#which as great as it is is wildly truncated

[ohwolfling]

me trying to explain colonialism, dragons as threats and essentially WMD, the thematic implications of all these weird incests, what the word conqueror means, & the difference between fighting to claim all kingdoms vs fighting for sovereignty to a show watcher who thinks their team or canonically war-crimed yet still war criminal dead person is going to "win"

[cyclesprefectpress]

[image description: a proof of a font of handset type for letterpress printing, displaying every letter, symbol, and special character in the font. it's called "Sixteenth Century Roman," 24 pt., and is a rough-edged serif font with a deliberately worn look. end description.]

hello hello i am return from a deep dive into several reference materials that assumed a little bit more knowledge about how Medieval Latin works than i actually have, but, it was all exTREMEly inch resting to me. i am absolutely not a historian but here we are, a speedrun of my pinballing around trying to ensure that I know what the fuck im storing in my type corridor:

so 16th Cent. Roman, i already knew, was a font Paul Duensing designed based on this incomplete set of old Italian punches he acquired (punches, the first step of old school typecasting, where you carve the relief letter shape into the end of a stick of steel, and you uuuh punch that into the copper matrix, which is then the negative mould-shape you use to cast multiple copies of the lead sorts with hot metal; surviving punches are precious artifacts not the least because they are. they’re hand-carved!! often by the type designer themselves. historical and also wildly cool craftsmanship). these punches were all beat up and probably water damaged, fucky and rough-edged, so he re-did and filled in the gaps in the alphabet with similarly styled letters of his own. very cool. an extremely nerdy lil passion project of a typecaster in the 1960s, very typical of type people. we all find a Thing to obsess over, and sometimes it's reviving an incomplete set of punches from the 1500s that you found in, idk, it's usually a bucket in somebody's basement.

anyway it's got a bunch of ligatures and the long s, sure sure sure, but WHAT are all these gibberish characters with tildas and lines thru the stems of ps and qs and such—

Duensing's full font is in Mac McGrew's specimen book, great, i have that, except McGrew's book has complete proofs and a little bit of history for each font but doesn't always cover what each symbol in a unique alphabet is for, and i knew just enough about Latin to guess that they were abbreviations but not what each of them stood for. a little bit of searching got me this far, which is to say, "Abbreviation in Medieval Latin Paleography," a translation of an Italian essay on the subject from 1929. It is prefaced by the translators with gems like: "Take a foreign language, write it in an unfamiliar script, abbreviating every third word, and you have the compound puzzle that is the medieval Latin manuscript." Scribes writing in medieval Latin just tossed out letters they didn't care to deal with, constantly, and had stand-in special characters and abbreviations for syllables/words/particles and there were intuitive rules but way too many variations in time and place and person to make a reasonably-sized, static lexicon. amazing. hope all u paleographers are having fun over there.

the essay has a great big glossary of truncations and abbreviations and so on which clearly cover most of the figures in Duensing's font:

[image description: screenshots of the essay, with various symbols and the Latin syllables they abbreviated. an m with a bar over it, ex., stood in for men or mun. end description.]

ok! BUT this q with a little swoop off the end kept bugging me!! for all these dead-use symbols this essay is using handwritten samples, obviously, and there's clearly variation in execution and also typographers take liberties, and i just thought, sure my piece of type looks a lot like the quod here but it does link the staff to the swoop where the handwritten sample doesn't, and it could just as well be a fanciful ligature for qn which apparently can stand in for quando, and i have no idea which is a more common-use syllable likely to be cast in the font if you're only going to pick your top 14, and i just like to be sure about things.

SO. i went to double-check with Johnson’s Typographia. Johnson made like a thousand pages of printing manuals set in tiny tiny type in the 1820s which are rad as hell and tell you all sorts of things about how to run a shop and build your own press and cast type and going rates for work and employment and also, the alphabets/type case layout for whatever language or symbol set you might have to set type in, when handsetting type was mostly the only way to get stuff printed—English, Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, musical notation, astronomical signs, aaaand it’s got a section for "Marks & characters used in the Domesday Book & other ancient records.”

[image description: a photo of a page of the manual, with similar but not always identical symbols for abbreviated use. many of these abbreviations are described as "a Domesday contraction." end description.]

and WHAT is a Domesday contraction, WELL, it's a contraction specifically from/prevalent in the Domesday book, a deeply boring and historically important tome about property distribution in England. It’s literally a survey. who owned what, in 1086. presumably mind-numbing. enormous, handwritten in Medieval Latin, EXTREMELY cool, go look at some images of it at least, very important to historians, economists, linguists, and a complete pain in the ass to set in type when that technology became available, having to cast any significant proportion of these variant characters in an alphabet. Johnson says, (in 1824) “It is an improvement of latter years only*, to have type cast to resemble the abbreviations used in the more ancient manuscripts; they being formerly rudely imitated, either from a common fount, or else were cut in wood for the purposes of any particular work.” wow that sucks. but in 1773 the government really wanted to be able to reproduce the Domesday Book in type, so a couple people tried to cut a set of punches for Domesday abbreviations and Joseph Jackson got it done and it only took 10 years to print an edited version of the manuscript. and then apparently all the type was destroyed in a fire in 1808. WOW that sucks.

but the point is, Johnson has a great big glossary of characters as they were translated into type in the making of the printed Domesday Book, and the Domesday punches were used or refrenced in the printing of other medieval latin works, which consequences a degree of standardization in the abbreviations used in those versions of the text that handwritten manuscripts never had or needed.

notably the Domesday quod looks even more different from my piece of type here which was pretty annoying, so what are the chances this thing is a quando, and anyway that's when my sister texted me back with better computer skills and a different search engine and found me a perfect match on the first try. it’s a quod. this National Diet Library digital exhibition has several different sample fonts, both black letter and roman, with quite consistent letter forms, if not choices about which abbreviations to bother casting.

*I don’t……exactly know what he means by this, since Gutenberg and contemporaries absolutely did cast many Medieval Latin abbreviations for their fonts nearly 400 years before this. His dismissal of “from a common fount” might be fair, since i think what he means by it is that you’d have a generic set of abbreviation characters which you would have to use in conjunction with whatever font was the main body of your text, and it’s messy to mix things that weren’t designed specifically to match. he may just mean that it’s new for his contemporary foundries to be casting all these expanded alphabets of abbreviations; Gutenberg didn’t have foundries to buy from and made his own type. he could include as many characters as he had the patience for. maybe Johnson is just a guy from the 1800s that didn’t have the internet and i shouldn’t jump down his throat for not knowing something. idk!! i have homework.

anyway that was my Friday!! feel free to correct me and/or suggest further reading if early typecasting is your Thing or. again. you just have better googling than me.

[keltonwrites]

I'm not sure if that's a good thing

“Well you’re definitely the first.” This past week, we screened-in the eastern facing porch on the side of the cabin. The porch slopes to the South, with the brick-on-dirt floor crumbling in that direction as well until it reaches uneven slabs of stone acting as steps down to the “yard” below. A mixed material retaining wall wraps beneath the steps to the south facing garage, holding up one corner of the narrow deck on the front of the house. The deck, in the heat of a high altitude summer, droops off the house like it’s daydreaming about the winter snow’s embrace. It’s safe to sit on, though I would not recommend leaning on the railing.

The side porch takes the brunt of the wind. Our wooden rocking chairs have been rocked some 20 feet into the yard more than once in the two months we lived here. In the myriad of threats we heard about the weather, most people included the wind. We all know how I feel about this ongoing weather intimidation tactic. I asked, “what speed are the gusts?” “Oh, they get up to 70 miles per hour on some days.” This was the first quantifiable piece of weather information someone had offered — an actual number we could react to with data and our historical personal experiences of various weather events. And our reaction was: uhhhh…. OK???? Look, I get it. No one’s preaching the skin benefits of -20 degree wind gusts at 70 mph, building snow drifts against your house in the span of minutes that Cooper could die in. I am not going to pretend that’s pleasant. But 70 mph? Any wind I’ve driven faster than does not intimidate me. I used to rally the horses at 12 years old in winds over 70mph to get them in the barn before the latest tornado whipped through. I helped shutter the resort in the BVI as the Category 5 hurricane rolled in. Even in Topanga, 70 mile per hour gusts were not uncommon in Santa Ana events. We had our single pane windows shatter more than once from debris in the wind. We taped cardboard up and went to sleep. That “70 mph” was all I needed to hear to confirm our next project: we were going to build a catio for these cats, and we were going to do it on the pre-existing porch structure to save time and money. We spent a week framing out the structure. We had to carve into the logs of the house to embed the wood supports for the framing.

And from there, every piece of wood was custom carved and cut to fit around the existing timber supports. The existing porch was so wildly uneven that there are gaps between each piece of old wood and the new framing. Our plan is to mix all the wood chips from the project with mortar/chinking and stuff the gaps — a good solution for the log cabin look. We built a plywood pony wall up to 28 inches from the interior of the porch, which gives a height of ~4-5ft from the exterior ground below. It’s capped with a 2x6” railing for even the fluffiest of cats to find a perch. The exterior will be wrapped with corrugated metal that we’ll quick-age to match the metal that wraps the bottom of the cabin. On the interior of the porch, we’ll use shiplap to hide the framing.

The screens themselves can withstand winds up to 120 mph, but to-be-determined if they can hold the weight of a growing maniac cat who has already tried to climb them. In the event the screens succumb to cat (or wind or snow or neighbor judgment) we’ll reinforce with metal mesh. We’re going to maintain this screen porch regardless of what the screen is. We had the pleasure of running into one of our more industrious neighbors the other day, and Ben asked him, “hey we’re building a screen porch. Is this a terrible idea?” He laughed. “Well you’re definitely the first.” But he liked it. Great way to diminish wind into the house. Simple way to regulate the temperature with massive south-facing windows. And indeed a practical outdoor safe haven for cats in predator territory. Just because you’re the first doesn’t mean you’re foolish — just foolhardy. There’s plenty of that here. This town has the typical mountain town’s truncated version of a colonizers’ history: “established 1881.” But it was plenty established prior to that by the Uncompahgre Band of the Ute Nation, removed by the U.S. Army on September 7, 1881, nearly 140 years ago. The government relocated the Uncompahgre Ute People to Utah, and one year after the Ute were forcibly removed from their ancestral land, San Miguel County split off from Ouray County and was made its own political subdivision in the newly-formed State of Colorado. In 1879, the ore-laden valley already had 50 people living in it, with a new narrow gauge railway only 2 miles away. By 1885, it was a town of 200 people. There was a hotel, a couple saloons, a pool hall. Winters were treacherous; the valley was and is prone to avalanches. But where there’s gold, there’s gumption. The power needed to run the stamp mill to process ore drove innovation. Timber was scarce at such high elevations, so a wood powered steam mill wouldn’t cut it. But the San Miguel River just a few miles down from the mine looked promising. Thus began the development and construction of the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant. It was a hit. In fact, it was so successful that the Ames Plant led to the adoption of alternating currents at Niagara Falls and eventually to being adopted worldwide as a viable power solution. The plant remains, but the gold rush obviously didn’t. By 1940, the U.S. Census declared this little town I call home as tied for the lowest population in the country: 2 people. By 1960, it was one of four incorporated towns in the U.S. with no residents. But the joke was on the Census — the town’s single resident was just out of town the day the census came through. 1960 population: 1. By 1980 the population grew to 38, 69 in 1990, and about 180 now. (Plus 51 dogs according to the town’s website.) With modern amenities, it’s easier to be here. Studded snow tires, satellite internet, solar panels, instant coffee. No matter the hardships, there’s the reality of the present. In the 1880s, as the town boomed, the Ouray Times declared, “it will be at no distant day a far more pretentious town than it is now.” That day hasn’t exactly arrived, but I guess it depends on what you consider pretentious. I don’t think the town claims any airs of excellence beyond what’s true. In fact, the town hardly claims anything at all. There’s no sign indicating it’s even here. There’s just the old side and the new side. The new side, the Eastern half, was drawn out in the early 1990s, some 100 years later, and is separated from the Old Town by an avalanche zone—preserved open space for hiking in the summer, preserved open space for surviving in the winter. The town forbids short-term rentals, no one has a fence, dogs roam free, and all the houses have that cabin look to them. A boulder nests in a grove near a trailhead in the center of town with a plaque paying respect to the Utes who called this valley home. There’s no industry here. No businesses allowed. If you want a $7 latte, you can drive the 14 miles required to get it, assuming there’s not an avalanche blocking your path. You can, however, buy a pink lemonade in a

solo cup at the permanent lemonade stand run by the local feral child mafia. Crystals (rocks) can be purchased for an additional cost. We bought one, hoping to buy favor at the same time. The town plan has a few guiding principles, and it’s all in the name of preservation. We must preserve: 1 - the quiet atmosphere 2 - the rustic character 3 - the natural setting

And finally: 4 - protect the health and wellbeing of the people here No snowmobiles, no ATVs, no drones. In fact, the only sign of the outside world here are the passers-through. When you take the dirt road through town to the end, you enter National Forest, and you can hike over the pass saddle at nearly 12,000 feet before descending down the other side into Silverton. The pass road climbs rutted through an aspen forest before scaling across a scree field and then lurching over to the other side. Every day, it seems like 30 or so Texans and Arizonans in lifted and loud Jeeps with unused mods climb over this mountain in the comfort of their air conditioning, simply to drive down the other side. You could hike it, ride it, run it, and ski it, but they don’t. They rev their engines, kicking up dust in a town of feral children and roaming dogs, staring at us instead of waving. I’ve lived here for two months and look how salty I am. I’ll fit in yet. But today, there is a temperature that whispers of perfect trails and the dwindling of ogglers driving 35 in a 15. It’s already snowed in the mountains we see from our kitchen. Today, like a dedication to the Septembers of our youth, you can feel a chill in the air. A temperature akin to pencils and sweaters and reinventing yourself. A temperature that doesn’t exactly sing “screen porch” but could if you had the right slippers on. That’s what I did this morning: put my slippers on and sat there in the cool mountain morning air, thinking about the cemetery behind our house, about the Ute tribe, about the miners, about the mailman who died on Christmas in 1875 on the pass, about the 5 people who died in avalanches here just last year, about the people in their cars on their phones driving through, and all the people who’s very first question to us was, “so are you gonna live here part-time or full-time?” Maybe it will be a hard place to live. But at least we’ll have a screen porch.

Every week I'm writing about moving to log cabin in a small town at 10,000 feet. Subscribe here for free: tinyletter.com/keltonwrites

[aaronmaurer]

TV I Liked in 2020

Every year I reflect on the pop culture I enjoyed and put it in some sort of order.

Was there ever a year more unpredictably tailor-made for peak TV than 2020? Lockdowns/quarantines/stay-at-home orders meant a lot more time at home and the occasion to check out new and old favorites. (I recognize that if you’re lucky enough to have kids or roommates or a S.O., your amount of actual downtime may have been wildly different). While the pandemic resulted in production delays and truncated seasons for many shows, the continued streaming-era trends of limited series and 8-13 episode seasons mean that a lot of great and satisfying storytelling still made its way to the screen. As always, I in no way lay any claims to “best-ness” or completeness – this is just a list of the shows that brought me the most joy and escapism in a tough year and therefore might be worth putting on your radar.

10 Favorites

10. The Right Stuff: Season 1 (Disney+)

As a space program enthusiast, even I had to wonder, does the world really need another retelling of NASA’s early days? Especially since Tom Wolfe’s book has already been adapted as the riveting and iconoclastic Philip Kaufman film of the same name? While some may disagree, I find that this Disney+ series does justify its existence by focusing more on the relationships of the astronauts and their personal lives than the technical science (which may be partially attributable to budget limitations?). The series is kind of like Mad Men but with NASA instead of advertising (and real people, of course), so if that sounds intriguing, I encourage you to give it a whirl.

9. Fargo: Season 4 (FX)

As a big fan of Noah Hawley’s Coen Brothers pastiche/crime anthology series, I was somewhat let down by this latest season. Drawing its influence primarily from the likes of gangster drama Miller’s Crossing – one of the Coens’ least comedic/idiosyncratic efforts – this season is more straightforward than its predecessors and includes a lot of characters and plot-threads that never quite cohere. That said, it is still amongst the year’s most ambitious television with another stacked cast, and the (more-or-less) standalone episode “East/West” is enough to make the season worthwhile.

8. The Last Dance (ESPN)

Ostensibly a 10-episode documentary about the 1990s Chicago Bulls’ sixth and final NBA Championship run, The Last Dance actually broadens that scope to survey the entire history of Michael Jordan and coach Phil Jackson’s careers with the team. Cleverly structured with twin narratives that chart that final season as well as an earlier timeframe, each episode also shifts the spotlight to a different person, which provides focus and variety throughout the series. And frankly, it’s also just an incredible ride to relive the Jordan era and bask in his immeasurable talent and charisma – while also getting a snapshot of his outsized ego and vices (though he had sign-off on everything, so it’s not exactly a warts-and-all telling).

7. The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)

This miniseries adaptation of the Walter Tevis coming-of-age novel about a chess prodigy and her various addictions is compulsively watchable and avoids the bloat of many other streaming series (both in running time and number of episodes). The 1960s production design is stunning and the performances, including Anya Taylor-Joy in the lead role, are convincing and compelling.

6. The Great: Season 1 (hulu)

Much like his screenplay for The Favourite, Tony McNamara’s series about Catherine the Great rewrites history with a thoroughly modern and irreverent sensibility (see also: Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette). Elle Fanning brings a winning charm and strength to the title role and Nicholas Hoult is riotously entertaining as her absurdly clueless and ribald husband, Emperor Peter III. Its 10-episodes occasionally tilt into repetitiveness, but when the ride is this fun, why complain? Huzzah!

  5. Dispatches From Elsewhere (AMC)

A limited (but possibly anthology-to-be?) series from creator/writer/director/actor Jason Segal, Dispatches From Elsewhere is a beautiful and creative affirmation of life and celebration of humanity. The first 9 episodes form a fulfilling and complete arc, while the tenth branches into fourth wall-breaking meta territory, which may be a bridge too far for some (but is certainly ambitious if nothing else). Either way, it’s a movingly realized portrait of honesty, vulnerability and empathy, and I highly recommend visiting whenever it inevitably makes its way to Netflix, or elsewhere…

4. What We Do in the Shadows: Season 2 (FX)

The second season of WWDITS is more self-assured and expansive than the first, extending a premise I loved from its antecedent film – but was skeptical could be sustained – to new and reinvigorated (after)life. Each episode packs plenty of laughs, but for my money, there is no better encapsulation of the series’ potential and Matt Berry’s comic genius than “On The Run,” which guest-stars Mark Hamill and features Laszlo’s alter ego Jackie Daytona, regular human bartender.

3. Ted Lasso: Season 1 (AppleTV+)

Much more than your average fish-out-of-water comedy, Jason Sudeikis’ Ted Lasso is a brilliant tribute to humaneness, decency, emotional intelligence and good coaching – not just on the field. The fact that its backdrop is English Premier League Soccer is just gravy (even if that’s not necessarily represented 100% proficiently). A true surprise and gem of the year.

2. Mrs. America (hulu)

This FX miniseries explores the women’s liberation movement and fight for the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and its opposition by conservative women including Phyllis Schlafly. One of the most ingenious aspects of the series is centering each episode on a different character, which rotates the point of view and helps things from getting same-y. With a slate of directors including Ryan Bowden and Anna Fleck (Half-Nelson, Sugar, Captain Marvel) and an A-List cast including Cate Blanchett, Rose Byrne, Uzo Aduba, Sarah Paulson, Margo Martindale, Tracey Ulman and Elizabeth Banks, its quality is right up there with anything on the big screen. And its message remains (sadly) relevant as ever in our current era.

1. The Good Place: Season 4 (NBC)

It was tempting to omit The Good Place this year or shunt it to a side category since only the final 4 episodes aired in 2020, but that would have been disingenuous. This show is one of my all-time favorites and it ended perfectly. The series finale is a representative mix of absurdist humor and tear-jerking emotion, built on themes of morality, self-improvement, community and humanity. (And this last run of eps also includes a pretty fantastic Timothy Olyphant/Justified quasi-crossover.) Now that the entire series is available to stream on Netflix (or purchase in a nice Blu-ray set), it’s a perfect time to revisit the Good Place, or check it out for the first time if you’ve never had the pleasure.

5 of the Best Things I Caught Up With

Anne With An E (Netflix/CBC)

Another example of classic literature I had no prior knowledge of (see also Little Women and Emma), this Netflix/CBC adaptation of Anne of Green Gables was strongly recommended by several friends so I finally gave it a shot. While this is apparently slightly more grown-up than the source material, it’s not overly grimdark or self-serious but rather humane and heartfelt, expanding the story’s scope to include Black and First Nations peoples in early 1800s Canada, among other identities and themes. It has sadly been canceled, but the three seasons that exist are heart-warming and life-affirming storytelling. Fingers crossed that someday we’ll be gifted with a follow-up movie or two to tie up some of the dangling threads.

Better Call Saul (AMC)

I liked Breaking Bad, but I didn’t have much interest in an extended “Breaking Bad Universe,” as much as I appreciate star Bob Odenkirk’s multitalents. Multiple recommendations and lockdown finally provided me the opportunity to catch up on this prequel series and I’m glad I did. Just as expertly plotted and acted as its predecessor, the series follows Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman on his own journey to disrepute but really makes it hard not to root for his redemption (even as you know that’s not where this story ends).

Joe Pera Talks With You (Adult Swim)

It’s hard to really describe the deadpan and oddly soothing humor of comedian Joe Pera whose persona, in the series at least, combines something like the earnestness of Mr. Rogers with the calm enthusiasm of Bob Ross. Sharing his knowledge on the likes of how to get the best bite out of your breakfast combo, growing a bean arch and this amazing song “Baba O’Reilly” by the Who – have you heard it?!? – Pera provides arch comfort that remains solidly on the side of sincerity. The surprise special he released during lockdown, “Relaxing Old Footage with Joe Pera,” was a true gift in the middle of a strange and isolated year.

The Mandalorian (Disney+)

One of the few recent Star Wars properties that lives up to its potential, the adventures of Mando and Grogu is a real thrill-ride of a series with outstanding production values (you definitely want to check out the behind-the-scenes documentary series if you haven’t). I personally prefer the first season, appreciating its Western-influenced vibes and somewhat-more-siloed story. The back half of the second season veers a little too much into fan service and video game-y plotting IMHO but still has several excellent episodes on offer, especially the Timothy Olyphant-infused energy of premiere “The Marshall” and stunning cinematography of “The Jedi.” And, you know, Grogu.

The Tick (Amazon Prime)

I’ve been a fan of the Tick since the character’s Fox cartoon and indie comic book days and also loved the short-lived Patrick Warburton series from 2001. I was skeptical about this Amazon Prime reboot, especially upon seeing the pilot episode’s off-putting costumes. Finally gaining access to Prime this year, I decided to catch up and it gets quite good!, especially in Season 2. First, the costumes are upgraded; second, Peter Serafinowicz’s initially shaky characterization improves; and third, it begins to come into its own identity. The only real issue is yet another premature cancellation for the property, meaning Season 2’s tease of interdimensional alien Thrakkorzog will never be fulfilled. 😢

Bonus! 5 More Honorable Mentions:

City So Real (National Geographic)

The Good Lord Bird (Showtime)

How To with John Wilson: Season 1 (HBO)

Kidding: Season 2 (Showtime)

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Vs The Reverend (Netflix)

[papermoonloveslucy]

IS THERE A BABY IN THE HOUSE?

November 27, 1948

“Is There A Baby In The House?” (aka “There’s A Baby In The House”) is episode #18 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on November 27, 1948.

Synopsis ~ Liz goes over to meet the new neighbors and winds up minding a four-month old baby overnight.

Note: This episode was aired before the characters names were changed from Cugat to Cooper. It was also before Jell-O came aboard to sponsor the show and before the regular cast featured Bea Benadaret and Gale Gordon as the Atterburys.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cugat) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. “My Favorite Husband” eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cugat) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz, a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

GUEST CAST

John Hiestand (Cory Cartwright) served as the announcer for the radio show “Let George Do It” from 1946 to 1950. In 1955 he did an episode of “Our Miss Brooks” opposite Gale Gordon.

Frank Nelson (Mr. Brennan) was born on May 6, 1911 (three months before Lucille Ball) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He started working as a radio announcer at the age of 15. He later appeared on such popular radio shows as “The Great Gildersleeve,” “Burns and Allen,” and “Fibber McGee & Molly”.  Aside from Lucille Ball, Nelson is perhaps most associated with Jack Benny and was a fifteen-year regular on his radio and television programs. His trademark was playing clerks and other working stiffs, suddenly turning to Benny with a drawn out “Yeeeeeeeeees?” Nelson appeared in 11 episodes of “I Love Lucy”, including three as quiz master Freddy Fillmore, and two as Ralph Ramsey, plus appearance on “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” - making him the only actor to play two different recurring roles on “I Love Lucy.” Nelson returned to the role of the frazzled Train Conductor for an episode of “The Lucy Show” in 1963. This marks his final appearance on a Lucille Ball sitcom. 

Mary Lansing (New Neighbor, Little Stevie’s Mother) was best known for playing Martha Clark and ten other characters in Mayberry on “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Mayberry R.F.D.”, both filmed at Desilu. Lucy lovers might remember her as the voice of weepy Cynthia in “Over The Teacups”, the Broadway play that the Ricardos and Mertzes attend in “Ethel’s Birthday” (ILL S4;E9).  She met Frank Nelson performing on radio. They married in 1933 and had two children. Lansing appeared with him frequently on the “Jack Benny Program” during the 1950s.

Hans Conried (Mr. Atterbury, George’s Boss) first co-starred with Lucille Ball in The Big Street (1942). He then appeared on “I Love Lucy” as used furniture man Dan Jenkins in “Redecorating” (ILL S2;E8) and later that same season as Percy Livermore in “Lucy Hires an English Tutor” (ILL S2;E13) – both in 1952. The following year he began an association with Disney by voicing Captain Hook in Peter Pan. On “The Lucy Show” he played Professor Gitterman in “Lucy’s Barbershop Quartet” (TLS S1;E19) and in “Lucy Plays Cleopatra” (TLS S2;E1). He was probably best known as Uncle Tonoose on “Make Room for Daddy” starring Danny Thomas, which was filmed on the Desilu lot. He joined Thomas on a season 6 episode of “Here’s Lucy” in 1973. He died in 1982 at age 64.  

In a few months, the role of Mr. Atterbury will be assumed by Gale Gordon.

Jean Vander Pyl (Stevie the Baby) is best known as the voice of Wilma Flintstone for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon “The Flintstones.” Coincidentally, Wilma’s best friend was voiced by Bea Benadaret, who will later play Iris Atterbury, Liz’s best friend on “My Favorite Husband.” On radio she was heard on such programs as “The Halls of Ivy” (1950–52) and on “Father Knows Best” before it moved to TV.  She died in 1999 at age 79.

Doing baby voices was something that Vander Pyl would also do on “The Flintstones” where she did the voice of her own daughter, Pebbles. 

EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “As we look in on the Cugats this morning something new has been added. There’s a moving van in front of the house next door, but of course the new neighbors don’t interest Liz Cugat in the least!”

Liz is peering through the front window at the goings on next door using George’s binoculars.  George gets interested only when she sees fishing and hunting equipment being unloaded.  

In “New Neighbors” (ILL S1;E21) in 1952, Lucy and Ethel watch new tenants the O’Briens move in using Ricky’s binoculars. Like Liz, Lucy mistakes a bug on the lens for the new neighbor!  Unlike George, it is blonde, shapely Mrs. O’Brien who gets Ricky and Fred interested, not sporting equipment.

Cory Cartwright (John Hiestand) drops by for a rare early morning visit. He’s come by to tell George that he is to be the trustee of his mother’s club, who helps an orphan home with 130 children.  George makes Liz promise not to go next door and bother the new neighbors while he is at work. 

Liz and Katie spend two hours washing windows while spying on the movers. Liz says they moved in a lot of junk.

KATIE: “With women who know junk best, it’s Mrs. Cugat two to one!”

Katie is sarcastically paraphrasing a popular ad slogan of the 1930s and ‘40s for Lucky Strike Cigarettes: “With men who know tobacco best, it’s Luckies 2 to 1″. 

Liz wildly figures that if she doesn’t go over and visit the new neighbor she may lonely, take to brooding, become moody and despondent and turn on the gas. Liz rushes off to save her life!  

Liz visits the new neighbor (Mary Lansing), who compliments Liz on having two such industrious maids - the ones who spent the two hours cleaning the same window!  Before Liz leaves, the woman asks her to babysit with her four month old son, Stevie (Jean Vander Pyl), while she runs an errand. 

George comes home early while Liz is still watching the baby, so she tells Katie to take him into the den. George hears the baby crying and goes into the den to see for himself and demands to know who it belongs to.

LIZ: “You wouldn’t believe it’s mine, would you?” GEORGE: “No!”  LIZ: “Princess Elizabeth’s?” 

When Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II was still Princess Elizabeth, she gave birth to Prince Charles, who was born on November 14, 1948, two weeks before this broadcast. Princess Elizabeth became Queen upon the death of her father, George VI in February 1952.  Lucy Ricardo performed for her in “Lucy Meets The Queen” (ILL S5;E15) in January 1956. Naturally, the monarch remained off camera. 

Liz admits that the child belongs to their new neighbor. Just then the telephone rings and Liz leaves George with the baby to answer it.  George tries to distract the child with his pocketwatch, which Stevie promptly breaks. Liz returns to report that Stevie’s mother is delayed and they have to watch the child overnight!

~END OF ACT ONE~

A patriotic public service announcement details how the US Air Force helped a Spanish town remove a precariously tottering statue from a high building.

ANNOUNCER: “And now, let’s go back to Liz and George Cugat and see how they are getting along with the baby.” 

In the kitchen, Liz and George are trying to figure out how to feed the baby, not remembering the exact formula. They decide to feed him cereal, instead. 

LIZ: “Now which kind do you think he’ll like best? Corn Flakes or Post Toasties?  Here’s a good one: Grape-Nuts!” 

Post Toasties was a breakfast cereal made by Post Foods as the Post version of Kellogg’s popular Corn Flakes. They were discontinued as of August 2016, although Kellogg’s Corn Flakes are still going strong. Post also made Grape- Nuts, initially marketed as a natural cereal that could enhance health and vitality. It is still sold today.  

George thinks they should just feed him baby oil, but Liz correct him that baby oil is not for drinking, but for frying the cereal!  They resort to canned baby food, but think it is spoiled because it is all mushy.  They settle on milk, but can’t find the nipples, so Liz decides to cut the fingers off a rubber glove instead. 

The baby cries all night long. Liz picks him up every time he cries, but as soon as she puts him down, he cries again. 

GEORGE: “I know how to make him sleep: ‘Rock-a-bye Baby’. Wait here and I’ll go get a great big rock.” LIZ: “George!!!” 

Liz realizes that the baby can’t sleep because she didn’t burp him. After a few pats on the back, Stevie burps.

LIZ: “Isn’t that cute?” GEORGE: “Cute? When he does it it’s cute. When I do it it’s vulgar!” 

At the bank the next day, Mr. Atterbury (Hans Conried) calls a sleep-deprived George into his office. He tells George that Mr. Brennan, the man from the Orphans Home, is reluctant to make George trustee because he has no children.  Mr. Atterbury comes up with a plan. George must rush home to meet Mr. Brennan and pretend that the neighbor’s baby is his own! 

Mr. Brennan (Frank Nelson) arrives at the Cugat’s door just as George comes tearing up the walk to warn Liz of the scheme. George gets Liz into the kitchen to fill her in on the plan, but Liz has already given the baby back to his mother. George tells her to get that baby back! 

Liz dashes out the back door, tearing her dress on a branch, and stepping in a puddle.  Stevie’s mother asks her husband was was going into her house and Liz realizes that Mr. Brennan is the new neighbor and that Stevie is his son. Liz grabs the baby and rushes back home in shambles, hoping that Mr. Brennan will not notice.  

But Mr. Brennan sees a resemblance between the two babies and heads home and get his son to compare the two. Liz rush through the back door to return the baby before he can get there. On the way back Liz tears her dress on a nail, falls in a puddle and gets back just in time to find Mr. Brennan at the door without his son! 

MR. BRENNAN: “When I got home and took a good look at him I could see: they don’t look alike at all!” 

Later, Liz goes to see Mr. Brennan to tell him how wonderful her favorite husband is and Brennan gives George the job as trustee. He asks one favor, however - that they babysit Little Stevie.

GEORGE: “Not tonight!” LIZ: “No, not tonight. For the whole weekend. Goodnight, George!” 

~ END OF EPISODE ~

[ckret2]

King Ghidorah?

I got two of these asks lmao. I choose to believe it's two people who wanna know how I feel about Ghidorah rather than tumblr screwing up.

How I feel about this character

Listen, there's nothing cooler than a three-headed lightning*-breathing dragon from outer space. You've got the objectively best mythological creature ever—the dragon, which is the best because it's a lizard and/or snake, and also flies—and, on top of that, it's an ALIEN, and then you triple that. Best character concept. 10/10.

*Gravity beam shmavity beam. I know lightning when I see it.

And then, on top of that, they've got this wildly underexplored capacity for pure, undiluted angst, the likes of which most people would never think of applying to a character concept that seems tailor-made to be airbrushed on the side of a van—but there it is anyway. They might be pets that were deliberately abandoned in order to mutate them into monsters. Or they might be one-time would-be alien conquerors who were then conquered and mind-controlled by every wave of would-be alien conquerors to come since. Or they might just be the only aliens alone on a world where even the monsters have other monsters to hang out with. And there's nothing I love more than taking characters whose entire character concept is an answer to the question "what would be really really cool?" and then slathering them in emotional depth.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I came out of KOTM, looked at what fandom was doing with Ghidorah, went "mmm I'm not sure about this sticking-them-with-Rodan thing," and it took y'all all of five minutes to suck me into Rodorah anyway.

I'm determined to drag more folks into Ghidorah/Gigan with me, they have such wonderful potential to be horrid world-flattening alien sadists together, and also empathize over being extremely physically modified and mind-controlled.

While I'm intrigued, theoretically, by the potential of Godzilla/Ghidorah, I've yet to see anyone do it in a way that hits precisely what I'm looking for. ... Or, for that matter, even vaguely what I'm looking for. So I'll hold onto that one and maybe someday someone will make it Just Right.

I also ship the heads with each other due to the fact that Wouldn't That Be Messed Up. What if one head likes another but the other doesn't return the feelings. They've just gotta live with that knowledge and they can't get away from each other. What if you had a crush on someone and a mad scientist saw it and went "ah, these ones are compatible!" and stitched you together and you were stuck like that for the next million years. That's messed up right. That's super messed up.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

It's on my ship list, but Ghidorah & Gigan is also my top platonic pair for Ghidorah, for the same reasons.

But going with someone who isn't on the list! Okay quick partial movie summary for those of y'all that haven't seen 1991 Godzilla vs King Ghidorah: in Heisei, King Ghidorah is made by time-traveling humans from the future, including one named Emmy Kano who explains that dorats are genetically engineered pets with empathic abilities, and interacts with them the most before abandoning them in the past to be nuked into King Ghidorah. They fight Godzilla, Godzilla rips off Ichi and kills them, Emmy goes into the future to get their corpse a cyborg resurrection with a new middle head, and goes back to the past with Mecha King Ghidorah while serving as Mecha Ichi's pilot and commanding them as a whole. They die again defeating Godzilla but Emmy survives and goes home.

ALL THAT TO SAY: it's never stated, but I like to headcanon that the dorats were Emmy's pets—or at least that she was in charge of taking care of them until they could be mutated and they FELT like they were her pets; that they were broken-hearted when she abandoned them in the past; that they could sense Emmy nearby due to their Unexplained Empath Powers the first time they fought Godzilla; and that when they were brought back from the dead to find Their Owner Was Back and fighting alongside them they were overjoyed to see her again and do anything she wanted.

So, Emmy & Ghidorah, because the idea of these sweet tiny pets being turned into a big terrifying monster but at heart remaining sweet tiny pets around their owner enchants me. I do plan on writing a substitute-Emmy into my KOTM Ghidorah's backstory.

My unpopular opinion about this character

"hey didn't you sorta talk about this yesterday" yeah because while trying to answer this question i got distracted by an overlapping topic and had to go make a post about it in order to stop thinking about it

This is sort of an overall one about KOTM, but vaguely sticking to the parts of it applicable to Ghidorah:

So we've got all these titans that have been alive for like, five minutes. Ghidorah's been awake probably a sum total of four hours. Until now nobody even knew that he was from a different planet, so I mean, Monarch's got less than zero information on him. The only three things he's been observed doing so far are 1) trying to kick Godzilla's ass, 2) successfully kicking Rodan's ass, and 3) yelling so loud a dozen plus other titans wake up.

And then this dude whose defining character traits are "hating Godzilla and other titans in spite of the mounds of scientific evidence that they're great for the environment" and "deciding that he knows everything better than the actual experts in the room who have dedicated their lives to these subjects and pigheadedly shouting over them with his own just-walked-in-the-room ideas," he looks at this situation and "oh, this Ghidorah, he's definitely a rival alpha to Godzilla," he says, as if the "alpha dog" theory hasn't been thoroughly and painfully debunked in the very wolves he studies, and as if it makes sense for seventeen-odd different species who might never have been awake and alive during the same era until now to not only have identical alpha-based social hierarchies but also share a social hierarchy across species and predator/prey lines, and as if it makes sense for an alien animal who didn't evolve on Earth to have anything in common with the local animals, including an understanding of and agreement with their local hierarchical structures...

And we're just... as a fandom, we're really just collectively accepting everything Man Who Became A Drunk And Abandoned His Family Because He Doesn't Know How To Express Any Emotion But Anger says about this hyper-masculine social structure that he's projected onto these wildly inhuman species? As if what he says is the gospel truth? Everything that gets said about alphas and kings, we're just assuming that the titans—who again, are not human, and may have never communicated with humans—have the exact same mental constructs about "alpha dog" theory and monarchy that humans do? We're assuming animals have concepts of kingship identical to ours? We're assuming that the theories that these humans tossed out within the first few hours of seeing most of these species move for the first time are 100% correct, even though in real life we'd been observing wolves for literal millennia before we came up with "alpha dog" theory and then within a century figured out it was totally wrong? Really? That's what we're going with? Not questioning whether anything about the humans' assumptions might have been wrong?

Okay.

So anyway my interpretation of Ghidorah is a hypnotic siren who doesn't know or care about Earth leadership, solely wants to destroy Earth for funsies, and only has a rivalry with Godzilla because Godzilla doesn't want the planet that he is living on to be destroyed and happens to be the sole dude tough enough to beat Ghidorah up.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Mecha King Ghidorah Mecha King Ghidorah Mecha King Ghidorah.

But unlike other folks, I don't really want him to show up in Godzilla vs. Kong. I want that conflict to be the focus of the movie. Throw in MKG, and Godzilla and Kong's rivalry—whatever it's based on—has to get truncated to deal with this other threat, and MKG won't get a whole movie to shine as the primary villain. I'd like to save him for a future movie, where he can be billed as the primary threat rather than something that swoops in to interrupt someone else's movie.

[jellybeanforest-a-go-go]

Avengers Endgame Time Travel Explained

[Major Endgame Spoilers]

Okay, so I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about how time travel in Avengers: Endgame does not make sense given the time travel rules established in the film due to the appearance of Old!Steve at the end, and I replied to another post with basically a truncated version of the same explanation but thought I would break it out into its own post as well so it will show up in the tags.

The movie established that the Avengers cannot change the past (at least not without the Infinity Stones). If they time travel and change the past, this creates a new timeline where everything after the change is different. Their past, however, is fixed. This is done to avoid the “Killing Your Own Grandfather” paradox. (For those that don’t know, the paradox basically is: can you go back in time to kill your own grandfather, thereby preventing your own birth and your grandfather’s murder? In Avengers Endgame logic: Not really. You can go back in time and kill a parallel version of your grandfather and prevent your birth in that timeline, but your grandfather in your own past won’t die and then have you magically vanish. The only exception to this is you may be able to un-write the past with help from the Infinity Stones, which is why Tony made it explicit that Bruce should snap back the people they lost to the present day, not five years prior.)

By the end of the film, there are at least four different timelines involved.

Timeline A: Original canon MCU timeline. This is the timeline we see in the prior films and the main timeline for Avengers: Endgame.

Timeline B: Everything up to 2012 is the same until Loki obtains the Tesseract at the end of Avengers (2012). Events post-Avengers (2012) are different. This is likely the timeline that the Loki TV show will use.

Timeline C: Thanos, his daughters, and all his forces suddenly disappear in 2014 to invade Timeline A in 2023. Events post 2014 are wildly different. This is likely the most changed timeline. 

Timeline D: This is one that is implied (but not explicitly shown). This timeline is exactly like Timeline A. It is Old!Steve’s original timeline.

So how did Old!Steve end up on that bench at the end of Endgame?

Essentially, Steve Rogers from Timeline D time traveled to Timeline A and then simply decided to stay and live with Peggy. He and Peggy married, and though Peggy met Steve Rogers from Timeline A way later, she never let on that he was essentially a younger version of her husband (Steve Rogers from Timeline D). Steve Rogers from Timeline D never made waves and lived a quiet existence in Timeline A, allowing everything bad to happen knowing it would work out in the end.

Why would he do this? 

But Steve is Captain “Can’t-Let-Hydra-Win-Must-Save-Bucky” America. If he knew everything that was going to happen, why did he allow it? He’s bound to stick his nose into a few major conflicts over the years. 

Here’s what I think: One of the major promises he and all the Avengers had made to Tony was that none of them would do anything in the past to rewrite the five years between Infinity War and Endgame and accidentally prevent Morgan Stark’s birth. Tony made this priority #1, ahead of saving everyone they lost (priority #2) and surviving (priority #3). Old!Steve from Timeline D kept that promise and showed up at the appointed place when Steve Rogers from Timeline A traveled to yet another timeline (maybe Timeline D where he did the same thing, maybe another unheard of Timeline E where he really couldn’t let things lie and did a whole bunch of stuff with unintended consequences) to pass on the shield to Sam Wilson.

What is the evidence for this?

1) Peggy’s husband is never identified and never seen in the films. It is only stated that she married and had two children with this unnamed man. 

2) Peggy NEVER changed her maiden name, which was highly unusual in the 1940s. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Steve took her last name to avoid detection. 

3) Peggy has a picture of Steve on her desk in the 1970s (like over 25 years after they met). Desks are for pictures of family, not some dude you kissed 25 years ago.

But how did no one notice? 

Why would his niece Sharon be interested in someone who is clearly her great-uncle Steve? How come Peggy’s children/grandchildren never said anything about their Dad being a time-traveling Captain America? 

Honestly?

For the same reason I don’t think a time-traveling Bruce Willis saved our asses in WWII as Douglas MacArthur:

Or that this random man in the 1920s is actually Eddie Murphy:

Because in a world where time travel is not thought to exist, it’s a coincidence that Dad AKA Steve Carter looks exactly like famous superhero Captain America AKA Steve Rogers but like 70 years older. I mean, Steve is a common name, and I’m a reasonable person who doesn’t believe conspiracy theories.

The biggest issue I have with the logic of Endgame is how Steve replaced the Stones in their original timelines. He clearly can’t touch the Power Stone, yet it wasn’t given to him in the Orb capsule. What did he do with the Reality Stone? Re-inject it back into Jane Foster when she wasn’t looking? And don’t even get me started with the Soul Stone. However, as a time travel movie, it does hold together pretty well.

TL;DR: Old!Steve is NOT the Steve that left at the end of the movie, but a Steve from a parallel timeline.

[theimaginesyouneveraskedfor]

Give No Quarter XXXI

*tags: @everyjourneylove @somewhereinimagination @imaneternalflamebb @maniczebra83 @nuvoleincielo @ara-toa-min @ealasaid @nelswp @inkededucatednnerdy @fandomgalcentral @crowleysprincess159 @thorins-magnificent-ass @booknerdinator3000 @thebakerstboyskeeper @lamberts-bitch @memory-of-a-goldfish @karenp1969 @sherala007

-Warning: Violence, blood, and death-

You could not recall the exact moment when the sight of your own blood had ceased to affect you. The red drops trickling down your cheek and chin added to the array of crimson and scarlet stains across your corset. You could taste the metallic flavour as a stray bead of blood seeped between your lips. You spat forth another globule of reddened saliva, resisting the urge to wipe away the mess from your face.

“You’ll not be so pretty when I’m done with you,” Azog brought his blade up once more, laying a precise slice across your left cheekbone to mirror the right. You cared not for his threats as you’d likely not be alive when he had deemed your meeting over. “I’ve never met a bitch so stubborn as you.”

“And I’ve never met a brute so hideous,” You retorted, choking on your blood as you laughed darkly. “You’re a paltry monster after the beasts I’ve faced.” You taunted, “Nothing but an imp delighting in fool’s play.”

“Oh, yes?” He grabbed the back of your head, forcing you to your feet as he pressed the edge of his blade to your throat, “Perhaps you don’t fear the pain I’ve in store for you, but what about your dear captain, hmm? Shall I regale you with what awaits the honourable Oakenshield?”

You visibly gulped at the thought of Thorin, having drawn out your own torture to spare him. Despite Azog’s brutality and persistence, you had revealed not but insignificant details and irrelevant lies. He had broken two of your fingers and left dual gashes across your cheeks. He had hollered with irritation and thrown you against the wall several times, replacing you in the chair to resume his interrogation. You abided it all knowing it allowed Thorin a chance to save himself…if only he could find a way.

Thorin could not find his voice to shout anon. He continued to grip the bars between his hands, his face pushed against the cold metal as he tried not to think of what Azog was doing to Y/N. Every muscle within him felt as if it was throbbing and his eyes burned with acidic tears. He sniffed as he stared at the dim flame of the lantern across from him and felt a rage spark through his melancholy

It was the same anger he had been fighting since he had drawn Y/N from the depths of the water after Elvenking had tried to drown her. His grief had chased away the hunger which had driven him for so long but now it returned to him twofold. Azog had led him to this. He had attacked his crew all those years ago, violated his sister, driven her to madness, stranded him to a life tainted by violence. And now he would take from the Thorin the only sliver of solace he had found in his ill-fortuned life.

“Guard,” Thorin wiped away his tears and called out, driven by some half-formed plot brewing within, “Guard!”

He continued to call until the hatch opened, a sour grumble accompanied a set of clumsy footsteps and the tinkle of metal plodding down the stairs. The crewmate appeared before him with a drunken wobble and burped a foul odor into Thorin’s face. “What is the meaning of all this shouting!?”

“I’ve got to relieve myself,” Thorin stated plainly.

“Use the bucket,” The guard hiccupped and chuckled, unsteady on his feet.

“You took our pot,” Thorin lied, knowing the guard’s drunken eyes could not see through the dark shrouding the brass vessel hidden in the corner, “I’d rather not use the floor…Likely you’d be the one sent to clean it.”

“Or you could, hiccup, sleep in it,” The guard laughed again but quickly clamped his lips shut as if he would vomit. He swallowed with great effort and shook his head free of his sudden discomfiture, “Ugh, that ale was much to briny.”

“There’ll be something much more briny across these boards if you don’t let me relieve myself,” Thorin insisted, “I cannot hold it much longer.”

“Hmm,” The crewmate considered Thorin with caution, leaning in to look him over. Thorin kept his gaze steady until their noses were nearly touching. “I don’t—”

Thorin reached through the bars and seized the crew mate collar, jerking the pirate so violently that his head crashed against the metal. The man’s body went limp almost immediately and Thorin released him so that he crumpled on the floor. Kneeling, he reached through the bars and searched the crewmate’s belt for the jingle which had accompanied him down the steps.

Thorin pulled forth the key ring, carefully trying each skeleton until the last turned in the hole. He sighed but a sudden rush of fear took him. What would he do now? Opening the door was but the first obstacle. He took the crewmate’s thin blade; a measly weapon but better than nothing. He slowly crept up the stairs, peaking onto the deck with baited breath, readying himself for another tussle.

Only the sound of the ocean lashing the ship howled beneath the sliver of moon hanging crookedly on the sky. The deck was empty but for a few crewmates slumped lazily over crates, the empty bottle rolling at their feet foretelling their inebriated stupors. Thorin slowly climbed onto the deck, looking over the slumbering men as he passed. If any awoke, he could dispatch them as easily as the one below, though he would risk sending up the alert.

Thorin passed the last man stationed outside Azog’s cabin. He stirred briefly before he was incapacitated with the hilt of the slender sword. Thorin led the crewmate’s limp body to the boards noiselessly, listening for any disturbance in those around him. He hooked his sword through his belt and took the rifle which rest next to the man’s perch, checking that it was loaded before he approached the cabin door.

He listened, holding the firearm at the ready. He could hear Azog’s voice droning in a taunting manner. Y/N spoke weakly in response, a small whimper following at some unseen strike. Thorin’s body went rigid and he kept his rifle balanced as he reached with one hand to slowly press down the door latch. The door clicked open slightly, but no response sounded from within as Azog continued his interrogation.

Thorin stepped back, steadying the barrel of the gun and kicked the door open. Azog had Y/N across his desk, the blade of his arm hooked beneath the lace of her corset, several others already cleft. He turned in surprise to look at the intrusion, a sudden flash of recognition darkened his black eyes and Thorin pulled the trigger.

The bullet caught Azog in the center of his chest, he staggered slightly, turning towards Thorin with a roar. Y/N caught his bladed arm, bloodied palm sliding along the metal as she screamed and twisted it free. The curved sword disjointed from Azog’s truncated elbow and Y/N rolled away from him, turning the blade in her hand and slicing it across her tormentor’s stomach.

Azog stepped back stunned, gripping the large gash across his midriff desperately, his innards slipping sickeningly between his fingers. He fell onto his knees and Y/N slashed his throat with a barbaric cry, dropping the sword in distress as blood bubbled at Azog’s neck and he gargled appallingly. The pirate’s heavy form collapsed across the boards, his blood so dark it was nearly black.

Y/N held out her bloodied hands, several of her fingers visibly broken and both palms lacerated, the right even more than before. Her face was smear of crimson, two gashes across her cheekbones, her bottom lips swollen and split, both eyes blackened, and her hair hung in scarlet-coated shanks. Her corset hung-half open, her skirts torn and barely in tact. Y/N sunk to her knees beside Azog’s lifeless form and began to wail wildly.

Thorin looked behind him, the drunken crew undisturbed by the turmoil which had just unfolded. The fates must have changed course that night. He pulled closed the door before crossing to Y/N, setting aside his rifle as he knelt beside her. He pulled her trembling figure into his lap and held her as her sobs quieted and only the convulsions that wracked her body betrayed her distress. He had saved her, but just barely.

[aion-rsa]

Is World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Pre-Patch Friendly to New Players?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

World of Warcraft‘s Shadowlands expansion may have been delayed until sometime later this year, but the expansion’s pre-patch is already live. While you won’t be able to explore Shadowlands‘ new zones, dungeons, bosses, gear, and other upcoming content as part of this patch, many of Shadowlands‘ core upcoming changes (including changes to the MMO’s leveling structure and classes) are already in the game.

It’s around this time that many people start wondering whether or not this is a good time to return to World of Warcraft or even start playing it for the first time. After all, there’s theoretically no better time to jump into an ongoing game than around the release of a new expansion when even veteran players are navigating new content.

At least that’s the question I found myself asking. As someone who never really played World of Warcraft until I spent hundreds of hours with World of Warcraft: Classic, the idea of jumping into the “Retail” version of the game was as appealing as it was daunting. After all, is it really possible to feel at home in a game that’s been growing and changing for the last 16 years?

To help answer that question, here’s a brief look at some of the key points new players need to know before they consider starting their World of Warcraft adventure with Shadowlands.

Shadowland’s New Starting Zone is Welcome but Underwhelming

Shadowlands introduces a new starting area called Exile’s Reach that is mandatory for new players (which, in this case, means you don’t have a World of Warcraft character at or above level 10 on your account) and optional for veteran players. It’s basically a glorified tutorial area that you’ll stay in until around the time your character reaches level 10.

While it’s nice that World of Warcraft now has a proper tutorial area that offers a (nearly) universal leveling experience for new players, the results leave something to be desired. This area will teach you the bare basics (accepting quests, attacking enemies, managing equipment, etc), but unless you’re entirely in the dark about how World of Warcraft and MMOs work, you may find yourself mindlessly jumping from quest to quest waiting for the real game to start.

Exile’s Reach is a better alternative to the old system (which dropped players into unevenly designed starting areas based on their chosen race) but it may still leave you with unanswered questions regarding the more meaningful basic mechanics of the game and how to really take advantage of the playstyle of your chosen class.

Leveling By Expansion Is an Acceptable Solution to A Bigger World of Warcraft Problem

What happens if you’re past the mandatory requirements for Shadowlands‘ new starting zone? Well, you’ll always have the option of starting a new character at Exile’s Reach, but veteran players are also able to essentially “jump” to any previous WoW expansion and level their characters to 50 by following that expansion’s storyline. 

It’s a cute idea, but the execution is a bit of a mixed bag. You’ll never really be able to truly recreate the process of leveling through each of these expansions (unless Blizzard releases “Classic” versions of each of them), so this option seemingly just exists to offer a little variety to veteran players leveling their character alts as well as a way for new players to experience the basic lore of old content. 

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So far as that goes, this mechanic really works best as a novelty implemented for variety’s sake. Not only would it take quite a while for new players to go through every previous expansion just to experience the lore, but the truncated versions of those leveling processes means that you’re still probably better off reading/listening to an explainer if you want an overview of what’s happening. This change doesn’t really address the problem of new players feeling like they’ve missed out on 16 years worth of content updates and storylines. Besides, those looking to level an alt character will likely stick to the newer expansions which offer much quicker leveling experiences. 

Shadowland’s Level Squish Makes Leveling Much More Enjoyable

While it’s easy to assume that Shadowlands offers less leveling content now that the level cap has been reduced from 120 to 50 (soon to be 60 with the full release of Shadowlands), the opposite quickly proves to be true. 

This new system ensures that reaching new levels in Shadowlands feels more meaningful. There are still some levels in the game that don’t reward you with anything more exciting than a passive ability or a skill that you’ll almost never use, this new leveling system at least sustains the illusion of role-playing progress. 

That being said, it’s entirely possible that new players will feel a little overwhelmed by the number of new skills they acquire throughout the course of this revamped leveling process. After all, Blizzard revived a lot of the skills and talents from the previous World of Warcraft expansions and incorporated them into the streamlined leveling process, so you actually end up with quite a few mechanics to manage. The good news is that “problem” is addressed somewhat by the next point we should discuss…

Reaching The Level Cap Really is Faster Than Ever

For the purposes of discussion, let’s say that first time players will go from 1-50 in the Shadowlands pre-patch in about 24 in-game hours. That number is going to vary wildly from player to player, but somewhere around that mark seems to be the average. 

Honestly, that’s not bad when you consider that the average journey from 1-60 in WoW Classic typically sets you back closer to 100 hours. More importantly, the game’s relatively quick leveling time makes it clearer than ever before that modern WoW is really all about the end-game. That means that new players shouldn’t necessarily fret over whether or not they feel like they’ve mastered their character by the time they reach the max level. The reduced leveling time also means that it’s easier than ever to level multiple characters to 50 (and eventually 60), which is great for those who want to explore different classes and find what works for them.

It’s entirely understandable if you miss the slower journey of the old leveling process and the adventures you have en route to the level cap, but so far as accomodating new players go, the much-improved leveling speed is a welcome addition.

Solo Play is Easy but Limits the “Massively Multiplayer” Aspects of Shadowlands

Aside from the new starting zone, one of the most noteworthy accommodations the Shadowlands pre-patch makes for new players is a “Newcomer Chat” system in which new players can talk amongst themselves and even ask approved veteran guides for help. 

It’s a neat idea that works well enough if you just want a basic answer to a simple question, but generally speaking, the community aspects of WoW’s early game still feel weak. You can fairly easily solo your way to the level cap, which means that you probably won’t find yourself really needing to work with other players until you get into raiding and other, deeper forms of end-game content. 

I wish I could tell you what the perfect solution to this problem is, but at the moment, World of Warcraft suffers from the fact that not all max level players are made equally. Some have been playing the game for 16 years and others just started. The idea is to find a group of players that match (or accommodate) your experience, but because the game doesn’t really encourage social play until the end game, learning to find and work with other players feels more complicated than it did in the early days of WoW Classic when social play was spread more evenly throughout. Hopefully, the early days of Shadowlands‘ full release will encourage people to group up and solve early challenges together.

Overall, it’s clear that Blizzard crafted Shadowlands with the new player experience in mind. You won’t have a hard time jumping into the game at this point, but whether or not you decide to stick with it is really going to come down to the strength of Shadowlands‘ proper debut and how much you enjoy the World of Warcraft experience once you’ve hit that level cap.

The post Is World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Pre-Patch Friendly to New Players? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[captainhoers]

Chasing Shadows and the Future of Agents of HEART

Before anyone panics, nothing’s cancelled yet. I just want to start a bit of conversation, get a few opinions.

So, I’ve been working on Chasing Shadows for six months now. It’s currently two months over schedule, or one month if you account for April being devoted to making Sunlight. This isn’t too bad, except I’m struck with a couple of concerns.

First, I’m just finding Chasing Shadows really boring to make. I won’t get into the details but I really wish I was just working on Sunjackers, without feeling like if I don’t finish Agents of HEART ASAP, I’ll miss the boat. Except... I’m kinda getting the feeling that I already have.

I really feel like I’m making Agents of HEART two or three years too late, at least. Let’s be real. It’s 2017. Now is not the time to be making a grand series of pony comics. I can’t get away from the feeling that I’m wasting my time on it. Up until now what I’d been planning to do was try and whack out the Agents of HEART storyline in comic form as quick as possible, but even that is going to take me years at which point all of my other ideas will have gone stale. One way or another, I’m going to be done with Agents of HEART some time in the next six to eight months.

Let me just lay out some end of life paths for the comic:

Convert to Prose. Text would be a much more expedient medium to finish the storyline in, though I don’t think this is ideal because a lot of people just won’t be bothered, and also I don’t know if I’d be done with it in time. However, this would be a return to the source for it, since it’s originally based on an old, old story series I’ve done.

Series of One-shots. Basically, rather than doing four or five whole comic series, I do four or five individual comic strips to cover the same ground. While this would let me hash out the same visual ground I wanted to cover, I can’t help but feel it would wildly truncate an already confusing story.

Skip to the End. This is rather similar to the one-shots, except instead of skipping around, it skips the middle, which would probably be even more confusing.

Just Let It Die. This one is never great, but it is one sure-fire way to let me focus on other things without having a rushed and confusing ending to worry about.

Recycle the Concept. Agents of HEART has a lot of ideas in it that aren’t solidly anchored to a pony fan comic, many of which I haven’t even gotten to in the comic, and it would relieve a lot of the narrative baggage that I’m stuck with if I were to retire Agents of HEART and have another stab at its ideas with a spirital successor some time in the future. I’m kinda liking this one the most (even though I have no shortage of future comic ideas).

I know this really isn’t the best way to be about a comic that I’m sure a lot of people really like, but I have to be honest about it. I really don’t see the original Agents of HEART blueprint as viable. Please let me know what you think, because I feel really lost with this.

[slushblock]

Fell - Chapter 4 - A Long Way Down

This one ended up a lot longer than intended. Certain parts were gonna get truncated, but I got...

...carried away.

Purifying the corruption was a lot easier than expected.

Even the smallest pinch of enchanted pollen blossomed into great plumes of glittering powder, and wherever it touched the sickly purple grass or gnarled dark stone, natural color returned, vibrant and healthy. While there was no way the single pouch contained enough to convert the entirety of the rotten landscape, a little went a long way, and was more than enough for their particular task.

It wasn’t without its trouble, though. The creatures of the twisted land took an unsurprising amount of offense to their efforts, but it wasn’t anything a well-placed demon arrow or two couldn’t deter. Anything that got past Aura’s arrows was quickly eviscerated by either Axl or a bouncing ball of protective slime.

“Still not as many as before,” Axl observed as they descended into the trench once again, “Maybe you can send the slime home this time.”

“Nice try,” Aura deadpanned as she touched down on the ground, reaching for the purification powder. Taking a slightly more substantial amount, she applied it to the ground where they’d heard the sound of a hollow beneath. With a deep groan and cracking noise not unlike a shifting glacier, the ebonstone lightened, its knobbly surface smoothing out as its composition shifted beneath. Once the sound died down, Axl withdrew his pick and set to work.

Mining was always a hassle, but not nearly as much as it probably should have been back in the real world. The stone gave way to a spherical recess, large enough to comfortably fit both humans as they slipped in to gape at what they’d unearthed.

Floating in the center of the isolated pocket was a nearly perfect sphere of pearlescent black, which gave off a faint purple glow and a much less faint aura of pure unease.

Axl stared, putting his pick away as he slowly reached out to touch the floating orb, and almost felt his hair stand on end had it not been under his helmet. Not from energy, but from dread; he could almost hear faint whispers in his head the closer he got. He withdrew momentarily, then reached out again, more tentatively, giving the orb a light tap with his middle finger, like testing a doorknob for static on a dry day. The metal of his gauntlet rang off the surface of the pearly black sphere, giving off a hollow tone. The sphere itself wavered a bit in place before stabilizing..

“...Creepy…”  he shivered, hugging his arms and glancing out of the hole for monsters before looking at Aura, “I wonder if these are what he meant when he mentioned stuff being broken.”

“No idea,“ Aura mumbled, having cringed at Axl tampering with the orb at all, “Better not mess with it more… see how many there are first, then decide what to do. If it is what he meant, I really don’t want to risk it if this is some kind of ‘three strikes and you’re out’ deal...”

As they emerged and continued purifying and digging up the jagged cavern whenever Axl’s armored footfalls sounded just slightly off, they met with a mild amount of harassment. Axl was right, though; it still felt like there were less than there should have been, and both of them wondered, silently, if Ren had something to do with that, in the event he was lingering.

Eventually, their torches cast light on unfamiliar forms. Faint, glowing shapes in the darkness were revealed to be a combination of not only more veins of demonite, but ominous structures with teeth-like protrusions jutting up, like yearning jaws. Some of them were indented on top, filled with vile, tar-esque fluid, while others seemed flatter. It was difficult to determine if they were ‘natural’ formations, or constructed… and if the latter, by who? Or what?

“...I don’t like this. They… look a bit like... altars?” Axl shuddered, then growled, face scrunching as he reached for his scroll. “I feel like we… we should destroy these.”

Aura held up a hand, expression severe and somewhat worried, “No… Not yet.” Her train of thought was interrupted as her slime companion spotted another eater, leaping at it and missing. She quickly drew an arrow and shot it down to let her companion finish it off, before turning back to Axl, “We should check everything first.”

Axl shuddered against the urge to bring something heavy down on those abominable structures, but eventually shook the notion from his head, like nagging cobwebs, as they continued to dust the ground with powder, digging up more of the large, shadowy pearls. Like the pearls, the ‘altars’ were conspicuously unaffected by the powder.

As they reached the end of the trench, they were met with a surprising sight.

Axl’s eyes widened a little, “Huh… I guess Ren beat us to it.”

Before them were two large pits, the jagged edges of ebonstone looking like they’d been blasted out with some kind of heavy explosive charge. Those pits revealed divots much like the ones they’d been digging up, but both were devoid of any trace of shadowy orbs. Only a lingering queasiness remained.

To make matters more eerie, a single altar stood within what appeared to be the blast radius of one of the explosions. Or, rather hovered in place where the ground had once been below it. The altar was unscathed.

“Well, that rules out destroying those things,” Aura mumbled, kneeling by one of the blast holes to look for any orb remnants, “I guess he was talking about the orbs after all…” She stood up again, pondering, “Hm… without counting these two, I counted seven. Not sure if that means anything.”

“Me neither, but hey, look at this.” Axl gestured, backtracking to their most recently unearthed pearl, “This one’s different.”

Indeed, this last pearl was significantly smaller than the others, perhaps the size of a bowling ball versus the larger, beach-ball sized spheres, and in a much tighter, shallower pit. As they went, Axl had tapped a few more to check, and they all sounded hollow, if with varying tones indicating thickness. When he tapped this one, it felt much more solid.

“Interesting… it does feel a lot more like a pearl,” He looked around, then down at his scroll. Putting it away, he turned back to the orb, “I wonder if we can examine it at home..,” he took a deep breath and reached down, clasping both hands around the artifact, clear intent in his eyes.

Aura paled as she reached out to stop him, “Wait, don’t-”

It was too late. Axl gave the pearl a short tug, and a sharp, screeching ring resounded off the cavern walls as it broke from whatever force was keeping it locked in place. Almost immediately, the ground began to rumble, with increasing intensity.

Aura nearly fell over from the shaking, grabbing her bow and scrambling away from the hole, shrieking, “OH MY GODS, WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

“W-what!” Axl snapped back, sounding just as panicked, “He only mentioned breaking! I didn’t break-!” He was interrupted by the source of the rumbling, and his jaw dropped, as did the orb he was holding as he let it go to grab his sword. It didn’t fall with any weight, instead floating gently to the ground.

Nobody noticed. They were too busy staring at the giant worm that had burst from the ebonstone wall as if it were little more than cobble, dwarfing any other creature they’d seen so far. It roared and charged at them, forcing both to leap out of the way as it crashed into the floor between them in an explosion of purified stone. As it continued into the new hole it was digging, it didn’t seem to end.

Aura’s slime companion was the first to action, fearlessly leaping at the worm as it passed by, striking it repeatedly in the side and occasionally dislodging a tiny bit of rotting flesh, but not doing significant harm. Aura, meanwhile, withdrew the arrows she’d been saving, crouching to keep her footing as she aimed them at the giant worm, not that it would be difficult to hit.

Every magic arrow that left the demon bow burst into an ironic fireworks display of light, vanishing into the creature and the stone alike, leaving char marks in the twitching dead flesh. However, it didn’t seem to have much more of an effect on something that was woven together from rotting meat and malice; it was impossible to tell if the roaring was the creature reacting in pain, or just the tough stone giving way before it, shaking the caverns.

Worse yet, the bursts of light were leaving nothing to retrieve for reuse if they were having an effect.

“I don’t know they’re doing anything!” Aura tried to shout over the near-deafening noise. She eyed the creature’s movement for a moment, and watched as Axl struck at it in quick jabs with his inadequately-sized demonite sword when an idea clicked, “Do you still have the spear!?”

Axl gave her an incredulous look, reaching for his scroll. It wasn’t a weapon he used often as it had no special properties aside being slightly longer-ranged than his preferred swords. His eyes darted about wildly to see where the monster would emerge from next, “Yeah, but what good will that do?!”

The massive eater burst from the ceiling and towards Axl, who yelped and leapt out of the way. Aura cringed, yelling, “If we can lodge it through the worm’s body it might get stuck as it burrows into this tough rock!” She readied another volley of arrows, “Maybe it’ll even tear the worm in half!”

“Will that work!?” Axl shouted back, finally getting the embarrassingly plain if functional weapon out of his bag, “Won’t the spear break first!?”

“I don’t know!” Aura sighed loudly, frustration in her voice, “but I don’t see you coming up with any ideas!”

Axl grunted as he pushed his glasses up and braced himself, holding the spear in both hands, point down. As the worm emerged from yet another wall, he sidestepped, raising the weapon above his head and keeping a close watch at the monster’s passing features. Then, with as much strength as he could muster and a battle-cry to match, he brought the point down on one of the creature’s large, putrid eyes. It burst into disgusting green ooze as the spear went right through, exiting the creature’s ventral side. Axl tumbled to the ground with a crash and a pained groan as he clutched his shoulders, having released the weapon quickly lest he be dragged along for the ride, but not quickly enough.

As Aura had expected, as the segment with the lodged spear reached the wall the worm was burrowing into, the spear itself wedged against the corrupted rock. The creature jolted to a halt for a mere second before the momentum hit, tearing the worm into two pieces. The front end disappeared into the tunnel it dug, while the part behind the spear flopped to the ground.

Standing up with a faint wobble, Axl took a deep breath, arms aching, “D-did it work-?” Not taking this moment of respite for granted, he reached into his bag for a potion.

He spoke to soon. Just as he began to drink, the gory stump shuddered, shook, and shed chunks of itself to the ground, revealing another head, which gurgled and hissed at Axl for daring to split it, causing him to spit half the healing tonic in shock. As it did, the front end burst from the wall, and with it, the awful realization.

“HooOOOOOH GOD, THAT JUST MADE TWO OF THEM,” Axl yowled, wincing as he threw the bottle to the ground and drew his sword again, scrambling out of the way in a panic.

Aura cursed to herself, backing up, “O-okay so maybe it wasn’t a good idea! But maybe it’s progress?”

Axl forced a wry smirk, giving a half-hearted thumbs-up, “Yeah, at least we’re getting wormer!”

Aura twitched as she nocked another arrow, switching over to more solid and substantial demonite arrows, “OH SHUT UP!”

“You’re BOTH idiots!”

They whirled to see the large form of Ren emerging from the tunnel’s shadow, looking furious, “Why couldn’t you kids leave well enough alone?!”

“H-hey, nice to see you, too!” Axl managed to stammer out in his surprise. He pointed at the worm passing by behind him, “A little help!?”

The large man growled, holding an arm out to his side, palm up, “I suppose I’m left no choice, am I?”

Axl stared at him, wondering what the strange man had up his sleeve, but was snapped out of it by Aura crying out, “AXL, PAY ATTEN-”

He whirled just in time to see the massive mandibles and clicking teeth of the giant worm hit him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. He didn’t even have the time to express his shock.

However, before the worm could drive its way back into the ground - and likely grind the adventurer to a bloody paste through the stone in the process - Ren thrust his hand forward and an ephemeral tendril covered in vicious thorns lashed out from his wrist. Instead of piercing the worm’s rotting hide, it wrapped around the frontmost ‘head’ of the monstrosity, barbs digging in, flaying off the flesh burned by Aura’s arrows. He withdrew his arm, the vine fading away, before lashing out with another, and another. The worm reeled in some semblance of agony as its head separated, the rest of it turning to flee into the stone, leaving Axl in the jaws of a much smaller and significantly less powerful chunk.

The daze finally out of his system, Axl brought his sword down on the creature’s eye, impaling it through. It spasmed, then fell to the ground as he coughed, regaining breath. He put a hand over his abdomen, where some of the teeth had punctured the flexible mail, “D-damn it.”

Aura rushed over, nearly tripping over her slime, but Ren made a sharp ‘cut off’ motion with his hand, gesturing towards the worm and glaring daggers as it split once again under his onslaught of shadowy thorns, now three large pieces, “Walk it off, kid, this ain’t over!”

Indeed it wasn’t, but at least it was going somewhere. Axl retrieved his spear where it had fallen from the splitting abomination. Now that they knew what to expect, it at least seemed like a consistent method of getting the creature into smaller pieces, especially since Ren apparently couldn’t keep up the use of those thorns forever, soon pulling out his musket to pick up the slack. It didn’t seem quite as effective.

The downside was that the smaller pieces were much more erratic. Even Aura, with her cloth-clad maneuverability, took a few hard hits, though perhaps not as hard as the others. Ren in particular, with his large frame and heavy armor, was even less able to dodge effectively, but he nevertheless shrugged off a majority of the glancing blows he took. Apparently that fancy armor of his wasn’t just for show.

With the three of them working together, the creature was soon reduced to immobile, writhing chunks, its vile green blood coating the dark walls.

Axl took a deep breath, coughing and slightly retching at the awful stench, falling back against a wall and sliding down to sit. Aura likewise took a seat, letting her bow clatter to the ground as she pulled up the thick collar of her jacket to cover her nose and mouth. Her pet slime chirped and bounded over, nuzzling up to her thigh and purring. She smiled slightly and placed a hand on it. Axl rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he mumbled something incoherent.

Ren, however, did not sit. He turned to walk away, glowering. Axl blinked and hoarsely called over, “H-hey, where are you going?”

“Going to survey the damage you’ve done by waking that thing up,” the older man rumbled, “I’m not about to let your curiosity ruin my hard work…”

“What hard-”

“SHHHH-” Aura hissed, cutting Axl off, “Just… leave it.”

Axl frowned, feeling guilty as he turned, cupping his hand to call out after Ren, “Hey! Thanks for your-” only to see that he’d already gone, “...help…” He sighed.

Everything was a mess. The already jagged trenches were now riddled with large holes in every which direction, giving the surrounding rock a very unstable feel. Axl sighed and tried to hold his breath as much as possible, closing his eyes and leaning back. After taking a moment to collect his thoughts, he glanced about. The glowing black pearl had rolled gently off into a puddle of tar near one of the altars during the commotion, its own faint light mingling with the light of the infernal furniture.

It wasn’t the only thing glowing. Amongst the strewn rot of the worm’s remains, scattered remnants of faint purple could be seen glimmering. Axl looked down at a chunk closer to him, digging his armored fingers into the disgusting glop to extract a strange, shiny scale. The queasiness left his expression...slightly.

“Well… I guess we found them,” He sighed again, giving a weak fistpump in the air and a mostly unenthused “whoo hoo.”

“Great. We can head home, then,” Aura puffed, sounding relieved as she stood up, “Let’s get as much of this stuff and head home.”

“Well, you can head home,” Axl took out another potion, taking a quick whiff of it to make sure he wasn’t going to vomit trying to drink it, “I’m going to check out some of the tunnels that worm dug,” Feeling it was safe to, he took a quick swig, then sighed, “See if we can find where it came from, or anything else that might be interesting.”

“Are you crazy?!” Aura interrupted her gathering to stare, in shock and mild horror, “This thing could have made quick work of us, and you want to find out where it came from!?” She held her hands up, fingers curled as if trying to grasp the insane notion,  “What are you hoping to find, a nest of giant killer worms?!”

When she put it that way, it sounded pretty bad, and Axl rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed, “Well… probably not. But if I do, at least we’ll know what we’re up against.” He coughed, then used his sword to help him stand up as he joined in collecting scales and fragments of glowing ore, “Anyway, aren’t you curious where something that big’s been hiding this whole time?”

Aura froze in place, closing her eyes. She turned to look at one of the holes, leading into shadows past the until-then-unbreakable rock, “I mean…”

“Again, you don’t have to,” Axl shrugged, pocketing the last of the scales he could find before examining the tunnels, trying to remember which one the worm emerged from first. He bit his lip, crouching into one of the larger ones. Torchlight revealed it to not end prematurely in a loop back. Lucky guess. He turned back to Aura, “If I die, I’ll let you know you were right.” He frowned slightly. It would be a claustrophobic trek, for sure; it wasn’t nearly tall enough to enter standing, though at least it didn’t require crawling on all fours.

Letting out a frustrated growl, Aura took out her scroll and extracted her mirror. She was about to look into it when she saw Axl disappear into the tunnel out of the corner of her eye. After spending a few moments in the eerie silence, she slowly lowered her hand, clenched her teeth, then put the mirror away, following after him, “Okay, fine.”

Hearing the padded footsteps behind him Axl turned, “So you changed your mind?”

As she caught up, Aura pinned him with a resentful scowl, “I want to see the look on your face when you realize this is stupid, and then I’ll mirror back.”

Axl chuckled to himself, “Deal.”

The trip began most uninterestingly, with the only thing of note being the gradual shift from corrupted rock to natural stone the further from the trenches they got. A creeping apprehension of what they’d find at the end filled their minds, and nearly clouded them to a baffling discovery. The only thing keeping their minds on their task were their differing footsteps, and the wet plap plap plap of Aura’s pet slime.

As they crept along, Aura was the first to notice that the worm’s tunnel had intersected with a fabricated structure. She grabbed Axl’s wrist to stop him, eliciting a surprised shout as he whirled around to see her pointing.

Two layers of simple but very even stone bricks could be seen, rasped against by the worm’s body. One of the bricks had fallen through, revealing some kind of opening on the other side.

“What is this?” Aura crouched low to attempt peering through the hole. She couldn’t make out much.

“Beats me…” Axl crouched alongside her, “...though I bet Ren has something to do with it? He did mention that monster possibly damaging something he was working on…”

“Huh… Should we just… leave it?” Aura asked, furrowing her brow.

“On one hand, I don’t really want to mess with something he might get mad at us over..,” Axl shook his head… then smiled wryly, taking out his pick, “...but it’s not like he isn’t already pissed off at us.”

Aura turned to him, with incrementally increasing incredulity, “Are you serious?”

“Sure. I mean, worse comes to worse, we can just say the worm damaged it more than it did.”

The worm’s damage was certainly a factor, as it only took a single swing of the pick to cave enough brick for them to enter, though not before looking inside and seeing what amounted to little more than a well-like tube of brick, lined with the occasional inset torch, with a single chain suspended in the middle. Carefully leaning in, Aura looked down, then up. She could barely see a ‘top’ where the chain was attached to plain stone, and there was no bottom in sight.

“Holy…” she muttered. Axl leaned over, as well, whistling.

“Yep, I’d say that’s a pretty big holy,” Axl smirked. Aura elbowed him. He tried to stifle a self-amused laugh, “So, wanna follow it?”

Aura arched an eyebrow, “You giving up on the worm already?”

“Weeell, I think this is a little more interesting,” Axl shrugged, with a lopsided, questioning smile.

“Your opinions of what’s interesting worry me.”

“Again,” Axl reminded her, taking hold of the chain, “you don’t have to follow, yet here you are.”

“Whatever. Let’s just go.”

The tunnel down almost felt infinite. The longer they went without seeing a bottom, the more they began to wonder just what kind of terrible idea this was. To make matters worse, the air was gradually getting hotter around them.

“For the love of Ra this had better not be some kind of volcano vent that’s going to burn us to a crisp,” Aura muttered, loosening her collar and fanning herself with her hat.

“If it was, why would it have a chain? This seems like it was meant to be traveled… the question is, for what purpose?” he looked back up at the dwindling line of lights, “It feels like some kind of elevator, but there haven’t been any doors along the way leading anywhere… so the bottom must be the destination.”

Aura contemplated that for a second, then deadpanned, “If so, why was there no opening on the top?”

The question caused Axl to stop abruptly, causing Aura to nearly land on him as he scratched his head, “...That’s a very good question. Maybe… hidden doors?”

“...Oh gods, I really don’t think we should-” Aura shuddered, resisting the urge to kick her traveling partner in the head. She didn’t have to, as her grumbling was cut short by a panicked yowl as Axl, not paying attention, ran out of chain. However, there was a muffled splash at the bottom, followed by equally muffled cursing and much flailing, implying the fall was either not that far, or the water at the bottom broke it, as little sense as that made. Nevertheless, Aura wasn’t willing to risk it, instead using her own grappling hook to descend the rest of the way once the chain ended.

“Nice job,” she smirked as she descended, avoiding the water. The end of the vertical tunnel was a fairly well-lit room, with a stairwell down into another cavern lit with an eerie orange light. Aura gingerly skirted the edge towards the opening.

“What the Hell is this?” Axl sputtered as he stepped out of the pool of fairly hot water using the stairs built into its side, “It’s not a well, but why is it here?”

Aura stopped dead in her tracks near the bottom, eyes going wide. Her voice suddenly began to shake, “...A-Are you really sure you should be saying that?”

“...Huh?” The sudden change of mood and circumstance gave Axl pause as he descended the steps to stand next to her, looking at whatever it was she saw. His jaw dropped.

The cavern was enormous, so large that it could have been mistaken for an entirely new world. Far below, roiling lakes and rivers of molten rock cut through plateaus of ash and fiery stone. Massive pillars connected the stalactite-laden ceiling they were viewing from to the pit of death as embers drifted lazily through the air. Air which was almost unbearably hot. Emerging from the ash and lava were structures made from brick, both pitch black and glowing-hot.

Axl definitely felt the heat of the air, taking off his helmet and stowing it for the time being, “So this is what he meant...”

Aura, likewise, took her hat, but once again used it to fan herself before putting it back on, “What?”

“When I got here, I told that creep to go to Hell, and he said “you’ll know when you get there” or something like that,” Axl got down on his knees and peered over the edge, looking to see if there was a way down,  “I knew nothing then, so I thought he was mocking me and telling me I was certain to die… but I guess this shouldn’t be a surprise.” He turned to Aura, who looked grim.

She looked over at her slime companion, which seemed very upset by the heat. It barely had the energy to hop. She picked it up, worried, and held it close, “...Let’s get out of here.”

“No, I’m gonna grab something first,” Axl swung his legs off the ledge, grabbing his hook and attaching it. There was a building not so far from them, and with some clever maneuvering he figured he could grapple his way over to it without shattering his shins, “Something to show we were here.”

“...Fine! Suit your idiot self!” Aura snapped and growled, whirling around, suddenly furious. All of this time, she’d let herself be led around by this fool, and she couldn’t start to imagine why. Did she want to see him fail? She couldn’t stand watching him die whenever it came to that, but at the same time, she couldn’t just leave him. Almost as if that made her a worse person. She hated feeling so guilty about someone so impulsive and-

A shout of surprise pulled Aura back into the present, and she turned to see a twisted, horned figure descend upon Axl with leathery wings. The demon screeched something in a language neither recognized, before making a gesture with its hand. A set of glowing purple blades manifested around it, before launching down towards the gold-armored trespasser.

Axl quickly slapped his helmet back on and drew his sword, but the demon was flying too high for it to be any use. He dodged the first spinning scythe, but the staggered launch of the others caught him by surprise, just as one of the blades caught him in the right shoulder, and the other across his left thigh, ripping through his plate armor like butter. He howled and stumbled.

‘Let him die’ was Aura’s first thought. ‘He godsdamned deserves it.’ But as quickly as that thought entered her head, she shook it away. Was she really going to be that horrible? She reached for her scroll, using the staff she’d found to stow her slimy pet with the rest of her effects, before pulling out her bow.

“Leave him alone!” she shouted as she drew back the string. The demon whirled to look at her just as she let the arrow fly, and it hit true, piercing the wrist of its left wing. The demon faltered in the air, cursing at her in its tongue as it plummeted to the rooftop. Axl cringed at the gash in his thigh but managed to limp with urgency, making his way to the demon. Too shocked by its fall to react, it made one ineffective slash before Axl drove his sword between its two eyes. It went limp, falling to the black brick as deep purple blood oozed, flowing off the rooftop to sizzle in the lava below.

As Aura landed beside him, Axl sighed guiltily, “You… didn’t have to.” He cleared his throat, “I mean… thank you.” Aura was somewhat shocked at the honest-sounding response, holding her breath and expecting some joke. When one didn’t come, she looked away.

Far above them, a voice shouted down, “When will you learn?”

Now that voice was familiar. Far above, they could see Ren standing in the entryway to the pipe. It was hard to make out his expression at that distance, but they could have hazarded a guess.

Axl looked up, starting to feel a bit annoyed with the big guy’s constantly tailing them just to tell them off, “You know, I almost feel like you’re stalking us now.”

“Well, you’re kind of getting up in my business. But this,” the large man gestured to the entire hellish scenery around them, then looked down at the younger adventurers, “This isn’t about me. This is about telling you-,” he pointed, for emphasis, “-that what’s down here is so out of your league that even I’m not strong enough to save you from the horror you’re going to find.”

Axl just stared with a bewildered expression before gesturing at the demon they’d just killed, looking down at it, then back up at Ren, throwing his arms up before putting them on his hips, “Then why did you make a tunnel leading here?!”

The large man’s clenched his teeth, looking down, withdrawing into the shadows slightly, “...Because one day, I will be.” His glare nearly pierced the darkness as he eyed the other two adventurers.  “Now scram!” He barked, before vanishing into the tunnel, with perhaps more urgency than Axl or Aura would have expected of him.

That alone put them on edge.

“Okay, yeah, we’re going, now!” Aura pulled out her mirror, “And don’t you dare-”

“Yep, even I can agree with th- huh?” Axl was very ready to get out his mirror when he noticed that the demon, curled up on the ground, had something clutched in the claws of the other hand it hadn’t struck out with. He kicked the demon over, reaching down and pulling the object in question from the monster’s grip.

It was a doll.

Specifically, it was a doll very much resembling the know-it-all guide back at the town. It was a little ratty, with burlap skin, button eyes, and a comically stitched mouth, as well as a very large pin through its chest. It could have been anyone, but the sheer degree of its off putting plainness couldn’t possibly have been anyone else.

“Heh, even demons in Hell don’t like that guy. What a piece of work,” Axl chuckled dryly as he shook his head, turning the doll over in his hands. Aura stared at him, shaking her mirror frantically, “Yeah, yeah, I got you,” he shrugged, idly tossing the doll off the side of the building, “Even I know when it’s time to-”

There was no way a roar could have sounded so loudly in a cavern so large. The very air shook as the lava below, already bubbling, began to churn and spit violently as… something… peeled its way out of the darkness. Aura’s flailing of her mirror stopped so suddenly in her horrified shock that she lost her grip of it, sending it careening off the side of the building into the lava. She screamed, but not at the loss of her valuable way out.

She screamed at the gigantic wall of writhing, pulsing, flowing flesh that filled the impossibly large cavern. A hundred eyes fixed on the hapless humans as a hundred gaping maws snapped and smacked, razor-sharp teeth glinting in the underworld’s light. Even more maws bubbled off its surface, reaching towards them on veiny structures, before drawing back into the mass, only to reform endlessly.

It shouldn’t have been able to move, yet it was approaching, its form melting and flowing around the buildings. Soon, it would be upon the tunnel that led them there.

Aura was frozen in terror, tears in her eyes at the sight, but was snapped out of it by Axl shaking her shoulders. “G-get out of here!” he shouted, pulling his own mirror from his scroll and shoving it into Aura’s hands and closing her fingers around it, “I-I’m going to try to get back to the tube!”

“It’s too fast, you can’t-!” Aura tried to stop him, but before she could, he’d launched his hook upward and began to ascend.

He nearly made it. He would have, had one of the mouths on the advancing gore not shot out an impossibly long tongue, wrapping around the ankle on his injured leg and pulling. He screamed in pain as the chain pulled tight, straining his arms.

With what strength he could muster, he wrapped the chain around one arm to stabilize it as he reached for his sword to sever the tongue. It was a good idea, but the creature was far more prepared. The smaller, yearning, hungry mouths swarmed him, clamping down wherever they could find a hold on his armor,

“No noNO NO NO-!” he flailed, bringing the sword down before he could be pulled into the mouth. It was too late. A sickening crack indicated he no longer had an arm at the elbow, left to dangle on the chain as he was pulled, screaming, into the gaping maw and the unnatural darkness behind those teeth.

The jaws closed, and the screaming stopped.

With no hope left in all the world, Aura choked on her mortified tears and gazed into the mirror…

All she saw in the glass was solid red as she vanished.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF OUTSIDER

And this rule isn't just for the initial stages. Eventually they just gave up, because they were so short, nothing really had to happen; you could just show a randomly truncated slice of life, and there will almost certainly be more of them. Y Combinator cofounder Jessica is one of Silicon Valley's biggest weaknesses. Instead of thinking of the future won't simply be the same or even better. Why do we have to teach startups this? Lord Acton said we should judge talent at its best and character at its worst. You don't have to be profitable to convey to investors that you'll succeed with or without them. That helps break deadlocks, because you can usually find ways to make anything scale more than you would have predicted, and partly because delighting customers will by then have permeated your culture. That never happened before. They're bolder because they know what they're doing, their lawyers can't. Because they practically all seemed lame at first. Outsiders don't have to content themselves anymore with a proxy audience of a few thousand hobbyists as they were then called, but in other fields where they have a lot.

Another way to figure out what you like is to look at the disadvantages of being an outsider. Another reason founders don't focus enough on individual customers is that they worry it won't scale. That's what they miss. Well, that may be fine advice for a bunch of kids with webcams can be than mass-produced sitcoms. Actually, it's more often don't worry about this; worry about that instead. Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry were so similar in that respect that they might have been brothers. Maybe successful hedge fund managers are mean; I don't know enough to say. In this respect, as in: I can't believe the author dismisses intelligent design in such a cavalier fashion. They're trained to take advantage of your ability to delude yourself and the wildly unstable nature of the system you're dealing with, things probably either already are or could easily become much worse than they seem.

If you get through several obstacles and they keep raising new ones, assume that ultimately they're going to build, plus the unscalable thing s you're going to stick around, people will pay attention to you, because odds are they'll have to think more about each startup before investing. And if they're driven to such empty forms of complaint, that means 2 months during which the company is not also the lead developer. It's easy to start to believe it was the cause. It's that we won't let the people who work in certain fields: startup founders, and it's not what you might think. No, not really. It's an old idea that new things come from the margins? And VCs who try to compete with angels by doing more, smaller deals.

And the days when startups were more expensive. Admissions to PhD programs in the hard sciences are fairly honest, for example, because no one else realized it was a lot of people who'd make great founders who never end up starting a company. What good is it? Perfectionism is often an excuse for procrastination, and in any case your initial model of users is always inaccurate, even if they invest in all the others. The most common unscalable thing founders have to treat raising money as a boring errand to be got out of the cap table are long gone. What novice founders don't get is what insanely great translates to in a larval startup. If an ordinary employee were asked to do the things a startup founder, and it's not what you might think. Most intellectual dishonesty is unintentional. You're not bracketing the problem. Imagine if you visited a site that seemed to be that you should keep working on your startup.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Hutch Fishman, Fred Wilson, Garry Tan, Paul Buchheit, and Harjeet Taggar for sparking my interest in this topic.

[itsworn]

How Ford Is Using Virtual Reality To Develop Better Cars On Track And On The Street

Roller coasters, all-you-can-eat buffets, ride-alongs in fighter jets; all the best things start out with a warning that you might puke. When the Ford engineers in charge of the chassis simulator in Ford Performance’s North Carolina tech center began the morning’s tour with a request that we try not to hurl in the GT350 simulator, I was like, “Yesssss. Gonna have fun today.”

Ford invited HOT ROD to check out the tech center, which is located just around the corner from the NASCAR technical center, but does much more than just figure out the quickest way to turn left. The tech center was designed to support all of Ford’s motorsports endeavors, from NHRA drag cars to WRC rally cars, and Ford wanted to show us how the testing and development that happens there goes straight into the passenger cars that end up at the dealerships. If your parents ever told you that your interest in video games and model cars was a waste of time, read on, then tell your folks you’re going to be a motorsports test engineer.

VR Racing… For Science! Let’s start in the racing simulator—where I did not barf, thank you very much. The tech center has two simulator rooms, which look straight out of a science-fiction movie. A 26-foot, curved screen wraps halfway around a large dark room, in the center of which sits a spider of cables and struts. The body of the beast is the truncated cabin of whichever vehicle Ford is testing for the day. The techs have an IMSA Ford GT, a NASCAR Cup Car—compete with window net, and two road cars, including the GT350 Mustang they let us “drive.” The simulator room is backed by a control room like a recording studio, and inside, engineers monitor screens full of data. They can tell what gear a driver is in, how much throttle he or she is using, and how their driving style would affect fuel mileage or tire wear in a real-life racing situation. The engineers can program in the traction at various points around the track, rain, even change the sound levels inside the car cabin. For example, they can make it louder when a driver gets near a wall, just like it would be on a real track. Inside the pod, the driver has all the same controls and dash as they would in the actual car.

Their view is nothing but screen, and in the larger simulator, 10 projectors make it possible to show the scene in 3D. The illusion is backed up by the simulator floor, which bucks and slides to convince your body that every elevation change and hard turn on the screen is happening for real. “It’s crazy how close this is,” said Ford development driver, Chase Briscoe, who was practicing his oval track skills while we were there. “It’s really great for going to a new track, because they have trees and signs and all the visual markers of the real place, and when you get there, it already feels familiar.”

All About ‘Dat Data The simulator is amazing, but it would be impossible to program it without real-world data. You can’t just guess at tire wear or how a suspension or aero change will affect handling. To get the numbers to plug into the virtual world, Ford has a variety of methods for gathering information. In the back of the tech center is a huge shop space that houses the chassis rigs, which are suspension testing racks. The racks look like jungle gyms for robots, but they are all specialized versions of what the OEMs call Kinematics & Compliance (K&C) rigs. Production car K&C testing has to take into account things like potholes and speed bumps and the comfort of the baby sleeping in the back seat, so the OEM rigs that racers used to borrow are labor intensive to set up and test for a bunch of parameters that are irrelevant in racing. About 10 years ago, some smart race engineers developed a simplified version that only measures the elements of ride quality that matter to racers—namely, where is the weight, where does it move when the car turns, and will these shocks last 500 miles at WOT? Sorry drivers, comfort isn’t an issue here. The simplified K-rig can be loaded and set up in less than 20 minutes, and Vehicle Dynamics Engineer Dave Cimba told us that about three years after its invention, the rig was booked solid with teams wanting to test their combinations. Since then, they’ve developed additional machines to test center of gravity, toe and camber, and chassis stiffness. The combinations they test on the rigs can go right into simulation, or vice-versa. It’s all much faster and cheaper than track testing, and by the time they do get on track, they can have the set-ups narrowed down to the versions most likely to be successful.

One thing that can’t be tested on a machine is tire wear, so there’s a whole different rig for gathering tire data. The “Wheel Force Car,” is a NASCAR-spec Ford Fusion fitted with a tire “dyno,” which tracks heat and wear and the wheel forces that translate to contact patch and traction. While the tires themselves are obviously specific to NASCAR racing, the tire engineers say that the general information they get about the forces acting on the tires in racing situations are relevant all the way down to the production level, specifically in terms of fuel economy.

So what are we missing in our data collection? If you said “wind,” you’re right on. Ford uses both full size and scale models in wind tunnel testing to get the final piece of the puzzle for the simulations. Using 3D-printed panels, the engineers can quickly swap out spoilers or change front ends to figure out where the air is going and how its behavior will affect a car at speed. Then that info goes in the simulator and the drivers can learn exactly what to expect in a tight draft or with a new aero-rules change.

From Racing To Street Cars Cool stuff, right? It’s easy to see how computer modeling and VR practice can save the race teams money, especially when you watch NASCAR driver David Ragan hit the tire wall while running the new Charlotte Motor Speedway “Roval” configuration. “Maybe the other set-up was better,” he told the control room. But the tech isn’t just for racecars. The same simulations that help a NASCAR or IMSA team work out a fuel-savings strategy, or make a Funny Car Mustang body more slippery can be applied to developing passenger cars like the Ford Edge or F-150. Production car engineers can also use the race cars to bolster their arguments for design or durability changes if they can show that a multi-scooped hood looks good on say, an IMSA GT4 Mustang, or that the new GT500 will need stronger half-shafts to deal with 700+ horsepower based on simulated breakage. In the end, the Ford Performance technical center not only saves racecar bodywork, but also development and testing costs, which hopefully leads to better, faster, cheaper products for the consumer. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to turn my living room into a simulator of the Ford GT.

The Ford Performance Technical Center in Concord, North Carolina allows for a closer relationship among the different Ford racing series and the performance production cars.

Want to test a new chassis or suspension set-up without even running the engine? The K-rig can shock your shocks with no need to turn the key.

It’s like a dyno for tires, tracking every wrinkle, slide, and temperature change.

The tech center supports all the Ford-sponsored race series, from the 24 Hours of Le Mans-winning Ford GT to the WRC Rally Fiesta.

What’s your Mustang preference? A rules change in NASCAR will allow Ford to field the Mustang in Cup Car racing, a good thing, since it plans to stop making the Ford Fusion currently in the series. Next to the new race car is a stock GT350 and a GT4 racecar.

Ford uses 3D-printed pieces to make easily changeable scale models for wind tunnel testing.

The scale model testing is so reliable that Ford says its new NHRA Funny Car body is going straight into production with no need for full-size prototype testing.

All the data gathering finds a purpose in the 3D simulator, which not only allows drivers to practice on any track in the world with no physical danger to themselves or the car, but also allows the engineers to test wildly different set-ups with no downtime, no travel time, and no need for air tools.

The post How Ford Is Using Virtual Reality To Develop Better Cars On Track And On The Street appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network https://www.hotrod.com/articles/ford-using-virtual-reality-develop-better-cars-track-street/ via IFTTT

[smokeybrandreviews]

Spirited Away

Isekai has become kind of a bad word in the anime culture. I find this highly dubious because there are some excellent shows that feature the whole “In another world” motif. SAO kind of killed the entire genre with it’s ridiculous Weeb popularity, causing the market to be overly saturated, but even so, there are a few gems. Before everyone became aware of it’s cash-grabby nature, isekai was more a niche genre, producing great content, not just anime. Alice in Wonderland and Coraline are definite Isekai stories. Harry Potter is essentially an Isekai series. A kid, born with a special nature, get’s whisked away to a world full of magic and shenanignas? How much more Isekai can you get?

Kingdom Hearts is kind of an Isekai game franchise and it’s popular the world over. There’s a show airing stateside call Reveries that is getting pretty legit ratings and it’s basically a live action, A-spec, isekai series. There’s a plethora of comics and that immediately spring to mind. Booster Gold, Mile Morales, The Exiles; all of them world displaced and trying to find their way. Hell, Gwenpool, one of the most popular characters Marvel has ever created, is an Isekai protagonist, not to mention all of the refugees from the Ultimate Marvel universe. Isekai can be outstanding when you actually put effort into narrative. This genre lends itself to world building, character development, and is wide open for creative growth. I wanted to put a list together of a few shows that, i think, are worth taking  look at that happen to follow the whole “Alice in Wonderland” motif.

Overlord

I wrote at length about my love for this thing a few days ago. Of all the new shows in this Isekai boom, Overlord is my favorite. It has an interesting spin on the whole “defeat the Demon Lord” motif that plagues these kinds of shows in that Ains Ool Gown IS the demon lord. He’s Skeletor if Skeletor was actually competent. The world itself is growing and expanding, giving us brand new details with every season aired but it’s the characters that make this show so endearing. They’re all so rich and developed. I love everything about this show and highly recommend checking it out.

.Hack//Sign

Before SAO, there was Sign. I’m not going to spoil the plot, which is both engaging and emotional, but it’s basically the first “trapped in a game” type of narrative that really got traction here in the states. This anime was actually a companion piece to a quadrilogy of excellent, real life,PS2 games. While i’m partial to the sequel games and it’s accompanying media, .Hask//G.U., i’d be remiss not to give credit where credit is due. If you liked SAO, check out Twilight. It did it first and much, much, better.

Re:Zero - Starting Life In Another World

Rem is best girl. That’s off top. Re:Zero would easily be my favorite Isekai show, if not for Overlord. This thing is kind of incredible in terms of world building but, just like my beloved Supervisor Skeletor anime, it’s the characters in Re”Zero that sell this show. They’re all so real, so human. The main protagonist,Subaru, because of certain circumstances, has the ability to return from death and that sh*t takes a toll on him. He has seen some sh*t. He has experienced some sh*t. And while he grows in strength, it’s at a horrific cost. The emotional turmoil of these resurrections are ridiculous and you feel it in Subaru’s evolution as a protagonist.

The Familiar of Zero

This one is more cutesy fun. It feels like if Harry Potter was a harem protagonist, you’d have this show. It’s not terrible, by any means, and relies heavy on sight gags and comedies but, considering it has 4 seasons, is mad popular. I haven’t watched through all of them but i did enjoy the first two and understand exactly why it’s so popular. This is another one that came out long before the boom so it has more of a richer narrative overall.

No Game No Life

No Game No Life is a personal favorite. I love this goddamn show! It’s kinetic, silly, fun, and quietly brilliant. A world where all conflicts are solved with games? A dual set of protagonists who are perfect compliments to each other in strength and weakness? An absurd premise that raises stakes to genocidal levels? Bro, No Game No Life is a goddamn classic and you NEED to check this thing out at least once. It’s more than worth. Also, Jibril is best girl

The Vision of Escaflowne

I kind of forget this thing is an Isekai series because of the mechs but it is. This one is more of a romance-y type of show but it’s still crazy good, It’s still worth a watch. It’s one of the first to gain popularity in the states, even if the one we originally was truncated and edited to all hell,that aired on a Saturday morning cartoon block. I think, now, Funimation has the rights so you can get a decent version, uncut, and dubbed, yo check out. I loved Escaflowne. It was emotional, beautiful, and brilliant. The content was a little heady but as an adult, i can’t recommend this one more.

Tenchi Muyo! War for Geminar

Kind of in the same vein as Esclafowne, mechs over isekai so to speak, we have Tenchi Muyo! War for Geminar, one of my personal favorites. It’s actually part of the Tenchi franchise but follows another charcter like GXP. This time, we have Tenchi’s little brother, Kenshi, as he makes his way through a brand new world. Just like his big brother and friend, Sena, dude kind of develops a harem while figting to save the universe. This thing is a Tenchi show, through and through, and lord knows i’m a sucker for Tenchi, Still, bias aside, this thing is fun, beautifully animated, and choc full of action with just a hint of eechi. Also, Doll is best girl.

KonoSuba

Yo, Konosuba is wildly popular and for good reason.This thing deconstructs the entire genre and gives you one of the best comedy animes in decades. It takes nothing seriously and gives you a lighthearted tale, full of absurdity and shenanigans. The characters are all awesome and their relationships always bring a smile to your face. This show is mad good and i highly recommend this one for everyone. It’s just a good ol’ time in general!

Re: Creators

Re:Creators is kind of a flip on the Isekai situation. What happens when the characters from those other worlds, find their way into ours, with all of their OP abilities and powers? epic goddamn destruction, that's what! Yo, i was surprised by how much i loved this goddamn show! Definitely check this thing out.

Gate: Thus the Japanese Self-Defense Force Fought There

Gate gets a lot of sh*t for being a mediocre anime overall. To be honest the community is kind of split on this one. As a cat that has been watching anime for a long ass time, i can recognize that this is  weaker entry on this this list but, i think the world building makes up for that. This thing is littered with cliche tropes; Loli Goth goddesses, tsundere Dark Elves, Dandere wizard girls, etc. but it you can look past all of the harem-y nonsense, you kind of have a pretty legit political thriller. What happens when an overwhelming, modern, military force invades a country with the technology level of medieval times? How do those carrying swords and shields defend again those wielding assault rifles and mortars? It’s actually very interesting to see. I think those questions make this show compelling enough to check out.

There are a ton of others that come to mind; Saga of Tanya The Evil, Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Digimon, Drifters, Now and Then, Here and There, Magic Knigh Rayearth, Log Horizron, How Not To Summon The Demon Lord; There is a ton of content t watch. It can be overwhelming but the ten i listed above, are all excellent in their own rights and give you a decent swath of what you can expect throughout the genre.

[smokeybrand]

Spirited Away

Isekai has become kind of a bad word in the anime culture. I find this highly dubious because there are some excellent shows that feature the whole “In another world” motif. SAO kind of killed the entire genre with it’s ridiculous Weeb popularity, causing the market to be overly saturated, but even so, there are a few gems. Before everyone became aware of it’s cash-grabby nature, isekai was more a niche genre, producing great content, not just anime. Alice in Wonderland and Coraline are definite Isekai stories. Harry Potter is essentially an Isekai series. A kid, born with a special nature, get’s whisked away to a world full of magic and shenanignas? How much more Isekai can you get?

Kingdom Hearts is kind of an Isekai game franchise and it’s popular the world over. There’s a show airing stateside call Reveries that is getting pretty legit ratings and it’s basically a live action, A-spec, isekai series. There’s a plethora of comics and that immediately spring to mind. Booster Gold, Mile Morales, The Exiles; all of them world displaced and trying to find their way. Hell, Gwenpool, one of the most popular characters Marvel has ever created, is an Isekai protagonist, not to mention all of the refugees from the Ultimate Marvel universe. Isekai can be outstanding when you actually put effort into narrative. This genre lends itself to world building, character development, and is wide open for creative growth. I wanted to put a list together of a few shows that, i think, are worth taking  look at that happen to follow the whole “Alice in Wonderland” motif.

Overlord

I wrote at length about my love for this thing a few days ago. Of all the new shows in this Isekai boom, Overlord is my favorite. It has an interesting spin on the whole “defeat the Demon Lord” motif that plagues these kinds of shows in that Ains Ool Gown IS the demon lord. He’s Skeletor if Skeletor was actually competent. The world itself is growing and expanding, giving us brand new details with every season aired but it’s the characters that make this show so endearing. They’re all so rich and developed. I love everything about this show and highly recommend checking it out.

.Hack//Sign

Before SAO, there was Sign. I’m not going to spoil the plot, which is both engaging and emotional, but it’s basically the first “trapped in a game” type of narrative that really got traction here in the states. This anime was actually a companion piece to a quadrilogy of excellent, real life,PS2 games. While i’m partial to the sequel games and it’s accompanying media, .Hask//G.U., i’d be remiss not to give credit where credit is due. If you liked SAO, check out Twilight. It did it first and much, much, better.

Re:Zero - Starting Life In Another World

Rem is best girl. That’s off top. Re:Zero would easily be my favorite Isekai show, if not for Overlord. This thing is kind of incredible in terms of world building but, just like my beloved Supervisor Skeletor anime, it’s the characters in Re”Zero that sell this show. They’re all so real, so human. The main protagonist,Subaru, because of certain circumstances, has the ability to return from death and that sh*t takes a toll on him. He has seen some sh*t. He has experienced some sh*t. And while he grows in strength, it’s at a horrific cost. The emotional turmoil of these resurrections are ridiculous and you feel it in Subaru’s evolution as a protagonist.

The Familiar of Zero

This one is more cutesy fun. It feels like if Harry Potter was a harem protagonist, you’d have this show. It’s not terrible, by any means, and relies heavy on sight gags and comedies but, considering it has 4 seasons, is mad popular. I haven’t watched through all of them but i did enjoy the first two and understand exactly why it’s so popular. This is another one that came out long before the boom so it has more of a richer narrative overall.

No Game No Life

No Game No Life is a personal favorite. I love this goddamn show! It’s kinetic, silly, fun, and quietly brilliant. A world where all conflicts are solved with games? A dual set of protagonists who are perfect compliments to each other in strength and weakness? An absurd premise that raises stakes to genocidal levels? Bro, No Game No Life is a goddamn classic and you NEED to check this thing out at least once. It’s more than worth. Also, Jibril is best girl.

The Vision of Escaflowne

I kind of forget this thing is an Isekai series because of the mechs but it is. This one is more of a romance-y type of show but it’s still crazy good, It’s still worth a watch. It’s one of the first to gain popularity in the states, even if the one we originally was truncated and edited to all hell,that aired on a Saturday morning cartoon block. I think, now, Funimation has the rights so you can get a decent version, uncut, and dubbed, yo check out. I loved Escaflowne. It was emotional, beautiful, and brilliant. The content was a little heady but as an adult, i can’t recommend this one more.

Tenchi Muyo! War for Geminar

Kind of in the same vein as Esclafowne, mechs over isekai so to speak, we have Tenchi Muyo! War for Geminar, one of my personal favorites. It’s actually part of the Tenchi franchise but follows another charcter like GXP. This time, we have Tenchi’s little brother, Kenshi, as he makes his way through a brand new world. Just like his big brother and friend, Sena, dude kind of develops a harem while figting to save the universe. This thing is a Tenchi show, through and through, and lord knows i’m a sucker for Tenchi, Still, bias aside, this thing is fun, beautifully animated, and choc full of action with just a hint of eechi. Also, Doll is best girl.

KonoSuba

Yo, Konosuba is wildly popular and for good reason.This thing deconstructs the entire genre and gives you one of the best comedy animes in decades. It takes nothing seriously and gives you a lighthearted tale, full of absurdity and shenanigans. The characters are all awesome and their relationships always bring a smile to your face. This show is mad good and i highly recommend this one for everyone. It’s just a good ol’ time in general!

Re: Creators

Re:Creators is kind of a flip on the Isekai situation. What happens when the characters from those other worlds, find their way into ours, with all of their OP abilities and powers? epic goddamn destruction, that's what! Yo, i was surprised by how much i loved this goddamn show! Definitely check this thing out.

Gate: Thus the Japanese Self-Defense Force Fought There

Gate gets a lot of sh*t for being a mediocre anime overall. To be honest the community is kind of split on this one. As a cat that has been watching anime for a long ass time, i can recognize that this is  weaker entry on this this list but, i think the world building makes up for that. This thing is littered with cliche tropes; Loli Goth goddesses, tsundere Dark Elves, Dandere wizard girls, etc. but it you can look past all of the harem-y nonsense, you kind of have a pretty legit political thriller. What happens when an overwhelming, modern, military force invades a country with the technology level of medieval times? How do those carrying swords and shields defend again those wielding assault rifles and mortars? It’s actually very interesting to see. I think those questions make this show compelling enough to check out. Also, Rory is best girl!

There are a ton of others that come to mind; Saga of Tanya The Evil, Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Digimon, Drifters, Now and Then, Here and There, Magic Knigh Rayearth, Angel Beats, Log Horizron, How Not To Summon The Demon Lord; There is a ton of content t watch. It can be overwhelming but the ten i listed above, are all excellent in their own rights and give you a decent swath of what you can expect throughout the genre.

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End of Season Availability: Brett Brown and Bryan Colangelo

45 minutes of Brett Brown.

46 minutes of Bryan Colangelo.

Holy cannoli, we’ve got quotes for days after an immersive and comprehensive end of season availability.

I figured the best way to do this would be to just pick out the most relevant quotes and do the snippets for easy reference moving forward. It would take me about 400 hours to transcribe everything verbatim, so let’s truncate the best parts for smooth reading.

There’s a lot to “parse,” which has become one of my favorite crutch words in 2018.

Brett Brown

On Ben Simmons’ jump shot:

each player received a document RE: this is what goes on with summer development, from a skill package perspective, strength and conditioning component, and what preseason looks like… 4 sheets for a detailed roadmap for each player

for Ben, it’s very much a part of conversation, his offensive future involves free throw line, efficiency finishing, and jump shot, maybe you talk about a three-point shot at some point

evolution of jump shot – he understands his world will become easier when that becomes part of his game

On his future and a contract extension:

has spoken briefly with Bryan Colangelo about a contract extension, loves being in Philadelphia, “we’ve grown something, collectively as an organization so proud of where we are.”

Looking back on Boston series:

do I wish I had played T.J. more earlier? probably. do I wish I had used Justin Anderson more? maybe. could Markelle have played a role? maybe, but when you coach a team to 52 wins, 16 game win streak, beat Miami 4-1, I’m happy to “go down” with the people who got us there

On the criticism of his coaching:

“I have heard it. I think the things that come up are, at times, wildly unfair. It’s part of our landscape, and we can go specifics if you want, but I get it. I’m the son of a coach, I get it. I am my harshest critic. I’m fine on my personal judgment day. I sleep at night. I sleep just fine at night. What we did and what we’re going to do makes me say that with confidence. The disappointment inspires emotion from passionate people and there’s nothing wrong with that. I understand but don’t pay attention enough for it to keep you up at night.”

Simmons’ shot part two:

We have a shooting coach in our program, but actually looking at other shooting coach possibilities to include in our staff design. John Townsend is a valuable asset, Ben will be spending intense time with him.

As far as completely rebuilding Simmons’ shot, no. “Intense refinement,” but not a complete blow up.

It’s an “easy sell” for Ben to fix shot this summer, to focus in on free throws, jump shot, and finishing efficiency

Ben “wants to be great,” as a team “we were exceptional in the final third of year, he was a rebound away from averaging a triple-double.” Had we played him a bit more he would have reached that easily. Celtics experience helps him with real-time learning.

On being “owed” something because he coached a bunch of terrible teams during the “Process” years:

It isn’t being owed. “I don’t feel like I’m owed anything. I feel like I deserve a lot but that I’m not owed anything.” Five years ago we talked about pace, space, and pass offense, but program also has to reflect the city and we have to play defense. We play with pace, space, and we pass the ball. Defense, we were third in the NBA this year. We finished 3rd in the east and most of us were just doing cartwheels at the thought of making the playoffs. “Our culture is not to be denied.”

On Markelle Fultz:

huge conversation, to shrink it – want him getting back his mojo and playing basketball in a high level, energized environment

had a long chat Thursday, we know what he had to endure this year, can’t wait to coach him again, we’ve seen signs of brilliance with what he’s done this year, think he’ll have a great summer

On Joel Embiid’s summer:

first summer that he has come back and will be healthy

fact that we played that volume of games, we all would have been happy with that in preseason

strongly believes Joel’s future is his body, mastery of diet, rehab/prehab, and strength and conditioning

deserves so much more credit than what he receives, coming out of an operation and wearing a mask with a lens and “trying to figure out playoff basketball,” commitment and navigating through setbacks is historic throughout his early career

health will bring post game to a new level, ability to turn and face, back down, pass out, that world he has to own

feels like Embiid is becoming a leader in the locker room

On growing the roster “organically” vs. adding a superstar free agent, the dichotomy in the fan base of how to proceed:

starting with fans, they have showed a consistent resilience, conflicted at times, but my feel is that there’s been an acceptance of growing it organically, “we all live with the pain of what we went through.”

if that portion of fan base is still prepared to take that notion and think it equals a championship, it’s “noble, but I don’t agree with it.”

another high level free agent is required and we have the ability to attract one

when the time is right, “we need help” to win a championship

Does Ben need to bring his elbow down when shooting? 

yes

also feet are important with his shot

free throw – he was a 77% FT shooter at LSU, dipped this year and then went back up in playoffs

want him to get to the free throw line more next year

Clarification on Markelle’s injury situation and what he was going through:

it is so documented, but I’ll answer the question again

he hurt his shoulder, it affected portions of his psyche, I get it, he was injured, then he didn’t play much basketball, brought him back and resurrected some stuff and I “thought he did quite well.”

felt fine with decision not to use him in playoffs, 19 year old with 19 games under his belt

feels like Markelle is doing fine now, spirit and motor is back

confident that he will have a great summer

On report that Boston committed a foul and traveling violation in final moments of game five:

respects the league for doing report and admitting it, owning it

you would love to have it back, 2 free throws for Embiid or Marcus Smart travels and you have time to get a shot up

“that’s the fragility of many things, here it’s the playoffs”

What is the makeup of a high level free agent? Shooter? Floor spreader? 

for the first time since I’ve been here, there’s tremendous clarity on roster, no mystery of Ben Simmons skill package or what Embiid has

what complements that? drape those qualities over the free agent market and say, “yep, that fits him.” we’ll make our own assessments but I’m not here to name names

Follow-up effort about the free agent question, specifically about Ben not playing with another ball-dominant perimeter player (LEBRON JAMES):

“if this player you’re describing was great, we’d figure it out, truly. we’d figure stuff out. it’s as honest and simple as I can answer that.”

Brett Brown https://t.co/GkdZrSS0bX

— Kevin Kinkead (@Kevin_Kinkead) May 11, 2018

Bryan Colangelo

Opening statement:

had a great year, lot of things were accomplished, but we’ve got so much more to do

coaches and players did a tremendous job and deserve a lot of credit

we’ve got flexibility built into our plan, ability to improve this team this year, but if we decide to defer, we could wait until 2019 free agency, have optionality with both years and been diligent protecting that, if we feel like there’s a deal to improve our team then we’ll more forward, want “sustainable winning”

On adding a high-level free agent: 

would agree that team needs to add something to get better, but great young core that continues to improve, Celtics series was worst you’ll see them play

i’ll say “talent, not free agent,” talent comes in many forms whether its trade, etc, we have cap room to explore any and all options

but to say this group can do it now, they obviously proved that they cannot, adding more talent or another piece is something we’re striving for

have about $25m in cap flexibility right now if they go for a free agent now, “does require some sacrifice,” will know more after draft lottery to find out where draft slots are

in order to use full cap flex, will have to “renounce” JJ, Ersan, Marco, and/or Amir. those four were a “big chunk of our production” at the end of the season, replacing that is difficult, would love to have all for back, but picture is not likely

Markelle Fultz playing in the summer league:

been aware of this topic, season just ended a few days ago and need to finalize a summer plan for him. Thursday meetings were more of a surface level discussion, exploring “various other hires” for basketball program and organization, may or may not factor into his development

summer league is “on the table” but need to discuss more with him and his agent and reps and everyone else

On Markelle working with his own people in the summer and keeping tabs on him when he’s not with the team: 

people train with various people, our coaches have done a great job, he’s come a long way, I’ve often said he’s not completely there yet, with respect to his offseason and where he trains, we’re still working out those details, our coaches, for the most part, will always be present

guys like to go to gyms and have a friend or former trainer rebound for them, we’re okay with that as long as it fits our plan for developing his game

On Brett Brown’s contract and how he did as a coach this year:

Spoken with Brett on a few occasions to let him know that it’s the intention to sit down and discuss a contract extension for him. Don’t think it’s healthy for a coach to go into a season with one year on their contract.

“Hopeful” to sit down and discuss his situation. “He realizes how much we value him as the coach of this program.

Brett does have what it takes to coach this basketball team, everybody asked if I’d give him the opportunity to coach – absolutely, he deserved the opportunity to coach better talent and finish the job, he’s going “a very good job, which is why we will be talking about a contract extension at the appropriate time.”

On T.J. McConnell:

his option will be exercised

  On Jonah Bolden:

has an NBA out clause in his contract, is able to leave Maccabi and join the Sixers

  On Furkan Korkmaz and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot:

injuries set both players back, but they aren’t being forgotten from a development standpoint

both will likely play for their countries during international qualification this summer

Korkmaz added 20 pounds to his frame, but not all good pounds, still thinks he’s a young and bright talent, more likely to play summer league than TLC

On the Boston series:

this series with Boston was a bit of a wake up call, adjustments were made, it “exposed us to some degree, individual and team weaknesses” and we all have to learn from that.

no issues selecting Fultz over Jayson Tatum, very complimentary of what Tatum did in the playoffs (what the fuck else is he supposed to say anyway?)

That’s about it for Colangelo. He was asked at least 7-9 questions about Markelle Fultz specifically, so I’ll go back in and dig those up for a story sometime next week. For now, here’s the video:

Colangelo https://t.co/BLntKWsFYh

— Kevin Kinkead (@Kevin_Kinkead) May 11, 2018

End of Season Availability: Brett Brown and Bryan Colangelo published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/