Ying was not inside because the stuck-up, gold-plated peacock had dragged his dog with him.

He kicked the water and watched the thread bob like a fishing line. It was an ongoing experiment of his, to see which objects could affect it. People couldn’t, other than him. Nor dogs or trees. He bet even the claws of a divine beast would pass right through. Still, it rippled in the wind and water as if it were actually there and affected. It wasn’t. He’d tried fishing with the thing before, but no bait could be attached. He had high hopes for using it with a spiritually-infused needle, though.

A tug on the string pulled a grin out of him. There is, of course, one other person that can touch it. The one on the other end. He pulled it into a taught red line strung between two fingers and plucked it with a nail. He adjusted the length and did it again, picking out a crude melody. He thought he could make a language out of it, like the Lans do with their guqins.

This is how he was found later, scattering thoughts into notes, a phrase. A presence, tall and comforting, settled by his side. He broke off his ciphered letter and pouted up at his shijie. She smiled and folded her legs under herself. “A-Ying, what’s wrong?

He snuggled up to her side and looked up at her through his lashes, silver eyes wide. She took his hand with a giggle, familiar with this routine after two years as his shijie. ��You shouldn’t marry Jin Zixuan,” he whined.

She laughed, surprised. “Why not?”

He twirled the string around a finger. If he knew the person on the other end, he was sure they’d help him. Wei Ying spoke clearly, laying the case before his understanding shijie, “He brought a dog and said the lake smells bad. When I opened the gate for him, he asked Madam Jin to take him back to Lanling. The peacock wouldn’t eat the cakes you made for him and he didn’t even say you looked pretty!” Her face fell, but she brought an arm up to wrap around him. Wei Ying mentally kicked himself.

“Don’t be disrespectful to your seniors.” The rebuke was half-hearted and soft-edged though, and she rubbed her pinky with her thumb. The nail caught on an invisible cord and her lips lifted a little. “A-Ying, do you know where the red threads lead?”

“The person you’ll love.” He furrowed his brow, wondering what this had to do with Jin peacocks.

Warm hands patted his head. Quiet and slow she explained, “And who will love you in return. A-Ying, Mother set up my engagement to Young Master Jin because we are connected by this.” She brushes her fingers against his pinky. “Jin Zixuan is the one I will marry.”

This made little sense to the boy. “But Madam Yu and Uncle Jiang aren’t connected! You could marry someone else.”

A strange look crossed her face as she sighed. “I think they might be, A-Ying. They love each other in their own way.” He found this hard to believe; impressions of soft touches and laughter lit up the picture he’d formed of his own parents. She flicked his nose. “And Young Master Jin and I just met. It’s only natural that we don’t love each other yet.” They sat together in silence as Wei Ying composed a ‘hello’ on the thread.

Their shadows had stretched, rippling on the lake when Wei Ying’s small, unsure voice asked, “Does it take a long time?”

“Hm?”

“To love someone?”

She shook her head and pulled him closer. “I think it takes longer to learn how.”

_________

It may bend,

Wei Wuxian’s too-long, awkward legs tripped on a tree root. He caught himself and kept going, winding his way through the forest surrounding the lake Lotus Pier was built on.

Jiang Cheng was full of it, obviously, and a terrible prankster. Who could believe his half-spun tale of following his thread and meeting his partner? Certainly not Wei Wuxian, who’d once seen his shidi insult his crush to her face, fist clenched and the cake he’d bought as a present to her ruined. He had to laugh at the memory; the girl, a visiting disciple a few years older than them, had smiled and patted the frozen Jiang heir on his impressively blushing cheek, thanking him with a, “Red is my favorite color!” She’d disappeared while Wei Wuxian had been too busy laughing and they never saw her again.

So clearly, he had evidence.

Still, the general theory holds true. Two people were connected by a continuous thread and therefore could find each other by simply following it to its end, though parents discouraged their children from doing it. Wei Wuxian had brought it up before to Uncle Jiang and was merely answered with, “They are threads of fate. You shouldn’t rush it.”

But he was restless and it was summer. The Yunmeng sun seemed to stick to one’s skin, seeping its too-bright rays through burned ears. It turned thoughts into the soft, catching mud on the banks of the receded lakes and encouraged the most reckless of decisions.

He wiggled the string like a trill. It was a habit he’d developed, a simple way to convey laughter to the person on the other side, as he wasn’t there to teach his partner the basic language he’d made. Still, he continued expanding the language and sending his letters. He wanted that person to know how he was feeling, wanted to form a relationship. Maybe that was why he was out here, trekking through the forest and spooling red thread around his fingers before it shortened.

It was behaving… strangely, if such a thing could behave at all. It stretched through tree trunks as it normally did, unaffected, but at other points, it wound around several different trees and formed elaborate knots. He knew why the string twisted, who wouldn’t? The Thread and its Three Difficulties were taught early on in the form of stories and cemented in copious allusions. All three were directly caused by the wishes or actions of one or both thread-mates; ergo, his partner was bending the thread.

Honestly, Wei Wuxian couldn’t understand at all why someone would do this. Who didn’t want to meet their partner? Their confidant and future spouse? Well, he wasn’t anyone to be afraid of! And they were destined to love each other, after all.

He circled four trees, straightening the latest knot, and kept following it. The problem was that the thin string could barely be seen from only a few feet away, so he couldn’t simply bypass the entanglement and shorten the string as it fell behind him. So he did it this way and wasn’t sure if it was better to blame his slowly growing dizziness on the heat or his circular motions. Last night’s second jar had been a sweet mistake. He can’t bring himself to regret it.

Hours passed. Several times, he groaned out loud at especially layered or lengthy configurations but didn’t turn back. After the last one, he’d sent, “Just make it a little easier. I’m trying to be friends with you!” across the thread, but the words seemed to have no effect, or at least no positive one.

The shadows lengthened until the only light came from the talisman glittering in Wei Wuxian’s hand. Made even harder to see in the dark, the string could only be followed and not anticipated.

Finally, he could feel it straightening out, wavering less and forming only very simple knots. He smiled and trilled a laugh, recklessly bounding through the night as he chased his goal.

He seemed to reach some sort of transition in the terrain, the end of the forest, perhaps, and broke through it. He paused, tilting his head back and closing his eyes, inhaling deeply the fresh, night air, smelling faintly of lotuses.

His eyes snapped open, and suddenly, he thought he hated nothing more than the lake that spread out in front of him, illuminated by the glow of Lotus Pier at its center. He had followed the thread, gotten turned around so often that he couldn’t tell North from South, and essentially made a very large circle, ending up not far from where he had started.

In the shifting glow of the talisman, his red thread shot off into the forest once more, twisting around a tree like a last teasing, parting wave.

As he made the short walk back to his little boat, a thought, the only reasonable conclusion, cleared his mind of any lingering sun-induced daze and chilled him in a way the slight breeze could never achieve.

The recipient of his many letters, his thread-mate, did not want to be found.

_________

Stretch,

The Cloud Recesses were beautiful, quiet and peaceful in a timeless, pristine sort of way. Its stones had never been stained with spilled dye, its waters ran mountain-cold and pure, and its people walked slowly and purposefully, confident yet humble in their talents.

All of these qualities, however, faded to a pale background in the presence of its Second Jade, Lan Zhan, Wei Wuxian’s thread-mate. He was purity, icy coldness, and a cloud’s grace. He spoke little, saving his words for only the most important things, the complete opposite of Wei Wuxian who talked even when he could not speak, plucking messages to a person who never responded, aside from biting out scathing remarks about Wei Wuxian.

And that was it, wasn’t it? His jade-like face never smiled at Wuxian’s antics, only glared and turned away. His deep, soothing voice bit out rebukes for breaking the rules. His powerful frame held no comfort, but rather sidestepped gentle, yearning touches.

His red string, so bright against colorless robes, hung between them and spooled in a pile on the ground.

“Lan Zhan!”

“We are not close.”

In the frigid emptiness of a cave under Qishan, hours of battle and days of synchronous preparation led to two people, their breaths shallow and hearts weakened. They stared at each other, gold and silver mixing until one blinked, slow and threatening sleep.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan… sing for me.”

Lan Wangji, brow furrowed in pain, in worry, gently held Wei Wuxian’s hand as if it would break at the slightest movement. In the dark, no excess thread lay between them, no distance separated.

The world faded and Lan Zhan sang.

When Wei Wuxian was dropped into the Burial Mounds, he reached out, clutching the taut line as he fell, wishing he could be caught, held, saved.

When he walked out, shadows filling his fractures and curling around his steps, he did not follow the string. It spilled lax and trailing on the ground, a line of red blood against death-gray. He laughed, but for the first time since he’d begun the habit, he didn’t share it with Lan Zhan. The spirits laughed with him. Good, they said, a grating hiss, feel our resentment, feel our pain. His chest tightened with it, the weight a constant companion, now. Be our revenge! On the last word, familiar screams filled his mind and he pulled out his flute, black as the place it came from, and began playing.

He hunted and he tortured and he had his revenge. When Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan found him, smiles and laughter concealed the damage to his spirit, but the person they expected him to be had died with a prayer on his lips and left barely more than a shell for resentful energy in his wake.

“Wei Wuxian!” “Lan Wangji!”

Again, Wei Wuxian walked out of the Burial Mounds, a flute at his side and a red thread dragging on the ground before him. This time, though, a child sat on his shoulders, laughing pure and untainted, uncaring of his small dinner, lack of playmates, and a guardian who was not his parents.

The people he now lived with healed Wei Wuxian in a way that the resentful energy could not replicate. A few treasured moments with Wen Qing or a-Yuan or any of the other people who had, quite suddenly, become his family, scattered themselves throughout every bad day. They each featured prominently in the good days. No day could be called perfect when living in the Burial Mounds, but a certain balance formed, a precarious yin and yang.

On the days he was the most clear-headed, he found himself sending messages to Lan Zhan, an activity that had stopped during the Sunshot Campaign. He played about his inventions and his breakthroughs, Uncle Four’s wine and the adventures of a-Yuan. He thought, a strange feeling too warm to be resentful energy curling around his heart, that Lan Zhan would make a good father, though a stricter one than himself.

In Yiling, Lan Zhan found a-Yuan and spoiled him more than Wei Wuxian thought the austere man capable of. He shared a meal with the two, a red string pooling underneath the table. Wei Wuxian tried to keep the conversation on lighter matters, asking about gossip he knew Lan Zhan wouldn’t provide. For his trouble, he learned of a wedding he couldn’t be invited to, a painful reminder of the family he’d left behind. Inevitably and with his typical direct manner, Lan Zhan changed the subject.

“Can you control it? Will you stay like this from now on?” The Second Jade of Lan probably couldn’t imagine a life in the Burial Mounds, tainted in a way the Cloud Recesses weren’t. He would never choose to walk the single-plank bridge.

When he ran out of the tea shop, Lan Zhan followed. He spared Wen Ning and even helped return him to consciousness, but he would not stay. Wei Wuxian led him to the barrier and with a rueful look, finally answered his question.

“What other choice do I have?” Stay here, and do not leave, Wei Wuxian didn’t say.

Lan Zhan left and did not turn back.

_________

And fray,

Everything blurred together as the shadows whispered and screamed, pulling him down, down, building his resentment at himself, at the righteous, at the shadows themselves. He raised an army brimming with power and darkness, held together by an iron seal. Both him and them, control, control.

Let it burst out in a wave, let it destroy.

Weak and trembling, frayed threads touched a frayed being. “Goodbye.”

One army against another, familiar faces battling his own end, his final weakness.

As the seal broke, Wei Wuxian acknowledged a truth that he’d chosen to ignore since that day in Yunmeng with his shijie. Between his hands, the blood-red string vibrated, conveying his heart. But a pinch stilled movement and stopped sound, so nothing ever reached his thread-mate.

Lan Zhan hadn’t heard.

He plucked a laugh across the connection, no fingers to still it, and shuffling feet turned toward him.

_________

Quiet, thin notes gently pulled Wei Wuxian from the depths of sleep. Slowly, he became aware of the warmth that surrounded him, the body pressed against his chest and the quilt draped across them both. Bright, mid-morning sunlight streamed into his eyes from the window above their bed and Wei Wuxian turned his head to bury it in Lan Zhan’s hair.

The lullaby-like song stopped as his husband turned to face him, graceful in a way Wei Wuxian hadn’t thought possible before marrying him. Soft, golden eyes drifted over his face, taking in the sleepy mess of it all. His lips upturned, a content smile. Neither of them spoke, enjoying the peaceful beauty of both the morning and each other.

They didn’t often have the opportunity to spend mornings in bed together. Supervisory responsibilities required that Lan Zhan be ready much earlier than Wei Wuxian’s habitual wake-up time and they both taught the junior disciples in the afternoon. As such, he treasured such chances to simply be. No boundaries lay between them, no expectations to uphold. They could brush light kisses to tired eyes, entwine their hands, and let themselves breathe.

Wei Wuxian closed his eyes, regulating his breathing to match his husband’s as he entered a casual sort of meditation. He didn’t, couldn’t, stop thinking altogether, but he had become decent at dismissing whatever thoughts came up as unimportant in the moment. Mastery of the technique had by no means been achieved, though..

Eventually, Wei Wuxian’s curiosity got the better of him. Turning so Lan Zhan’s arm curled around his shoulders, he voiced the question that floated lazily at the back of his mind.

“What instrument were you playing?” he said, voice low and smiling, “It couldn’t have been your guqin. Wangji is deeper. Besides, you only played one note at a time and it doesn’t fit on the bed anyway.” He laughed, quieter than usual but just as happy.

Lan Zhan brought their hands to his lips, peppering a few kisses onto his husband’s knuckles. He looked up, turning their hands so that their little fingers lay in front of Wei Wuxian, the red thread connected to them wrapped loosely around their hands.

His mouth opened quickly once he understood Lan Zhan’s meaning. “You played a song… on the string?”

“Mm.” Lan Zhan hummed, low and trailing.

He rubbed their thumbs together, thinking. “You know I used to do something like that too?” He glanced over at Lan Zhan and found his head tilted forward in interest. “I made up a whole language! I was inspired by the Lan Clan, of course, but it’s very different from the guqin language, seeing as there’s only one string.”

He smiled wistfully, remembering all the letters he’d sent to his thread-mate even before he’d known it was Lan Zhan. “I would compose letters to you. You couldn’t hear them, of course,” he laughed, “but I liked imagining that you could, that you listened to each one.” He shook his head. “It was foolish, I know, but you’d silence me all the time! I had to talk to you somehow!” Lan Zhan’s face didn’t slip into his typical fond exasperation at the teasing, instead dropping the smile and becoming serious.

Wei Wuxian turned back over and brought his free hand up to cup the beautiful face. “Hey, are you okay?”

Lan Zhan looked away, a shadow of sadness coming to rest over his eyes. “I would also speak to you, in a way.”

Wei Wuxian fought to keep his many questions from bubbling out of his mouth, knowing by now to let Lan Zhan finish whatever he wanted to say.

“I composed songs on it to convey my thoughts, like Brother.” From what he had learned from them both, Lan Xichen and Lan Zhan often conveyed their emotions to each other via songs and duets. It was simpler than stumbling over words that could be misinterpreted.

“You… played me music?”

“Mn.” His ears looked a little pink, now.

Wei Wuxian smiled and moved closer, pressing their hands between their chests. “Well at least the conversation was two-sided then, even if neither of our messages reached each other.”

Lan Zhan shook his head, a slight, confused movement. “I often received a message from you.”

“A message? Nothing gets through to the other side.” He pinched the string like he used to and plucked it. No vibrations traveled to Lan Zhan’s little finger.

Lan Zhan shook his head and moved a finger to the string, flicking it quickly in a familiar motion.

Oh.

“You… you knew those were from me?”

“Yes, Wei Ying.” There was that fond exasperation, relaxed and a little teasing in itself which, fair. It’s not like anything else could have touched the string.

“Do you know what it means?” He’d never mentioned it to his husband; such a small thing had never seemed important. Besides that, it’d become natural to him, second nature.

“It is Wei Ying’s laugh.”

Surprised, Wei Wuxian did just that, a little too loud for such a morning, and, reflexively, trilled it on the thread. His eyes widened. “My Lan-er-gege knows me so well!”

Leaning in, he offered a kiss, and they stayed like that, lips barely moving against each other, for a long while, until once more, Wei Wuxian broke the silence with a quiet, “I’m glad we know how to love each other, Lan Zhan.”

Eyes gentle, he pulled Wei Wuxian into his arms.

But it will never break.

#mdzs fanfiction #modao zushi #gdc #wangxian #red string of fate au #prompt fill #wei wuxian #lan wangji #book canon

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years ago

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VinePair Podcast: What Will 2021 Bring for the Drinks World?

Making predictions about what the year in drinks will look like is always difficult, but doing so for 2021 is even harder. From uncertainty about how rapidly and extensively the broader public will be vaccinated, to questions about stimulus and support for bars and restaurants, there are many variables to consider. Yet there are some things that do seem likely, and on this week’s “VinePair Podcast,” Adam Teeter and Zach Geballe offer their predictions for the new year.

With the rise of home bartending during lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, cocktail bars will need to offer a more complex and compelling experience to lure would-be drinkers in, especially with the continued explosion of ready-to-drink and ready-to-serve cocktail products. A public that has largely avoided leisure travel might swarm traditional wine tourism destinations like Napa Valley in the second half of 2021 if doing so becomes safe again. Will a devastated tourism industry be able to handle that influx of business? These are the kinds of predictions being discussed on this week’s episode.

Listen online

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Or Check out the conversation here

Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zack Geballe.

A: And this is the “VinePair Podcast.” And Zach man, 2021, man.

Z: I know. It’s a weird time warp because, unsurprisingly, we are recording this before New Year’s Eve. You all are listening to this in the future, which is always the case, but as most pointed at the end of the year. We’ll get to our predictions in a minute, but boy, I’ve been looking forward to it not being 2020 for about the entirety of 2020. I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited for a year to be over.

A: I think that’s the case for most people. Before we jump into the predictions episode, a word from today’s sponsor. Are you aiming to cut back on calories and alcohol, but still want to enjoy a delicious glass of wine? I definitely need to cut back on calories. Mind & Body Wines are your perfect solution. These low-calorie, low-alcohol wines are only 90 calories per serving and are vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO and made without added sugar. With Mind & Body Wines, you can sip without sacrifice. Learn more at mindandbodywines.com. And now, Zach, that we are thinking about what is coming up in 2021, before we jump into that, is there anything you want to reflect on from 2020 that was just absolutely delicious? Was there something that you came across that you were just like, “man, I’m really glad I consumed that.”?

Z: Well, we all threw on our favorite drinks of 2020 in the last episode. So if you missed that, give it a listen. Adam and I summed up what happened, but at the end we got just about everyone on the VinePair team, including you and me, to mention a favorite drink or two from the year. So, that was fun. And you guys can go listen to that if you want a little more. But in this last week, it’s funny, I’m going to sound a little bit like you. Although obviously it’s a wine we both love. But I did something that I feel like you do a lot on this podcast, which is I opened a really nice bottle of Barolo the other night from a producer, Marengo, that I liked quite a bit, from the Bricco delle Viole vineyard. And it was one of those things where I drink a lot of different wines, obviously. You will hear about some of them on the podcast and all that, but Barolo has always been one of my favorites, always I’m sure will be one of my favorites. And every now and then I return to it. My wife is a big fan as well. It was everything I wanted out of a bottle of Barolo. It had tannin and acidity that I expect from Nebbiolo, but beautifully aromatic, lots of violet, hence the name of the vineyard, and smoky notes, and it’s just delicious. And we’ll get into this with predictions in a minute, but it was a reminder of, “oh yeah, this is considered one of the world’s great wine regions for a damn good reason.”

A: Yeah, man. So I did drink some Barolo. But also what I had that I had never made before and realized that it’s actually a lot easier than I thought, was a Paper Plane. So I made Paper Planes one night, and they were delicious. I mean, I did not have Aperol, so I used Select. So it’s a much darker red. So the Paper Plane actually came out a much darker red color. But I actually liked that, it was really cool. And Naomi was like, “wow, this seems very holiday-themed.” It’s just a deep, dark red cocktail. And it was just really delicious and I forgot how tasty it is. And it’s one of these cocktails that I would order out, but I never made it at home, mostly because I’m usually like, “oh, I don’t have amaro, I also don’t have Nonino. I’m just gonna use a different amaro.” And again, it worked really well. I highly recommend it to people. And then I also made another cocktail that I’ve also enjoyed a lot over the break, The Last Word. That was another really tasty cocktail. Again, it was like, “Why do I have Maraschino liqueur lying around? Why do I have green chartreuse? I guess I’ll figure this out.” I enjoyed both of those. And they were fun to play around with over the holidays. Now that we’re getting into 2021, maybe I don’t have to drink all the time. I already have my rolling machine, I do it all the time. As I’ve told you before, I always take two to three days off a week of not having a drink. And then a few other days a week I’ll have one drink and then on Friday and Saturday we’ll have a bottle of wine or something. I feel like I’m just maybe not going to have a drink for a few weeks. It’s felt like a lot. I was saying, I don’t think that dry January is going to be a huge thing this year. I still don’t think that. I do think that I’m ready to get back into a little bit of shape.

Z: I think it’s a good transition into some of what we’ll be talking about in terms of predictions. Because you mentioned dry January and I think you’re right. I think we’re in this very strange period of time. Right? Especially in the first half of 2021, where on the one hand there are signs of real hope. People are getting vaccinated. It does seem that by the end of 2021, when you and I are doing our year-end review and our predictions for 2022, probably life will be more like it wasn’t 2019 and less like it was in 2020. But we’ve still got a ways to go for most of us. Especially people who are not front-line workers and who are not high-risk individuals. It’s probably going to be months before any of us are vaccinated. And so, a lot of my predictions could split 2021 in half. But I want to start with one that I think is related to what you were talking about with cocktails. And that is, I think when people go back out to drink, I think the bars and the cocktail bars that are going to succeed are, as we talked about last week, are the ones that deliver an experience that you just cannot replicate at home, unless you are an obsessive. So tiki, I think places that are doing really intricate cocktails. I bet you now, after having made a Paper Plane and The Last Word at home, you’re like, “Do I want to pay $18 for that in a bar, or do I want to $18 for something that I never in a million years would try at home?” And so I think for the cocktail-drinking public, these nine, 10, 11 months, whatever, plus however many more before bars reopen fully, are going to have been times when people figured out the Manhattan, they figured out the Old Fashioned, they figured out the Martini, whatever they’re their go-to classic cocktail or in that realm, the Negroni, et cetera. And I just think, if you’re going to make it as a cocktail bar in 2021, you’re going to have to blow people’s minds in a way that happened a decade ago, when craft cocktail bars were really on the rise and people were smoking cocktails and setting things on fire. And I think that is where we’re going to see people’s attention because they’re going to want something they can’t do at home and they’re going to want to show, right? I think we’re going to see suspenders come back. That’s what I would say.

A: I think so. I’m going to build on this because I think it’s one whole idea. So I think two things: One, you’re 100 percent right. And two, another reason for that is going to be because we’re going to see RTS or RTD, however you want to say it, ready-to-serve drinks come online big time in 2021. And I’m not talking about the craft brands that have been doing it already. But I’m talking about the Bacardis, Diageos, Brown-Formans of the world that are going to come out with their brands attached to batch Martinis, batch Manhattans. It’s going to be all over the spirit stores. And again, you’re going to be able to get for most people now, if you don’t want to make it at home, a very solid version of that same cocktail in a box, in a bottle, in a single serve. And you’re just not going to pay that same money for that. It’s more money for that identical drink out. Right? If all of a sudden, and I have no information to back this up, but let’s just say if all of a sudden Kettle One starts bottling Martinis, right, Tanqueray does the same thing. We already know Tanqueray came out this summer with gin and tonic, right? Why are you going to pay for that out at three times markup? You’re just not. Or the other bars that I think will succeed are just gonna be the bars where people are going to just have a good time, right? And those bars are going to do really well with, as we even said, this summer frozen drinks, Margarita, gin and tonics, vodka sodas, rum and Cokes. There are going to be those bars and there’s going to be a lot of fun. And then there’s going to be the serious cocktail bars where you’re willing to spend 18 to 20 bucks a cocktail. But the idea that anyone’s going to spend $16 on an Old Fashioned anymore, I think is not going to be. Unless it’s at a place that does not exist as a bar first. So what I mean by that is restaurants, right? Where you’re like, “Well, I’m already here. And I’d like an Old Fashioned while I’m waiting for my table or to start the meal. So I’ll order one because it’s a cocktail I know, and I really like it.” But if you’re going to a cocktail bar specifically to go to a cocktail bar, I think you’re completely right. Because a lot of these cocktails are going to be even easier to enjoy at home when we have RTDs and RTSs really widely available.

Z: And I actually wonder, Adam, this is a thought that occurred to me while you were talking and is not something I had exactly thought about. But I wonder if even in the situation you described, at a restaurant, I wonder how many of those kinds of establishments, and I have some thoughts about restaurants that I’ll get to in a little bit, how many of those restaurants are really going to truly have a dedicated bartender on staff? If you can get a good- quality RTS or RTD cocktail as in your average neighborhood restaurant, do you really want to pay someone to make a Manhattan when you can just have a server open a can or a bottle, pour it into a glass or pour it over ice or whatever. You can keep your bottle of premixed Martini in the fridge, pour into a Martini glass, garnish it, and serve it. And you don’t have to pay someone to stir a cocktail. I’m not sure that right away, that’s going to be what people are OK with. But as these products become more ubiquitous, I think that will happen. And there are a lot of cocktails, frankly, I don’t even think that’s a bad thing. There’s certainly a part of me that will bemoan the lack of bartenders in restaurants and bars, from someone who thinks that it’s good for us to have jobs that people can do, since our society in this country in particular still really requires you to have a job, to be a part of society in any meaningful way, for most people. I do think you’re going to look at a lot of these positions in restaurants and bars and say, “Well, if I can pay essentially the same thing for a premixed Martini, if my pour cost is essentially the same as to buy a bottle of gin and a bottle of vermouth, and then I don’t have to pay someone to do that.” To me, that’s a hard value proposition to pass up if you’re a restaurant. And I’m sure that the big players are going to be happy to subsidize that cost, to some extent, to get those products not just into liquor stores and grocery stores, but into restaurants and bars.

A: One hundred percent. So I think another big trend we’re gonna see this year, and this is more of a prediction trend, is the return to normal is going to be uneven across the world. And what I mean by that is, I think we’re going to see a lot of countries, we’re already seeing this, by the way, that we’re haphazardly rolling out our own vaccine here and hearing about how that’s working compared to other countries that have a different organizational system, right? It’s going to take longer, I think, for us to roll out our version of the vaccine than for, let’s say, potentially in Italy or Germany, for example. And we may start seeing that those countries are getting back to normal. For trade people listening, these big conferences, there may be an in-person VinItaly this year, right? I mean, I’ve heard that it’s going to potentially happen this summer, right? There may not be a lot of Americans attending. But there may be a lot of people from Europe who attend because they all got the vaccine faster than we did. There may be a ProWein this year. There may be some other version of Bar Convent, right? ‘Cause Bar Convent Berlin happens in the fall. Right? So that may still happen this year if Germany all gets vaccinated, right? We may not have a Bar Convent Brooklyn. Or we may not have Tales in the same way, depending on what the rollout looks like. So what I’m trying to say, I guess, is there’s going to be some frustration. I think at some point being on the outside, looking in. And for other countries as well, right? As we are just all figuring out on our own. We have seen this from what happened in 2020 with how each country handled dealing with the virus in the first place, right? And who mask-mandated, who didn’t. Who locked down travel. Who didn’t. It’s going to be the same. And I think that’s to say that, I don’t think 2021 will fully be normal until, as you said, Zach, the very potentially end of the year. And I think along with that, there will be some frustration. Some people who say, “Oh, well, this doom and gloom, blah, blah, blah.” And I don’t think it’s ultimately going to be, but I think there could be months where it feels that way. When we see that there are other countries that have vaccinated faster or were more organized to do that. And we just weren’t and therefore we’re not able to return to normal as fast as they are.

Z: For sure. And that’s interesting because I had a couple of things on my list of predictions that tie into this. So I’m going to say that I think one thing that’s also going to be true is that Q3 and definitely Q4 of 2021 are going to be monster wine- tourism quarters. We can discuss it with someone else on a different podcast, on a different dimension. But let’s be honest. This whole period of time has dramatically impacted or just dramatically and differently impacted different parts of this country and in different parts of society. And there are a ton of people that I know who are, frankly, financially doing just fine. They were able to work from home. Frankly, they probably spent less money on a lot of things this year than they would have, and yes, they maybe went out and bought the rower or the Peloton, or they paid the astronomical prices to get free weights or whatever sent to their house. But for the most part, they’re not traveling, most of them. They’re probably not dining out as much. And for a lot of people, when that feels safe, when things are reopened to some extent, I mean, Napa, Sonoma, maybe if the weather’s decent still the Finger Lakes, Virginia, and Europe, too. If people are able to travel there safely and legally, I think it’s going to be a massive, massive second half of the year for tourism because so many people have missed that element. And obviously it will be big for tourism in other ways outside of wine, but that’s what we talk about here. And so it’s going to be a monster year. And yet what I think is also going to be complicated, is to what extent are the places that have been suffering and the industries that have been suffering — hospitality, tourism, to some extent air travel although they’ve obviously been heavily subsidized, are they going to be able to meet that demand? I think that’s the other big question.

A: It’s gonna be interesting. This is just anecdotal, the airlines have not released this information. I think Q3 and Q4 is the smart call here. The reason for that is, I think most people in the U.S. are hopeful that they’ll have access to the vaccine by June or July, right? So that means that the second half of the year, but really heavy in like that September, October, November, December. So I think the last four months of the year, the end of Q3, beginning of Q4, people feel like they’ll feel really safe. And I’ve seen tons of people posting online throughout this week that they have gone ahead and purchased airline tickets for that time next year, because airline fares right now are at an all-time low. So people saying, “Well, I’m going to take the risk if I need to. If I need to cancel, I’ll buy it with insurance or get reimbursed.” But people are saying that they’re seeing flights in comfort from New York to Vienna for $400 round trip over Christmas. Flights to Rome. Just because, right now, no one is traveling, so the airlines are keeping their prices low. So I think you’re right. And I think it’s going to be a combination of people who are just planning ahead and saying, “I’m going to grab it.” And there’ll be the people who did just fine saying ”screw it, I don’t care, by the time I’m ready in June to book that trip in the fall, the prices have tripled. I’m going to pay it, too, because I made a ton of money on the market in 2020.” And they’re going to go. I think it’s going to be, OK, boom time. And hopefully these tourism locations are prepared and are ready to staff up. Because I think you’re right. That’s going to be the biggest question because so many places have cut jobs, have closed, whatever, are they going to be prepared? And are the same people going to be in the market ready to work?

Z: Well, that’s another one of my other big predictions or at least things to watch for 2021. I think that the demand will be there and the demand will be there for tourism and also be there for eating and drinking out just in one’s own hometown or city. But I think a huge as yet unanswered question, and it will have to be answered in part by federal and to some extent state governments but also by people like you and me and everyone else, who reopens when it comes to restaurants and bars and what kinds of places are there to meet that demand? Because the demand will 100 percent be there. It will be a huge year, second half of the year, probably for restaurants and bars. Because every last person is sick and tired of eating at their house, drinking at their house. As much as we’ve all come to appreciate parts of it. I think that it’s true that some things will linger that we talked about, that certain cocktails will be at-home cocktails more than they’re out cocktails. But the point is people are gonna want to go do s***. I mean, we see this now when it’s unsafe for most people to do stuff and it will be all the more so when people feel it is safe or reasonably safe to do so. Yeah. But of course the big question is, again, are all the places that reopened going to be only the places with corporate money behind them? Huge multinationals behind them? I don’t know. I honestly think this is one of the hardest things to answer because we’re still in this period of time where a lot of places that are quote unquote closed for now that have not officially announced that they’re closing, but are figuring out if there’s money that comes from the federal government to help those small, independent restaurants and bars reopen, which will cost an individual operator more than they could reasonably afford in most cases. Especially if they didn’t have huge savings, which they presumably burned through trying to stay viable in the early part of the pandemic, potentially. I just don’t know whether the places that reopen, if they’re going to be as many of them, and if they’re going to be with the ethos that I think you and I generally prefer to support, which is not a massive chain of restaurants. I don’t know, I honestly don’t. I wish I could feel confident that I can make a prediction that the neighborhood spots, the small restaurant companies that we like, that I worked for, are going to come back online. I will have to wait and see on that one, I think.

A: I think what’s going to happen, we’re talking about openings, we’re about to see the largest group of new faces, money, and names in the hospitality industry in decades, because there is a lower barrier to entry. The power structure has been dismantled. There is none, right? Right now it’s about, can you afford the real estate and do you have money? And as we’ve said earlier, there are people that are hospitality fans. There’s also a generation that maybe has been saving and didn’t open, right? I think there’s going to be the places that do have, the mom and pops we’re talking about, are going to be people we’ve never met before. Because I think a lot of the people who we’ve met have gotten f***** and have lost a lot and are probably out or are out of the cities we live in. And maybe they’re going to go and open a great place in the Hudson Valley or somewhere in Pennsylvania or Jersey. ‘Cause they want to stay close to the city or for you, outside of Seattle, maybe they’re going to go to one of the wine regions or whatever, and open a nice restaurant where they can afford the rent. Because they’re done with the city, right? Because they probably got screwed by their landlord. But I think a lot of people haven’t had that experience because maybe during this pandemic, they were still in finance or they were in consulting, whatever, and they did well and now they want to back something and they have a buddy who, over the course of the pandemic, got really good at making bread. And they’re gonna open a bakery together. I mean, who knows? But I’m hearing this stuff. And I just feel like it’s going to be really interesting to see what happens. And the biggest question to me that we talked about a lot over the last few months, what does the structure of that restaurant look like? How many people will be hired for each job? Or will this be a completely new business model, right? How much will it be that every single restaurant, even the casual neighborhood restaurant needs a somm, right? Or did you just get really good at buying wine? Because you got into wine over the pandemic, and you could probably do it yourself. Why would you need to hire someone that has some certifications, right? Because you’re just opening at the end of the day, a place that serves really dope burgers and good salads and maybe a solid fried chicken, you know what I mean? If that’s what you’re doing, you don’t need a somm. Because as you said, people are going to be desperate just to go out and eat anything, including burgers. I want to eat a burger out. I want to be in a crowded restaurant. I want wine that I can buy off a list. I just am ready for that, and I think most people are. And people are going to go crazy. I think it’s good. I think we are about to see a new version of the Roaring ’20s. I think it’s going to be a massive, Roaring ’20s again, where people are going to really party for the next two years. Again, we’ve talked about this, but people who feel like we just got out of college, what it feels like to just be married, what it feels like when you go out after having your first kid. All of these things, people thought they missed and you’re gonna try to play catch up. And so I think it’s going to mean people are going to spend more income. Whether that’s a good thing for the long run and the healthy economy, maybe not. They may not save as much as they should, although they do have this to look back on to say, “Well, maybe I did need that rainy-day fund.” I just think it’s going to be really interesting to see what it looks like. But what is exciting to me is I do think you’re going to have a lot of new blood come into the industry and people that we are just unaware of. Because yeah, they got into making cocktails or something and say, “I want to own a cocktail bar.” And they’ll probably do it. That also means we’re about to see the return of the Eater Deathwatch, where there’s going to be a lot of places that don’t make it because the people who run them are green. I’ve had people reach out to me over the last month, emails like, “Hey, I’m thinking about opening a wine bar would love some thoughts” or “Hey, I was going to open this really cool cocktail bar, I’m based in Brooklyn.” A lot of people, actually,

Z: Adam, are you announcing a VinePair bar?

A: No, not at all. I don’t want to do that. But I do think that there’s a lot of people who are thinking about it throughout this whole pandemic, like, “yeah, I had a good job. I also f****** hate my job. So I want to do this instead. This sounds fun.” And they didn’t experience any of the pain that the people who owned restaurants through this pandemic experienced, right? So they’re going to come into it without having to deal with it, and they’re going to have the capital. It’s going to be really interesting.

Z: For sure. And along those lines, a thought that I’ve been having is — and you talked about whether the structure of these restaurants and bars will be the same as it had been — I think that along with that, you’re going to see the first real serious decline in two things. One is, I think tipping culture is on its way out. And I think that a lot of these places that reopen are not going to be centered around tips. And I think the other thing that’s going to change is I think we are going to have a bigger bifurcation of the industry between full service and casual or counter service.

A: You’re 100 percent correct. I was about to say that, too. I know you listened to the Popina interview I did. So when I moved to New York over a decade ago from Atlanta, there were a lot of restaurants that had the model that Popina switched to over the pandemic, right? They’re not fast casual. This is not Chipotle. They are casual dining establishments with great drinks programs, et cetera. But everything was ordered at a counter. And then you sat down and there was just a runner. There was Taqueria Del Sol. There was Figo, there were a bunch of them in Atlanta. And I was always shocked that I came to New York and there were two things: It was either a sit down restaurant with a server and a menu and whatever, or it was everything trying to be the next Chipotle. And I think that middle that James has pivoted to is going to stay. And I think he’ll stay, right? I would assume he would at least for certain services, maybe he’s fine dining on Friday and Saturday nights, or during the day, it’s counter service. Who knows? But I think you’re completely right, it’s going to be this way at a lot of places. People are going to go to a place where they can order a solid burger, but sit down and order a nice bottle of wine off of a list that then is brought to their table with their burger. I think you’re completely right. And going to be really interesting to watch.

Z: And I think it’s also one of those things where you realize an industry reset is going to make and will continue to make a lot of these, “well, that’s just the way we’ve always done it” kind of policies and practices look really obsolete. And again, unfortunately, it’s the case that front-of-house labor, in particular, is going to be the loser in all this. Because that’s where I came from, mostly. There’s a lot of positives to that. But the honest truth is, the experience that people like about restaurants is a little bit about service. It’s a little about sitting down and having someone come to your table and bring you a menu or talk to you about the menu and take your order and great. And there will be restaurants that do that, but I think there will be fewer of them. Because for most people, most dining experiences are not meaningfully different if you order at a counter and sit down, versus if you sit at the table first and look at the menu there. And it allows operators to cut costs, which is going to be huge because whether it’s existing businesses that try to reboot, or some of these new ventures that aren’t backed by huge amounts of money, they are going to be tight on funds. I think also you’re going to see, along with that — and I hope this isn’t too in the weeds or too technical, but I think you’re going to see a lot of distributors and purveyors who also got badly, badly f***** by the way things went down, especially in March and April where people closed down and basically said, “Hey, look, I’m not doing any business. I can’t pay you what I owe you. I can’t pay you for the wine shipment I received last week.” And a lot of places operate with 30-day terms or 60-day terms where you don’t pay the moment the wine shows up at your doorstep. You pay once you’ve sold a decent amount of it or when you have cashflow coming through from that. And so same thing with food, et cetera. I think you’re going to see a lot of the distributors and purveyors that are still there, that maybe were able to pivot to selling to grocery stores or to places that were doing delivery and takeout, et cetera. They’re going to be cautious, too. Everyone’s going to be cautious. I mean, a lot of cash on the barrelhead transactions for a while. And so things that allow you to keep labor costs down, especially front-of-house labor costs down are going to be big. I have one last two-part prediction, which is like a happy ending and an unhappy prediction. So I think happily for most of us, I think that fairly early in the Biden presidency, the tariffs on European wine and spirits are going to be repealed. I don’t really see that as being a thing that sticks around, it’s made zero sense for anyone. And it’s a thing where all levels of the industry, big, small, everywhere is in agreement that tariffs suck, really. There’s no one who’s benefiting from it in this country, which means that I don’t think it’s going to last longer than the current sitting president will last. Unfortunately though, I think previously I was pretty optimistic that a lot of things that happened through this pandemic would create a groundswell of effort to really make direct-to-consumer, especially liquor shipping, more permissible. I’ve gotten less optimistic about that. I don’t think that we’re going to see big changes in 2021. I don’t mean we won’t see them ever, but I think one of the things that’s happened in the pandemic is power has even more firmly consolidated in some of the big brands, because they’ve been the ones who’ve really been killing it (the big companies). And I think they don’t have a vested interest in upending things. And the big distributorships very much of a vested interest in keeping control of liquor distribution. And I just don’t see there being enough of a groundswell to make much of a change in 2021. I hope I’m wrong. I really do. But that’s my two-part legalistic prediction.

A: So yeah. I have one other prediction, but I want to comment on one of the things you said. I think that you’re right about DTC. I think there will be more people that do do DTC once in a while than there used to be. The people who are screaming that DTC is the future and they’re building the next great X, Y, or Z I think are gonna not be correct. And that’s because you just cannot replicate the experience of going to the shop online. People have tried until you can build a Pandora or Spotify-like model for alcohol, which is very difficult, especially given all of the different labels. What was it, 130,000 new wines came into the market over the last year, right? Unless you can figure that out, you’re only going to be able to do that with the big brands. And the big brands are also already in the supermarket. They’re already at the liquor store. And I think that what most consumers do still value is walking into the store and asking someone and being pointed, “Hey, I read about this orange wine on VinePair. Can you point me to the orange wines you have in the store?” Because they don’t want to sit and go through that on wine.com. Not to pick on wine.com, but just all the orange wines on wine.com are available. They don’t want to do that. That is a waste of everyone’s time, right? Even if I felt that way about clothes, I’ve done a lot of online clothes shopping — I’m a fancy man, I like fashion — but I want to go back into the stores, because I would like to ultimately talk to the people at the stores, the brands I like and be like, “Hey, what great jackets do you have in?” Or whatever. Instead of looking for 35 parkas, that’s what I was doing today, right? To figure out how I can get something for the winter. I just don’t want to do that. And I think that it’s going to be a mix. We’re going to gain a little bit, but I don’t think it’s going to be to the level that everyone thinks it’s going to be very honest. And I think you’re right there. So the other thing I do strongly believe is going to happen in 2021, I think it’s going to make a lot of people who listen to podcasts, especially those who work with brands, et cetera, very happy, I do very strongly believe the data supporting the rise of premiumization will continue. The drive towards consumers to spend more money on wine, beer, and spirits is going to continue. We’ve seen it grow in the pandemic. I don’t think that’s going to change. I think the people who, as we said, had done pretty well already in the pandemic are gonna continue to do well. There’s not going to be a massive fall off there. They’re going to have money. They’re going to look for premium wines. They’re going to look for premium beers. I remember at the beginning of the pandemic, I was like, “Oh, there’s gonna be the death of the really expensive 4-pack of craft beer.” There hasn’t been. No, no, no. There hasn’t been at all. People are buying them. I was wrong. I think it’s going to continue in a very, very, very strong way, especially people wanting to go out and party and celebrate and have a good time. So if you are working with premium brands, you are going to be in a great position. If you’re working with those brands that are sub-premium, below that $15 price point, really $10 price point, I think it’s not going to be as positive as people were hoping it would be in April when we were talking to them saying, “Yeah, this is going to be just like the 2008 recession.” I don’t think it’s going to be.

Z: Yeah, well you’re right, because this recession, such as it is, is even more than that one is so weirdly divided. People who were going to spend on relatively expensive wine have largely not been hurt. I mean, there’s a lot of s***** things about it and we’ll see, legislatively and whatnot, what happens in 2021. I think in general, you’re right. I think that one thing that was wrong that maybe we got wrong and I think lots of people got wrong early on was there was a period in April or March, April, whatever, when people were hoarding and like “I’m going to buy a bunch of cheap booze.” I think maybe it also made sense when people thought that they were only going to be quarantining or staying at home for a month, two months, maybe three months. And when it became clear, well, s***, this is stretching on for who knows how long. People are like, “You know what? I want to actually drink something I like. Not just something that I bought in a panic because it was the $11 bottle of generic wine on the shelf when I happened to be at the grocery store and it was the only thing I could find.” I think you’re right. I think the premiumization will continue and will stay and will provide lots of opportunity.

A: At the beginning of the pandemic, one of the things that everyone got wrong, including us, was that we saw all these massive layoffs happening and we thought that they were going to continue. And yes, they did in the industries that we all know have been massively affected, including the one that we love, and that industry is going to need all of our help. In the advertising industry, I’m talking to agencies, or consulting, finance, et cetera, they just use Covid as an excuse to cut, to trim fat, right? That’s what they did. And you listen to any economist who has studied this for the past few months, and that’s basically the conclusion they’ve come to. Yeah, all these industries just used Covid as an excuse to literally trim back at excess bulls*** and save money and basically come out leaner, right? They didn’t cut because they were bleeding. And I think that we’re going to see that completely play out in 2021 where a lot of these companies are going to be totally fine with workers who are making not very good salaries who have money and are going to spend it. Well Zach, I can’t wait to talk more about what’s to come in 2021. So I think it’ll be a really exciting year. I think there’s gonna be a lot of cool s*** that happens. I’m definitely excited to stand in a crowded bar again. I don’t know about you. But we’ve waxed on and off for the past 30-plus minutes about our predictions, but we threw it out to some of the listeners and asked them. You’ve picked some of the best ones that were sent to you via either audio recording or on Instagram of what some of our listeners’ predictions are, so I’m going to let you play that package right now.

Z: Let’s do it. Hey everyone, Zach here. We’ll hear some listener predictions in just a minute, but I wanted to share some that we received via Instagram, of course, at VinePair and a few that I really loved that were some fun predictions. Prediction for a big year for fruit brandies. I think that could be super exciting. More transparency in spirits, so better ingredient labeling and nutritional information. Canned seltzer cocktails, another call for high-end canned cocktails, a few of you thought that that was going to be a big deal. Hard seltzer is going to have an even bigger year than they did in 2020, which I guess if everyone’s out drinking again in public, that could be the case. Frozen drinks. I think they had a pretty big year this year, but I could see them taking off again. Some upgraded and more fancy cocktail mixes for at-home work, something that Adam and I just touched on in the episode. And then, a couple that I really enjoyed were people talking about canned Champagne. I don’t know if a Champagne house would go that route, but you never do know. And then someone might just be giving me a hard time, thinks we’re going to have a big year for a natural white Zinfandel. So, we’ll hear from the listeners in just a second, but thank you all for sharing. And we look forward to getting your thoughts on 2021 as the year progresses.

Rockford: Hi, my name is Rockford. In 2020, consumers have realized how hard it is to buy your wine and have it delivered to your house as compared to groceries. So for 2021, my trend is any initiatives that can streamline this process or initiatives that can simplify overall these rules that prevent us from getting our wine delivered to your home. I think the pandemic has shown us that there is demand for wine delivery. I saw that in my neighborhood Facebook group, where people erupted in cheers when they learned that Total Wine delivered to our neighborhoods.

Lucy: Hey VinePair crew, this is Lucy calling in from London. My prediction for 2021 is Cru Muscadet. In 2020, we saw a huge amount of interest in Cru Beaujolais. And I think 2021 is the year for Cru Muscadet. It’s an amazing terroir-driven wine. Great with food, without food, and it’s got serious aging potential.

Morgan: Hi VinePair listeners, my name is Morgan Stutzman, and I work in marketing with Trinchero Family Estates. I think this year will be the year of comfort and health. I think the hard seltzers will continue to show growth and we will see the wine-based seltzers emerge within that category as the consumers branch off from traditional beer-based seltzers for more premium and different options. I think we will see an increased interest in the better-for-you wine products. The new, younger consumers are looking for more wine products that can fit into their active lifestyle without giving up their glass of wine at the end of the day. And lastly, I think the RTD market will continue to grow this year. I think Margaritas will continue to capitalize on the going out experience at home. And as people are potentially able to gather as this year goes on, I think that the larger format classic cocktails will become popular for hosting.

A: Those were all incredibly insightful.

Z: Yeah. We have some smart-a** listeners. Well, smart and smart ass actually, to be fair. There were a few that were like, “the ‘VinePair Podcast’ gets a new host” but we’re not going to play that.

A: So we’re not gonna play those, come on. But Zach, let’s keep it going into 2021. Can’t wait to talk more.

Z: Talk to you next week. Sounds great.

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair Podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits, VinePair is produced by myself and Zach Geballe. It is also mixed and edited by him. Yeah, Zach, we know you do a lot. I’d also like to thank the entire VinePair team, including my co-founder, Josh and our associate editor, Cat. Thanks so much for listening. See you next week.

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

The article VinePair Podcast: What Will 2021 Bring for the Drinks World? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/2021-predictions/

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johnboothus · 4 years ago

Text

VinePair Podcast: What Will 2021 Bring for the Drinks World?

Listen online

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Or Check out the conversation here

Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zack Geballe.

A: And this is the “VinePair Podcast.” And Zach man, 2021, man.

Z: Adam, are you announcing a VinePair bar?

A: Those were all incredibly insightful.

A: So we’re not gonna play those, come on. But Zach, let’s keep it going into 2021. Can’t wait to talk more.

Z: Talk to you next week. Sounds great.

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

The article VinePair Podcast: What Will 2021 Bring for the Drinks World? appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/2021-predictions/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/vinepair-podcast-what-will-2021-bring-for-the-drinks-world

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isaiahrippinus · 4 years ago

Text

VinePair Podcast: What Will 2021 Bring for the Drinks World?

Listen online

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Or Check out the conversation here

Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zack Geballe.

A: And this is the “VinePair Podcast.” And Zach man, 2021, man.

Z: Adam, are you announcing a VinePair bar?

A: Those were all incredibly insightful.

A: So we’re not gonna play those, come on. But Zach, let’s keep it going into 2021. Can’t wait to talk more.

Z: Talk to you next week. Sounds great.

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

The article VinePair Podcast: What Will 2021 Bring for the Drinks World? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/2021-predictions/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/639490041440337920

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atlusatlas · 8 years ago

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Soul Hackers: Extra Dungeon and Its Nice, Stable Debug Mode

Hi! It’s been a while! Again! 久しぶり, as we say in my other tongue. Tax season has come and gone here in the Pepsiman household and now work season is finally in full swing again, hence the quiet again. But! I wanted to throw up some sort of update to whet your appetites and I think I have just the thing.

Remember that Soul Hackers: Extra Dungeon disc I dumped for you all last year? I’ve poking around at its innards here and there in my down time and I figured out a while back that, it’s also got a really extensive debug mode, just like the stuff I documented for vanilla Soul Hackers on the Saturn here! And what’s more, as far as I can tell, nobody on the Japanese Internet ever unearthed this debug mode for the Extra Disc dungeon disc, which is really exciting for me in a nerdy way, even if it probably just boils down to its sheer rarity and lack of publicly available dumps aside from mine.

Anyway, the debug mode stuff! It looks and works 99 percent like the one for the main game, the details of which you can find here if you’re new to Soul Hackers’ debug features, so this isn’t going to be nearly as long of a post. There are a few interesting differences that I’ll get to in a little bit, but first, let’s quickly go over how to access the thing.

Reminder

To access the Saturn Extra Dungeon content, you’ll need a save file from the main game, which it uses to import your party and stats. For more details on the requirements your save needs to meet, visit this page where I uploaded the dump of my disc, which also includes a hacked save file that’ll work in case you’re understandably not inclined to put in the work.

Pro Action Replay/Art Money Codes

Post-Load Screen Debug Menu: Pro Action Replay: 30223802 0001 Art Money: 00223802 0001 In-Game Debug Functions: Pro Action Replay: 30223003 0001 Art Money: 00223003 0001

The instructions for loading these codes in emulation using Art Money are the same as for the main game debug codes, so consult that previous post linked above for more information on how to do that if you aren’t familiar with the procedure for doing so. As with last time, while I don’t have access to real hardware to test the Pro Action Replay cheats, they should work, as I did try them in Yabuse, an emulator that does feature native support for them and they worked like a charm, so hopefully they should play nice on a real Saturn. There are a few things to note about how these cheats work in practice, however.

First, because of the way Extra Dungeon’s content is structured specifically (ie: no save points from start to finish), you can’t really use both cheats at the same time. So if you want to access the debug menu, you’ll have to turn that cheat on, but keep the in-game debug function cheat off, and vice versa. You can turn on the in-game debug functionality flag within the debug menu like usual and it is technically possible to re-access the Extra Dungeon content after entering the menu, but it’s a huge logistical pain involving using the map warp feature and isn’t worth the effort. Just activate the menu, make a save state for it, then do the same for the in-game debug functions and then you can go back and forth between them without much trouble.

The way these cheats are activated in the game once you’ve input them also surprisingly vary depending on the method that you use. If you use Pro Action Replay, whether in emulation (not recommended with Yabuse, as its support of Soul Hackers in general is quite spotty) or hypothetically on real hardware, once you’ve input them, you’re set and don’t need to worry about anything else. However, if you’re using Art Money, you must wait until after you’ve loaded your save file before freezing the value to activate your desired cheat. For whatever reason, Extra Dungeon has a habit of trying to wipe the RAM values for both cheats after a save is loaded in emulation and will successfully override even a value that should stay frozen. Therefore, wait until you get to this screen below that immediately after loading your save to activate either cheat in emulation.

Once you’re here, you should be good to go!

Whichever way you decide to go for loading your cheats, do know that if you want to access the debug menu specifically, you’ll need to get past this introductory screen first. Unlike the vanilla Saturn version, this debug menu isn’t triggered with button codes on the file selection screen. Once you get past that screen, you’ll load right into the debug menu like usual and be able to go about your business!

So What’s Actually Different About This Version of the Debug Features?

Honestly, not a whole lot. The features for both the menu and in-game debug functionality are more or less identical, making these codes primarily useful for exploring Extra Dungeon content specifically. Having said that, there are a few interesting wrinkles that I’ve uncovered in my own research that I’ll briefly outline below.

Overall, the debug menu specifically is more stable. Indeed, funnily enough, despite being distributed a few months after the main game, the debug menu in Extra Dungeon actually works better than the vanilla game version’s in a few key areas. First and foremost, the text at the bottom that indicates whether you have the in-game debug mode turned on or off actually works properly. It defaults to the text saying “off” rather than “on” and smoothly goes back and forth between the two states properly when pressing the Start Button. Aside from the crash that still happens when trying to access the “Movie Ev” option, this is clearly how this menu is intended to actually work, rather than the slightly wonky incarnation on display in the vanilla game.

On a similar note, the “Install” option in Extra Dungeon’s debug menu actually has all of the unlockable programs you can activate in game for you to trigger as you like, rather than being completely barren in the original game’s debug menu. Handy!

Content within the Event menu is largely the same, barring some minor alterations here and there to accommodate the new content that’s unique to the Extra Dungeon disc, such as Kyouji’s art being available for viewing.

Interestingly enough, a seemingly decent amount of the original game’s content still seems to be accessible and playable on the disc. If you go to the “2D Map” option in the debug menu, you’ll be taken back out in the main game, which you can then play as normal. Your starting area seems to depend on the save file that you load into Extra Dungeon from what I’ve tested. Seeing as Extra Dungeon is just one disc, though, I imagine the game will probably go haywire if you try to access the disc transition and/or possibly anything that requires the anime FMV files to be loaded. That being said, I haven’t tested this extensively myself and can confirm that you can at least warp to late-game areas with the scripting still seemingly intact, so it might not be quite so bad, all things considered. Incidentally, if you do choose to turn on the in-game debug flag through the debug menu before sneaking back into the main game this way, the full debug functionality that you get in the overworld and other parts of the main game is at your disposal.

That should be the long and short of this debug stuff in Extra Dungeon, at least insofar as I’ve been able to determine. While in practice a lot of it covers the same ground as the debug features in the main game, it still pleases me greatly to have found a way to bring it up in this relatively obscure disc and document it for posterity. Hopefully it’ll be of use to at least some of you who like to dumpster dive into the more unique parts of Atlus history like this.

Enjoy!

-Pepsi

PS: Feel free to repost this information to sites such as tcrf.net, but please do me a favor and credit this blog, The Atlus Atlas, if you choose to do so. Doing all this research took a lot of time and I’d appreciate the recognition, especially given how I’m the one to have broken the news about all this, to my knowledge. Thanks!

#Atlus #Devil Summoner #Soul Hackers #Extra Dungeon #DS #SH #Saturn #Debug Menu

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ecotone99 · 5 years ago

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[SF] 792

The machine slowly hums its digital tune as I drunkenly slide myself between its bed and lid, setting myself prostrate on the cold fiberglass. I reach for the bundle of probes and cords and slowly, carefully, begin attaching them to the necessary points on my body. Neck, breast, stomach, arm. Neck, breast, stomach, arm. This is the seven hundred ninety-second time. The tremor in my hands attempts to fight back, screams at me to give up, but this is all I want. With the external links attached, I reach for the coffin-like lid of the memory bed and pull it down. There’s only enough room to awkwardly shift my arms from my sides to above my head, pulling the full-face visor down over myself. I breathe in deeply, breath out, prepare myself to see her again. “Begin simulation.” The whir of the instruments transition from humming to a room-filling sequence of vibrations, swishes, and jarring voltaic clunks, the inner workings of the machine banging against each other and transmitting millions of packets of data in seconds. It’s enough to make me nauseous, but I slowly inhale and exhale through my nose, softly as possible, straining to not vomit all over the visor. Finally, the machine simmers down. A female voice comes to life from the machinery below me. “Initializing.” The machine takes over. I feel my essence sucked into the virtual space of the apparatus, my mind being sponged up by the apparatus like a garden hose absorbing a cracked sidewalk’s pond. As swiftly as it starts, it is over. Here I go into the past. I open my eyes to the tightly knit log walls of a cabin, my hands on the armrests of a woodgrain cedar chair. The same components of the same log cabin. I gloss over the vintage wood stove, the contrasting steel refrigerator, the metal tool chest, and the dining table right beside me with the same polished cedar finish and three other chairs. The bed. She’s resting in it. I lift my hands inch by inch, adapting to my current reality. Sudden moves might disorient me. I gently bring myself to my feet, the chair creaking underneath my arms’ weight. The taxidermied black bear rug rustles underneath my leather boots. I’m oriented now. I can’t feel the bottle of hundred-proof whiskey I consumed in that other world. This is reality. I make my way to the bedside and gently press her shoulder. She inhales first, that light wisp of air being sucked between her full lips, then she rolls over. Her amber eyes flutter open, taking the ceiling in, taking me in. She grins. “Good morning, love.” I muster a half-smile and reply back. “Good morning, Rachel.” She stretches, her thin arms extending out until they bump against the wall behind the bed, her long legs tapping the golden lattice rising just over the edge of the bed’s end. I brush aside her wild hair with my hand so I can admire her face without barriers. The auburn strands, smooth as Mulberry silk, fall away easily. She’s still grinning. I mentally prepare the question. “Were you thinking pancakes today?” The same question. The same meal. The same cabin. Seven hundred ninety-two times. This one shall be no different. “Of course, but don’t forget the butter!” A slight giggle emits from her slightly agape mouth. The same request for butter. I nod and return the smile. Relief takes over. She’s here. She’s back. I make my way to the stove, cranking a knob and adorning a burner ring with a cast-iron skillet. I go through the checklist in my mind: mix the batter, retrieve the syrup and butter, flip at the correct time. The plodding of batter onto the skillet produces a puff of vapor and a crackling sizz. I turn my head in Rachel’s direction and speak. “So i was thinking we could sit on the pier and dip our feet in the lake after breakfast?” She sighs sarcastically. “You and that lake.” Rackel sits up and sets her miniscule, elegantly curved feet on the chilled wooden floor. “Of course we can, love. I was thinking of doing it later in the day, but it’s no problem. Whatever you want.” A single tear wells up in my eye. She lives to make me happy. The same eagerness. I finish the first flapjack and deposit it onto a pinewood plate, butter already melted and spread on top. I throw the second batch of batter into the pan and drizzle maple syrup on the first. “You know you want it too. The sun’s barely over the mountain. I never get tired of it.” I look out the window over the stove to the distant snowy crest of the single mountain present around the perimeter of Lake, barely visible over the vast expanse of the waters. A fiery orange ball rests just above the peak. The same sunrise. The second pancake is done. I continue my handiwork at the stove while Rachel slips out of her little white nightgown and into one of my plain T-shirts, adorably oversized on her form. I look down and see I’m wearing the same dark denim jeans and white tee. Her voice, almost as small as her form, flickers through the air like a low candle. “You don’t have to cook, you know. That’s what I’m here for. I can make dinner tonight. Steak and potatoes?” I wince and my mouth contorts. There never was a “tonight”. The hope and expectation in her words tear at the immersiveness of the simulation. I feel my skull throbbing, threatening to reel me back into that lesser reality. I compose myself, concentrate on my cooking, and clear my throat. “That sounds incredible, darling.” The same fucking lie. Second flapjack finished. Starting on the third. I jolt ever so slightly as Rachel’s hand rests smoothly on my shoulder. She doesn’t acknowledge the movement. Her touch shifts into a hug from behind, her arms resting on my chest, my hands holding the skillet and spatula. This is all I need. I can feel the warm breath on my shoulder and the strands of lengthy hair tickling my skin just below the tee’s sleeve cutoff. The same embrace. Another two pancakes come and go, and my work is finished. No, not work. Not a chore. This is a privilege. This is what should have been. Seven hundred ninety-two times I have prepared this meal, in this cabin, in this reality. It didn’t happen in that other world. Rachel cooked the pancakes. Rachel suggested the lake. Rachel suggested I don’t bring beer to the pier. I didn’t listen. I snap back to the moment. This is reality. I grab up the pinewood plates and serve breakfast atop the dining table. We sit and eat, Rachel with her hand on mine while she deftly cuts into her food and carefully chews. When she isn’t focused on her food, she’s burning into me with those amber eyes. A flame of affection. A beautiful burn. We finish, scrub the plates and utensils clean, and grab a cotton comforter and sweaters from the closet. I follow Rachel outside and breathe in the frigid morning air. It shocks my lungs only for a second, a stark contrast from the toasty cabin atmosphere heated by a rustic fireplace. I adjust to the temperature and we begin the walk to the pier. The late autumn leaves crunch under our feet and a rustling storm of red, yellow and brown barrels along the frozen grass. The branches of fir trees shake to the serenity of the breeze on either side of the gravel path we tread. The sun has inched its way higher into the cloudless light-tinged sky. We arrive at the pier after the short walk and spread the blanket on the moist wooden platform near the edge of the water. I sit first, then Rachel sits next to me and leans her body into my neck, laying on my shoulder. We breathe in the fresh dawn draft, no longer a shock. The surface of the lake ripples, ten thousand little waves of nature. This is my favorite. “Let’s never go back.” Rachel arches her neck a little to look into my eyes. “We can bring David here and settle down. Let’s do this for the rest of our lives.” I freeze up, fighting back another wince. I wish we could. This is all I want. “You know we can’t do that. David has school and I have to work. We’re not prepared to live off the land. But we can come here every month, if only for a weekend. It’ll always be refreshing.” Rachel tilts her head back down and lets go a sigh. “I know, love.” She rubs her hand on my knee, her bony fingers tracing imaginary shapes on the denim. I want this forever, but I can’t have it. Rachel looks me in the eye again and smiles before leaning in for a kiss. Her lips still tingle with the taste of maple, and I inhale the aroma. She emanates the scents of faint lavender and lilac. A noisy burst of static cracks the calm silence. I pull away from Rachel and look at her. A gash of white noise runs from the center of her forehead, over her eye and down to her left cheekbone. An impossible patch of skin has been replaced by a horrific anomaly. This is not the same. She’s frowning, quivering like the cold air is bothering her. She tries speaking, tries opening her mouth, but only a jumbled, incoherent array of hissing and popping escaped her mouth. The same anomalous static emanates from her mouth, resembling a jack-o-lantern with an electrical candle burning inside. I can’t move. I can only stare, a pit in my stomach dropping like an anchor from a sailboat, bringing me down into the depths of hell. Finally, instinct takes over me. I grab for her shoulders and start shaking, start screaming. “Rachel!” That is all that I can do. All that I can say. I shout her name, shaking her lightly, causing more shards of her digital skin to slip away. Her right cheekbones peels off, more white light beneath. Her other eye falls away, leaving a sightless vessel, mouth still moving, still spewing unintelligible, machine-like, guttural moans. I can’t stand the sight anymore. She’s slipping away. I reach in for a hug, but the second my body starts moving towards her, the ground and sky and love of my life fall away, warping inward, into a singular point in the center of the sun. All is black. My eyes are open, but I am enveloped by pitch. The humming sound of the memory bed is audible, but it is faltering. Sputtering. I come to my senses and realize I’m back in the room. Back in the other reality. This has never happened. Not once in seven hundred ninety-two times. I bolt up primally, instinctively, smashing the face of my visor against the roof of the bed. Pain shoots through my skull, dulled by the whiskey still pulsing in my veins. Then the roof opens to the light. My son is standing over me, the central power cord dangling in his clenched fist. “You promised me.” His eyes are puffy, his cheeks still wet. His lip is pulled upward, his mouth showing disdain, his eyes showing sadness. I take the visor off and continue to stare at him in disbelief. “What did you do, David?” He drops the cord and takes methodical, calculated steps backward. “You know what I did, Dad. I pulled the plug. That goddamn machine isn’t real. It’s not mom in there. You told me you wouldn’t do it again. Losing your job, getting drunk off your ass, being all miserable and coming in here so many times every day to lie to yourself. You sat at mom’s grave and promised me. You’re disgusting.” He’s shaking his head. He should be angry- he’s right. Rachel is gone. David continues on, shaking with rage. “What’s more is, I know you did it. The cops talked to me the night it happened. I’ve been sitting in my room, waiting for you to get better, Dad. I’ve waited so many months. At first, I didn’t blame you. I thought maybe they were wrong. Maybe you didn’t drink too much. Maybe it was the other driver’s fault. But look at how guilty you are. You can’t forgive yourself. You crashed and you killed mom, Dad. It’s your fault.” I shake my head. He’s… right. But still, I shake my head. I didn’t want him to know. I was too slow. Driving home from the cabin that day, I had drifted into the other lane, my reflexes numbed by the alcohol, and before I could seize the wheel and save her, the entire world had gone dark. I woke up in an ambulance and the paramedics told me. Rachel was dead, and her blood was on my hands. “David, please.” “I’m fucking done with you, Dad.” He turns and walks out of the room. The machine is silent. The room is silent. I can only hear my labored breathing and my thoughts. Seven hundred ninety-two times, I told myself a lie. I would never go back. I would face the true reality. But what remained of Rachel was always there, waiting for me, excited for breakfast and the sunlit morning on the pier. The other her. She’ll always be alive in my memory. I cannot accept the truth.

submitted by /u/cursedwithBDE [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/3bq3aq4

#Blogger #Story

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rrobinsonplace2018 · 6 years ago

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this is a rough outline of how i want to make the first section of the film which will be set in my house during a party. it’s written as rough notes so one might not be able to understand a lot from it, but it makes total sense to me -

“starts in POV camera pointing at floor on street, black transition simulate opening eyes, character is sat on wall blinking, drunk it seems, with a couple friends, “come ooonn mate we’re pretty much there” one says, “just a sec, i’ll be fine” keeps looking at floor, eyes close again there’s just black for 20-30 seconds or so, just sounds of cars going past and friends laughing, chatting, (maybe flash of girl’s hair suggest in thought then head voice “i hope she’s not here”) opens eyes again stands up “alright i’m cool” walking towards front door of house looks at disco lights in window music fades in from inside, friend knocks at door short wait someone opens we all say hellos hugs camera blinks and appears behind main character (third person) we see guys walk in camera moves backwards (on gimbal) pans across to window we see disco lights, condensation on window curtains are closed camera closer to window transitions to inside (camera through window effect). at party , scenes of flashing colours, lights, people dancing , music for 30-60 secs , camera pans slowly upstairs music fades a little, someone waiting for bathroom door is shut, camera floats through door guy is pissing in sink, visibly waved, looks in mirror cuts to view from mirror him looking into camera, touching face, camera has warpy effect simulate drunk vision, “fuck sake. every fucking time.” not him actually speaking audio has reverby effect as if we’re hearing his thoughts “i better dip” , stumbles out bathroom girl is there , “oh shit” in his head, “hey” weird awkwardness between them , he say something like “listen-” she’s like “not now” goes into bathroom shuts door, silence, camera warping more, starts stumbling down stairs, heartbeats sounds, main music starts, camera cuts to inside room where people are dancing, everyone is frozen cuts to shots different people disco lights still going, door is in back of shot you see main guy walk up to the door looks confused camera floats through frozen people to behind him low level watches him walking to front door he opens and leaves shuts behind him camera then moves toward closed door raises up to head height and floats through door just as fades to black and into characters point of view again just as main beat comes in (around 30 secs into track).”

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daleisgreat · 6 years ago

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Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season 1

An awesome friend surprised me a year ago by gifting me the complete BluRay series of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). Longtime readers of the blog will recall I spent most of 2014 going through and reviewing all of the Star Trek films once a month throughout the year. I can now look forward to analyzing each season of TNG right here! I may not be able to knock them out at my same rate as the movies since I only average watching about two episodes of TNG a week currently, but as I understand by the third season TNG gets pretty damn must-see, so maybe I will be cruising through the seasons at that point. As in previous TV season blogs, I will write these in a list style running down random highs and lows that popped out to me throughout the season. -TNG premiered in 1987 (trailer) via syndication and not dedicated to a single major network. This was unheard of for such a show. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek and responsible for helming The Original Series and producing on the motion pictures was responsible for helping to create and produce TNG through its first few seasons. TNG focused on a new cast and crew of the iconic Enterprise vessel and takes place in 2364, just under a century after The Orginal Series started off.

-I am stoked to finally go into this overdue journey of watching every episode of TNG. Growing up as a 90s kid there always seemed to be reruns on cable of all the Star Trek shows. I was not a regular, weekly watcher, but with four different series out by the end of the 90s it became almost impossible not to stumble upon an episode channel surfing (remember that?). I absorbed roughly a dozen episodes of each series that way over the years. TNG seemed to resonate with me the most because of its iconic cast of characters, but I have also heard strong arguments for Deep Space Nine too. -I had a fun conversation with my dad last weekend filling him in on my TNG quest and asked him about his memories of the show. I was surprised to learn he said he still watches the show because the networks still air reruns of most of the series on at late night and he usually falls asleep to it. He gave me a few fun memories of his, and we both shared a laugh at how different Ryker was in the first season without his intimidating, vintage beard.

-TNG has a strong, diverse cast and because the cast was so huge I noticed that almost every episode one or two of the supporting characters were not there so more time can be focused on the rest of the cast. The two primary stars are Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and First Officer Ryker (Jonathan Frakes) who are featured on every episode. Tasha Yars (Denise Crosby) is the badass security officer, Geordi (Levar Burton) and Data (Brent Spiner) are the two on-the-nose best friends helms-men of The Enterprise, Worf (Michael Dorn) is a battle-hardened Klingon whose advice consistently gets rejected, Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) seems to be a poor doctor as several patients pass away under her watch throughout this initial season and her son Wesley (Wil Wheaton) is not so affable either. The same can be said for Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis). I had no recollection of Tasha or Wesley at all going into the series premiere since neither was in the movies I watched a few years ago. Troi is the only character I disliked throughout the first season. Her role as counselor and her psychic ability to ‘read feelings’ could not have been portrayed any worse since her ‘psychic readings’ was basic body language and context deductions that anyone should have been able to decipher. I am told her character is far less annoying in later seasons. Wesley is also a little bit of a buzzkill as the boy wonder Ensign on the bridge solving problems that the adults swiftly brush off, but I kind of get his role being there to resonate with younger viewers.

-There was no dedicated cast member as chief engineer for the first season and that role was randomly filled by several minor actors off and on throughout the season. One of the early chief engineers was Argyle (Bill Yeager). He was only a recurring character on two episodes for the first part of the season so I cracked up upon learning he started a letter writing campaign encouraged fans to write in of support to get him on the show more frequently. Naturally this lead to him instantly being booted off the show and being replaced with other chief engineers of the week until TNG settled on Geordi taking over that department from season two on. -I recall hearing several times over the years the first year or two of TNG is a rough watch, primarily because Gene Roddenberry had final say over the show in the early years and he was notorious for countless last minute rewrites that became an issue in production. Sure enough, this season was a slog to get through with half the episodes featuring baffling plots and questioning points of conflict to base an episode around. A prominent example is the crew fighting off an airborne contamination that turns the infected into the equivalent of bumbling drunks with a maxed out sex drive. There are several other mind-numbing episodes with just as eyebrow-raising plots that made season one a chore, but there were at least several fairly good-to-strong episodes this debut season too that helped counterbalance the bad just a wee-bit.

-Even though he was not in the movies, I was aware of the ‘omnipotent presence’ known as Q (John de Lancie) due to seeing a online play-thru of the videogame Star Trek: Borg where he was the quirky sidekick in a FMV PC game chastising you for every decision you make. I was delighted to see him in the same quirky role in the two episodes he was on in the first season. I am not going to even attempt to explain his role here, but came to discover I will see him in six more episodes for the rest of TNG as he attempts stump the TNG crew with more of his dastardly challenges. -TNG looks stunning in HD! Several years ago Paramount was able to re-master the entire series in HD because TNG was shot on 35mm film. For computer special effects they had to go in and painstakingly re-master all the individual CG effects by hand. It is well worth it because the show looks stunning now, and there are a couple extra features detailing all the hard work put in with the obligatory SD-HD comparison shots and it is amazing seeing the difference.

-Speaking of extras, saying there is a ton on here is an understatement. I tallied roughly three hours of extra features on the season one BluRay, among some are HD exclusives. The gag reel is uniquely compiled compared to countless others I have seen so do not gloss over that. There are also about eight other behind-the-scenes features and of those Launch and Continuing Mission get my top picks as thorough half hour deep dives on getting the show started and casted and highlighting its pivotal moments with archived and recent interviews from nearly the entire cast and crew. If you are into the aforementioned HD/SD upgrades to the show and how they pulled it off then definitely check out Energized: Taking TNG to the Next Level as it was a truly fascinating watch at Paramount’s remarkable job re-mastering TNG. -One unofficial extra feature that has been tremendously helpful for me is the podcast, Star Trek: The Next Conversation. Two writers from the sitcom, The Goldbergs host this show that dedicates each podcast to breaking down and analyzing every episode of TNG in chronological order. Both hosts are avid Trek fans, but one has never seen TNG before for some reason and it creates a great teacher/student dynamic to the show. They helped shed a lot of background information and filled in some gaps that I did not pick up on my initial watch. Minus the over-reliance on sound effect transitions, it wound up being the perfect supplementary material I consumed after every episode of TNG and if you ever decide to start watching through TNG from the beginning I give it the highest recommendation. -Even though there are a lot of dud episodes in the first season, by the last several episodes it seemed like the cast was starting to gel and the episodes were slowly-but-surely becoming more compelling to watch. There is a tear-jerker Tasha episode that has a great final scene from her, and an awesome season finale I was on board with where The Enterprise picks up several human frozen in cryogenics in the 20th century and thaws them out for amusing antics on deck. I hear the show starts to ramp up next season, and is at max warp speed by season three on. Even though this season was a doozy, I did not mind persevering through it to see the origins of the cast and how far they will evolve in the following seasons. Please join me again here in a couple months for my log of season two! Past TV/Web Series Blogs 2013-14 TV Season Recap 2014-15 TV Season Recap 2015-16 TV Season Recap 2016-17 TV Season Recap 2017-18 TV Season Recap Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series Baseball: A Ken Burns series Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9 Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30 RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13 Roseanne – Seasons 1-9 Seinfeld Final Season Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle Superheroes: Pioneers of Television The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5

#tv/web series #star trek #star trek the next generation #gene roddenberry #Patrick Stewart #jonathon frakes #Brent Spiner #Marina Sirtis #levar burton #Michael Dorn #wil wheaton #denise crosby #gates mcfadden #bill yeager #john de lancie

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jamiekturner · 6 years ago

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CSS Text Effects: 116 Cool Examples That You Can Download

You came here for some really cool CSS text effects that will help you make amazing web typography for your websites.

In order to successfully give a website a look that is more visually impressive, designers always concentrate on placing more emphasis upon typography that is both stylish and neat in nature.

These same designers used to depend upon programs such as Photoshop to accomplish this; however, since CSS3 was implemented and supported by most browsers, things changed a lot.

You should already be seeing advanced CSS font effects on various modern websites.

These kinds of effects are becoming very popular very quickly in terms of becoming a great trend in web design.

These can also be achieved with pure CSS, which is perhaps the greatest thing about these kinds of web typography effects.

CSS3 is considered to be a true revolution when it comes to web development. The new properties contained in CSS3 allow developers to visually enhance their designs in such a way that is not only impressive in a visual sense, but is also quick and easy.

Web typography is one major thing that has dramatically changed with CSS3. You can make your design look attractive with typography and make everything visually appealing.

When it comes to web design, CSS will help you to obtain many different font effects, including using such effects as animation and clipping to spice things up a bit.

To help further illustrate this, we’ve put together a list of effects that are visually stunning and beautiful, all of which are made possible through CSS, and some of them with a little bit of Javascript as well.

Table of contents

Animated CSS text effects

CSS Shadow text effects

3D CSS text effects

CSS text background

CSS hover text effects

CSS glitch text effects

Cool CSS text effects

CSS animated text effects

Text animation

The second one of these CSS text effects is from Yoann Helin. He created in CSS this effect that you may have seen on a lot of portfolio and presentation websites.

Line text.

Animated text with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

COSMOS

While this CSS text effect isn’t the most useful one, it still is impressive.

Here’s what the author used:

vw, vh, vmin units for responsiveness

flexbox to center everything

multiple box-shadows for the stars

keyframes animation for the planets

transform to rotate the planets

[webkit] Animated “text-shadow” pattern

Uses -webkit-background-clip: text & linear-gradient to simulate striped text shadow.

Animated signing of signature (SVG paths)

Use this pen to animate writing a signature with SVG stroke-dashoffset/stroke-dasharray and CSS transitions.

SVG Path animated Text

Animated the text “Design” based on one SVG path. Click to toggle animation.

Animated text fill with svg text practice

Animated text fill with HTML(Pug), CSS(SCSS) and SVG.

Animated text with Snapsvg

Work with this feels like an old good Flash :)

Vertically rotating text css [FORK] w/ browser prefixes

Vertically rotating text with HTML and CSS.

Rotating text

HTML, CSS and JavaScript rotating text.

#Codevember 3D Quote Rotator

Using GreenSock and the SplitText plugin to create a 3D text effect.

Impossibly Tipsy

Interesting effect for text.

Foggy text effect

Cinematic intro text effect (Webkit only – text mask). This is experimental, but still had to include it among these CSS effects.

webdev series – Colorful text animation #updated

Fluid and configurable colorful text animation module made with SCSS.

CSS Text filling with water

The next one of these CSS text effects is a text filling with water animation, for preloaders and such.

GSAP Text Animation

Text effect using Greensock.

Wave text effect (with SVG/blend mode)

Wave text effect with HTML and CSS.

Shattering Text Animation

GSAP text animation. SVG path shattering. Slow motion on hover.

Squiggly Text

Squiggly text experiment with SVG filters.

Animated Headlines

A collection of animated headlines, with interchangeable words that replace one another through CSS transitions.

Text Animation: Montserrat

HTML and CSS text animation.

Shaded Text

Shaded text, a SVG + CSS3 experiment about animated shadows. It isn’t optimized for mobile devices… yet.

Animating SVG text

HTML, CSS and SVG animating text.

text color draw

Path drawing of text using greensock’s drawSVG plugin.

Pure CSS Text Animation

HTML and CSS text animation.

Animated text fill

Fill your text with animated background images – no JavaScript required.

Bubbling Text Effect

A jQuery powered example of how you can create a bubbling effect on a HTML heading. The bubbles appear as though they’re coming from behind the text, and then fade out and are removed.

Smoky Text

Combining text-shadow and CSS transforms (especially skew) for a smoky (or smokey?) effect.

jquery break/animate warping text paragraph example

HTML, CSS and JavaScript break/animate warping text paragraph example.

Animated wave clipped by text

Animated wave inside text with svg. Image in the background and gradient filling the wave.

(cool) text effect

Animated text with GIF image.

Untitled

Animated text with HTML, CSS and JS.

Splitted text reveal

HTML, CSS and JavaScript splitted text reveal.

Onion Skinning Text Morphing

Onion skinning text morphing in HTML/CSS/JS.

Text-Shadow Animate

Text-Shadow animate with HTML and CSS.

SVG video mask on text

SVG video mask on text.

GSAP text reveal animation

GSAP text reveal animation.

SVG text animation

Nice SVG text animation.

CSS Only Random Text Transform (Animated)

Generate random text transformation using CSS only.

Silent Movie Text Effect

Movie text effect with canvas.

CSS TEXT REVEALING ANIMATION

Pure CSS text revealing animation.

Letter Animation

Animating letters with CSS.

Text Line Animation

Nice text line animation with TweenMax.js.

Helo!

Click to re-draw! Mapping sprites to text is always fun.

CSS only Frozen text

CSS only frozen text effect with background-clip, blend modes and gradient text.

letters effect

Letters effect on scroll.

Masking Path Animation

Sometimes simple is just as effective as complex.

Handwriting Animation (SVG + CSS)

SVG and CSS handwriting animation. In order to optimize the SVG for animation, the graphic was chopped up into smaller pieces. This was done primarily to prevent path elements from overlapping with unrelated clipPath elements, but also allowed finer control over the animation. All of the animated path elements were exported from Adobe Illustrator and fine-tuned with code.

Animated Text Gradient

Nice animated text with gradient.

CSS Shadow text effects

CSS Dashed Shadow

Pure css hipster-ish typographic dashed shadow.

Hit The Floor Text Effect

CSS3 text-shadow effects

HTML and CSS3 text-shadow effects.

Long Shadow Gradient Mixin

A Sass (Scss) Mixin to quickly generate long shadow gradients. Suitable for both ‘text-shadow’ and ‘box-shadow’.

CSS Text Shadow

Taking a stab at a Lynda.com tutorial. CSS: Advanced Typographic Techniques using lettering.js

Text-Shadow

HTML and CSS text-shadow.

Awesome Text-Shadow

Awesome text-shadow with CSS3.

Shadow Parallax • Reactjs

Move your Mouse and Play words. Written by React, ES6, Babel transpiler.

Neon text-shadow effect

9 neon CSStext-shadow effects.

Styling Text with SVG (Second Shadow)

Styling text with SVG.

Pretty shadow

Pretty shadow with HTML and CSS.

Text-shadow

Pure CSS text shadow.

Fancy text shadow

Fancy text shadow.

Groovy CSS Effect

1960’s font effect using CSS text-shadow property along with SASS function and mixins to keep code DRY.

3D CSS text effects

3d Text effect – mousemove

Nice 3D Text effect with jQuery mousemove.

3D extrude text effect- CSS only

HTML and CSS 3D extrude text effect.

CSS Text Stroke | CSS Text Border – Infinite effect only with #CSS #html5

Change the text to see the animation again.

3D CSS Typography

Single element, multi coloured 3d text effect

Single element with multi coloured text and 3D text shadow effects. Just playing around with different CSS properties to create fun text effects.

Only SS: Text Wave

Only CSS text wave.

Skewed and Rotated Text

Text with CSS skew() and rotate().

3d text marquee effects

3D text marquee effects.

CSS text background

-webkit-background-clip:text CSS effect

Use -webkit-background-clip: text and -webkit-fill-text-color : transparent to apply a background to a text on webkit browser.

Set a color fallback for other browser.

Background clipping

Text background clipping.

SVG Knockout Text with Video Background

This demo explores creating knockout text/paths in SVG and looping a YouTube video as the fill.

SVG text mask

Gooey text background with SVG filters

Example of using a gooey SVG filter to create smooth edges around inline text with a background.

Moving Cloud Text | HTML + CSS

Moving cloud text with HTML and CSS.

CSS Attempts at text with inline skewed background

Using skew is only rendered if the item is display: block or inline-block. Some of these look the same on a wide viewport but fail differently as the viewport width is decreased.

CSS hover text effects

Opening type

Efek Typography Text Neon part 1

Text design (typography) with neon effect.

Text-mask background moving on MouseMove – v2

Trying the new feature “background-clip: text”, with background moving.

Peeled Text Transforms

This pen shows text that looks like it is peeled of the page. It has a smooth animation when hovered.

Happy Text

HTML and CSS happy text effect.

Animated highlighted text

The idea is simple, it make used of linear gradient and transition.

3d hover text effect

HTML, CSS and JavaScript 3d hover text effect.

CSS Perspective Text Hover

An experiment using webfonts in combination with CSS 3D transform tools.

Focus Text Hover Effect | HTML+ CSS + jQuery

Hover CSS effect for text.

Animated underlines

Demo of an animated underline effect. Pure CSS animation.

How do I get a custom colored underline that will span multiple lines?

Pretty underline hover effect.

Simple CSS Hover Effect using Sass Loops

Simple little hover animation. Sass loops make staggering animation delays really easy to do…you can get a lot of mileage out of them.

Spring Text Hover Effect

Just playing around with effects for buttons and thought this was pretty cool.

Blended text layers

Content generated with JS.

CSS glitch text

Colorful Glitchy 404

CSS glitched text by skew

HTML and CSS glitched text by skew.

CSS-Only Glitch Effect

Glitch sort of effect with CSS animation.

Glitch

Glitch text with HTML and CSS.

Glitchy Text

Glitchy text with HTML and CSS(SCSS).

Glitch Text

HTML(Pug) and CSS(SCSS) glitch text.

Glitched Text (study of The Verge)

HTML, CSS and JavaScript glitched text.

SVG Glitch

VHS text

VHS text with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Psycho Glitch (CSS variables & @keyframes)

The “glitch” effect, recreated with animated CSS custom properties. Pure CSS.

Simple text glitch

Pure CSS simple text glitch.

Cool CSS text effects

Slashed CSS Effect

Elastic stroke CSS + SVG

The first one of these cool CSS text effects comes from Yoksel. She chose an amazing color scheme for this beautiful CSS text animation.

SVG Text: Animated Typing

HTML, CSS and SVG animated typing.

Text typing thingamy

HTML, CSS and JavaScript text typing thingamy.

Futuristic Resolving/Typing Text Effect feat. GLaDOS

Futuristic resolving/typing text effect usually found in game or movie cut scenes to reveal text on screen.

Transmission: Glowing Text Animation

A little glowing text animation. First, some JS to wrap each letter in a span. Then a keyframe animation, with animation-delay mixin, lights up each letter in succession.

Text Scramble Effect

A little text decoding/scramble effect.

Kinetic Type with Greensock

Kinetic Type with HTML, CSS and JavaScript (Greensock).

LOVE Text Effect

Scrambled text effect inspired by the award winning Science Fiction film “LOVE”.

Auto Typing Text (function)

Auto typing text with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Typing Text

HTML, CSS and JavaScript typed text.

Typing Effect

Typing effect for text made with a simple JQuery function. Simply call the function with the element you wish to animate as the first argument and the animation speed as the second argument.

If you liked this article with CSS text effects, you should also check out these articles:

CSS And Javascript Animation Libraries To Create Awesome Effects

CSS Animation Examples That You Will Like

23 Of The Best CSS And HTML Frameworks Available To Download

The post CSS Text Effects: 116 Cool Examples That You Can Download appeared first on Design your way.

from Web Development & Designing https://www.designyourway.net/blog/web-and-mobile-design/yes-you-can-actually-make-these-text-effects-in-css/

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