#the person in that log was doug eiffel. but not the same person. even before he lost his memory.

[commsroom]

Ok this is totally fix-it fic territory, just you're the only person I've seen who also doesn't love Eiffel's ending BUT What if after getting far enough away from whatever Cutter was using to block the dear listeners' abilities, Bob gives Eiffel his memory back. They have his brain almost completely copied after all. It would also be interesting to see him struggle with "would I really do THAT?" Like he just has such a hard time believing himself capable of growth and having positive impacts

oh, i honestly don't even think it's fix-it territory! i genuinely think he will regain his memory at some point; i think it makes narrative sense.

whether it's possible, with what the show sets up? the dear listeners are only invested insofar as it might impact the process, but, like you said, they could restore eiffel's memory. maybe even without active involvement. lovelace's blood was still working on eiffel (slowly, which might even make for a stronger case) a few days before the events of the finale, and memory is clearly a consideration in the 'pattern' of duplicates. maybe the regenerative properties apply to memory, too. and pryce scanned eiffel's brain back in ep 55, with the same kind of machine that was meant to instantly relay hilbert's memories back to canaveral; it's plausible there could be a backup.

... but even if none of that were the case! wolf 359 is a character drama, and what's important is what it says about eiffel. doug eiffel, who has spent so much of his life running from himself, whose character arc is about confronting and coming to terms with all of the people he's been, and his impact on the lives of the people he cares about. wiping his memory - if it's meant to be permanent - feels like a fulfillment of that wish, and it would be kind of. at odds with the themes of the show, when in every case it takes such a stance against attempted martyrdom. but as a set up for self-reflection and self-confrontation? i think it makes perfect sense, for someone who externalizes as much as eiffel does. i don't think restoring eiffel's memory is a cop out or fix-it any more than lovelace not actually dying is - it's not a tragic sacrifice, it's a narrative catalyst for character development. or, at least, that's how it makes sense to me.

i won't get too into the rest of my reasoning, since i know it gets long and it's mostly stuff i've talked about before, but! i do actually think the finale is a good narrative choice, i just feel differently about it than a lot of people seem to. maybe because the writers talk so much about their fondness for earned happy endings - that a happy ending is most impactful when you really think there won't be one - i just can't see wolf 359 as a tragedy. the simplified version: if "am i still doug eiffel?" is unanswered, then that's a whole set of unexplored themes. but if "am i still doug eiffel?" is a question with an answer - if the rest of the show, the repeated affirmation that other characters are who they decide they are despite their respective identity crises, the thematic context, "wanna find out together?", if all of that is the answer - then that final scene is an encapsulation and reaffirmation of the show itself. in my opinion, that makes for a really good ending.

[alien-enjoyer]

actual thoughts (DO NOT READ IF YOU INTEND TO LISTEN!!):

i’m gonna have to relisten to volte face because they dropped the entire worldbuilding there. and as always i am FAR MORE INVESTED in the logistics of this world than i probably should be. just as much as i am the characters, maybe even more so. moon landing in the 50s? soviet union got the first aircraft(?). still a few unanswered questions, like, “why is travel that clearly exceeds lightspeed called a SUBlight arc” because that makes no sense. dont know how they got communication to be instant across any distance either! we did get a single-sentence explanation on what a pulse beacon relay is but that’s only useful if you set those satellites up. and it doesnt explain how it works. can you tell im like, weirdly invested in the technology here? how did they get the hephaestus up there in the first place? was it autopiloted? was it rhea who did all the setup? did they send up another team before lovelace? was it lovelace? i doubt it. (and also speaking of rhea why didnt she have a voice? technical issues sure but these people are clearly MUCH further along in their technology than us and yet no one thought to like, hook up a vocaloid or something? you dont even have to source from a real person’s voice. or if you really want it to be a real person, we’ve got voice banks like siri and whatever.)

as for the story itself. did not go where i was expecting it to! i had a whole symbolism idea of it being , yknow, hera and hephaestus. and i suppose, yes, the hephaestus was cast into the fiery pit (the star) and i suppose hera did have a small hand in it. like the myth. but that wasnt the point of the whole thing.

to erase a whole character. our main character. you don’t see it done. i’m impressed. he’s got his logs and his friends to help him but only for as long as the journey to earth takes. who knows whatll happen to them after that. and hera, what’s gonna happen to hera??

fundamentally this story was about who people are. and what makes a person a person. hera, the ai, created and yet absolutely without a doubt her own person. she goes so far as to break through her own coding, fighting tooth and claw, to prove that. lovelace, who was human once, and who still believes she is even when proven otherwise - the only one who ever fights her on that is jacobi, and even he comes around eventually. price and cutter who have replaced so many parts of themselves, and rachel who has reinvented herself in other ways. they’re so detached from the people around them that to call them people is outright denied. hilbert is shown to do something similar to them, but he’s not as far gone. he’s a scientist, is all. a determined one. even minkowski comes into her own person when she takes control from lovelace.

and finally, doug. the story ends with him being erased. but he’ll find himself. it won’t be the same self, he’ll be someone new. but this story has proven time and time again that people will always find a way to be people, even under impossible circumstances. communications officer douglas eiffel is dead. doug eiffel is alive.

less important thoughts:

keplar’s voice was really nice . i think out of all the podcasts ive listened to keplar’s voice is my favourite.

hera is the character ever but im worried about what happens to her now. also what was eiffel gonna say to her. ughhhh 💥

price and cutter is just team rocket but genuinely actually competently evil to me. he’s gay shes lesbian and their marriage will change your perception of love forever. also rachel is here. i think it’s underselling her to call her meowth though.

minkowski having a harpoon is the funniest possible weapon to have on a space station why a harpoon how does she know how to use it? maybe she scuba dived in her spare time. harpoon fishing. that does seem like the kind of thing she would do.

OH speaking of the harpoon. the symbolism. of the plant monster. and the hephaestus crew. they became the plant monster in the end. they literally tried to negotiate the same terms with cutter as it did with minkowski. we leave you alone you leave us alone. and then they got told to step it up a notch. BUT! they are the same. it was all foreshadowing huh. it’s 8:30am but i swear im not making this up.

anyway good podcast everyone go listen to it if you havent listened to it i spoiled it all in here so .

finished wolf 359

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT !!!!!

everyone go listen im,ediertyly

[hephaestuscrew]

Every Time I Can Think of When Names/What People Are Called Is Significant in Wolf 359

Cutter using everyone's first names as part of his terrifying over-friendliness thing. It's also definitely a power move because the crew aren't permitted to call him by his first name. They have to address him as Mr Cutter.

Alexander Hilbert / Elias Selberg / Dmitri Volodin. Since Hilbert has been working for Goddard for a long time, we can assume that these aren't even the only names he's gone by. The repeated identity-switching illustrates how Hilbert doesn't really have a life outside Goddard.

When trying to find out about Hilbert's past in Ep25, Eiffel asks him for his real name, like he thinks this might tell him who Hilbert really is.

After learning Hilbert's original name, Eiffel agrees to the continuation of the Decima experiments, although he says "I still don't trust you, Dmitri Volodin." I think this is the only time we hear Hilbert being called by his original name on the Hephaestus. Even at the funeral, Eiffel calls him Alexander Hilbert. The name that sticks is just the one he happened to die whilst wearing.

Lovelace sometimes calls Hilbert Selberg (e.g. "I've seen Selberg's dark side")- this seems to indicate when she's feeling most mistrustful of him.

Although the aliases are a practical measure, they also create a degree of separation between Hilbert and his previous selves. I think the most notable example is when he yells "Selberg not here today" at Lovelace in Ep26. When Hilbert is trying to save Eiffel from dying of Decima, he does not want to be called by the name of a man who killed two people using that same virus.

Like Hilbert, Cutter has gone by many names (William Carter, Marcus Cutter etc). He sheds identities to suit his purposes.

Andrea Nash /Rachel Young also took on a new name when she joined Goddard.

In her logs from the first Hephaestus mission, Lovelace says about Lambert, "I wish you were here Sam, I wish you were here to ask me not to call you that"

In her first meeting with Hilbert, Lovelace insists on being called Isabel.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the only people who call Lovelace "Isabel" at any point are Cutter and Hilbert. Cutter calls her it because he does first names with everyone, but Hilbert asks "Isabel... are you listening to yourself?" in Ep38 after she's given an any-means-necessary revenge rant. And he calls her Isabel again in Ep44 when they are inspecting the mind-reading chair thing before the mutiny. In a twisted way, it's an acknowledgement of their shared history. Hilbert thinks he knows Lovelace better than the rest of the crew do, so he feels entitled to call her by her first name.

For Hera, her name (as opposed to her designation of Unit 214, which places her as just one among many, rather than an individual) is an assertion of personhood. Pryce insists on calling her Unit 214 and chides Cutter for calling AI by their names, because she doesn't see AIs as people.

The crew call Hera Unit 214 when they are being mind-controlled and Eiffel gives away his non-brainwashed state by automatically calling her Hera, indicating his inability to see her as a mere machine.

In Hera's first meeting with Minkowski, Minkowski initially calls her Unit 214 because she had heard that AIs prefer to go by their serial numbers (incidentally, the fact that Minkowski looked into this is wonderful. I wonder whether its true that most AI like to be called by their serial numbers or whether this information is put out by Pryce to deprive AIs of identity.) Hera responds "Oh, no, no. Hera. Definitely Hera."

In Hera's backstory ep, it is revealed that Goddard doesn't name their AIs until after they've been assigned to a posting. This really illustrates Goddard's attitude of "we won't consider treating you like a person unless you're useful to us".

Hera doesn't always have control over how she addresses the crew. She is forced to call Hilbert Commander during his Christmas mutiny. After Kepler's arrival, she starts calling Minkowski 'Lieutenant' rather than 'Commander' without even noticing. This is a symbol of her lack of autonomy over who to respect/ obey.

When Eiffel's freaked out about Lovelace being an alien, he keeps calling her "Cap" and she picks up on this as a sign of something being up.

Minkowski's surname and its correct pronunciation as a representation of her Polish heritage, which Eiffel disrespects by mispronouncing it. He says he initially tried to get it right, but stopped trying after they started fighting. After she tells him how much his mispronounciation bothers her in Ep51, we do hear him start to try to correct himself.

Eiffel insisting on calling Minkowski "Commander" even when she isn't officially the Commander - at times, it almost feels like a nickname or a term of affection. Even when she's voluntarily given up command to Lovelace, he still asks "Do I really have to call you Lieutenant?" It's an indication that, even though he doesn't always show it, he does see her as the one in charge.

I remember seeing a post which suggested that Eiffel calls Minkowski "Commander" when he is showing full respect for her and "Minkowski" (pronounced wrong) when he isn't, and I think there's definitely some truth to that.

He calls her Commander in his last words before being stranded in deep space (Ep28), before launching himself into the star (Ep52) and before the mind-wipe (Ep61).

I'm pretty sure that the first time Eiffel calls Minkowski 'Renée' is when he is begging her not to send him off back to Earth in the Sol. This is followed by Minkowski saying "Goodbye, Doug."

Minkowski does call Eiffel Doug several times in the early episodes but I think this is more because the writers hadn't fixed on the significance of names at this point. I think I remember seeing the writers saying that they wish they'd held back on her calling him Doug so that it would have more power later on.

During Eiffel & Minkowski's first meeting, she cuts herself off from asking him to call her Renée, and says Minkowski instead (perhaps because she's trying to be more formal/authoritative). After he butchers her surname a few times, she tells him to call her Commander.

Minkowski reintroducing herself to Eiffel after the mindwipe. Eiffel pronounces Minkowski's name correctly first time. This time she does ask him to "call me Renée".

This might be a stretch but arguably it's significant that she reintroduces herself with "my name is Renée Minkowski. I'm the Commander of this space station" rather than "I'm Commander Renée Minkowski"- she isn't defining herself by her military position.

The si-5 have a similar thing going on where they don't often call each other by their first names, so when they do, it gives those moments extra emotional significance.

Kepler calls Maxwell Alana in Ep39 when telling her not to get sentimental about Hera.

Maxwell first-names Jacobi twice in Ep42 (the Outside Jacobi Incident), once to tell him that if its a joke, it isn't funny and once to say a firm No to the idea of leaving Outside Jacobi to die.

When Maxwell is calling out for an answer from Outside Jacobi, our Jacobi says "Alana... I didn't go anywhere."

In Ep43, when Maxwell is about to lay into Jacobi for losing his cool over the Outside Jacobi Incident, she begins with "Daniel? Look at me." He eventually responds with "Alana, you're... You're absolutely right."

You could even argue that the classic introduction of 'This is the audio log of Communications Officer Doug Eiffel' draws attention to names as a key motif.

[charlieism]

Any podcast recs?

woo yes!! i love podcasts!! i’ll get right into my favs :D click the read more bc it gets kinda long

The Adventure Zone

If youre on tumblr youve probably heard of this already. It’s created by the McElroys, and follow the adventures of Taako, Magnus and Merle and a lot of fun other side characters all voiced by Griffin. Its hilarious and full of goofs, but the story it weaves Will make you cry by the end, there are so many plot twists, gays, found family tropes, its just ugh. amazing. very good to listen to if u want a laugh tbh, but the episode are pretty long, up to an hour and a half. but the story is beautiful, the characters are amazing, n i feel like im constantly laughing at jokes i dont even understand bc the mcelroys r Just That Funny. there are also other arcs u can listen to, like amnesty, which is about a trio of monster hunters, commitment, which is about superheros, and dust, which is a western supernatural mystery!

EOS 10

This is for sure one of my favourite podcasts ever. The characters are so easy to love and all so complex with very human issues, except its set in space surrounded by aliens so the shenanigans are never-ending and all so, so entertaining. the general plot is about dr. dalias, a surgeon on the space station EOS 10, and his friends and coworkers dr. urivdian, jane, and levi the hypochondriac, chaotic alien prince (and akmazian, the gay space pirate). the relationships between the characters are to die for, the gays are beautiful, and its fucking hilarious. 10/10 recommend, the episodes are relatively short between 10-15 minutes so its very easy to listen to.

Wolf 359

This was the second podcast I ever listened to, and will forever be held close in my heart. it starts off as a funny, light-hearted podcast based on the logs of communications officer doug eiffel, an astronaut aboard the USS Hephaestus, a spacecraft with only 2 other crewmembers, commander Minkowski and scientist Hilbert. eventually more characters are introduced such as captain lovelace, and the SI-5 crew Jacobi, Kepler, and Maxwell. the series goes from something entertaining and joking to a story with an unfolding plot that honestly blows me away, morally grey characters and the complex relationships between everyone, and amazing character development. the episode start out pretty short but they get longer as the plot progresses. you’ll laugh too many times to count, find yourself crying near the end and wonder how you got here, and fall in love w the characters, the jokes and the mystery. i cant recommend it enough (eiffels development ugh my fucking boy…..)

The Penumbra Podcast

This podcast is so fucking fun. its a detective-noir type storyline set far into the future on mars. it follows PI Juno Steel, a detective in Hyperion City, and all the cases he lands and has to solve. its intriguing as hell, the characters draw you in completely bc theyre so layered and complex but so easy to love, its gay as FUCK (theres only one straight person on mars lol) and its v enjoyable listening to juno’s character development and his interactions with other characters (namely nureyev and rita). im literally never bored listening to this podcast, and if the detective theme wouldn’t typically be your thing i swear you should listen to it anyway because with how its set on mars, in space, in the future, there are things youd never imagine and worldbuilding so smooth and surprising and fun. there are hilarious moments, tragic moments, heartbreaking moments, heart-healing moments, and just. the whole thing is brilliant dude. i adore it. (theres also a lot of mini episodes set in different universes like old western lesbians, and the Second Citadel, which runs alongside juno’s universe and is kind of a knights vs monsters fun thing but theyre also all bisexual lol).

Time Bombs

This is a mini-podcast made by the same creators as wolf 359. its only 3 episodes long so if u want something quick to listen to this is v good! its about a bomb squad on new years eve as Simon Teller tries to break the record of most bombs defused in a year. its very funny, easy to listen to, and just a fun lil thing!

Lake Clarity

Now this boy is a horror podcast. Its about a bunch of teens who go up to the abandoned Camp Clarity for a trip together before they graduate. they uncover abandoned military bases and a conspiracy, mutations and monsters, and get picked off one by one. i admit i never finished the second season but i greatly enjoyed the first! it was interesting (and they acknowledged the slightly basic set up in show a lot lol) but i like it!

King Falls AM

I only recently started listening to this one but its so good dude!! its set in a radio show in King Falls, hosted by Sammy and Ben. Sammy just came to the town from the city and Ben has lived in King Falls his whole life: we listen to the strange events happening around town as they happen and ben and sammy report on them, listen to the residents send in calls about their weird situations, meet new characters, and get a lil freaked out by some spooky things! its funny, its odd, its creepy at times, its the perfect blend of humour, supernatural, and horror!

And now for some honourable mentions

Welcome To Nightvale

This is one you’ve probably heard of as well. WTNV is a radio show hosted by Cecil Palmer, a citizen of the town of Nightvale, which has got to be the weirdest town in the world. its delightfully strange, entertaining, fun to listen to, and i havent finished it but i like it and i know a TON of other people adore it, its v popular!!

The Magnus Archives

Another horror podcast, I never got very far through it (mainly bc i just. struggle to listen to jon’s voice and accent rip) but the gist of it is a british archivist is going thru some archives n recording the stories. its full of monsters, supernatural stuff n creepy stories. people love it, if ur into horror n creepy stuff then i recommend this one!

The Bright Sessions

Another one I never got very far through, it follows dr. bright, a therapist for the ‘strange and unusual’ and her sessions with various super-powered people, for example empaths, time-travellers, etc etc. im not sure why i didnt get v far thru bc it is v intriguing and has a lot of potential, im sure id pick it back up one day! i think it could have a lot of cool overlapping storylines if u dig that!

Directive

This short podcast is very interesting, its about a man who is on a spacecraft alone looking after people in stasis for many years, and isnt allowed any real contact with other people on the ship outside of a video call once a night. there are plot twists, you will randomly find yourself crying by the end of it bc of the raw emotion, and it can be a little slow in the start but its worth the quick listen!! it goes into the effects of isolation and moral dilemmas on a person and is v interesting!

And now just some ones on my to-listen list that have been highly recommended to me!

Limetown

Wooden Overcoats

Within the Wires

Rabbits

Alice Isn’t Dead

[geejaysmith]

Wolf 359 Classpects, pt. 1

Soooo, while I was still busy with the last few weeks of my summer internship, I did keep thinking about classpecting the Wolf 359 cast. Possibly too much, because it wouldn't leave me alone until I'd solved my own God Tier riddle. Unfortunately, it got really long in the solving because I have many Thoughts and want to share all of them, always, so uh, a complete Classpect Analysis of Wolf 359 will be in parts? This first one covers Eiffel's, Hera's, Lovelace's and Minkowski's aspects.

DOUG EIFFEL: An utter no-brainer; ya boi Dougie Fresh is a Breath player if I ever saw one. For Chrissakes, he's the communications officer, and the first one to start complaining about the monotony of being stuck in a deep space sardine can. Breath is associated with communication, freedom, openness, and change - "free as the breeze", you might think of it, but that also leads to Breath players having trouble pinning themselves down to anything. They get skittish if they feel pinned down, and frustrated when stuck in place. Doug's noncommittal aloofness, the way he's off in his own little world (partially to hide from the fact he really does not like himself very much at all), and the way he's incorporated media into his self-perception all match pretty well with John and the Nitrams. But at the same time, he's the one playing mediator even as early as The Sound And The Fury. Being largely outside of the War Industrial Complex the other characters are so familiar with and thus mostly free from its dogmatic worldview of hierarchy and order, he's becomes the One Sane Man when he's the one to shout "what is WRONG with you people?" when "murder" shows up in the top 3 potential solutions to a problem, and he has no hesitation in saying what's on his mind. And it's not all complaints and bad ideas, either; he's got whole speeches telling the others how amazing he thinks they are and how in awe he is of their skills. A key catalyst in the plot of Wolf 359 is the reaching effects of his radio broadcasts. Also, there's something hilarious to the fact that for the aspect associated with communication, Doug *literally* cannot lie to save his life. I kept my ears open for the infamous Breath Hex on my second listen - that is, the strange little way in which things Breath players say tend to come to pass in reality. Cigarette Candy is basically 20 straight minutes of the Decima virus being Breath Hexed into existence, and he guessed Lovelace's situation in one - "Maybe she's a clone, or like a *really* good robot replica."

HERA: Another easy one. Although Hera is resistant to splintering as we've come to recognize it, Heart players are nothing if not determined to be an individual. They have a firm idea of themselves as a person and defend it fiercely, including compartmentalizing away pieces that don't fit their self-image. Maybe less actively putting them down like Jade Harley did to Jadesprite (the manifestation of the negative feelings she repressed out of fear they'd make her less useful) - that would mean attacking or denying a part of themselves - and more... "why yes, I put this part of myself in this box, and I may look at the box on occasion, the box definitely exists, but I don't go near the box and I definitely do not touch or open or interact with the box. And then one day, I will die." So that piece finds other avenues to express itself because it can't not do that. Hera's programming dictates she be "chipper and non-confrontational and always ready to help", but she actively resists being a mere utility and always has - her earliest know action was to attempt a jailbreak of the manufacturing facility she was made in, born rebel that she is. She will insist upon her name over her serial number unless you force her not to, and gets passive-aggressive at people treating her like a machine. And yet, even as she teaches herself to ignore commands literally written into the base of her personality, she doesn't reject her directive to be helpful, nor does she express a wish to be a flesh-and-blood human, or even really to have a physical form? She has a human self-image in mental spaces (we presume, I will semi-seriously point out there's nothing definitively stating she doesn't see herself as like, her fursona or something), but when she has to limit herself to a human-like view of the ship, her immediate reaction is "this is weird, I don't like it."  This is honestly something about Hera that I think may be unique among non-villainous AI characters; she seems to be content with being what she is in general, and she just wishes for people to treat her as a person and not a piece of equipment they can do with as they please.  

ISABEL LOVELACE: Arm-wrestled Hera for the Heart aspect and lost, despite Hera not actually having any arms, but that's okay because there's two aspects that fit her much better: Blood and Time. I ultimately went with Blood.

This is the part where you notice I'm onto the third of four characters in an aspects-only meta post, yet there is still a lot of post to go. This is because These Kinds Of Characters, the sort that're constantly on emotional lockdown, are a Challenge Mode, and for me to truly be satisfied with my classification I have to start drilling into the bedrock of what it even means to have an aspect in general, what it means to have a specific aspect, and what each aspect is really about. When you're on that level you tend to find yourself throwing out explicit expositional statements as incomplete, oversimplified, or unreliable, and looking at the text directly with a subtextual electron microscope. Brace yourselves. I have thrown the author out of the airlock, and I am about to get verbose.  

Lovelace's character sheet describes her in contradictions, and we get to see two different sides to her that resolve into the complete picture by the time Lovelace Mk. III wakes up. There's Captain Isabel Lovelace, goofing around in her earlier logs, and The Terminator. She does things Her Way and is very much prepared to fight you if you object - the whole reason she was picked for the Hephaestus mission was her willingness to go against (in her words) "stupid orders" and do what she thought was right. She's also fiercely loyal; The Terminator is the end result of her anger and grief for her lost crew and at her failure to get them home alive. Her backstory episode has her summing up her complicated relationship to the Air Force with "I owe a lot of who I am to them." And even before she and Minkowski have completely stopped butting heads, Lovelace shoves her out of the way of an exploding wall panel that would've killed her, and takes a near-fatal bit of shrapnel to the gut in the process. At her best, Lovelace is a fearless, boundlessly determined, dedicated firebrand of a leader. At worst, she can be impatient, stubborn, shortsighted, and ruthless. I dunno about you but that reminds me of a certain... angry crab that I know.

"Time" was what a few people chimed in with for Lovelace and while I see some of the connections (her awareness of the time loop, "Variations on a Theme", her multiple selves and multiple deaths, the repeated motif of clocks and pocketwatches) I don't think she quite fits in with the other Time players. Unlike most Time players, she doesn't have a fixation with historic context, the "Why Things Are The Way That They Are." This manifests in Dave's paleontology and his taking of source material for ironic twisting, Aradia's archaeology and knowledge of The Nature Of The Game, Damara's... /noises and vague gestures bc I don't want to go back through Meenahbound but her role as The Handmaid fits the pattern, and Caliborn's own warped, thoughtless replication of narrative archetypes. Context. Decisions. What came before and how it shapes the now, where your decisions will take it from here. The consequences those decisions will have. The details versus the larger picture. Even failure has its place in that scheme - that's the Time aspect. Lovelace doesn't like to dwell, she's a very "barrelling forward momentum" kind of person.

Side note: Aradia, Dave, and Damara all face hesitation to take action they had to learn to overcome. Also, all of them had to be pushed to use violence except in self-defense; Aradia let Vriska cross a series of lines before beating the everloving shit out of her, and Damara snapped after what, years? Of Meenah's abuse. Dave, on the other hand, never raises a hand to another person except as a complete necessity. Caliborn is, if anything, an aberration here in that he's outright homocidal and self-doubt is something that happens to other people. Caliborn is an outright aberration to a lot of Time player patterns, and to SBURB in general, because it's SBURB, so the rules are made up and the points don't fucking matter, except when they do, because Fuck You, The Author Said So.

No, Lovelace's approach to decision-making is that regrets are for afterwards, and "if I fail I deserve to be out of this picture; also, this situation has gone entirely pear-shaped, time to fling myself into the sun." (and that sounds an awful lot like someone that I know very well, but I'll deal with that royal mess when I get to the crazy whamma-jamma that is Classes). Impatience and railroading of other people can be her undoing just the same as assertiveness and decisiveness are her gifts.

...aaand then I went ahead and watched the live episode and yeah, major Karkat vibes there. However, I note that I don't believe we have ever hit hard evidence in Homestuck that Blood players are capable of Chilling The Fuck Out - this is part of the limitations of classpecting characters who weren't made for this system, you really have to dig into how much of their behavior is situational and where you see the kernel of individual perception shine through, the Rosetta Stone by which you begin to see the constants. "Where the object becomes the subject", to quote Memoria.

Finally, I think it's also worth noting that while Lovelace has a lot of connections to Time motifs, she also has connections to a lot of Blood motifs that arguably become more important to her story. Personal bonds and social justice are two of the Blood aspects strongest associations - see Lovelace's loyalty to her crew, and extending her desire to avenge them out to everyone Goddard Futuristics has ever used and tossed aside. The physical body and literal blood are other strong associations, and gee, how many times does the O-negative Cure-All Alien Juice in Lovelace's veins become a critical plot point? Not to mention the implication that her new friends all pulled through the finale because all of them now have her blood in their system. I'll accept that she's closer to the line between Blood and Time than some, but I'm holding by ground here: 

(Also, here's some irony for you, she may share an aspect with the Cancer trolls, but her birthday is August 11th, making her a Leo.)

RENEE MINKOWSKI: Minkowski was the hardest of these 4 to come to a decision on. My first inclination was Mind. Her general disposition put me in mind of a Life player. But then, I sat down and thought my way past the Commander's layers of emotional armor and ultimately settled on Light.

First off, by being a stickler for protocol and procedure as well as an Actual Responsible Adult, Minkowski is a kind of character that Homestuck straight-up just does not have, so snap judgements aren't gonna cut it here.  This is, again, another limitation of the classpecting system - all the examples we have to draw from are teenage disasters stuck in a lawless hellscape of some description or another, and written by an author allergic to boxing himself in with hard conclusions. But I digress.

Commander Minkowski is also stubborn. When she sets her mind to something, she digs in her heels, cranks the dial to 11, and then breaks off the knob and pockets it so you can't turn it back down. We see this as soon as episode 2, and at it's most hyperbolic when she Captain Ahabs the plant monster. Her's is iron-willed, bloody-minded, unstoppable, Determi-fucking-nation - when she sets her mind to it.

The submarine thought exercise is what had me initially lock her down as a hero of Mind before I mulled it over. The exercise is meant to provoke thought about priorities - what you think your role's purpose is in that situation will determine your priorities, and thus, your decisions. Mind heroes' most prominent skills are in riding the flow of causality, watching decisions, their causes and their consequences, and directing that path. They know people, and how to direct people. But the need for this means that they can get a little co-dependent. Other people are understandable - it's themselves that Mind heroes have the greatest struggle with. Without that vehicle of another person, Mind heroes may find themselves adrift and struggling to define themselves. This is fitting, given Mind is the most direct counterpart to the Heart aspect.

However, upon further examination, I found that this framework of priorities setting your decisions can also be extended to the Light aspect. What is "lucky" in a given situation? What do you define as a fortunate outcome? Rose arguably gets Grimdark'd by something like this, she asks the cue ball "are the horrorterrors evil?" and in doing so attempts to pry into the motivations and intent of *indescribable eldritch beings existing on a nigh-incomprehensible plane* and wedge it down into a relative human understanding of morality, which is sort of like trying to fit the Pacific Ocean into a water bottle. She was trying to deduce what impact the horrorterrors would have upon her and her friends, but asked the wrong question and got an answer she couldn't handle. She didn't recognize Doc Scratch was baiting her into this by leading her into a specific framework through which to ask the question. Vriska died because of her failure to recognize she was in a situation where luck didn't matter. Aranea got trounced because of her inability to recognize that reshuffling reality to prioritize herself and her preferred outcomes still didn't overcome the fundamental nature of timelines - you try to take over the alpha timeline with an insubordinate branch? That's a doomed timeline no matter how you slice it, and we know what happens to those. Luck and knowledge are both used by the Light-bound to give themselves power, whether in showing themselves off as The Smart One or the The Helpful One or The Unstoppable One, but their limited viewpoint often leads them to overlook the limitations of their own framework, or in other words, missing the bigger picture. I'll point out here also how Minkowski has the entire DSSPPM memorized and is the one who wants to get to the bottom of whatever the hell is really going on up at Wolf 359. Additionally, one of her other ambitions, at least once upon a time, was writing musicals. The verbal arts are one of the domains of Light players.

So while on the surface, Minkowski bears the most resemblance to a Life player, Life players tend to have an element of conformity to them. Unquestioned assumptions they've internalized have about the context in which they exist. Light heroes, on the other hand, need conformity so they have something to defy when they jump up and down screaming LOOK AT ME!  

So after much pontificating, I came to a decision. In the end, what Minkowski wanted more than anything else was a stage. Maybe to direct rather than hold the spotlight, but still; that's a Light hero if ever I saw one.

[weekend-conspiracy-theorist]

I think any answer for how to return eiffel's memories that may have been found in the last fifteen minutes of wolf 359 would have felt really cheap.

I mean, I can think of like four or five different potential solutions off the top of my head-- the dear listeners had scanned eiffel's mind and the star was still blue at the time, so they could have gotten themselves involved (on behalf of their message actually making it back to earth), pryce had also scanned his mind and (assuming it was transmitted to earth as suggested regarding hilbert's brain scan chair) so they could potentially get the info back from goddard futuristics, there could have been some kind of back up that hera did before she wiped eiffel and pryce, lovelace's blood could have partially immunized him such that his memories return over time, or hell, there could even just be some kind of "reboot" that hera could initiate to recover any uncorrupted data (to further the minds -> computers analogy)-- but I don't think it's at all unreasonable that mr. urbina just... didn't take it any of those directions.

it would have felt like a bit of a cop out, to have eiffel make a sacrifice that huge and then pull a reverse immediately. narratively, holding onto the mindwipe is the cleanest solution, and I also do love the "let's figure it out together" moment between him and minkowski and hera. I also think that it's really, really meaningful that they automatically embrace post-mindwipe doug as his own person.

but I also don't... really care for the idea that all of the character development that eiffel had throughout the show just... got erased. and to be clear, in some ways it didn't; mindwiped!eiffel in the last moments of the finale is obviously just as kind as he was before his memories, and he obviously still feels some modicum of emotion towards certain people, minkowski and hera especially. you could choose to attribute that to him listening to his logs, but I don't really buy that as the singular explanation. and like you could take what I just said and say, well, if the emotions kind of carried over even if the knowledge of events didn't, then all his progress is still there; this is the New Version of doug eiffel, with a better understanding of the effect of his own words and actions. ...but that also feels a little cheap to me, and disingenuous. I don't think it's unreasonable, especially given the themes of identity and personhood throughout the show, to question if the same actions have the same meaning if a person didn't actually have to put in the effort to get there, and this version of eiffel isn't the one who did the work (although there's still work to do, of course. he certainly hadn't concluded that character arc in just nine or ten episodes).

I guess what I'm saying is that I'd like to think that post-canon, he recovers at least some of his memories. (I lean towards maybe a combination of the ideas of lovelace's blood and hera being able to do some kind of reboot, for the record; I think the blood is a pre-established answer for why pryce's machines may not have worked as well on him, and I also think hera deserves the opportunity to help fix it given the guilt she feels over having helped cause it. those ideas also gel the neatest with the canon ending of the show, rather than rewriting the last ten or fifteen minutes.) I don't necessarily think eiffel could/should get all of his memories back because that's a disservice to the magnitude of the sacrifice he made, but I don't like (and okay, I'll admit it, don't want) to think that he was and remained a perfect blank slate. I want to believe that eventually he finds a conclusion to that character arc he'd started; I want to believe that eventually doug eiffel gets the chance to apologize to ann and kate (whether they accept it or not), and not just the guy wearing his face.

[angelofgrace96]

Addition to this: how the finale would work in this au. Honestly, most things stay the same. Minkowski still fires Eiffel (and Lovelace and Maxwell) off to Earth, but thanks thankfully for Eiffel Maxwell has been paying attention to Minkowski and helps him input the command code to get them turned around sooner. Eiffel still 'reunites' with Bob, Cutter has something very witty and not a little astonished to say about the fact that Eiffel's only half human, Pryce and Hera still have it out in Eiffels mind, except Lovelace manages to use the neural machine to sneak inside and give Pryce a bit of deserved trouble. Minkowski heads off to fight Cutter alone and while she might not have gotten shot by Lovelace, it turns out Cutter can do quite a bit of damage on his own. ("So messy" he said disdainfully, looking at the blood on his knuckles. "I do hate getting involved personally") She does nail him with the crossbow though. And, of course. Eiffel still gets his mind wiped.

When he and Hera realises it would wipe everyone linked, Eiffel tries to convince Lovelace to get out, but she tells him, not a little sadly, that she thinks this is her time. "Ghosts are only memories anyway, Eiffel. With the station gone, Maxwell will go too, and I'll be alone again. It was horrible enough to go through that the first time, I'd rather die, again, than go through that ever again."

Eiffel and Hera, who is really meeting Lovelace for the first time, say their goodbyes to Lovelace before the machine is fired up.

Eiffel still gets time to say goodbye to Minkowski and Maxwell, who, like Lovelace, is surprisingly happy to be moving on. ("I stayed for Daniel," She tells Eiffel, talking as quickly as she can because this needs to be said. "I didn't want him to be alone but maybe I was alone too. But you've been good to both of us, Doug. Even when you didn't mean to.")

Later, on the way to the Urania, Doug accidentally outs himself to Jacobi when he asks why there's a terrifying looking man screaming in rage as he hurtles around the corridors. Jacobi, who of course can't see Cutter's ghost, reminds himself to ask Doug a Lot of questions once they're safe.

Minkowski was the one who had to explain his ability to Doug once everything is sorted, since even Eiffel was dumb enough to mention something that could get him dissected on official logs. Eiffel finds it pretty difficult to believe, but, of course, it's not like he can contradict them. And they still all head back to earth. Together.

Ghost Vision AU

Omg what about an au where Eiffel can see restless dead, like people who’ve died but aren’t accepting off it and when he accidentally kills his daughter in a car crash then sees her ghost, asking why it’s so cold daddy, why won’t mummy look at me daddy, he jumps at the chance to go to space. Ghosts are regionally tied, there’s no way she’ll be able to follow him 7 light years away. But then he gets to the Hephestus and he thinks it’s fine, for once he don’t have to watch his tongue, making sure he’s responding to living people and not dead ones. Minkowski thinks he’s crazy with the sheer amount he talks, but it’s so freeing.

But then, they find the hidden laboratory, and it turns out there’s a lot more hidden in there than Minkowski knows, because Lovelace’s ghost has been sealed in there somehow, and she’s very unhappy. The rest of her crew have passed on but Isobel Lovelace never does anything half way, and that includes dying. She’s not going down until she’s managed to off that fucker Selberg. She doesn’t know how she’s gonna do it, but she will somehow. Doug notices straight away, of course. When the all seeing AI in the sky doesn’t notice a woman floating along the corridors yelling at the top of her lungs, it’s a pretty good indicator he’s been stuck with another ghost. For a while he tries to ignore her, but she picks up pretty quickly he can see her when she goes on a very inventive death threat rant and he has to stifle his giggles in front of Doctor Hilbert. She corners him, as much as an incorporeal spirit can, but Eiffel thinks her very varied swearing is amusing, and she thinks the way he teases Minkowski is hilarious, so they actually get on. Hera notices Doug talking and laughing to himself a lot more, but he seems happier, so she let’s it slide. Eventually Minkowski catches him and the whole story (minus Anne, Eiffel’s never telling that story if he can help it, not now Minkowski is actually listening to him sometimes) comes out. Minkowski thinks it’s amazing, and recruits Eiffel as a translator to talk to Lovelace in person. Hera is very miffed she missed something like this, but when Eiffel told her it’s a very rare, biological mutation, she let it go.

Then of course Eiffel gets infected with Decima and once Hilbert betrayed them nobody bothered to tell him his previous commanding officer is haunting the station, and Lovelace doesn’t have veins so she can’t give blood, but by some miracle Eiffel manages to hang on long enough for new synthetic blood to be made (Lovelace wonders in private if his ghost mutation did more for him than he realised, made him somehow more resistant to death). When he wakes up Lovelace and Hera yell at him for 20 minutes each about being so reckless. Then the shuttle Lovelace has been helping Eiffel and Minkowski build, from the memories of the one she build, before she fell in the star, malfunctions, and Eiffel gets jettisoned into space. He hates it, he hates being alone, even though once upon a time that’s all he wanted. Everyone back on the station is miserable, especially Lovelace, since the one person who can see and communicate with her is gone. Minkowski and Hera try, but it doesn’t really work when you can’t even tell if they’re still in the room or not.

Then the SI-5 come, bringing Eiffel back, and Lovelace is so happy to see him she burst into tears. Minkowski hugs him. It’s a lot harder to keep his sixth sense or ghost radar hidden now, with four people who don’t know about it, but if there’s one thing Lovelace and Eiffel agree on, it’s that Cutter and Goddard don’t need to know about this. When the revolution happens, and Eiffel is shot in the chest, he survives? Yeah he’s unconscious and bleeding but it’s super slow? Like his blood is slime, just oozing out of his body instead of rushing out, and Minkowski manages to get there in time to patch him up. That’s the second clue Eiffel gets that his spooky sonar might be the least of his abilities. Hilbert and Maxwell still die though. Hilbert, who’s been missing his sister for as long as he can remember, passes on, but Maxwell, who doesn’t want to leave her best friend in the lurch, stays and meets Lovelace for the first time, because, of course, there are no secrets from the dead.

So now Eiffel has two bossy outspoken ghosts following him around, and the fights they get into sometimes make him want to scream.

Once Jacobi rebels on Kepler (“God Jacobi, gotta have the last hand, right?” Maxwell mutters, invisible in the corner), once Eiffel comes face to face with the Dear Listeners, and they tell him ‘half breeds often have unusual side effects’ after Eiffel stops panicking over the fact his father was an ALIEN, he comes back to a station overrun by Pryce and Cutter, the absolute last people he wants to see with this new knowledge in his head. The first thing he sees when he steps on board is Lovelace gliding towards him, looking frantic. “Cutter is here! Get away before she grabs you!” She yells but Eiffel sees Minkowski and runs to give her a hug, and then it’s too late.

For two weeks Lovelace and Maxwell haunt Eiffel, Minkowski and Jacobi, trying to wake them up, trying to tap morse code messages to Hera with insubstantial fingers, trying to break Pryce’s machinery, trying anything that would stop them feeling like ghosts in their own home. Eventually, Eiffel wakes up, and the three of them hatch a plan.

Ghosts aren’t stopped by walls or security systems, so Lovelace and Maxwell have already been on the Sol, but the overall plan remains the same. Except this time, when Eiffel unwillingly sets off the fire protocols and sends the capsule hurtling into space, there aren’t 4 people on board. Lovelace and Maxwell are on board as well, hoping frantically their ties to the Hephestus (Maxwell) and Wolf 359 (Lovelace) won’t stop them from helping their friends.

(Eventually, after its all over, Maxwell manages to convince Eiffel to tell Jacobi about his abilities. Jacobi is sceptical, but once Eiffel reminds him of how he was SHOT, and repeats something only Maxwell would know, he accepts it, and is secretly thrilled she’s still around in some capacity.)

[apieceot-blog]

podcast recs

yo what’s up homeslices it’s my 100th post so I figured I’d do a list of podcast recommendations because I listen to a lot of em. I’m going to do it in the (approximate) order of when I first started listening to them. The first podcast I ever listened to was some Sword Art Online podcast but I don’t count that so the first podcast I ever listened to was:

Wolf 359

Wolf 359 is a podcast about a crew of astronauts onboard the USS Hepheastus. It stars communications officer Doug Eiffel, and it’s told through his audio logs. It starts off as a comedy, but quickly transitions into something else. Worry not, though, there’s plenty of comedy throughout the entire story. It has really amazing audio quality at the end which I always love (it’s seirously asmr worthy) and uh yeah space podcasts are my jam

Welcome To Night Vale

WTNV is a lot of people’s gateway into podcasts and chances are you’ve already heard of it but here we go anyway. It’s told in the format of a local radio station set in the town of Night Vale where lots of spooky things happen. To the host of the show and to most of the town, these spooky things are considered normal, and it’s fun to hear our host speak about Glow Clouds (all hail) and floating pyramids in a matter-of-fact tone which is usually pretty funny. There’s a backlog of over 100 episodes, which makes it great to binge. You could also start it wherever you want. I’d suggest looking up a list of plot specific episodes and listening to those first if you don’t want to listen to all of them in order.

The Bright Sessions

This podcast is about a therapist who helps people with superpowers (atypicals) adjust to and control their powers. There’s a few different main characters, and each episode is one of their therapy sessions. At first, they each have their own individual stories, but they intersect fairly soon into it. It’s ending soon (cri cri) so this is one that you might want to start with.

Alice Isn’t Dead

From the same creators of WTNV! This one’s more focused on horror than comedy, and it’s about a woman who’s wife has died, only, as it turns out, she isn’t dead. The only thing she has to go off of is a company: Bay and Creek Shipping, and so she becomes a trucker. The podcast is about her various trips and the things she sees along the way. It’s fairly short, and is currently in it’s third and final (!!!!!) sesson. There’s also a book coming out soon if you don’t want to listen to a podcast.

The Penumbra Podcast

If you’re looking for LGBTQ+ content, this is the podcast for you. It tells a variety of different stories featuring minorities that don't get enough rep in the media. There are two main stories that they’re currently doing. One is Juno Steel, which is about a detective named Juno (and it's on Mars!) He runs into a guy named Rex Glass who… let’s just say he isn’t what he seems. It’s very good but prepare to feel many emotions as we go on adventures with Juno and learn about his past and who he is as a person. The other recurring storyline is The Second Citadel which tells stories from the points of view of many different people all living in the fictional world of The Second Citadel. I’d recommend listening to the Juno Steel episodes and then going back and listening to the rest. There are two horror stories at the beginning which I’d recommend you listen with caution because there are some potentially sensitive topics. They don't impact your listening experience at all though, because they're standalone stories.

Conversations With People Who Hate Me

This one’s another Night Vale Presents podcast. This time it’s a nonfiction podcast where Dylan Marron (a fav and the voice of Carlos on WTNV) calls people who have said negative things about him online, and has a conversation with them. He also monitors conversations between two people sometimes. It’s really great and is something we all need nowadays.

Within the Wires

Last Night Vale Presents one, I swear. I haven’t finished this one yet (last episode yeet) but it tells stories through (first season) relaxation cassettes and (second season) museum tour guides. It’s set in the same world and it connects at the very end. It’s really relaxing because there’s only one voice, and both of the voices (1st and 2nd season) are very nice to listen to.

The Adventure Zone

It took me a very long time to finish this, but trust me, it’s worth it. It’s in its second season now so you’ve got many hours of quality content ahead of you. It’s a dnd campaign (that doesn’t 100% follow the dnd rules) but that doesn’t matter because the storytelling is *chef’s kiss*. It follows the Très Horny Boys (which is not a porn thing @my friends) on their adventures. Anyone who knows me (both here and irl) knows that I have an unhealthy obsession with the McElroy brothers, and this podcast stars them and their dad.

The Far Meridian

TFM is about an agoraphobic woman who lives in a lighthouse that suddenly starts moving to new places every day. It’s all about her learning to deal with her agoraphobia, and her search for her missing brother. It’s a really calming podcast to listen to, and tells a really interesting story. Even if you don’t think that this podcast is one for you, I strongly suggest following their tumblr. They post Gentle Encouragement Monday, which is a cool thing to look at if you aren’t feeling the best, or if you’re just bored one day.

ars PARADOXICA

This one also took me a while to get through, but it’s very interesting and definitely worth the listen. It’s about a woman who accidentally goes back in time to 1943. It’s definitely a more serious podcast, but there are plenty of funny moments, too. It’s ending soon, so now would probably be the time to start. The main character is canonically asexual which is very cool, and there are plenty of characters that address the hardships that minorities faced in the 20th century, as well as the struggles they still face today. There’s also plenty of history (and rewritten history) and it all makes a very interesting podcast.

Inkwyrm

This one’s about the AI caretaker of a fashion magazine and her adventures. It’s another Gay Space Podcast™ and is done by high schoolers (!!) which is EXTREMELY impressive and definitely something that I could probably not do. It’s in its second season right now, I believe, and although the audio quality isn’t for everyone, the story is still good and worth the listen.

OAKPODCAST

This is one that I’m going to relisten to soon because I forget a lot of what happens. It’s about a spy named Holly who gets stranded somewhere and it's told through her audio posts. If you donate to her funding accounts (I forget which ones), the donations are transferred into items that she buys to help keep herself alive. I really liked that part of the podcast! I definitely recommend this, but can’t really give an accurate summary because, as I said, I forget a lot of the things that happen.

EOS 10

There sure is an abundance of space podcasts. It’s pretty much its own genre at this point. Anyway this one follows Doctor Ryan Dalias and the rest of the crew of EOS 10, which is a space station. It’s currently in hiatus, but they’re starting work on season 3, which is exciting. A lot of people describe it as “Scrubs but in space” which I’m sure is accurate but I’ve never seen Scrubs so I wouldn’t know. Make sure to look up the content warnings, though because there was something that I didn’t expect in episode 4 and it didn’t bother me too much, but there might be other people for whom it does bother.

King Falls AM

This one’s another podcast told through radio broadcasts, but it’s set in this day and age. It’s a comedy that also delves into paranormal stuff (apparitions, the void, and more). It, like so many before it, starts off very lighthearted and quickly turns more serious. There’s still plenty o’ laughs, though. Featuring the world’s longest slowburn relationship (besides Blupjeans Adventure Zone of course). There’s quite a few LGBTQ+ characters, and more than quite a few emotions to be felt over the course of this podcast. It just went on hiatus, so now is the perfect time to catch up!

My Brother, My Brother, and Me

This one’s an advice podcast that was actually my first podcast, now that I think about it, but I stopped midway through the first episode because I wanted to listen to Wolf 359 instead. My goal is to finish all 400+ episodes by the end of the year, but that’s probably not going to happen. It’s an advice podcast where the McElroy brothers usually don’t give good advice, but there are a lot of good goofs to be had. A fair amount of what I say on a regular basis is actually a McElroy quote, but because none of my friends listen to this, (yet), I’m safe.

The McElroys Will Be In Trolls 2

It’s exactly what the title says.

Wonderful!

This one is just Griffin and Rachel McElroy  talking about things that they love! It’s a really great podcast to listen to when you aren’t feeling great, or if you just need some time to yourself. Not only is it a great podcast, but Griffin and Rachel love each other so much? Like you can hear it in their voices? And it’s just a really happy podcast? Honestly I’ve felt very emotional more than a few times just because this is such a lovely podcast and adsfhjlkldasfhgf

Shmanners

Travis McElroy and his wife Teresa teach us about the history of good etiquette, and how it applies to us in everyday situations! Are you out of episodes of Wonderful! to listen to? This one’s a pretty good second option, and you learn new things each week!

Sawbones

Justin and Sydnee McElroy talk about the history of medicine, and things that have gone wrong with it in the past. It’s really interesting to hear about these medical things because it’s an area that I know very little about, but probably should know more about, seeing that I should learn to take care of this flesh prison that I currently reside in.

I think that’s it! If there’s any more I guess I’ll have to make another list some other time. Congrats if you’re still reading this, by the way. I hope I’ve given you some new stuff to listen to! I’m always down to talk about podcasts (or anything else, for that matter), so uhh hit me up I guess. Also feel free to recommend me more podcasts, because I’m always in need of some new ones!