#recap: 1x1

[lettingthoughtsflow]

season 1: episode 1 (crush, chop, & burn pt. 1)

alright y'all I'm bulletpointing as I watch so let's go!!

the whole "mrs. and mr. davenport" beginning scene is literally seared into my brain from childhood-i think it's funny how clearly i remember it

when we meet the team they're in these mission suit esque things and seeing as all they do is train, is that what they live in????

davenport saying "i don't want to brag, but i am incredibly smart" when introducing the kids is so wild when you consider the fact that he probably didn't have anything to do with making the kids

i love how offended they get when tasha calls them robots

tasha and leo have such a cute relationship i freaking love it

i know we hate donald, and rightfully so, but this episode really amps me up bc dude you are literally introducing them to your wife and you keep talking about them like plants you're growing

when donald is introducing the kids, tasha's the only one recognizing that they're children

"i wanna go upstairs" 😭

they literally never leave the room, it's not just because of filming and set design, they don't even have a place to run THERE'S A RAT WHEEL

@fairytalesociology said that davenport feeds the kids glorified dog food and they're so right

you can't just feed them food??? even preordered????

they eat, sleep, and bathe in their capsules no one can convince me the man was just looking to be cost effective in getting these inventions perfected (they were not children to him AT ALL)

bree is just a girl and i love her for it bc thinking about breaking into song/dance numbers is so real

If you pay attention to the background you can see chase playing with a random locker for a while and I think it’s so funny/cute

Honestly I with it opened and he was just using his bionic hearing to unlock the locker

i just noticed leo has brown paper wrapped around his textbooks and it reminds me of when my mom and i use to make book covers out of trader joes bags and decorate them 💗

baby chase was insterested in chess club and taking med school courses, he deserved more extracurriculars and hobbies in the show

the early heat vision graphics 😅

"i know a chiropractor in the phillipines" is so cute

davenport is awful but the freaking out performances are great

30 grand for a situation to go away is insane bc what really happened??? like yeah the mascot's head caught on fire but it wasn't like they destroyed the building. and even if it was a bribe to get rid of witnesses, you'd have to adress the entire school bc it was a pep rally

tasha being a mom to the kids is so cute like yeah, they're just kids

bree immediately getting excited about the party with tasha is freaking adorable, we deserved more Tasha fr

honestly i think she was more freaked out about the kids than their bionics

lecturing them about how they were designed for missions is so disheartening bc 1. you've probably told them all about how they're top sercret their whole lives and 2. they are superHUMANS

it honestly feels akin to when a parent tells a child they have to be perfect or pushes them into a career they never wanted

yes bc having no contact with the outside world will prevent their glitches and train them for missions (not to mention real life)

obviously it's the perfect solution

honestly if they socialized they would probably have better emotional regulation and control over their glitches. like you could have at least brought them to a company party (and told everyone to treat them as humans) so they have practice talking to people.

chase really was always in blue plaid from the start huh?

"they are not just science projects, they're teenagers" TELL HIM QUEEN

bro you're going to tell me that you can't reprogram your ROBOT FRIEND to like your WIFE

like he can still be snarky but he literally hates her

i really hope someone gets this, but there are a few scenes where Adam feels more like a regular person than just someone who's core personality is being kind of dumb and reckless, and the ending scene before everyone goes to bed is one of those few scenes

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

badboyhalo october 1st stream recap

okay okay quick recap for anyone who couldn't watch the stream/can't watch bad's vod (tw discussion of derealization, paranoia (being watched especially), hallucinations, bad having a BAD time, etc. if any of this stuff super bothers you then you may want to avoid badboyhalo's livestreams for the foreseeable future, he's a long-term storyteller)

Bad started off his stream with a black screen and white text.

"Welcome. Dear cucurucho, why are you in my [the text went offscreen] I just want to talk please come say hello I know your there cucurucho come come come out wherever you are cucuruchoooooooo CUCURUCHSOFIOOGI" [note: keysmash not exact]

When Bad turned his screen on, he was in dapper's room, rocking back and forth. he was calling for cucurucho and talking about it living in his house. He kept jumping at nothing. He spoke to the pictures of the kids as if they were real, and asked "richarlyson" if forever was the one in his house.

he didn't want to leave dapper's room because it was his 'safe room,' but he eventually did. His base is now covered in GIANT signs that have red text and cucurucho's model that say "NO FEDERATION ALLOWED" and "YOUR BEING WATCHED" and one more i can't remember. he put up cameras everywhere and said "Look! I have cameras! Now I know when someone comes in... and when someone leaves." which isn't super important but it was an awesome line

he ended up going to spawn to look for cucurucho, and it was full of scaffolding. bad didn't take this well. It's unclear if the scaffolding was part of his hallucinations or not, but he fixated on it 'being' cucurucho. He suspected forever, cellbit, and foolish were also cucurucho. He questioned what was and wasn't real- including himself.

Bad started SEEING cucurucho in the distance, watching him, before it would disappear again. When it came back, sometimes it was renamed. "ENJOY THE ISLAND" and ":)" were some of the renamings, and I cannot remember them all. Bad started out by chasing cucurucho, shouting at it and asking if it were various items/mobs. He saw two of them at once at once point and was lead up into slime's hold house, through flippa's room (where there was a single block of scaffolding), and then out off of jaiden's balcony.

As the chase went on Bad started to become more frightened. Cucurucho was flying. he started to lose sense of where he was (shown by the admins teleporting him around) and hallucinated a nether portal he threatened to go through.

At some point Bad questioned if Dapper was cucurucho, too.

Eventually Bad retreated to the wall to cower in a 1x1 hole that went beneath the wall. cucurucho broke several blocks in front of him and appeared, revving its chainsaw. when it disappeared again there was a hole broken into the floor that lead to a cave and LONG tunnels beneath the wall. the visual was terrifying i promise.

cucurucho chased bad through the tunnels. he was screaming “please please stop I’ll be good I promise please go away.” At one point cucurucho appeared behind bad with the name "Bad?Boy?Halo?" and bad freaked out about potentially being cucurucho.

cucurcucho chased bad through a cave system until two cucuruchos cornered him to blow bubbles. their names were "do you?" and "YES". bad ran from them and found some scaffolding loose on the ground, (which had been built up to lead him out of the cave), said "this is it, this is you" and threw into lava.

Bad warped back home, insisting, "You can't come here, you can't come here." He was calmer in his house, but then was hit by the blindness effect and started yelling about the signs and "NO FEDERATION ALLOWED." he sang a little song about it

short story short: cucurucho appeared in his house. he saw it behind a glass wall. he was furious and terrified and growling "you can't be in here." he ran into dapper's room, where it appeared AGAIN with the name "WITHOUT M***" (last few letters were in the wall lmao). bad started sprinting around his house trying to find a safe place. cucurucho chased him with a chainsaw down the aquarium hallway.

Two cucuruchos kept popping up and disappearing, both with different names each time. Bad asked them "who let you in my house?" and went through a series of names such as: foolish, forever, tina, cellbit, baghera, antoine, fit- and finally settled on Ron.

Bad went to go see Ron. The hallway was dark, and Ron's room was unlit. When Bad opened the door, Cucurucho, with the nametag "RON" above its head, looked back at him. Bad said, "I knew it. It was Ron. He let you in." A second Cucurucho appeared with the nametag "ALWAYSHERE."

Bad was given blindness again, and he started to laugh as a chainsaw whirred. We heard bubbles blowing. Then the screen faded entirely to black, and Bad said, "Come here, Ron. Come out, come out, wherever you are..."

We heard rapid damage sounds, and then the sound of eating.

(the END of his stream had black and white text "SEE You NeXt tIme :)" as an example. The other messages were classic streamer "thanks for watching" and "make sure to follow" messages with similar fucked up cases, but this was supposed to be a fast recap lmao)

TLDR: Bad's paranoia has increased to the point of hallucinations. He's now frightened of Cucurucho, and suspects that everyone on the island is/could be helping Cucurucho get into his base. He associates cucurucho with scaffolding now. He is NOT sound of mind. He ate Ron Lemons.

If I missed anything important, feel free to add on!

[durtystars]

wait i almost forgot 💀 so here we go: medium length post about ross and liz' (TV) canonical symbolism regarding each other and their relationship:

in the very first episode of the show (1x1): aunt agatha decides to have a tarot card reading after liz' wedding. this is how we first find out that ross and liz are the King and Empress of each other, the show, have what you will with that whatever.

the script explains it here:

at first i thought that was just a cute name for the both of them, but then i got curious on what those cards meant....and did i get my mind blown.

so, not only do ross and liz have dedicated cards for each other, they are actually perfectly compatible and compliment each other in every way possible. this confirms my theory that ross and liz are not average loves and that some form supernatural and/or fate was in play, because their love was portrayed much more strongly and intense than regular couples i have seen on TV (and i don't mean the chemistry between heida and aidan, yes that is very much real but i mean from an objective storyline point. for example i made a post about how in most cases where a death of a person mutually loved by the couple breaks them, it only made ross and liz stronger together).

i also looked into it a little bit more and it's not possible to have The King and Empress cards to come up unless you are deliberately doing a love reading. so agatha just decided to break out the deck of cards and do a love reading right after liz' wedding, she's so 😭😭😭

here's agatha putting down the King and Queen (Empress) cards (which we now know are ross and liz):

but that's not all. agatha continues her card reading and we see the cards for Four of Cups (i searched it up and it represents depression, sadness and insecurity - clearly francis), the wheel of fortune and The Devil (definitely george, as agatha called him that very name more than once). but then i saw another card that caught my eye (highlighted):

that really interested me, so i searched it up and the meaning is here:

this is literally the ross+liz+george love triangle (i use the term very lightly) and the valentine arc being read right here before our very eyes. also: here's The Lovers card, which is important later in the post.

so not only are ross and liz stated to be and symbolized by The King and Empress, they are also represented by another card called The Lovers. and while francis and george have their own tarot cards representing them, ross and liz are the only characters in the entire show who have separate cards that directly relate to each other, and the only ones to have a shared card together.

now, moving to the last part of the post: The Lovers card.

in the beginning of the S4 finale there's a flashback, and we see agatha do another reading (i don't necessarily know if it was a love reading), and i was curious after i found out about the S1 reading, so i peeked at the table and flipped the frame over and The Lovers card comes up AGAIN on the table.

this is why i believe my post about ross and liz' contrasting color of horses was deliberate because writers can forget a lot after a S1 launch to a S4 finale, and yet they remembered to bring in ross and liz' shared tarot card at the very beginning of the show, halfway through the episode!

(i should also put a note here to say that i'm a Christian and am not invested in this stuff for real, only within the show's context so lol.)

at the end of the day, i'm just happy these exist even if the endgame ship differs because i am sick of being gaslit and lied to by the fandom that ross and liz didn't mean anything and was nothing. if it wasn't then they wouldn't be the only characters in the show with two connected cards and the only characters to have an exclusively shared card, shown TWICE across separate seasons.

TO RECAP:

The King and Empress card w/ explanation

& The Lovers complete w/ explanation:

thank you for coming to my ted talk <3

[rags751]

SECRET INVASION EPISODE 1 REACTION!! 1x1 Recap, Breakdown, Review, & End...

[herotome]

Next up -

STORY

While the general direction (MC gets offered a job with a superhero agency and then meets its members) has not changed, I did flesh out the pacing and mechanics a great deal.

"Warden, Jade and Griffin have known each other for 6+ years, and yet they’re not as close as they could be! 💔 Maybe they’d talk more if they had a lovely MC to hang out with?"

There are now a number of group scenes where you can see the Love Interests interacting with each other, cluing you in on the team's dynamic. And of course, they each have 1x1 scenes too!

Warden's scene can go a few different ways. Among them, you can fist fight him or attempt to give him a name... He has several unique responses!

Mia and Griffin both have dynamic conversation branches.

Mia's opinion of you can drastically shift depending on your choices, whereas Griffin just seems to take mental notes on how you respond.

You can calmly ask Smokescreen a question at a totally normal volume...

And you can try to help Jade catch a bird, with minor RNG mechanics! (Certain choices will boost the odds, so it's easy to win if you actually try!!)

Finally, we have a major branching choice:

You can go home to see Katie right away, or stay for lunch to get an extended scene with certain love interests.

You may think “ah, I shall just reload and see both scenes!” but you see…!! This choice will have a small ripple effect toward how later scenes play out! (Katie will be a-okay either way!)

And I've actually... mostly finished writing the extended lunch scene...!

It has a sinful number of puns in it. You can get more if you reload the game and make different choices. A new set of puns for each lifetime...

I also tightened the worldbuilding a great deal from my initial demo plans. Like for some reason, the protagonist's interview originally took place at an art museum... like, it was some sort of cover for a superhero HQ??

The rooftop scene was also entirely unplanned and new, but gives the game a new sense of geographical scale.

While conceptualizing these locations took a lot of work, it was worth it to make the world more alive.

I can't be recapping the entire game so I'm leaving out quite a lot, but I hope you see this is quite a lot as is!! Every single love interest is getting time in the lime light, and all I really have to do now is to land the story plane. (Which is hell, btw, landing the story plane is the worst--)

Tune in next time for a code recap.

2021-2023 Devlog Recap

Hi-ho, Wudge here! I released the first demo in March 2021 (devlog #30), and it is now… a little over 2 years later with no updated demo just yet. :') But I've been up and at it this entire time!

Welcome to our very first devlog recap, an overview of everything we've done for Herotome since the prologue demo. Strap in, it's gonna be a doozy.

IN-GAME ART

Finished all the base Love Interest sprites (special mention to Dart's hero outfit and helmet rendered by Remnantation, and the smoke animation from @regal-bones)

"Mia is as reactive as potassium and wears her heart on her sleeve, which means she has quite a bit of range. She’s a sight to behold when she’s angry, but damn is she easy to beat at poker."

Finished rendering and coding Mia's introduction CG, including all her expressions and branches, and released a voiced video showing off her scene.

We made a great deal of progress on Griffin's CG as well, and that video will be coming out next. Nearly done!!

"Who’s this?! Our default MC is cornered by a strange man! Can we kiss him?"

Finished the first BAD ENDING - which has four variations and can be accessed through three distinct points in the game. Evil Eye will only appear to angrily kabedon the MC if you make certain choices!

Rendered Landlord, Clammy Lady, and Dog. (The humans have a full range of expressions, all coded in!)

Evil Eye actually has a finished sprite too, but I forgot to put him in this image... and he's already featured in a CG. So, oh well!

Redrew the MC profile pictures (apparently it's tradition, I've redrawn them almost every year)

I also made a new itch icon, new reputation icon, a new star power icon, and I started converting all my PNGs to WEBPs (reducing a LOT of data required on installs - my GUI folder alone was reduced from 63 MB to 21.1 MB).

... You know what, I'm gonna make this into "part one" and reblog with more. This just about covers the ART section, and we'll have STORY, CODE, and SOCIAL MEDIA incoming. See you then!

[in33years]

Complete Recap, Details & Thought Starters [1x1 “Secrets”]

Sliding everything under the cut so as not to expose anyone to spoilers…

What follows is:

A complete 1x1 recap

Rundown of details from this episode that seem important (to me)

Questions/statements from the episode that I’m pondering…

RECAP

Damn. The first scenes of this damn pilot got me. You’ve got a man (Michael) hanging himself with an eerily specific suicide note left beside what we’d assume is a family portrait… Then you have a boy (Jonas) waking with a start, in a cold sweat, downing pills, clearly distraught… and then a bit later, Jonas’ mom is straight up fucking some guy (Ulrich) while Jonas is trying to decide what the hell he can salvage out of the fridge for breakfast… uh, WOAH.

Needless to say, I knew within minutes that this show was gonna be a wild ride.

Next, you’ve got an intro to Peter Doppler, who is apparently Jonas’ therapist, taking a walk with Jonas in the woods checking in on how he’s been doing these past few months since his father’s passed. Jonas has a breakdown of sorts (poor baby) about how many unanswered questions his father’s passing have left him with.

We meet Ulrich’s family next and they’ve got what feels like a quirky if not a tad bit tense family dynamic. It’s a bit fun at first glance. There’s Ulrich (fresh from another woman’s bed and a jog through the woods), his wife Katharina, daughter Martha (who seems to be a bit of a social activist), older son Magnus (brooding bad boy?), and youngest son Mikkel who is just too stinkin’ adorable with his skeleton PJ’s and his magic tricks.

Jonas goes to school and has a short exchange with his friend Bartosz Tiedemann, wondering if Bart told anyone that he’s been away getting treatment for the past couple of months, and Bart lets him know that the lie he’s spread is that Jonas was away in Paris on an exchange program playing “hide the baguette”. (L O L)

Next, Ulrich walks into the police station and we learn that he’s an officer. Erik Obendorf’s parents are there raising up a stink about their missing boy. They feel like the police haven’t done enough to investigate and both Ulrich and another officer, Charlotte Doppler (Peter’s wife), are fighting to calm them down.

A mysterious figure emerges out of a cave wearing a black, hooded coat!!!

Cut back to the high school where Magnus, brooding bad boy that he is, is skipping class, smoking a joint. Franziska Doppler (Peter & Charlotte’s daughter) happens upon him and they exchange some barbs. “Shouldn’t you be inside with the geeks?” is Magnus’ first thought and Franz comes back with a cool, “Should the son of the principal be smoking a joint in school… especially such shit weed” after taking a hit. And so maybe she’s not much of a geek at all, huh? ;-) 

Back inside school, there’s an assembly and Jonas and Bart are waiting in their seats when Martha walks in. Jonas smiles at her so big that my heart almost bursts but Martha is giving him a look that reads “oh, shit…”. Jonas looks downright horrified when Bart and Martha kiss and Bart takes her hand. Martha looks clearly uncomfortable and then asks Jonas “how was France?” which makes it obvious that they haven’t talked in some time. Martha’s mom, Katharina, comes up on the stage to start the pep rally, begging the kids to come forward if they know anything about Erik’s disappearance, while Jonas can’t tear his eyes away from Bart and Martha’s joined hands… This is a moment, right here, y’all. I want to delve deeper into it. I will, too. You’ve been warned.

At the station, Charlotte and Ulrich are talking about Erik’s disappearance, too. She seems convinced that this is connected to Ulrich’s brother Mads and has a deeper meaning, which is interesting. Ulrich thinks not, and seems to think that Erik may have just run away of his own volition.

There’s a gorgeous, lavish-looking Hotel Winden and Regina Tidemann’s (Bart’s mama) at the front desk taking a call from the bank, begging for a deferment on payments. Evidently business isn’t going well, due to the disappearance of Erik (because who wants to vacation in a town where a kids’ just gone missing?… But honestly, I think the bigger question is who wants to vacation in a town with a nuclear plant? I mean, Amiright!?)

Bart and Jonas are in class and Bart’s somehow found out that Erik left his stash of drugs in the Winden Caves before his disappearance. Bart thinks their crew should go snatch it. Jonas seems to think that’s crazy…

Now, Ulrich’s visiting his mother, Jana, who apparently he hasn’t seen in a while. She’s seen something in the woods again. “A dark figure with a gigantic looking head”. But Debby Downer Ulrich doesn’t believe her. She’s also found a candy bar wrapper in the woods and it was Mad’s favorite candy…

Then there’s older Helge Doppler (Peter’s dad, Charlotte’s father in law), staring off into space in a haunting scene, chanting “it’s gonna happen again.”

Okay, creepy scene alert! Here’s where the show catapults us into this strange little room - the brightest scene that we’ve seen by far, totally contrasting the dark, gloominess of Winden - where “you spin me right ‘round” in all it’s 80′s glory is playing on an old box TV and the missing kid, Erik, is laying on a bunk bed looking… concerned. Worse, there’s a super terrible looking chair-thing in the center of the room…

Then we get The Squad in the school hallway. Jonas and Bart meet up with Magnus and Martha (and Bart and Martha kiss… again… poor Jonas) and they go back over the plan to steal Erik’s drugs from the caves that night to smoke some of and sell the rest. Oh and Franz and Magnus have another awkwardly tense run in, too… there’s a story brewing up in there there, btw. And we need more of it. Jonas is the deciding voice, eventually, with his definitive “Okay, let’s go to the caves tonight.” And that seems to be all the group needs to hear to decide to move on it.

Back at the Nielsen house, Katharina is cleaning up (But is school over already? Why isn’t she there? She’s the principal… right?) and finds what we’d assume is another woman’s hair on Ulrich’s sweatshirt. It’s the same sweatshirt he pulled on after sleeping with Hannah that morning so like.. we know it’s hers. Katharina sniffs the sweatshirt, too. For good measure. She’s definitely suspicious… and for hella good reason, smh.

Hannah’s at work in the nuclear plant as a masseuse and she’s massaging Aleksander Tiedemann (Regina’s husband, Bart’s dad). Aleks seems a little melancholy over the fact that the nuclear plant is closing soon. Apparently it’s been almost 33 years to the day since he first came to Winden.

Ines Kahnwald enters now (Michael’s mom, Jonas’ grandma), sitting in a doomy gloomy living room, receiving a voicemail from an angry Hannah about how Jonas hasn’t seen Ines in months and how the power in Hannah and Jonas’ house is out again and how, according to Hannah, Ines is “sick”. Ines doesn’t seem that bothered by Hannah specifically, though. She’s all about the “suicide note” that Michael left behind which she’s got in an ornate little box, at the living room table, staring anxiously at the clock over her shoulder, waiting for it to be after 10:13pm.

Trifling Hannah show’s up at the town meeting at the high school and hugs Katharina who may suspect Ulrich is up to something but clearly doesn’t suspect it’s with Hannah. Hell, they seem to be friends because Katharina hugs Hannah, asks how she’s doing, gives her a warm smile…

Cut to The Squad meeting up in the woods to grab those drugs. Jonas and Martha are there first and they have an exchange - Martha giving something like an apology for this thing she’s got with Bart now. Apparently she wrote Jonas a couple of texts while he was away but was scared to send them because of how Jonas’ dad died last summer. Somehow the texts felt “wrong”. Jonas swears it’s okay. Then Martha has a case of deja vu about feeling like she’s been there in the forest with Jonas before…

Magnus and Mikkel show soon and despite Martha telling Magnus that he needs to take their little brother back now, they don’t, Bart showing up and bopping Mikkel on the back of the head before one of my favorite lines from Magnus: “Hey! Only I can do that!”

As the group sets off into the forest, older Helge is loose on the streets, still chanting “it’s gonna happen again”…

Back at the town meeting, Charlotte is addressing the adults in the town, asking people to stay vigilant and report anything they hear about Erik and Katharina is talking about how there’s new security measures at school. Regina is real mad during this, and it’s obviously because the increased security measures and whispers about there being a murderer in Winden is hurting her hotel business. Regina’s taking it personal and her and Katharina have a smidge of a heated moment right there in the meeting as Hannah sneaks out…

With The Squad, sweet Mikkel is worrying about Erik’s disappearance as the crew walks through the woods. He says, “So what if Erik’s lying dead somewhere and no one finds his body? That would be the worst. Even if you’re dead, you’d want to be found”… this is poignant, especially later when we find out what happens to Mikkel and how he becomes connected to Erik…

Older Helge busts up in the Winden community meeting and Charlotte stops him. He asks “is it already too late? it’s gonna happen again!” and the only thing he’s regarded with are curious and pitiful stares as Charlotte leads him out of the assembly room. 

Meanwhile, we see that Hannah’s snuck out to meet Ulrich behind the school and they’re now kissing in what looks like it could be the very same alley where Franz and Magnus had their moment earlier in the day. I don’t wanna judge nobody but… that’s messed up, Hannah!!! His wife is literally right inside!

The time has finally come for Ines to open Michael’s letter… but as she does, we get no insight into what it says just yet…

The Squad reach the spot where Erik’s drugs are supposed to be and surprise, surprise, Franz has beat them to it. She tries to sell it back to them for a couple hundred bucks and then Bart has the nerve to actually snatch it from her and push her down. I was really surprised when Magnus didn’t step in here to Franz’s defense, especially knowing how he feels about her and having just seen her get pushed down in the dirt… But, shit, I suppose chivalry is dead ‘round Winden, huh?

Anyway, the whole little scene is interrupted by a growl-like sound booming out of the Winden caves, twigs snapping nearby, and the sudden malfunction of all of the flashlights that The Squad are holding. Needless to say, the group takes off running for their lives in what’s one of the scariest scenes of this episode. 

Jonas falls and when he gets up is when he realizes that he’s lost sight of Mikkel who, just a few seconds before, was running by his side. It’s blood curdlingly scary when Jonas hear’s someone… something… call his name. And when he turns around it’s his father, seemingly back from the dead, staring at Jonas, covered in a strange black liquid. Jonas bolts and it’s pouring rain now. When he meets up with the rest of The Squad there’s a terrifying moment when they all realize that they’ve lost the youngest of their group, Mikkel.

Back at the school, older Helge looks up into the rain as Charlotte leads him out and says, “It’s too late to stop it” just as the Winden adult’s all start getting phone alerts that interrupt the meeting and Ines closes the “suicide note” back into her special box and collapses over it.

In the woods, Ulrich, Charlotte, Regina and Hannah are all running to their babies, embracing them. They’ve heard the news. Ulrich takes off into the woods with his flashlight, yelling for Mikkel, but we get the feeling that it’s much too late… there seems to be no one out there to find but Ulrich does hear the same ominous sound booming out of the cave again just before the scene cuts.

The next morning, the nuclear smoke stacks are still billowing faithfully but the people of Winden are morose. Charlotte and Ulrich are out in the woods where the police are conducting a full out investigation. Peter calls Carlotte and says he needs to tell her something but Charlotte rushes him off of the phone and he’s left to stand alone in their study, praying the serenity prayer to himself.

A body is found in the woods and Ulrich has a gut wrenching moment of gently removing the leaves from the body before realizing that…. it’s not Mikkel. 

We cut back to that scary, bright room with the dangerous looking chair and now Erik’s being strapped into it, a penny on a red string being placed around his neck just before the machine’s head lock-thingy is closed over his eyes.

DETAILS THAT SEEM IMPORTANT

Mother’s Day, 1986: the date on the childhood pic of Mads & Ulrich at his mom, Jana’s house

June 21, 2019: the date of Michael’s suicide

November 4, 2019: “Present day” where Erik Obendorf has been missing for 13 days and the town’s nuclear plant is soon going to be shut down with a stellar record of no incident

November 4, 10:13 pm: the do-not-open-before-this date/time on Micheal’s “suicide note”

The scar on Aleksander Tidemann’s back during the massage scene with Hannah.

The Walkman found with the body of the dead boy who turns up in the woods the morning after Mikkel’s disappearance and the 80′s sounding song that it’s playing, “we fall through the time stream then awaken from a dream”…

“The question isn’t how. The question is when.” - Mikkel to Ulrich after his magic trick at the kitchen table.

“You ever find yourself wondering where you took the wrong turn in life? When your life started becoming the exact opposite of what you always wanted it to be?” - Ulrich to Charlotte a the station after they discuss Eric’s disappearance.

“You know this whole business with that missing kid, Eric? It’s like your brother back then. Everything’s repeating itself. Everything’s like it was, 33 years ago.” - Jana to Ulrich at her home.

“Just because you can’t see past your own nose, doesn’t mean there’s not really weird stuff going on out there. The kinda stuff that the nuclear power mafia keeps secret from the public.” - Martha to Magnus.

“The light? The forest? It’s as if it’s all happened before.” - Martha to Jonas in the woods, before The Squad meets up to grab Erik’s drugs.

“My dad used to say good and evil is a matter of perspective.” - Jonas to The Squad in the woods.

THOUGHT STARTERS FOR PONDERING

1. How long do we think Hannah and Ulrich have been sleeping together? Since just after Michael’s death? Like, was this whole affair a coping mechanism against the grief for her? Or do we think they were sleeping together even before Michael passed? I mean, I could sympathize with the former a bit more than the latter but if this show teaches us anything it’s that people are capable of some pretty fucked up things. What do you all think?

2. The yellow piece that Mikkel makes “disappear” in his kitchen table magic trick… does that thing remind anybody of a tiny Jonas in his yellow rain coat? Think about that… Jonas disappearing… or more specifically, Mikkel making Jonas disappear… hmmm.

3. Notice that Charlotte seems to already suspect something weird going on in Winden when she and Ulrich are at the station talking about Erik’s disappearance… She seems to already be making a connection to Ulrich’s brothers’ disappearance… just wanted to throw that out there… She’s got a head start on a lot of the others where that’s concerned.

4. There are two times when Jonas seems distinctly mesmerized by the smoke stacks at the nuclear plant: once when he’s riding his bike to school and then later, in the woods, when The Squad are going to steal Erik’s drugs. For a kid who’s grown up his whole life in Winden, you’d think those things wouldn’t be anything special for him anymore. Hasn’t he been seeing them there billowing smoke since… well, forever? What exactly is it about the vision of the smoke billowing out of the stacks that draws him in so?

5. When Michael appears to Jonas in the woods after Mikkel is lost, he’s covered in black liquid of some sort. The first thing I wondered was whether or not it’s actually black rain/ nuclear fallout. I mean, Jonas has been mesmerized by the smoke billowing out of the nuclear plants all episode long, hasn’t he? Could it be that in some alternate time, the plant has malfunctioned and Michael was near enough to it to be affected by the fall out?

6. When Peter calls Charlotte while she’s out at the crime scene after Mikkel’s disappearance, what was he wanting to confess? Was he going to confess the affair he’d had? Or was he going to share something about Winden’s disappearances/the body about to turn up in the woods? Because later on in the series we learn of what he sees in the cellar and how he’s not exactly innocent in all this…

Whew! Okay, long post dunzo. I know these episodes can be a bit mind bending so if anyone’s confused, I hope the full text recap of 1x1 up top can be helpful.

Y’all, please hit me up and let me know what you think about the questions/statements I’ve raised or if you’ve got some of your own. Let me know if you caught any other little details that you think should be recorded here so that we can come back to them. I’m doing my best to create thorough records here so that as the season continues to build, and Season 2 builds further, we can come back and remember key points from the episode and think about how they relate to what is revealed about Winden’s past, present and future.

Much love and can’t wait to talk with those of you in this fandom more!

(tagging my new friends: @bobwithextramullins; @windener, @coloradoartistspotlight)

-Janelle

[divinagpena]

Hey guys! So, because of the scheduling of Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl, we have some time to fit Black Lightening into our schedules! Jeremi and I really liked this episode and I can’t wait to see Anissa and Grace scenes! Anissa is such a badass. Oh and another Asian queer woman! Happy 20GayTeen people!!

[millerflintstone]

I am still slightly confused and annoyed that my new boss, a former developer coworker, pulled a super immature move yesterday. And she has grandchildren. Possibly late 50s/early 60s, so not a younger boss.

I posted a video about it last night. To recap -

She has never scheduled one-on-one meetings with me. She's been in this role since early February

She is having these 1x1s with new folks

Yesterday, the new guy I've been acclimating let me know he had his meeting with her

In this meeting, she wanted him to ask me why the department I've been doomed into supporting is so needy

New guy has been with us for maybe a month

????????

Bitch, what?????

I told new guy that it sounded like a conversation I should have with new boss personally and that I did not see the point in having him be in the middle like that

I talked to my dev friend who is back employed directly with the client about this and she was just speechless about new boss's antics.

She also shared that back when this boss was a fellow coworker, dev friend found her to be very Jekyll and Hyde in her personality. And apparently at one point before she was promoted, new boss asked dev friend about me. Dev friend started talking about how she liked working with me. New boss cut her off and snapped, "well I just don't know where she's coming from!"

No additional info was shared as to why I annoyed her.

I don't know y'all. New boss was on PTO when I resigned. We don't have a relationship where I felt comfortable texting her. I did reach out to her when she was back from PTO. I let her know that my decision had nothing to do with her and she said, "happy for you! Sad for me!"

Maybe if she had scheduled 1x1s with me after I sent her the Excel of all the tickets I had just for this one department, she would better understand why things have been the way they have.

I did send her an email last night with bullet points of the history with this department and asked if we could discuss on a call today. I also suggested she talk to my Business Analyst friend about the history as well to get her perspective. BA friend has worked with them since 2019 and has more background knowledge. I included a list of suggested actions to better manage that department's expectations.

I then forwarded it to BA friend so she was aware. She replied back that she agreed 100% with me.

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (June 13/2021) -        Wall Nut Sales

Fundy and Purpled work in Las Nevadas and notice that the roads of the city are misaligned. Foolish gets into a skirmish with Bad over stolen glass and ends up becoming a walnut salesman to get it back.

A brief summary of the week’s total events can be found at the end of the post.

---

VOD LINKS:

Purpled

Fundy

Ranboo

Foolish

---

- Purpled sets up in Las Nevadas to build a new UFO

- He speaks with Fundy, who shows him the new flag. Fundy also shows Purpled his child, Yogurt. Las Nevadas is lacking in food production

- Fundy walks him through the toll road to the outpost. They take from the farm to grow their own food. Fundy doesn’t approve of them keeping a fox 

- Fundy asks if Purpled has met the guy who calls himself “Meat.” Purpled has

- They go up to the Needle and Purpled challenges Fundy to an MLG contest

- Afterwards, Purpled builds a small shack

- They notice that the entire road system is one block misaligned from the casino center

- Purpled continues to go gather resources

- Fundy emerges from his hole in the ground and feeds Yogurt some berries

- Purpled makes a cow hole

- Fundy starts realigning the fountain

- Foolish logs on and Fundy asks him why he’s so handsome. (Foolish drinks chocolate milk)

- Foolish asks if Fundy is griefing Las Nevadas. He draws his weapon and starts drinking a strength potion. Fundy quickly says that he’s just revamping it

- Fundy returns to work on the fountain but sees Foolish put on Dream’s head as he walks away

Fundy: “Oh my god! I guess that’s why I thought he was handsome. That explains it.”

...

Foolish: I’ll be back in las nevadas later cya around!

Fundy: BYE! :3~~~~~~~ **** ^_^ :0 :D :WW::W:W:W

- Fundy keeps working

- He changes his shovel name from “I love HBomb more than 5up” to “Dap me up!”

- He finishes revamping the fountain and works on realigning the road

- Ranboo steals a few blocks of quartz. Fundy pauses the road work and goes over to the outpost

- Fundy plants a berry from outside the lava gate as a magic trick. Ranboo comes through and throws him some cookies

- Fundy finishes realigning the road and goes to the outpost. He sees Foolish lying on the ground beneath a trap door and leaves without another word

- While Ranboo does more outpost work, he occasionally checks on Foolish throughout. Foolish continues to lie on the ground beneath the trap door

- Later, Foolish works on the pyramid at his summer home some more

- He gets passive aggressive with the citizens of L’Sandburg (llamas) and Bad logs on to tell him to stop harassing his citizens. Foolish claims he was just trying to motivate them

- Bad tells his citizens (llamas) to prepare for war. To Foolish, Bad says to enjoy his buildings while he still can

Bad: CITIZENS OF L’SANDBURG! WE WILL DESTROY THE TOTEM MENACE

Bad: IT IS OBVIOUS THAT FLORIDA HAS HAD A NEGATIVE INFLUENCE ON HIM

Bad: HE MUST BE VANQUISHED

Foolish: It would bring me great pleasure to finally hack down your llama citizens

Bad: >:0000000000000

Bad: SO YOU HAVE CHOSEN DEATH

Foolish: no <3

- Bad runs over to meet Foolish face-to-face. He has one canonical bar of ping and slaps Foolish (the traditional greeting of L’Sandburg)

- Foolish notes how laggy Bad is, floating everywhere

Bad: I am currently not fully in this space o_0

- Foolish asks if he is drunk. Bad says that he is magic as he continues to hop around, lagging heavily. Bad steals stacks of glass and Foolish chases after Bad with an axe, attacking him

Foolish: “L’Sandburg was a mistake from the very start. I should’ve never let it -- from the very first moment they put a block of sandstone, I should’ve wiped it off the face of the Earth.”

- Foolish has trouble keeping up with Bad’s laggy movements. Bad starts dropping a trail of the glass on the ground behind him. When Bad finally stops, he offers Foolish a traditional L’Sandburg gift: blue glass

- Bad gets behind a random door on the road and hides. Foolish tries to get him to open it. Bad isn’t interested in cookies, so Foolish tries to sell him insurance. Bad is interested in neither insurance nor vacuums

- Then Foolish claims that he is a wall nut* seller. This sparks Bad’s interest

*the term ”walnut” was taken by another company

- Bad requests chocolate wall nuts. They cost five dollars for five nuts, and Bad throws Foolish one stack of glass for them

- Foolish knocks on the door again. This time, Bad throws him an Efficiency book and requests more wall nuts. Then several emeralds, again requesting another wall nut, then Ender Pearls

- Foolish offers Bad their premium wall nut deal to become a Platinum member. Bad continues to throw Foolish various items, each time requesting a wall nut. In return for the wall nuts, Foolish gets his stacks of glass back

- Foolish is out of wall nuts. Bad gets behind a door with a few spruce blocks as walls surrounding a 1x1 block area

Bad: this is mine

- Foolish asks him what he means. Bad says this block is his. Foolish strongly rejects this, and Bad asks for more wall nuts

- Bad returns to the chest and shoots Foolish. He asks for the arrow back, as it was a family heirloom. He leaves the 1-block house, but takes the door

- Just as Foolish is getting to return to building, Bad calls him for help. He’s trapped in a hole with a cow and turtle. Bad notices that Foolish sparkles (it’s a skin routine, apparently). Bad offers a fish in return for saving him

- Foolish tells Bad to kill the cow first. Bad refuses to kill Jeremiah (the cow), so Foolish starts waterboarding Bad (”accidentally, so it’s okay!”) to calm him down and unintentionally milks Jeremiah

- Bad starts drowning

- Foolish sleeps with both eyes open because he’s built different

- As Bad continues to drown, Foolish tells him that it’s evolution. He is on the way to getting gills, and eventually he will be a fish that Foolish can put in a bucket. Bad is delighted at the idea and tells Foolish that George was a pig yesterday

- The turtle is named Franklin now

Foolish: “Yeah, I’m definitely thinking we should kill one of these, if not both of them, before there’s too much, like, connection, and I’m afraid we’re already a little bit past the point -- it’s just gonna help you move on from the pit, you know?”

- Bad continues drowning as they chat. Finally, Foolish gets rid of the water. He is Bad’s hero, and Bad was the damsel in distress

- He tells Bad to give him the milk bucket, and when Bad refuses, Foolish puts the water back in the pit

Foolish: “Drown, you bastard.”

- Franklin (the turtle) and Jeremiah (the cow) both escape the pit. With only Bad remaining there, they continue to bicker about the bucket for a long while

- Bad finally gets out of the pit with scaffolding

- Foolish murders Benjamin and ends stream

END OF WEEK RECAP:

6/7 - Nothing much happens.

6/8 - Puffy writes a countersuit in the Lore Suit against Ponk

6/9 - Ponk shows Sam the valley, Fundy and Purpled officially join Las Nevadas, Ranboo receives an update from the Council

6/10 - Nothing much happens.

6/11 - Fundy and Tubbo spy on each other at the outpost

6/12 - George gets turned into a pig

6/13 - Fundy and Purpled work in Las Nevadas, Foolish bargains wall nuts with Bad

---

Upcoming Events:

- The court battle

- The final Egg lore stream

- Tales From the SMP: “Space Race”

- Ponk’s lore stream

- Dream’s lore video

[vmheadquarters]

Looking for some new VM content? A new podcast is starting up on PreviouslyTV with the old TWoP recapper John Ramos and Sars watching and breaking down each episode of Veronica Mars. It's weekly and dropping every Friday!!! The site has a VM forum, as well. 

Here's the link to the Pilot episode!!

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Tuesday, October 15

Dawn: It's here. Just like he said. Spike: (looking into the hole) Well, at least we know the old coot isn't completely daft. Look, you better let me snatch this egg thing on my own. Dawn: No way. I'm going. Spike: No ... you are not. I've got no idea what's down there. Dawn: You need me, Spike. Somebody's gotta get the egg while you distract the ghora. Now come on.

~~Buffy Season 5 Episode #95: "Forever"~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Spike's Bad Time (Spike/Angel, Spike/OC, M) by Bloody_Willamina

A Verbal Battle (Buffy Summers, Roy Dukeshire, T) by KaibaSlaveGirl34

little fish, big fish (Darla/Drusilla, E) by evesock

Slayers Gotta Stick Together (Buffy/Faith, M) by darlingcarmilla

TAC 15 – Willow & Tara (Willow/Tara, T) by AngelicaR2

Nighthawk to Nite Owl (Xander, T, multiple xovers) by Heavyneos1

I might run out of time (Buffy/Spike, E) by latinadoll

Hanging on (Anya, Spike, T) by will_

[Chaptered Fiction]

I Shall Dress In Aeternum Ch. 11 (Ensemble, T, Highlander xover) by BlueStories

hit rewind Ch. 80 (Buffy/Spike, M) by untiljanuary

Oh My Goddess, Chapter 7 (Buffy/Spike, M) by Maxine Eden

The Neighbor's Point of View, Chapter 139 (Buffy/Spike, T) by the_big_bad

reciprocity, Chapter 4 (Buffy/Spike, E) by HappyWhenItRains

Scarab and Serpent, Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, E) by Holly

A Sword in the Man, Chapter 10 (Buffy/Spike, T) by Desicat

Through The Keyhole, Chapter 4-7 (Buffy/Spike, G) by Claire, Geliot99

Exorcise, Chapter 8 (Buffy/Spike, T) by Desicat

Going Home (to a place we’ve never been before) Ch. 22 (dawn, T, LotR xover) by curiouslywombat

Aegis Ch. 25 (Xander, T, DCU xover) by dogbertcarroll

[Images, Audio & Video]

Artwork:Episodic art for BtVS 3x02 “Dead Man’s Party” () by revello-drive-1630

Artwork: Love’s bitch and man enough to admit it (Spike) by evermorelore

Artwork:Buffyverse episode sketch project, episodes 1-4 Season 2 () by bugscribbles

Video: Aimed to Kill - Villains (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) () by TheOverLookedOne

[Reviews & Recaps]

Video: Brought to TEARS!! Buffy S1 Finale **Reaction** () by Sibu's Watching

Video: CITY OF LONELY HEARTS - Angel | 1x1 + 1x2 | Group Reaction () by The Normies

PODCAST: BTVS 604 - Flooded by Another Buffy Podcast

[Community Announcements]

Tuesday Prompt: In Plain Sight by comment-fic

[Fandom Discussions]

What would you have done if you’d continued that one Spike-as-William fic? by thornfield13713

There are a couple of references to the events of the show’s previous Halloween episode – the creatively titled Halloween – in Season 4’s Fear Itself. by coraniaid

if Buffy were made today Adam wouldn’t have a disk drive in his chest. by aphony-cree

Double date scenarios for Spike/Buffy by silkspectred

I wish that Professor Maggie Walsh had been the true Big Bad of Season 4. by coraniaid

Absolute best part of season 4 by andyoullhearitagain

“You faced the monster inside of you, and you fought back.” by thequeenofsastiel

So interesting to me how Buffy refused to socialize with Spike in s5, but repeatedly trusted him enough to ask him for his help by thequeenofsastiel

Rank the big bads by burrunjor

Buffy getting into Northwestern by Joan the Vampire Slayer

Tara holding The Tower tarot card in Out of My Mind by AndHerSymbols

S2 E6 - How is principal Snyder illegally forcing student to sign up for charity events by ghostrider1938

Episodes that could've or should've been two-parters? by yeahitsme9

This Made Me Laugh by Equivalent-Room-7689

Explaining final death in Beauty and the Beasts by caminoeslameta

Giles in Season 3, Episode 6 by veganbethb

Angel + Buffy by Jonesybell

Buffy Season 6 by anthonycaruana

I just started rewatching Buffy for the first time in decades. by LizzieBathory420

Spike and Drusilla, Italy 1950’s by authenticriver

Do you think S3 Ep 12 allows Buffy to understand how the others in the scooby gang feel? by veganbethb

What is the worst thing this character has done (VOL. 6)- Joyce Summers by HereLiesMyFinalWor-

on season 5 now and noticing a pattern for the first episode villains by hatchbackkk

Am I crazy or is Buffy continuously punished by the narrative for being ���a strong independent woman” by youknowjustsurviving

Garlic in Buffy the vampire slayer by TheFrostWolf7

Finally finished Buffy - My Thoughts by fenix4701

Buffy season 5- why does dracula not change into a monster form like the other vamps?? by hatchbackkk

Music of Passion by moses616

Favorite portrayal of Angelus by moses616

Older fanfics? Are their archives or sites where I can access them? by ghostrider1938

Xander f*+%#^g Harris by moses616

Demon with “wine” tab in the arm by Ziegenkoennenfliegen

Buffy season 5- listening to fear made me so unexpectedly emotional?? by hatchbackkk

An under rated but epic moment. by Reviewingremy

They treat death with a grain of salt in buffy by hatchbackkk

why does buffy have a fake sister by RedRxbin

i think it’s great Buffy had a more age accurate casting appearance wise by hatchbackkk

Where has The First appeared before? by bkv-hbl

What’s your least favorite season? by frimrussiawithlove85

\

why do so many people find Xander annoying? by hatchbackkk

on my first watch and Anya might just be best girl so far by hatchbackkk

Buffy got treated terribly during her break up with Riley and Xander’s speech felt pointless by hatchbackkk

Just seeing the red top sends chills down my spine by lonelyhedgehoh

i think it’s great how Buffy eases side characters into more recurring roles by hatchbackkk

WHY CAN’T BUFFY FIND A DECENT MAN by hatchbackkk

Season 1 Xander is so much more interesting than I remember by BlairThe3rd

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

Join the editor team :)

[bells-of-black-sunday]

dnd recaps from tuesday and wensday

tuesday

Most of the stuffs pretty irrelevant aside from our bard getting a deck of many things

first card pulled was getting 10k xp, 2nd was jus being put in a different dimension, third was 10k xp, fourth was curse, fifth was being hunted down by a devil, sixth was being portaged into another dimension, seventh was the wish card, and eighth was 90k xp

so after those initial pulls the city started being taken over

luckily our high off her ass gnome only used one of her wishes on 25k gold of cocaine and we were able to convince her to just wish the people who were invading to disappear

after that we went to go see a magic shop owner that our gnome artificer calls barbra, I bought a deck of illusions

 we managed to make him have a mental break down before pulling out the deck of many things and the first fucking card he pulls is ruin

so his entire fucking shop disappears, he starts hyperventilating and falls unconscious while our gnomes jus like “BARBRA NO”

so we heal him and have him pull another card he gets the comet card so after killing the gnomes humunculous he becomes a lvl 2 wizard

so he pulls another and GETS THE FUCKING SKULL CARD 

the avatar of death jus fucking one shots him and our gnome starts crying and mourning barbara which barba wasn’t even his real name it was gerald

so now he has barbas ring that jus plays “MY NAMES NOT BARBA” on command and now we’re gonna actually do what we were supposed to do in the beginning all to get barbra back

wensday

first of all the dm lost 6 pages of notes for the first campaign so it was all improve

barbra the bee speaker did barbra the bee seeker thing like shoot bees at people and show off his very useful magic items

also we created the deck of great things and I fckin lov it, here’s the homebrew deck jus in case anyone wants to use it

the deck of “great” things

full of useless items and minor inconveniences

Ace of diamonds Snake

King of diamonds Shrugging man

Queen of diamonds Mole

Jack of diamonds Diamond

Two of diamonds Dagger

Ace of hearts Pretty lady

King of hearts Gust

Queen of hearts Squrriel

Jack of hearts Cup

Two of hearts Pile of gold

Ace of clubs Thumbs up

King of clubs Cliff

Queen of clubs ?

Jack of clubs Bee

Two of clubs box

Ace of spades smiley face

King of spades Robber

Queen of spades bird

Jack of spades goblin

Two of spades confusion

Joker (with TM) elephant

Joker (without TM) cotton

* Found only in a deck with twenty-two cards

Snake. The card becomes a single wet noodle

shrugging man. you gain a "just okay" sandwich

Mole. A 1x1 ft hole appears at feet

Diamond. the user gains a REALLY shiny rock.

Dagger. The user stubs their toe on a previously unnoticed obstacle

Pretty lady. Summons a doll that looks EXACTLY like the person who pulled it disappears after 1 minute

Gust. Everyone around the person who drew the card in a 30 ft radius believes you farted

Squirrel. A dead squirrel appears at a spot 5ft from you

Cup. the user gains a cup that occasionally leaks.

Pile of coins. You gain fake rock coins

Thumbs up. you receive a compliment inside your head

Cliff. you become afraid of heights for 1d4 days

?. the user has no memory of what occurred in the past 6 seconds

Bee. the user's hand is covered in honey

Box. An empty destroyed crate appears 5 ft from the user

Smiley face. a clone of the user appears 5ft away from the user and is just generally a dick disappears after 1 minute and does nothing but insult people

robber. the user loses 1d6 gold if the user does not have enough gold it removes all remaining gold and they lose a nonmagical item worth up to 2 gold

Bird. a bird shits on the user

goblin. a goblin therapist appears and gives the user therapy for 1 hour the player must remain near the goblin for the entire duration or he hunts the player down for the next month to give them therapy

confusion. A random NPC has a strange unpleasant memory of the user

elephant. the user gains 1d4 pounds permanently

Cotton. the user has severe cotton mouth for 1d4 hours

[mysticdragon3md3]

SHE-HULK Episode 1 Made Me THIRSTY! - I Have To Explain | She-Hulk Attorney at Law 1x1 Recap by Black Nerd Comedy

[dordlebuns]

Day 17: The Visual Finish Line

I'm back! Don't think I gave up! No no no, we are only getting started. Today I will be finishing Visual Applied Design which has taken some time in between coursework and my internship but hey, we did it!

-cue the bullet points-

Kicking it off, I am continuing from animations with the <@keyframes> property but let's recap on animations since it's been awhile:

1. Animations are used with key words and properties to change their attributes. We can give them names using animation-name, duration or length using animation-duration and have the animation start with <@keyframes> CSS rule followed by a name and curly braces.

2. Using frames which are essentially "points" at which different properties of animations activate. These are declared under the keyframes rule as percentages, which are then followed by curly brackets containing the block of code to take on those properties.

3. Using the pseudo class :hover, we can alter other properties within HTML using CSS to interact with the user. :hover can change the color or image when a user hovers over the property for example.

Well, now that we have some refreshers placed, it's time to go into the new stuff!

Learned of using the opacity property to change an animation's opacity as it moves at certain points.

Learned about movement with keyframes by using offset properties like top, bottom, right, and left.

Something really cool is the animation-iteration-count animation property, which is how many times the animation will play once it ends. By setting this to the value infinite we can have the animation play endlessly!

The animation-timing-function property controls how quick an animated element changes across it's animation duration. You can use a few handy keywords like linear, ease, ease-out, and ease-in.

Going off of the animation-timing-function property we have the cubic-bezier function. The cubic-bezier function takes four coordinates (x, y, x2, y2) and determines the curve of the element. Still confused here and will need to revisit.

Let's go into bezier curves more. So each bezier function takes 4 values: x1,y1,x2,y2 for the p1 and p2 main points. (p0 and p3 are 0,0 and 1,1 so they are already being nice to us.)

The x-axis or x value for these are essentially the duration of the animation.

The y-axis or y value for these are essentially the change in animation.

Bezier curves are great because they are customizable and very extensive. With freeCodeCamp, we simulated juggling physics by changing the values with p1 and p2. Something important to note is that while bezier curves are on a 1x1 coordinate system and x cannot be higher than 1, the y value can be which is how we replicate juggle animations for smoother, realistic motion.

Well that is everything for today, and concludes my extensive look into Visual Applied Design! With that being completed, I can move onto Applied Accessibility!

[divinagpena]

We’re reacting to Runaways and even though we thought the first episode was a bit underwhelming, but we’re hanging in there :)

[iamjaiyam]

Swish in depth: A comparison of Swish & ReLU on CIFAR-10

Hi there, this is a continuation from my previous blog post about SWISH activation function recently published by a team at Google. If you are not familiar with the Swish activation (mathematically, f(x)=x*sigmoid(x)), please be sure to check out the paper for an in-depth understanding or my blog post for a TLDR.

According to the paper, Swish often performs better than ReLUs. But many people have pointed out that it is also more computationally intensive than ReLUs. In my previous post I showed how Swish performs relative to ReLU and sigmoids on a 2 hidden layer neural network trained on MNIST. Although a simple 2 layer network is a good starting point, one cannot really generalize the results to most problems one might encounter in practical use cases. In this post, I will compare the performance of Swish on Convolutional Networks (CNN) and show you exactly how slow is Swish relative to ReLUs. Lets get started.

BYOC (Build Your Own CNN)

Since I was going to make my code open source, I decided to write it such that someone with more computational resources can just change one line of code and train as deep a model as they like. This is the idea behind BYOC. To make this possible, I used a ResNet like architecture with its famous computational bottleneck units consisting of 3 convolutional layers of 1x1, 3x3 and 1x1 convolutions, as shown below:

Structure of the computational bottleneck (source: ResNet paper)

With this idea, I designed my model such that adding convolutional layers is as simple as setting a variable n_layers to some number. Hence the acronym BYOC. Feel free to check out my GitHub repo and train a better model. For the purposes of this blog, I trained 2 models, a 6 layer and a 12 layer one. These are end to end convolutional networks and there is no fully connected layer except at the output.

Results:

To recap, I am comparing three activations: ReLU, standard swish and swish_beta (f(x)=x*sigmoid(beta*x), where beta is learned during training). Since the objective was to compare activation functions and not to build a great model, I did not tune the hyperparameters and trained for only 10 epochs. The results I got do not paint a rosy picture for Swish activation. Here are the results for training accuracy from the six layer network:

Performance

Its clear to see that ReLU performs quite well here, much better than Swish. The variables for all networks were initialized starting from the same random seed. So, initialization is not a factor here. I really wanted Swish to do better especially considering the fact that it is more computationally involved. A comparison of training time for these activations is shown below:

Training time

To be clear, I have compared the time of forward and backward passes through the whole network, as opposed to just the time of applying the activations, since one won’t use the activations in isolation. On my AWS g2.2xlarge AMI, with a batch size of 128 on an average ReLU took 200 milliseconds to make one full pass, Swish took 11.2% more time, and swish_beta took 12% more time than ReLU.

Inference time

For practical applications, it is more important to know the inference time of any network since when a network is deployed on a product, we only want to do inference. Here again, as expected, Swish is slower. With a batch size of 100 samples, on an average, ReLU took 44 milliseconds, whereas Swish took ~21% more time and swish_beta took ~28% more time.

12 layer Network:

The results from 12 layer network are similar. ReLU has higher accuracy, and is much faster during training and inference. The results are shown below:

Accuracy

Train time:

Inference time:

Interestingly, I the gap between ReLU and Swish for training and inference has increased as the network has gotten deeper. This is not a great sign. Since even a ‘light weight’ ResNet is also about 50 layers deep, it would be just terrible if the gap between training and inference time keeps on increasing with the number of layers. But one cannot really extrapolate from just two data points (6 & 12 layers). I wanted to train an 18 layer network as well, but the results from these two cases made me less motivated to do so. I really wanted Swish to work better than ReLUs but, at least in these experiments, it didn’t. I would be happy to have been proven wrong as more people apply it to real world problems, because I, like everyone else, want to be able to train better models.

Takeaways:

Here are a few takeaways from these results:

Swish does not really perform as well as in these experiments as I expected. ReLUs consistently beat Swish on accuracy.

There is a large difference between training times required for these activations. Even if Swish performs better than ReLUs on a problem, the time required to train a good model will be about 15–20% more than ReLUs.

More importantly, the run time performance of Swish seems to be much slower than ReLUs, by 20–30% or more. This is a non trivial slowdown for cases where real time performance is needed.

Between standard Swish and Swish_beta, the beta version certainly performs better. If you find that Swish works for your problem and if you care ddeply about the accuracy, it is a good idea to try learning the parameter beta during training as well. Of course, the higher accuracy would come at the cost of at higher training time and inference time, as we saw from the graphs above.

Code

All the code for reproducing these results and training more models with BYOC is uploaded on my GitHub. If you find any bugs or have difficulty in understanding the code, feel free to contact me.