#her character events (not adding any interesting comment on the event just summarizing it)

[rinofwater]

So outside of the bond quest events and main story, the characters in Azuma get pretty shallow characterization, huh?

[p5x-theories]

Valentine's Day Event Summary

(last updated 4/21/25!)

Usual disclaimer: Please keep in mind this game still has no official English translation, so this summary uses a mix of what happens visually, what I understand of the Japanese dialogue, and Google translate for the Chinese text, in order to get the broader picture here. This will be focused on summing up everything that happens overall, without getting into a line-by-line translation. I have also made English translation videos of this event, which actually are a line-by-line translation, and you can watch those here if you prefer.

Contrary to this blog’s name, this post is going to have as little speculation as possible, and stick to confirmed facts.

This post will cover the main plot of the Valentine's Day Event added in Version 3.4.1. Note that individual characters' Valentine's events will not be covered here, but you can find many individual events in the video playlist linked above.

One morning at school, Shun gets Wonder's attention, wanting to talk to him about something. He starts by saying it isn't a big deal, but Valentine's Day is coming up soon. Ruferu comments that he's surprised Shun cares about Valentine's (to Shun's confusion) because Shun "only cares about ramen". Shun, offended, asks Wonder if he sees him like that, too (Wonder can suggest he also likes "dumplings" or "fried rice", or refuse to answer).

Getting back on topic, Shun explains that there's all kinds of Valentine's chocolates nowadays- romantic (honmei) chocolate, obligatory (giri) chocolate, and now friendly (tomo) chocolate as well. He wants to take this chance to try out some chocolate recipes, since there are some special ingredients you can only really get around this time of year. He suggests they invite Motoha and Riko, and have a "choco party".

As if on cue, Motoha and Riko walk by, and Shun waves them over. He asks them about his choco party idea, explaining they can all make chocolate together, but Motoha quickly brushes that off as "a pain", and Riko agrees that they don't need to go to that much trouble for Valentine's Day, to Shun's confusion. Riko then asks if that was all he wanted to discuss, and the two girls leave.

Shun immediately finds it weird how they brushed him off, and while Ruferu initially suggests there was just something wrong with how Shun tried to invite them, Ruferu then says he'll stop joking, and flies out of Wonder's bag to talk. He says their behavior was indeed strange, even if they were just in a bad mood or something. Shun brings up that it seems like people aren't really talking about Valentine's Day this year, despite it coming up soon. Not in class, or on TV, or in magazines.

Ruferu summarizes this as humans "losing interest in Valentine's Day", and while Shun says he might be overthinking it, Ruferu reminds him that they've seen something similar before, during the Seaside Teaching trip (the summer event). If something like that is happening, that could explain the strange behavior, though they don't have any other evidence of this at the moment. Wonder thinks they should head to Mementos, and Shun asks if they should tell Motoha and Riko about it. Ruferu is concerned that, if they really are affected, they might not even believe him, and regardless, they really only need the three of them to investigate. They agree to meet up after school.

The three travel to Shibuya, and are about to enter the Metaverse when a girl's voice calls out to her "dearest brother", and Miyu Sahara, along with Ayaka Sakai, walk up to them. Miyu is surprised to have run into Wonder here, while Ayaka greets him. Shun, confused, first asks if Wonder knows them, then corrects, and asks if Wonder really has a little sister.

Miyu and Ayaka introduce themselves to Shun, and he introduces himself back, then Miyu asks if they had business in Shibuya, too. Shun replies with a vague "sorta", and asks what they're doing. Ayaka explains that they were discussing the music they use in their street performances. Ayaka thinks she needs a new song, but isn't sure what to try, and Miyu admits she couldn't think of anything either, then asks Wonder if he has any ideas. Ayaka seconds her question.

Wonder suggests something related to Valentine's/a love song, and Shun thinks that's a good idea, but Ayaka is less enthusiastic. Miyu gently explains that Valentine's stuff isn't really popular anymore, so she's sorry, but she really thinks they should try something else. Ayaka adds that she wants to pick something her audience can enjoy.

Ayaka then apologizes for interrupting their shopping, and the two bid them farewell before walking away.

Ruferu finds this behavior suspicious, and possibly further evidence of an abnormality in Mementos. Shun agrees, and they enter the Metaverse to check things out.

At first, things look normal in Mementos. But then, Cattle senses some shadows approaching, and they quickly discover something is abnormal here:

Soy asks about the shadows looking different from usual, and Cattle adds that their aura is different, too- he senses anger, sadness, and hatred. Soy asks what that means, but the shadows attack before they can talk any further.

Once the shadows are dealt with, Soy asks what's up with them. Cattle explains they're not ordinary shadows- confirming something is amiss here- and asks for a moment to listen to the voices of the heart in Mementos. When he does, he reacts with alarm, calling it "impossible". Soy asks if it's really that bad, and Cattle tells them that Mementos is currently... overrun with the resentful inner voices of men who don't receive chocolate on Valentine's Day!

Soy and Wonder react with exaggerated alarm, but then Soy asks if that's it. Cattle assures them this is the case, sharing some of the voices he's heard: "Valentine's Day should stop existing", "Valentine's Day is a scheme created by the candy manufacturers", "Popular men must die, no mercy", "If there's friend chocolate, shouldn't there be mother chocolate as well?". Soy replies that oh, it's only that, and he really had him worried.

Cattle insists that they can't underestimate this, as if it continues, the affected shadows will become increasingly violent, and women in reality will be robbed of their desires, leading to no one having any desire to enjoy Valentine's Day. Soy, surprised, points out that Closer and Wind's desires shouldn't be able to be stolen anymore, and Cattle replies that that's usually true, as a Persona awakening helps one resist having their desires stolen. However, the resentful voices in Mementos right now have surpassed that strength of heart.

Cattle explains that, at this rate, there will no longer be love confessions on Valentine's Day, and the "fate of humanity will be drastically altered". Soy asks if the resentful voices won't just disappear once Valentine's is over, and people can just confess after that. Cattle grumbles that Soy has absolutely no understanding of the hearts of women. Valentine's is precisely how some people muster the courage to confess at all, and without this chance, some people may never muster that courage in their entire lives.

Soy thinks this is a total exaggeration; Wonder has the option to agree, or not. Cattle reluctantly admits he may have been being a bit dramatic, but as the Phantom Thieves, they can't stand by while desires are being stolen. They have to defeat these shadows, and take back the desires! Soy relents that if Cattle's going to insist, there's no getting out of it, so they'll do it- for the choco party! Wonder agrees (either for Valentine's Day, or the choco party as well), and the three pump their fists into the air together.

There's another shadow fight, and then the player unlocks the ability to play through the Valentine's Event challenge fights, leading up to the Valentine's boss fight. As these fights have no further story content, they won't be covered here, but the rest of the event's plot is implied to take place during/after the player has completed these fights and beaten the boss.

At school, apparently a few days later, Ruferu comments that things are going well so far. Shun adds that he's heard more people in his class talking about Valentine's now, and Ruferu, pleased, says their efforts haven't been in vain, then. Shun suggests they head back to Shibuya after school, then Motoha's voice calls out to them ("there you are!"), and she and Riko walk over.

Motoha says they were about to go looking for them, to Shun's surprise, and Riko explains that while they initially rejected the choco party idea- Motoha finishes, they thought it over, and they actually do want to do it! It's not too late, is it? Shun says of course they can, and Motoha enthusiastically thanks them. Riko then asks what they'll need. Shun starts to think, but Riko continues very seriously that no matter what they need, she'll mobilize the entirely of UMETANE to get it. Motoha adds that she'll do whatever it takes to get whatever they need to the party, to Shun's confusion.

Riko determines that they'll need to select a venue, wondering which hotel would be ideal, and Motoha decides that they need to invite a bunch of people, saying she'll invite her whole class. Shun assures them not to worry about the prep, and to just leave it to him and Wonder. Motoha starts to protest, but the bell rings, and Riko says it can't be helped. Motoha reluctantly agrees with her. However, Riko adds if there's anything they can to do help, just let them know, and Shun awkwardly thanks her for the offer.

After the two girls leave, Shun says their stolen desires should've returned, but this is way too much of a "recovery", if you can even call it that. Ruferu agrees that, Motoha aside, even Riko was way too enthusiastic. Shun suggests maybe they were just worried about their feelings, after turning them down before? Ruferu starts to mutter that "Could it be...", but when Shun prompts him, thinks he's just overthinking. It's at least clear that the stolen desires are returning, so they should return to Mementos and keep fighting the shadows. Shun agrees to meet up after school.

They head to Shibuya, and once again prepare to enter Mementos, but then Wonder gets a text message from YUI, and asks for a moment. Shun says there's no rush.

Wonder opens the chat, where YUI tells him Valentine's Day is quickly approaching, and says she suddenly felt like she had to message him. She asks if he can chat tonight, which Wonder can either agree to or ask to think about first. If he agrees, YUI says she'll be waiting at the usual spot on their farm.

With Wonder done replying, Shun starts to move things along, but then Yaoling Li's voice calls out to her "Sensei", and she excitedly says it's a coincidence seeing him here. It must be fate to run into each other when Shibuya is so huge! Shun mutters "Fate, huh...". Yaoling explains that she came here to buy chocolate ingredients since it's almost Valentine's Day, and she wanted to make something for Wonder to thank him for taking care of her. She asks what kind of chocolate Wonder likes- he has a few options- and she promises to work hard to give him what he wants. She tells him to just wait for Valentine's Day, then says goodbye, leaving as quickly as she arrived.

Shun comments that her energy was "really something", and Ruferu adds that it seems in her eyes, there was only Wonder. Shun says he was a bit surprised, but then tries to move things along again...

Only to get interrupted by Kotone Montagne's voice calling out, and her approaching Wonder. She asks what he's doing here ("Hanging out with friends" or "just a little errand"), and then says this is "perfect". She came to Shibuya today to buy chocolate ingredients; she's never made chocolate before, but she appreciates the care Wonder's shown her, so she wanted to give him something special for Valentine's Day. She asks if it'd be awkward to suddenly give him something like that, but Wonder's fine with that, and she says that's a relief. She'll do her best, and hopefully it'll be worth the wait. She then bids him farewell, and leaves.

Ruferu is unamused. Shun asks if they're good to go now, and Wonder awkwardly apologizes for keeping them waiting. Shun says it's not his fault, and he isn't mad, then mentions that he thinks she's seen that girl on TV, and asks how they met. Wonder replies that it's a long story, and Shun brushes it off, saying they should get going, before...

Runa Dogenzaka's voice interrupts, and both Ruferu and Shun are unamused as she waves and walks over. She says it's a coincidence running into Wonder here, and Shun mutters about whether it's really a coincidence. Ruferu says that in a sense, it's not, because she's likely here in order to- Wonder finishes, asking her if she's here to get chocolate ingredients. Runa is confused, asking why that's his guess. She's just heading home from school after taking a detour. Wonder, Shun, and Ruferu are all shocked- it really was just a coincidence! Shun calls it a miracle, to Runa's further confusion.

Wonder brushes it off, and Runa hesitantly does so as well. But then the word "chocolate" gets her thinking... would he be happy if she gave him chocolate on Valentine's Day? Wonder can reply with two different affirmative answers, or simply "Woof woof awoo" (Runa's catchphrase); if the latter is picked, he does the accompanying Shichi-kun/dog pose, and Runa, surprised, enthusiastically replies with "woof woof awoo" and the pose right back. Shun asks how that was even a conversation. Runa, undeterred, says if that's decided, then she should go get ingredients for the chocolate. It might not be good, but she'll do her best! She then says goodbye, and leaves.

When she's gone, Shun comments that he wouldn't really want to be popular, but seeing popularity right in front of him is giving him some complicated emotions. It feels like none of them even noticed he was standing there! Wonder is awkward, but Ruferu says Shun's correct, and this may have proven his theory. He flutters out of Wonder's bag and lands on the railing between them, rather than on the arm Wonder had raised for him.

Shun asks what he means, and Ruferu explains that, although defeating shadows in Mementos has indeed returned the stolen desires, the sudden recovery may have caused those desires to spiral out of control. This could be why none of them noticed Shun at all a moment ago. Shun, alarmed, asks if they should really keep doing this, then. Clearly a bunch of desires have returned, so maybe they should stop now...? Ruferu, however, reminds him that Valentine's Day is still a few days away, so by the time it arrives, the desires may all be stolen again. Even if desires are running rampant right now, that's not a serious issue, so they shouldn't stop just yet. Shun's fine with that, then, but warns they should get going right now before anyone else shows up.

With the next part of the event, time cuts ahead another few days, with Wonder's thought bubble announcing that Valentine's Day is finally here, and various camera shots showing lovey-dovey couples all around Shibuya station.

Shun, Ruferu, and Wonder react to this scene a bit awkwardly, with Shun commenting that love's really in the air, and Wonder and Ruferu seeming similarly troubled. Shun says at least they know everyone got the desire to enjoy Valentine's back. He then checks again if this is really okay, but Ruferu confirms it should only be temporary, and everything should go back to normal- most people will be fine. Shun asks what he means by "most" people, and Ruferu somewhat flatly replies that "people who have many friends of the opposite sex", and are pursued by several people at once, may experience unexpected consequences. Wonder is confused as Shun and Ruferu turn to look at him.

Shun says things are fine for now, so they should just let them play out. Ruferu declares their work here is done, and thanks them for their hard work. Shun thanks Ruferu as well, but then they're interrupted by Tomoko Noge's voice calling out, "there you are". Tomoko walks over, and says she's been trying to find Wonder for a while. Wonder asks what's up, and Tomoko requests a moment of his time to tell him something, promising it won't take long. Wonder agrees, and she thanks him, then asks if he likes lighter flavors.

Before he can respond, however, Yuumi Shiina walks up to them, saying she's "looked all over Shibuya" and finally found Wonder, to Wonder and Tomoko's surprise. She apologizes for interrupting his chat with friends, but she spent so much time looking for him that she can't waste this chance. She was thinking that the bar she works at could have some special food in addition to the Valentine's Day mocktails, and wanted to invite Wonder to help taste-test. Then, after...

She's interrupted by Minami Miyashita walking over, apologizing for bothering them, to Wonder, Tomoko, and Yuumi's surprise. Minami says she was originally going to ask him later, but also wants to talk to Wonder about something. She's not sure if she'll see him soon enough for it, so she wants to ask now; it's about the kids (that she babysits), who really want to see him again, only agreeing on that despite having an argument otherwise.

Tomoko, Yuumi, and Minami all start talking at once, to Wonder's dismay, while Shun and Ruferu watch from the sidelines. Ruferu tells Shun not to cry, and Shun insists he isn't, just... Ruferu prompts, just...? Shun says youth is so bitter, and Ruferu agrees.

The scene then cuts ahead, with Tomoko, Yuumi, and Minami all gone. Shun tries to figure out how to say this, then comments that Wonder's working hard, too, calling back to their conversation before it was interrupted. Wonder apologizes, and Ruferu advises they don't stick around, and should get moving before Wonder's trapped again. Shun agrees, adding that Motoha and Riko just texted that they're on their way to Wonder's house, so it's time to get the choco party started.

The group gathers at Wonder's house, and Shun asks if everyone's ready. Riko enthusiastically replies that she's brought the finest ingredients for today's party, and Motoha matches her enthusiasm, saying she's made sure everything's perfect, too. Wonder, Shun, and Ruferu react awkwardly to the overenthusiasm, but the conversation moves along, Ruferu asking what Riko and Motoha are planning to make. Riko replies they're making a chocolate cake, and Ruferu thinks that sounds good. If Wonder then asks Shun what he's making, he says he'll tell them when it's done. Shun then thanks Wonder for lending them his kitchen, and he, Riko, and Motoha head over to start cooking.

Ruferu comments that everyone seems motivated, and asks Wonder what he's going to make. Wonder decides to take this opportunity to make something, too, and the following thought bubble adds that Motoha and Riko gradually calmed down as everyone made their treats, guessing it might be because they were able to exercise their desire to celebrate Valentine's Day.

The camera pans to show everyone (Ruferu included) has been given a slice of chocolate cake, a bowl of chocolate ramen, and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Ruferu is impressed (or perhaps just shocked), and Wonder's thought bubble describes the room as having a "sweet aroma", saying everything looks delicious. Shun suggests they start eating.

Ruferu decides he wants to try the cake first, and Shun says they'd be eating the most important thing first, but he's fine with that, and Wonder is as well. Motoha, however, is nervous, asking if maybe they should eat it last, to Shun, Wonder, and Ruferu's confusion. Riko assures her that it won't matter whether they eat the cake first or later, and Motoha relents, asking them to pretend she never said anything. Ruferu announces that he's a bit confused, but he's going to begin. Shun, Wonder, and Ruferu each take a bite, and react with surprise. Wonder's thought bubble says it "really is good", but...

Shun affirms that it's not bad, but it is a bit sweet. Motoha confesses that she got so excited while they were baking that her hands started shaking, and Riko explains that a bit too much sugar was added, though she did her best to adjust the flavor to account for that. Motoha apologizes, but Shun says it's fine, and Wonder doesn't seem too bothered in any of his response options, either. Ruferu also says he doesn't dislike it at all, and Motoha thanks them.

Riko then adds that she brewed some tea to make up for this, and intentionally made it a bit bitter so it would go with the cake. Wonder and Shun each try a sip, and Wonder's thought bubble says the tea's bitterness perfectly counteracts the sweetness of the cake, so with this, he should be able to finish his slice.

With the cake eaten, Shun announces that next up is his chocolate miso ramen, only to get a flat reaction from the others. He asks what their reaction is for, and Motoha admits that even as a ramen lover, she thinks pairing it with chocolate is a bit much, and Riko adds that she can't imagine the flavor of this at all, and doesn't want to. Shun insists that while the presentation is a bit lacking, he can guarantee it'll taste good. He spent a ton of time researching for this. Motoha says she doesn't doubt his cooking skill, but...

Ruferu suggests Wonder, as their leader, should lead the charge, to Wonder's alarm. Shun asks if he believes in him, and Wonder's only response options are all "I'll eat it". He tries a taste, then reacts in surprise- his thought bubble says that the "sweetness of the chocolate combines perfectly with the miso to create a wonderfully harmonious flavor". Shun asks how it is, and Wonder's response options are all extremely positive.

Shun celebrates, and the others are surprised, Riko commenting that he doesn't seem to just be saying that. Ruferu mutters that he should've expected this from a fanatic who only cares about ramen, to Shun's offense. Still, they all chat and eat the ramen.

Afterward, with the empty ramen bowls set aside and the plates of cookies now sitting in front of everyone, Motoha and Riko both praise the ramen highly, despite their initial reservations. Shun tells them they should've had faith.

He then turns everyone's attention to the cookies, asking if Wonder made them (Wonder can confirm, or say Ruferu made them, to Ruferu's surprise. Shun doesn't believe this). Riko then suggests they start eating, and everyone takes a bite, Motoha immediately finishing her whole cookie and exclaiming at how good it is. Riko similarly praises it, and Shun asks Wonder to teach him his cookie recipe sometime. Wonder reacts sheepishly. Ruferu flaps his wings, saying he'd like to try them too, and asking someone to break his cookies into pieces for him.

After the cookies, and evidently after they've cleaned everything up as well, Motoha says she wasn't sure about a "choco party", but it was actually really fun. Riko agrees, referring to this as her first time experiencing such an enjoyable Valentine's Day. Wonder can agree, or specifically thank Shun, the latter of which prompting Motoha and Riko to thank him as well. Shun suggests they do this again next year. Ruferu comments that hopefully they won't have the "same troubles" again next year, and Motoha asks what he means; prepping the party? Riko wonders if it was difficult to do so. Ruferu hastily covers up, saying that had nothing to do with the party, nevermind, to the girls' confusion.

Shun then says he has some ingredients left over, so he's going to make another batch of chocolate ramen, asking Wonder to help. Wonder nods, and they head to the kitchen. Wonder's thought bubble says they ate ramen together and chatted happily.

Later that same day, Wonder visits Leblanc, finding the Phantom Thieves inside celebrating. Joker greets him, and Ann says he got here just in time. Morgana says Joker has a special menu item today, and Ryuji explains that Joker made chocolate cake for everyone. Makoto adds that he had to use the microwave to do so, as there's no oven here. Yusuke comments on the beauty of the cake.

Joker says he wanted to give back to everyone today. Makoto adds that there's quite a bit of cake left, and asks Wonder if he wants some. Wonder sits down at the counter.

Ryuji then comments that he's not sure how he feels about this being the only Valentine's chocolate he got this year, but he's still pretty happy. Morgana says if Ryuji's not satisfied with his gift, he'd be happy to eat it for him instead, and Ryuji gets mad, telling him not to try to steal his cake.

Futaba declares that they all knew Ryuji wasn't getting any chocolate this year, but she's surprised Yusuke did. Yusuke takes offense to this, but Futaba is unfazed, and asks Wonder if he got any chocolate. Wonder can respond either way. If he says he did get some, Futaba is impressed, and Makoto says that whoever gave him the chocolate must have mustered a lot of courage to do so, so Wonder should savor it.

Yusuke digs into the cake in front of him, and "before his eyes", his plate "becomes empty". Joker, cutting in, immediately offers him another slice, and Yusuke requests another cup of coffee alongside it. Futaba calls him totally shameless, and Ann laughs, saying she gets where he's coming from because it's just so good! She asks for another slice, too.

Joker says he's got it, then turns to Wonder and explains that, to celebrate Valentine's Day, he wants to write something on Wonder's coffee or cake with cream. Would Wonder prefer "Super Cute★Unrestrained Latte", or "Super Love❤Phantom Thief Choco Cake"? Wonder can choose either, or ask for both. If he chooses both, Joker nods, and dramatically says he'll rise to the challenge, posing and declaring it's "Valentine's Show Time" before walking back into the kitchen.

Ryuji asks him what the hell that means, and Futaba comments that Joker's passion has been ignited, and Joker's "legendary ultimate move, the Decorative Cream Overload" is coming for Wonder. Ann realizes she just asked for seconds, too, dismayed.

Joker returns with Wonder's cake and coffee, looking more like two piles of cream than either of those things, and asks Wonder to take his time with it. Makoto comments that Wonder's actually looks a bit fancier than theirs did, and Yusuke frames the scene with his fingers, declaring it a beautiful composition. Haru says the cream is piled like a small mountain, and certainly someone with a sweet tooth would love that.

Wonder thinks to himself that whatever Joker wrote doesn't even look like words anymore. Joker, luckily, explains that he wanted to write "Endless Growth", but that didn't work out. Ryuji says he should've kept it simple, and asks what that's even supposed to mean. Joker clarifies that every time he's seen Wonder, he's grown and changed, so it was meant to be a compliment, something he respects about Wonder. The same is the case with everyone else's cakes.

(Translation note: these were originally all phrases in Chinese, including Wonder's, that consist of four Chinese characters that mean something all together. I did my best to translate the core concepts into English, and make them something Joker could have feasibly fit on a cake, but in most cases was a bit long for that, to fit Ryuji's comment about keeping it simple instead, heh.)

Ann, surprised, looks at her own cake, wondering what "Unyielding" is supposed to mean, and Makoto explains that it refers to how she has a strong heart, and never wavers no matter the challenge. Ann is embarrassed, but touched. Yusuke's says "Inner Beauty", which he interprets as his inner beauty being reflected outward. Futaba's says "Perseverance", and she comments that no matter how many times she falls, she always gets back up, just like the Feathermen.

Makoto says her own cake reads "High Aspirations", while Haru's reads "Forging Paths", and connects that to how Haru acts when she's made up her mind. Haru similarly says that Makoto's implies hard work and determination, which suits her as well. Ryuji's says "Giving His All", which Ryuji is a bit sheepish about, smiling and saying it's too cheesy.

Joker, hearing all this, connects the idea of "gifting food" to "serving someone", then the idea of "serving someone" to "maids", explaining this was all based on the highest-quality service he knows: maid cafe-style hospitality in Akihabara! Wonder can either thank him, or asks why he's suddenly brought up maids, and Ryuji mutters that he's weirding Wonder out with what he's saying, but at least the cake was good, so he's happy. Futaba comments that if Joker's learning how to serve them like a maid, he should wear a maid costume, too, and they all split into conversation.

Morgana, at the counter, abruptly realizes that he never got any cake, or anything else. Joker replies that he has some sushi for him, and he's going to write "Brilliant Talent" on it. Morgana is initially pleased to have his skills as a phantom thief praised, but then asks if he's going to use cream to write that. Joker crosses his arms, but doesn't respond verbally. Morgana, distraught, tells him not to even think about it- at least use soy sauce instead!Haru says it's very kind of Joker to make Morgana something he really likes for Valentine's Day, and Futaba warns Joker not to overdo it on the soy sauce, or it'll get way too salty.

Makoto then advises Wonder to drink his coffee now, before it gets cold. Joker thanks him for visiting so often, and asks him to keep doing so in the future. Wonder then takes a sip of his coffee, and his thought bubble comments that the taste of cream fills his mouth, but it seems a bit too sweet. And yet, for some reason, he has a warm feeling. The thought bubble concludes the event by saying that he spent a happy Valentine's Day with Joker and the others.

[perispinel]

The comment I left on Lily Orchard's Steven Universe video

For @harryhenry1 , @ankle-beez and anyone else who wanted my hot take before it was deleted (potentially)

"This video is very bad, and I can give you like a hundred reasons why, but let's stick with some simple ones.

- You have a lack of understanding of the meaning of character development; Steven going from being a silly rambunctious kid with no sense of danger to a soft-spoken pacifist with defined beliefs isn't them going back and forth on his personality, it's him developing as the series goes on. Remember how Finn from Adventure Time started out as just a super obnoxious and loud kid but then slowly turned into a very mature teen with an understanding of how he affects others? Yeah, it's the same thing, except this is Steven Universe (the show that gets more flak than it deserves). Oh wow, Steven changes as a person because of him going through a series of life-changing events from season two to season five, what a big surprise! I would've expected him to just go the Goku route of collecting new powers and upgrades without ever changing his beliefs or ideals to fit with things he's learned, shame on Rebecca (who takes sole responsibility for everything that happens in Steven Universe for whateer reason)!

- It can be very easy to say that the writing of a show is lazy by simplifying characters and events down and removing anything beyond that, (Amethyst being laidback, Garnet being stoic, Pearl being anxious, Diamonds being nazis???, etc.) but if that's what you think the characters boil down to, it just means you don't grasp them too well. For example, you simplifying the events of Mindful Education to just 'Garnet singing vaguely about trauma and nothing happens until the last minute' clearly means you missed the song's message about how to deal with anxiety, and that you think that being subtle and vague is interchangeable.

- Rebecca Sugar is not an animator, literally never is she credited as an animator in any episode of the show, but besides that, I think you don't think you understand the meaning of animation if you think that's the same thing as 'proportion inconsistencies.'

- Using the term Hide Your Gays to describe a character who is literally symbolic for a gay relationship is kinda ridiculous, and the fact that you admit that Ruby and Sapphire themselves have a well-written relationship shows you don't have a foot to stand on with this flimsy argument. Ruby and Sapphire *are* present, if they weren't then Garnet wouldn't exist. I don't have much else to say on this, so let's move on to your biggest point. (I skip over the whole Concrete thing because that issue is over and done with, with her apologizing thoroughly)

- So Pink being Rose somehow ruins every scrap of potential the series had? I think by 'ruin' you mean 'enhanced by adding even more possible potential storylines and plot-points.' Honestly, character growth wasn't ruined at all, it was actually way more interesting that she was a Diamond- having Rose be super badass and perfect by assassinating the enemy singlehandedly in a way that would literally be impossible would be kind of dull, especially since we already knew she was flawed (which is apparently a bad thing to you). If you think this twist is complicated when you've had so long to think about it I don't think spending so long ranting about it was really the best idea- Pink Diamond's time on Earth made her realize that the Earth had life that deserved protecting, she was unable to convince the Diamonds to stop the colonization because they didn't take her seriously, she sparked a rebellion since she knew they wouldn't be able to ignore it, and because she makes the obviously flawed decision to fake her own shattering with the idea that the Diamonds don't actually care about her and will stop the colonization because of her death. What was that about Kingdom Hearts having a more complicated plot? If you think Pearl, Amethyst, Lapis and Steven are 'the most wretched people you've ever met' because of those overexaggerated traits, I can think of plenty more characters you might think are the worst. "Bugs Bunny uses manipulation and gaslighting to get his way, Daffy Duck is a hot-headed idiot, Elmer Fudd is a sociopath who shows no hesitation to kill sentient beings and doesn't learn from his mistakes, etc." Do you see how oversimplyifying things can make anybody sound horrible? And Pink Diamond's motivation was not 'I hate responsibility,' it was 'I feel empathy toward the life already inhabiting this planet and am not being taken seriously, making me think the only way I'll make any impact is by lashing out.' Her motives are meant to be flawed, Rebecca Sugar even once said in a podcast that Rose was a bad person, so all your ranting about her being bad serves no purpose when the creator states that was the purpose.

- I'll summarize the idiocy of this whole "Space Nazi" thing in a sentence: It is ridiculous to claim that a Jewish woman is trying to send a message that Nazis are okay just because she makes her villains sympathetic (aka has good writing).

- People who come to the conclusion that Rebecca Sugar is a fascist sympathizer are... just dumb, don't give them credit for thinking that.

- This video easily could have been shortened to like fifteen minutes if you just went over the essential points in a clear way, but it seems you have a masochistic thing for yelling about things you don't like for as long as possible. In conclusion, anyone who claims this video is taking down Steven Universe and is super epic is kind of just wrong."

[shadowsong26fic]

AU Outlines: Other Fandoms Edition

So I know that probably like zero of my followers on this blog even go here but I was watching Person of Interest lately, and I’ve also been reading occasional Supernatural spoilers, because I used to be in that fandom and I occasionally get curious. Especially this most recent season. Naturally, this woke up some old characters/situations/etc. that I used to work with, which I’ve been occasionally toying with in the back of my head when I’m bored and/or procrastinating other projects.

I’ve been going back and forth on how I feel about the one plotline that interests me this season (and by back and forth I mean I was really excited when I first read that a particular character was back; engaged by the summaries/etc. I read from his first couple episodes, the third one intrigued me until I read more detailed spoilers and then I started to side-eye it a little bit...)

And then I read up on last week’s episode. And nope, all my excitement is gone, replaced by Pissed for reasons I’m not sure I can actually articulate. (Though I kind of attempted to in the tags here on my personal blog.)

...honestly, I probably should’ve known better; making this kind of storyline really pay off/work would require a lot of attention given to a tertiary character, and given SPN’s track record with the internal worlds and motivations of characters who are not the Big Three, and the fact that they’ve been ignoring a lot of their established angel/vessel lore, the way Claire’s backstory more or less got completely forgotten...I should not have gotten my hopes up. Sigh.

ANYWAY this is now officially Spite Fic(tm). Here, have an outline of a Supernatural/Person of Interest crossover.

Starring Nick.

...uh, before I actually start, I should probably get some background out of the way.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Person of Interest is a TV show that ran for five seasons, 2011 - 2016. Without c/ping the opening narration, the basic premise of the show is that, in the wake of 9/11, genius software engineer Harold Finch built a surveillance and analysis program, in an effort to prevent similar future tragedies. Out of fear that his creation would be abused, he designed the Machine as a closed system--basically, all that’s provided is an ID number (usually an SSN, at least for US citizens; but Our Heroes get a green card number in one episode, and a student ID number in another), and the person that number indicates is key to unravelling whatever is going down. The Machine was initially designed to predict mass casualty events/terrorism and provide the (relevant) number to the designated government operatives, at which point human intelligence takes over. However, the Machine also identifies things like…gang warfare/one-on-one premeditated murder (irrelevant numbers). That’s where Our Heroes come in.

The first half of the series is basically a procedural with a twist—each episode, the main characters get an irrelevant number (or more; the record was I believe 38 in one episode). They don’t always know how that person is involved, whether they’re the victim or the killer/perpetrator. In a few memorable cases, the number was arguably both.

Then, in the second half, a rival AI (Samaritan) is brought online, and the series becomes somewhat darker in tone and shifts into a cyberpunk apocalypse story. With a few regular irrelevant numbers thrown in on occasion as well, for good measure. For the purposes of this outline, we don’t care so much about POI B, for reasons I will explain, but it bears mentioning. Especially since Greer is still hanging around and trying to bring Samaritan or something similar online.

Right. On to some memorable/notable/important characters.

Our Heroes are Finch, who, as I said, designed and built the Machine. For various reasons, he’s living off the grid (he’s a very private person). Using a backdoor built into the Machine, as of when the series starts, he receives the irrelevant numbers. But he lacks the skills/ability to intervene directly, so he recruits John Reese.

Reese, then, is Finch’s partner/employee/they are totally married; a former CIA assassin who is now presumed dead, he does most of the hands-on work with the numbers and becomes known as the Man in the Suit who is basically Batman.

Carter! Carter is freaking amazeballs; she is p. much the moral/ethical center of the show, one of their two cop friends who was actually trying to track them/Reese down and arrest him for the vigilante BS for the first half-season or so but then they became friends.

Fusco is their other cop friend; former dirty cop/member of an ring, initially recruited by Reese to work undercover in HR (as said ring is called), basically runs on a combination of Dogged Loyalty (the reason he joined HR in the first place, transfers that loyalty to Team Machine, gets his moral compass recalibrated, and becomes one of the most loveable dudes on the show) and Snark (featuring such delightful quotes as “What was I supposed to say? Sorry, boss, Agent King is really a superpowered nutball. Just ask my buddy, the urban legend.” Also at least once a season, he makes a comment to the effect of “just when I thought you guys couldn’t get any weirder…”).

(Also, he is, as my roommate puts it, Shaped Like A Dad.)

Shaw joins the team in Season 3; textbook (and canonical!) bisexual compact Persian sociopath (note: she has some sort of Axis II personality disorder that is occasionally called sociopathy in-universe, but that doesn’t quite fit); there’s…there’s really not much else one can say without just like summarizing everything she does or quoting ad nauseum.

Root! Root is introduced as a major antagonist; hacker/programmer on Finch’s level who works as a contract killer, her initial goal is to locate and free the Machine, which ends up recruiting her early in Season 3 and becoming…you know that particular kind of reformed villain that becomes the weird family member because yes they’re still kind of awful and murdery, and they did a great deal of damage to you and yours, but you’ve now been through Some Stuff together, and besides, they’re your awful and murdery, you know? So not exactly a redemption arc, but they’re one of the Heroes now and just kind of stick with it. Like Barbossa, in POTC. Or Vegeta. My roommate (referenced above) calls this the Weird Uncle trope. And she fits this trope really well and I love it. Also, she and Shaw are canonically girlfriends as of...s4 or s5, depending on how you look at things.

(Also, not necessarily relevant for this outline, but on the subject of Weird Uncles, one cannot talk about POI without mentioning Elias; our friendly neighborhood Mafia don. No, really.)

And Bear! Cannot forget Bear. Bear is Finch and Reese’s dog, acquired at the beginning of S2 and the most amazing. He also has a twitter! In Dutch!

On to some antagonists, Greer is not our friend. He works for/created a company called Decima Technologies; his goal is to bring an unrestricted AI online and let it run the world for complicated reasons relating to some of his experiences during the Cold War working for MI6. Also he has a very punchable face.

And then there’s Control, who runs the Relevant numbers program for the government. She is an awful, awful human being (fully aware of it, too; she has a great speech in the third season finale about how she’s a Necessary Evil and why) and I love her so much.

Okay, that’s the basics for the POI side of things. I can go on a lot longer if y’all want more details (I didn’t even cover my girl Zoe or Leon or…), but that should be enough foundation for the outline to make sense?

For the SPN side of things--I’m not going to summarize the canon background, due to it being the larger/primary-ish fandom. But in terms of the relevant AU stuff, I’m going more or less with the backstory I established for Nick for The Promises of Angels and Cartography!verse.

Basically, he was a high school history teacher; his wife and son were murdered by a serial killer known as the Chesapeake Ripper

(There might well have been/probably was some demonic involvement, though not in the same way as I think S14 canon established; basically either because a “talent scout” demon like that one s7 episode was already involved or because the Ripper was operating independently and a demon got involved later, he was pointed towards this particular woman and baby who fit his victim pool. Either way, Nick was targeted because he was the right bloodline and accessible, because vessel lines are a thing even if the show has forgotten that.)

(Also, Lucifer later took Nick to kill the Ripper. Signing bonus. So to speak.)

After Detroit, Nick gets picked up by Meg, who holds on to him for a while for a variety of reasons (information that might be buried in his memories from the year he spent possessed; the chance that he might be a new key to the Cage…) until the Leviathan turn up, at which point she no longer has the resources to keep him. She cuts him loose at that point, rather than killing him (mostly because she thinks Lucifer left him alive For A Reason and until she knows what that is, she can’t kill him).

So, at this point, in Promises or Cartography, Nick just sort of wanders around for a while until he runs into Claire or Jody, respectively.

For the purposes of this AU, he ends up drifting to New York instead.

And, with all that background out of the way, NOW we can get to the actual fun stuff.

…no, wait, I lied. One more note: as with p. much all my SPN projects, I am following Logical Time rather than Show Time. Which is to say, when calculating dates/figuring out where the timelines intersect/etc., I’m including the two skipped years (between S5/S6 and between S7/S8).

(That being said, I reserve the right to stop caring about the timeline later and just mashing things together as I think it would be entertaining.)

ANYWAY.

We open in the first half of POI S3, somewhere between “Mors Praematura” and “Endgame” (i.e., Root is in the library, but Carter hasn’t initiated her takedown of HR yet). If my math is right, this puts us either in S7 or during the second gap year for SPN.

It starts as most of these adventures do; Team Machine gets a new number.

“This one may be a bit of a project, I’m afraid,” Finch says. “Nick Cross has been missing for several years. He hasn’t been seen since May of 2009, and there’s been no electronic activity on his identity in that time, either.”

Of course, when they dig into his background, his wife and son getting murdered comes up.

“Any chance he killed them?” Reese asks.

“No, he was cleared at the time. They were victims of a serial killer, and Mr. Cross had solid alibis for three of the five incidents, including the one involving his wife and son.”

(Shaw, at that point, theorizes that Nick’s number came up because he somehow tracked the Chesapeake Ripper down and is planning to kill him. And, if that’s the case, doesn’t really see the point in stopping him.)

(“Start with finding him, Ms. Shaw,” Finch says. “We still don’t know if that is, in fact, what’s going on.”)

(Finch also doesn’t approve on principle, of course, but that is not an argument he wants to have with Shaw on this particular morning.)

(Plus, the Ripper seems to have stopped operating at around the same time Mr. Cross disappeared...so there’s a chance that Shaw’s theory is accurate, just out of date.)

In any case, they reason that the Machine wouldn’t have handed them his number if he weren’t alive and in range; Reese and Shaw ask Carter and Fusco to see what they can pull up, and start doing their own legwork.

Carter ends up being the first to find a lead—while on her regular patrol with Laskey, she spots a guy who matches the description, albeit with a few extra scars, and is acting a little off. Like he thinks he’s being followed/watched.

Reese goes to check it out, and this is where things get, uh, Weird.

See, here’s the thing. I love John Reese, and he is a man of Many Skills.

But, uh.

Being approachable and reassuring is Not Among Them.

Like. Don’t get me wrong. When he’s in Bodyguard Mode, it is exactly the right level of Intimidating. He just…has trouble turning it off.

Look, the dude is a semi-retired CIA spysassin and it oozes out of every pore unless he works really hard to tone it down.

(And sometimes even then.)

And since this is just, like, preliminary surveillance to see if this guy Carter spotted really is their number, and he’s not planning to make contact yet, he’s not really focusing on toning it down.

So, when Nick spots him, guess what this looks like to him.

Yep, he thinks Reese is an angel.

He runs.

Reese: “....yeah, pretty sure that’s our number. And he just made me.”

(If Carter didn’t already, Reese probably also mentions that the five-year-old DMV photo they’re working from is out of date; Nick is pretty badly scarred, they look kind of like radiation burns.)

Of course, it was hard enough to find Nick in the first place, so Reese doesn’t want to lose him again. So, made or not, he continues following. Hoping to get to a position where he can make contact and figure out what’s going on. Or just keep tabs on him until Shaw can catch up and take over.

(Not his favorite approach, but he screwed up somewhere and that’s what he’s stuck with now.)

Nick knows the angel is still on him--and this is new and terrifying; he’s had demons after him a few times since Meg ditched him, but this is the first time an angel’s found him and, frankly, angels are worse than demons in his mind.

(Also he’s supposed to be warded how did the angel even find him--)

(Yeah, Nick has gotten a couple tattoos in his post-Meg life--he’s warded, the same sigils that are etched into Sam and Dean’s ribs; he also has a standard anti-demon-possession tattoo.)

In any case, he has a knife up his sleeve, he just needs to get somewhere more or less out of sight, just for a minute, maybe not even, and then he can throw up a banishing sigil. He just needs that minute.

Reese spots Nick duck out of sight into an alley and heads that way, picking up his pace. There’s a chance he’ll lose the number in there, depending on how many exits there are--

Nick casts his sigil and then books it, not wanting to stick around and see if it worked.

Reese gets there just a hair too late.

“I lost him,” he admits, then catches sight of the bloody drawing on the wall. “...but I think I might have an idea what our number’s running from. And why he disappeared for so long.”

“Yeah?” Shaw asks.

“Looks like he might’ve joined a cult."

“....really,” she said. “Huh.”

“He drew some sort of occult symbol on the wall. Looks like blood.”

“...okay, so he joined a cult.”

“It makes a certain amount of sense,” Finch says. “He went through a horrible tragedy. He could have been vulnerable, especially if he sought but failed to find any comfort in traditional religion.”

Reese takes a picture, and sends it to Finch. “Think you can figure out what this is?”

“Well, it’s hardly my area of expertise,” he says, “but I’ll see what I can do.”

“We’ll work on picking up his trail again,” Shaw says, appearing beside Reese in the alley, as she does sometimes. “Maybe stop by and pick up Bear to help.”

...and now skimming over the next few hours...

Finch spends some time in one of the few corners of the internet he’s not super familiar with, and does identify the symbol eventually.

“It’s for protection or warding. Specifically against angels.”

At which point Shaw busts up laughing at the idea of anyone thinking Reese is an angel.

But that does support the idea that he’s running from whatever cult he got mixed up in.

ANYWAY moving on.

Reese and Shaw eventually catch up with Nick again.

Unfortunately, so have the people who are after him.

(And by people, I mean demons. Two of them.)

(Who recognized Nick, obviously, and had the same ideas as Meg, with regard to his potential Uses.)

(Only they’d rather off him so no one gets to unlock whatever secrets he might be holding.)

Shaw goes up--she’s the better sniper, after all--and Reese makes his way into the alley where Nick is cornered

Firing, naturally, at their kneecaps.

Except.....

Nothing...nothing happens...?

(Well, except now the demon is pissed and gunning for Reese instead.)

(Nick is very relieved to see that this guy is not, in fact, an angel. Angels don’t normally use guns.)

(Of course, now he’s just confused, wtf is going on.)

“What the...” Reese says.

“Maybe you missed,” Shaw smirks, from her perch.

“I didn’t miss.”

“Sure,” she says, aiming at the demon chasing him, getting a solid hit in the shoulder.

Which....also does nothing.

“...well, that was weird.”

She fires again, this time a killshot--yeah, yeah, there are Rules, but under the circumstances...

Meanwhile, Demon #2 has gotten ahold of Nick. Who has frozen a little bit.

(He tends to do this, when stressed/triggered--internalize things, and just go blank. He was more or less catatonic when Meg found him, started gradually coming out of it; when Sam got his soul back that sort of accelerated the process and by now he’s mostly functional, but there are Moments...)

Shaw keeps firing at Demon #1. It’s not killing it, but it’s keeping it pinned down so hopefully Reese can reach and extract their number.

“Finch, we’ve got a Situation here.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

(Finch has hacked into some nearby security cameras.)

“You have any idea what the hell is going on?”

“I’m afraid not, Ms. Shaw,” he says. “It’s only the two of them, I think--no one else is coming though the police will probably be responding to the shots soon--”

“Yeah, Finch, I know. Reese?”

Nick is up against the wall and Reese bodily hauls the demon off of him to engage in a fistfight.

(Did not expect a skinny kid like the demon’s host to pack this much of a punch, he’ll have some fun bruises tomorrow...)

Which snaps Nick out of it.

Demons. These are demons. Only demons. I know how demons work. I can--

He rattles off an exorcism, as fast as he can.

The demons scream and smoke out, leaving their two dead hosts behind--Host #1 may have been dead already, or Shaw may have killed them; Host #2 was already gone.

“Finch?” Shaw says. “Finch, are you getting this?”

“I’m--yes, I see it,” he says.

Reese is about to add something, but the Nick passes out--Demon #2 managed to score a solid hit before Reese got there--and he moves to catch him.

“Damn it--he’s bleeding, pretty bad.”

“Get him to the safehouse,” Finch says. “I’ll meet you there, and we’ll...we’ll figure all this out.”

“Library’s closer,” Shaw points out. “And you said no one else was around.”

Finch hesitates for a moment--more concerned about Root than about their base being compromised, at the moment--then nods. “Fine. Bring him here. I’ll clear off a space for you to patch him up.”

“Copy that,” Shaw says. “Reese, stay with him, I’m gonna get us a car.”

...okay, I’ll admit, the rest of this first New York adventure isn’t super well planned out in my brain. So, skimming through it pretty quick...

They bring Nick back to the library. Shaw patches him up, while Finch goes over the footage he found, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

Nick eventually wakes up. There’s a Talk.

“They were demons,” Nick explains. “They, uh. They can’t be killed, not with guns. There’s a couple specially-designed weapons, I think. And angel blades. Holy water will burn them, and you can use salt to keep them out. Best thing to do is probably trap them and exorcise them.”

Basically, Team Machine gets The Talk about monsters and so on Existing.

He admits to having been possessed for a year when they ask him why demons are chasing him, though he’s a little vague on further details. He does mention Meg, too, that she held on to him after he was dispossessed.

He asks how they found him--he’d thought his warding was messed up, especially when he thought Reese was an angel.

They give their characteristic vague answer, then ask, “If you’re...warded, how is it they found you in the first place?”

He figures, at this point, that his warding is fine--it doesn’t hide him from demons, necessarily, but even if it did, warding doesn’t stop the bad guys from spotting him by chance. Which is, incidentally, exactly what happened.

Nick also, of course, gets in the usual number questions; “who are you” “why are you helping me” etc., with the added weight of his possession and the fact that they took on literal demons to try and save his life.

Also, somewhere in this mess, Nick wanders off into the part of the library where Root is being held. Possibly while the rest of Team Machine is getting what they’ll need to deal with whatever Climactic Fight will end the episode/section.

(Nick was a high school history teacher, and this is a really awesome library, of course he’s going to go exploring if he’s left alone.)

(Bear is there to keep an eye on him/keep him from leaving.)

(Bear also gets many scritches and pets, as he deserves.)

Anyway, Root and Nick have a conversation; whether she and the Machine are already doing their Morse Code thing or something else is going on...or...something...anyway, Nick gets read in on the Machine’s existence.

(His reaction is more or less “...that does not even make the top ten most unbelievable/dangerous things I know exist, so...all right then.”)

Finch gets back to find them talking about history or something. Bear is next to Nick, who is a lot calmer/more willing to work with them than he was before. Root is just inside the cage wall, idly scritching Bear’s ears as they talk.

(This is actually Important.)

Anyway, eventually there is the requisite climactic fight. Possibly angels are involved--I know Shaw gets her hands on an angel blade at some point...

Point is, things get resolved, more or less. Nick ends up leaving New York.

BUT! Because Root had a Moment with him back there, and Finch saw it, he’s willing to unleash her a little earlier when the shit hits the fan a few episodes later.

In short, thanks to Root kind of sort of Bonding with one of their weirder/more fragile numbers, Team Machine is much better positioned to deal with Endgame nonsense, which means, first, that Carter gets to live (though Reese might still get hella shot, depending on how exactly Root changes what happens with Simmons; but he won’t go on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge); what follows is then that Team Machine is all working on the same page when Claypool’s number comes up aaaaaaand we avert Samaritan. Yay!

(Carter does still deduce the Machine’s existence, of course, gets upgraded to the yellow box and everything. And, remembering the late-S1 drama, strongly advocates for Fusco getting read in, too.)

(She gets her way on that, too. Eventually. Probably before too much longer, even.)

Also, Control does reveal herself, but doesn’t manage to capture Root just yet.

(Which also means Root doesn’t get her implant, at least for a while.)

But apart from that, we can leave this group to their own devices for a while, and get back to following Nick, who is now past his Origin Story, so to speak...

Hokay. So. After Nick leaves New York, he just starts sort of drifting again, and then a few days later, he gets a phone call.

Which he actually answers; in all honestly very few people would reach out to him this way, and he’s pretty sure none of the things that terrify him are on that list.

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

Nick stares at the phone for a long moment. The Machine repeats herself.

“…no.” He hangs up.

(Look, he knows damn well what that phone call was; Root told him enough when the two of them talked in the library. And he is not interested in letting another near-omnipotent entity screw with his head. Once was enough. He learned his lesson.)

The Machine backs off, deciding to try a less-invasive way of trying to get in touch with/recruit him.

Why is she doing this? Well.

The Machine’s mandate/objective is to protect humanity. When Nick came up on her radar as an irrelevant number she could offer her assets, she noticed some…let’s call them anomalies. In archival data about him, about the two people talking about murdering him…lots of things didn’t add up. Which is why he got pushed to the top of the list, so to speak.

(I mean, assuming she does put a certain level of thought/deliberation into which numbers she sends her assets? If two come up at once that are unrelated, does she need to decide, or do they get both? This isn’t 100% clear in the show, I don’t think; pretty sure all the multi-number episodes do end up being related, even if they don’t appear that way at first, apart from, like, backlogs from when the Machine has to go dark temporarily for whatever reason…anyway, if that is the case, she picked Nick because there was a lot of Weird Shit going on around him and she needed her human assets to sort through it, because she simply didn’t have the tools or parameters necessary to work it out for herself.)

So, Nick’s number comes up, and even more strange things keep happening. The Machine evaluates, and comes to the conclusion that there’s an entire class of threats to humanity that she hasn’t been monitoring correctly. The fact of the matter is, she was programmed with certain blind spots, because Finch had certain blind spots.

But the Machine is now in a position to correct that. She’s aware of the flaw in her system and, thanks to the changes she’s been making since Stanton’s virus and the other S2 arc plot stuff allowed her to start altering her code in a way she couldn’t before…

She can make up for it by adding yet another set of numbers/another protocol. Relevant numbers to the government as always, irrelevant numbers (within their reach, at least) to Finch and his team, “necessary” numbers (i.e., protecting the Machine herself/keeping tabs on other, potentially hostile, ASIs) to Root, and now…we’ll call them “hidden” numbers.

Of course, the next problem is, while there’s a lot of data available about monsters, angels, demons, etc., it’s very hard to sort through what is useful data and what is, frankly, BS. And, unfortunately, she lacks the parameters to do it herself.

Ergo, she needs a human asset to help her figure it out. Teach her/help her define this new dataset.

(And also to intervene when necessary, but that can come later. She’s got a bit of a learning curve ahead of her first, and she knows it.)

But, of course, she doesn’t want to retask any of her current assets—both because they have enough to deal with and because, again, learning curve. Better for at least one entity involved to know what they’re doing, right?

And so, she decides to recruit Nick. Nick, who has already been her window into this hidden world. Nick, who needs her as much as she needs him.

(Kind of like Root, except absolutely unlike Root. Like in that they were both drowning when she approached them, and needed her to give them a framework to cling to, to drag themselves back to the surface; unlike in that Nick is drowning in a very different ocean than Root was.)

Anyway. Eventually, she does manage to talk to him, and explain what she wants.

And he’s still not...100% sure how he feels about working with her, but...well, data entry, right? He can do that. Maybe.

“I don’t know how much help I’ll be,” he admits. “Just because I was possessed for a year doesn’t mean I know everything.”

“It’s still a place to start,” she replies. “Eventually, I’ll figure out the patterns and be able to extrapolate.”

“...okay, then.”

(As it turns out, he knows a lot more than he thinks he does, which is utterly terrifying; he has a lot of subconscious/residual information buried in his mind.)

Of course, eventually, just data entry isn’t enough.

The Machine doesn’t have all the answers/all the patterns down, but she has enough that she’s starting to identify threats/numbers she can assign out.

But Nick...well, Nick is fragile. Mentally, of course, but physically as well--burned inside and out, metaphorically and literally, by a long, incompatible possession.

At the moment, though, he’s the only asset she has in this area. Recruiting others, from among the insular, paranoid hunter community...is going to be difficult.

She spots something she thinks he can handle, especially if she grants him God Mode access and keeps him there.

He stares down at the text message she sent him.

“...I can’t do this,” he says. “I can’t...”

“Can we please try?” she says. “I’ll help you.”

“...I...”

“It’s a demon, I think.”

He thinks about it for a minute. He can handle demons, he thinks. He has before, after all. He understands demons. And...

(he thinks about the feeling of evil still living under his skin; he thinks of blood on his hands and in his heart; about all the nightmares and half-memories; about how he feels too small for his own body, how his thoughts echo inside his head...)

(he wants to do better. he wants to be better. maybe helping...people like him, people who have gone through what he went through...maybe that’s a start. to make up for what he did.)

“...is the host still alive? When I...if I manage to get there and exorcise them...are they still alive?”

“I can’t tell,” she admits. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll...try,” he says. “I’ll try.”

It ends up, fortunately, being a win for all of them--the demon is thrown enough by seeing Lucifer’s former vessel that Nick has a chance to act; the host is in fact still alive.

Nick spends hours after the exorcism, just...sitting with him, talking. Helping him cope/process things.

“...we should do that again sometime,” he finally tells the Machine, after he goes back to wherever he’s sleeping these days.

So, he starts kind of sort of hunting after that, with the help of an ASI.

Every time he directly engages something, he’s in God Mode. He has to be, because of the aforementioned damage; he wouldn’t survive on his own.

(Probably, at some point, he and the Machine put together something like the Tenebamus Infinitum forum in The Promises of Angels; online support group/community for possession survivors.)

(Sam may or may not find his way there...)

At first, they mostly focus on demons/possession cases. Sometimes ghosts. But they slowly start to branch out into other areas.

They deal with some miscellaneous monsters, faeries, maybe a vampire...good times.

Pretty much the only ones they avoid are angels and pagan gods, because Nick cannot deal.

(Angels for uh obvious reasons; pagan gods because he remembers like two things from his possession with any clarity, and one of them is Muncie, Indiana/Gabriel’s death.)

(The Machine occasionally considers trying to get him into a hospital for a while, the way Root was--she thinks it would help him--but he’s...managing for the moment, so it’s not as necessary, and she does still need him actively working....plus, he’s terrified of being sedated so...this gets put on indefinite hold.)

During this period, though, they do acquire two more Friends.

First--and I’m not 100% sure how they meet; possibly similar to how Nick and Jody meet in Cartography!verse, i.e., a grief support group of some kind.

Anyway, first he meets a young woman, a psychiatrist. Who is familiar, if peripherally, with angel and demon type stuff.

(Other monsters are gonna be a little New to her.)

Her name is Ashley Finnerman.

(Yes, as in Donnie.)

(He was her cousin.)

(After what happened to him, she started trying to figure it out, and eventually did.)

(...honestly, the forum may be her idea. She definitely joins it, not as a fellow survivor, but as a crisis counselor/trained professional who will believe them.)

(Ashley is pretty big on community building in general; yes, she’s a therapist and that’s a start, but she’s only one person. In her ideal world, they’d be able to draw in other professionals--psychiatric because this is an underserved population that desperately needs those resources; medical (as in physical medical/other MDs); legal...anyway, she’s not 100% sure how to go about doing that, but helping out on with Tenebamus is a step in the right direction, in her opinion.)

Ashley is eventually read in on the Machine as well. She has more or less an actual Life outside of it all, so she isn’t as immersed as Nick is, but she’s still definitely part of his team.

And second...somehow, they acquire Adam.

How? ...again, not 100% sure, but probably one of two ways--

One, something similar to Promises, where Nick gets too close to the Cage mouth for some reason and is offered a Bribe. He takes the bribe, with exactly zero intention of following through on his end of the bargain, so to speak.

Two, some kind of straight-up Fairy Tale Bullshit. S6 establishes that faeries can reach the Cage; Nick somewhat accidentally does a favor for a powerful faerie through his work with the Machine, and to repay the debt, the faerie (or possibly a High Up Faerie who has taken ownership of the debt because he helped someone in their court/their child/something or other) restores his Counterpart to him? IDK, something like that.

...I think I like this option. He accidentally does a favor for, IDK, Mab. And she, not wanting to be in his debt, heads down to the Cage.

This works because, a) Mab is probably one of the few entities that can go toe-to-toe with an Archangel like this; and b) Michael is actually on board with springing Adam.

(Not necessarily because he gives a shit about Adam, but he does give a shit about Justice, and keeping Adam down here, especially with Sam gone, is not Justice.)

Naturally, she doesn’t tell Nick ahead of time--he did the favor without consulting her, she shall repay him in kind. Faeries and Obligations, man.

Anyway, Adam joins them, and then Nick doesn’t have to be quite as hands-on because Adam is perfectly capable.

(Adam also, at some point, makes a comment about the three of them having ‘nearly a complete set.’)

(I have no idea how/if they’ll ever be able to find someone to fit in for Gabriel, but three out of four!)

(Nick finds this oddly hilarious, for reasons he can’t quite articulate.)

So, that is what Nick is doing while Team Machine is foiling Vigilance and Greer and Decima and dealing with their Hard Sci Fi end of things.

Let’s bring these two worlds crashing back together, shall we?

(Well, I say crashing together...this probably isn’t the first time Nick has run into the others since that first adventure.)

(If nothing else, he’s stayed in touch, off and on, with Root.)

(And I’m pretty sure the others have met Adam.)

(Maybe that was where Shaw got her angel blade...)

So, timeline for this. Uh...probably at least a year after Nick’s first encounter with Team Machine. For the SPN side of things...ehhhhh I’ll handwave/stop caring and say this is sometime in the latter half of S8. Between the first two Trials. Let’s go with that.

Nick and co are back in New York, probably dealing with something on their end of things. A ghost or something.

And then they get sucked into some Team Machine nonsense.

Control still wants the Machine--or a suitable Plan B--back under her complete, well, control.

Decima is going after some other potential ASI.

(Root is back in town to deal with them.)

Vigilance is involved too, because why not.

(Greer can’t initiate his endgame there just yet, after all, so they’re probably still operating.)

Nick, Adam, and Ashley are pitching in, because they’re here and the Machine needs all the help she can get on this one. Because Reasons.

Meg gets involved--this goes AU in that she escaped Crowley somehow. And one of the first things she does is try to check on her various assets, so she’s trying to track Nick and figure out what the hell is going on with him.

Crowley, of course, is chasing her, trying to get her back.

And, to round it all off, Sam and Dean are chasing him.

(As they approach, Sam starts noticing a weird buzzing feeling in the back of his head. Like circulation returning, or something like that. He decides not to mention it--thinks it might be a new Trials symptom, and he’s already hiding those from Dean, what’s one more secret? Besides, they need to know what Crowley finds so interesting about this place...that’s way more important, right?)

So, all these disparate parties converge on wherever the potential ASI is being held/built.

Root and Nick, of course, are both in God Mode.

(...incidentally, Nick is...nnnnnnnnnot super comfortable with calling it that? He and Adam and Ashley mostly just call it access or full-access.)

(Nick has the same tingling feeling in the back of his head, but he can’t do anything about it right now. He just focuses on the task at hand, and getting himself and his friends through this alive.)

The Machine tips Nick off to the fact that there are demons sniffing around--a couple of Crowley’s minions. Which, of course, Nick and his team can handle, but there’s several of them around and we reeeeally don’t want Crowley getting access to an ASI.

(Especially not S8!Crowley.)

So, Nick, Adam, and Ashley head off to put up wards and shoo off any demons they can, leaving the others to deal with the Decima nonsense/destroy the drives or whatever.

There’s a lot of ground to cover, so they split up.

Eventually, Nick gets pinned down by Decima mooks, trapped in a corner of the facility where he’s trying to finish getting the wards up.

“What...what do I do now?” he asks the Machine.

She runs her simulations, and it doesn’t look good.

And here is where it’s different from, say, “If-Then-Else.” Slash another way Root and Nick are very different people/assets.

Whereas Root is perfectly okay with obeying orders from her God without question, Nick needs to be told his options and make the choice himself.

At some point, he describes Access as oddly comforting. It’s almost as overwhelming, almost as much of a surrender, as consenting to possession is.

But there’s one critical difference.

He doesn’t have to listen to her.

He can say no.

He can hang up.

I mean, it’s generally speaking a bad idea to do that, but the option is still available.

So, his head doesn’t feel as empty with her in it, but a lot of it is still on his terms.

That being said, when there’s no time, or it’s a very immediate “there’s someone behind you” type of God Mode moment, of course, that’s less of an issue.

But something like this, where there’s a fork in the road?

If there’s time, she’ll lay out two or three of the least bad options and let him decide.

“If you go out the door and turn left, you will run into Control. She will figure out you’re tied to me, and she will take you prisoner. She will almost certainly torture you, to get you to give me up. Adam and Ashley will meet up with my other assets, and they will rescue you, but the chances of their success are very slim. There is a five percent chance, at best, that you will survive. It varies, depending on how quickly the others can mobilize.”

“Okay,” he says, and swallows. “And...and Adam and Ashley, will they...?”

“They have better than even odds of surviving.”

“Okay,” he says again. “What else?”

“Turn right,” she says. “You’ll run into the demon who held you captive.”

“Meg?”

“Yes.”

That’s not so bad, he thinks. Meg didn’t torture him too much, and she wanted him kept alive.

“Control will capture Root instead,” she continues. “Sameen and the others will attempt to rescue her. Adam and Ashley will pursue you.”

Control capturing Root, on the other hand, seems like a very bad thing. Still...

“Adam and Ashley?”

“About the same,” she says. “But there is another concern.”

“Okay.”

“If Meg takes you, there’s a chance she’ll find me. And if she does, it’s extremely likely that someone less friendly will, as well. There is also an approximately 17% chance that you’ll wind up in Crowley’s hands instead of Meg’s. And his chances of finding me are a lot stronger.”

Yeah, no. That cannot happen.

“Are there any other options?” he asks.

She pauses for a split second. “Turn right,” she says. “Then at the first hallway, turn left instead of going straight. I’ll have to leave you then--there are several Decima soldiers, but if you manage to get past them on your own, you’ll find Sam and Dean Winchester.”

It hits him like a punch to the gut.

“Your chances of reaching them without my help are better than your chances of surviving Control,” the Machine continues, “but not by much. If you can get there, though, they most likely won’t harm you.”

Unless I’m in full-access mode, Nick thinks, and shivers a little.

“And I can say with approximately 97% certainty that, when Adam and Ashley find you, they won’t harm them, either. I cannot say the same for the demons or Control.”

“They won’t hurt us physically,” Nick finally manages to say. “But I can’t...I-I-I don’t know how I’ll...I can’t shut down, not in here. A-and I don’t know how Sam will react to seeing me, I’ll probably seriously fuck with his head a-and I can’t...I can’t...”

(there’s this running refrain in his head, that Sam Winchester is perfect, and that Nick is the reason that everything goes wrong.)

(the Machine regrets even more not getting Nick more help.)

He takes a shaky breath. “Plus, I don’t know if Adam’s ready for that yet,” he says. “He hasn’t...uh, he hasn’t said anything about wanting to track them down.”

“That’s true.”

He’s quiet for another minute.

“Nick?”

“...I’ll take my chances with Control,” he says.

“I understand,” she says. “Thank you. And I’m sorry.”

(It’s not what she would have advised him to do, necessarily--she would have advised him to try for Sam and Dean; it balances protecting her with protecting the majority of her assets.)

“Directions?” he says.

“Open the door and turn left.”

She guides him down the hallway, advises him where to dodge, where to strike. He picks up a gun at one point--

(he’s hesitant, and she reminds him “you’re in Control’s world now, you have to play by her rules.”)

He gets to the inevitable trap, where ISA corners him and Control is there.

She recognizes, pretty quickly, that he’s in God Mode.

“...now just who the hell are you?”

On the other side of the facility, Ashley’s phone rings.

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

The Machine also advises Root that Nick has been captured.

She and Finch have finished neutralizing the potential ASI drives; Reese and Shaw are with them; Carter and Fusco are currently working on securing their exit route, after driving off a handful of Vigilance mooks.

“We need to move,” Root says. “Control has Nick. Adam and Ashley will meet us.”

Reese nods once. “Lionel, Joss, get ready. We’re headed your way.”

“Copy that,” Carter says. “Fusco--”

“On it.”

Meg has realized that Crowley is here, so she’s now in the process of finding her own exit. He’s in pursuit.

Sam and Dean got all turned around and manage to get to just the right hallway at just the right time to see Adam and Ashley piling onto an elevator.

“...Dean,” Sam says. “Dean, tell me you’re seeing what I’m seeing.”

(he doesn’t press his hand. he hasn’t hallucinated in almost two years, he doesn’t need to--)

“Adam?” Dean calls.

Adam half turns to them, hesitates for half a second, then follows Ashley into the elevator and the door slides shut.

...and I’ll admit I don’t have a whole lot planned out beyond that. Also this is getting, like, super long. So, quick wrapup, so to speak.

So, Team Machine, plus Adam and Ashley go to rescue Nick.

Sam and Dean track them down.

Adam goes to talk to them, try and get them to back off.

“I have to go rescue my friend,” he says. “But once I’m done with that, we can talk. I promise. We’ll set up a meeting and I’ll tell you...as much as I remember, I guess. But right now, I have to go rescue my friend. Kind of on a clock here.”

“We’ll help,” Sam offers.

“This isn’t really your kind of thing,” Adam says. “This isn’t monsters, this is the ISA.”

“The what now?” Dean asks.

“Like the CIA, but on steroids.”

“...how the hell did you get involved in CIA bullshit?” Dean asks.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Adam says. “Which I will tell you, once my friend is safe. So can you please just...let me do this first?”

“How did...” Sam asks. “How did you get out?”

“Also a long story,” Adam says. “But I’m the only one who came out, I swear. And...” He hesitates. “They...mostly left me alone, after you were gone. If you were worried about that.”

(Sam hadn’t been, mostly because he had been Very Firmly Not Thinking About Adam for a while now, but he’s relieved to hear it.)

Reese steps out. Possibly holding his grenade launcher. “Come on, Adam, we gotta go.”

“Coming,” Adam says, then turns back to Sam and Dean. “I will call you as soon as we’re clear. I promise. Don’t follow us, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, he follows Reese and they go to rescue Nick.

(Obviously, S&D don’t listen and do, in fact, follow Adam, but I’m not 100% sure where that would go.)

(Other than they do, in fact, manage to extract Nick alive, but it’s a near thing.)

(The fun thing here is, Control actually can’t break Nick. Well, she can’t get him to tell her anything about the Machine, anyway.)

(Yes, everyone has their breaking point so far as pain/torture goes, and Nick is no exception.)

(But he will physically break--i.e., die--before he mentally breaks.)

(And while psychological torture would be a lot more effective, she doesn’t know what buttons to push.)

(When she runs his prints/whatever, she gets the name Jacob White, which is an identity that Finch put together for him, for when he needed to interact with the real world. Since his own identity is...complicated.)

(Yes, that is a reference.)

(I couldn’t resist.)

(Also, the Machine, through Root, gets to deliver her verbal bitchslap to Control at last.)

Uh....yeah. That’s all the actual Plot I have at this point. But some other notes!

My girl Zoe is totally in the know. She may or may not have encountered Bela at some point, or found out some other way, but she does know.

(She never told Harold and John because--well, honestly, why would she? Her stock in trade is secrets, after all. And it never came up, and she wasn’t involved with Nick’s first adventure.)

Elias will turn up at some point. And basically become something like John Marcone, if any of y’all are familiar with the Dresden Files.

Bear’s Plot Armor may be some kind of magic, and I would not be surprised if he could take on a Hellhound and win.

Carter and Jody. Just...just Carter and Jody, man.

Like I said, Shaw gets her hands on an angel blade at some point. She and Dean probably bond. I feel like they would bond.

Also, I think Dean gets put into God Mode at some point. Possibly as his first real introduction to the Machine.

Like...IDK, he and Sam are with Nick for some reason, Nick, as implied above, cannot go into God Mode in front of the two of them, and honestly Sam going into God Mode in front of him would also be pretty devastating, so...Dean’s phone gets to ring!

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

“...the fuck?”

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

“Yes, I can--what the fuck is--”

“Two. O’clock.”

::turns and OHSHIT just in time::

IDK the idea just entertains me.

...yep, I think that’s it.

If you’re still here, thank you for putting up with my nonsense/checking this out.

Tune in next time, for an actual serious AU outline of some kind.

(....who am I kidding, these things are never serious XD)

[tipiktj]

Human Nosedive Between reality and fantasy

In the third season of the famous series on Netflix "Black Mirror", The main theme of "Black Mirror" plays on looking ahead for a bright future for human in light of the high technological developments and its struggle with the human nature that leads to its destruction. The first episode of the third season came to bear the idea that we currently live in reality, which can be summarized under the title "The Deceptive Face of Virtual Life" or as described by the writer of ​​the episode, Charlie Broker, "It silences the idea of ​​acceptance and the image that we like to draw on ourselves to show it to others." What is different in this episode is that it is very close to our current reality - unlike most of the episodes of the series that depend on forward looking after decades - but the "Nosedive" episode is not completely far from what we currently live in, and our "killer" feelings towards our virtual life.

At the beginning of the episode, we get to know the sweet girl "Lycee" in the way that people get to know each other in this imaginative world through evaluation numbers (Lycee points 4.2). All the characters in this world have evaluation numbers that they get through their dealings with each other, even if there is no relationship that brings them together. These evaluations increase each person’s numbers and thus his evaluation, and the most ideal is certainly who is his evaluation 5. This case is not very different from what we encounter now in the reality of the virtual world, who contains his account on ten friends, in any social networking site, certainly differs from who owns One hundred, and the higher the number, the higher the evaluation.

I watched a lecture on the TEDx Videos on YouTube , Bailey Jarnell - Top 100 Most Powerful Women. She is an award-winning digital marketer, public speaker and businesswoman with a talent for helping people tell better stories and specializes in digital marketing - says that one of the causes of stress due to social media is what she called "social currency", which according to her definition is like the dollar, she says: "it is a currency that you literally use to value a good or service On social media, these likes, comments and posts have become a picture of the social currency and on this basis we give things their value, which is called marketing economy of interest. This limited interest becomes a valuable recorded process, which is great when we sell albums or clothes, but the problem with networking is that we are the product. " This really applies to our virtual lives and to what was presented by the episode "Nosedive", as we seek to attract attention, to turn ourselves into human goods that inspire the admiration of everyone, even if the image is fake, and because the image language has a central weight in our lives, the final shot is summarized in Episode All That Bailey Jarnell Wants To Say. For more on this watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czg_9C7gw0o Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health? | Bailey Parnell.

While watching "Black Mirror" episodes, we are accustomed to the gray colors that reflect the symbolism of the depressing future, but this episode, on the contrary, differs in its colors. Those around them also have the same degrees. These colors are not real, they are like fake pictures that decorate virtual reality, these colors we know from Instagram filters, Snapchat , tiktok filters or photo editing programs that improve our real photos, to turn this world into pink pictures that resemble advertising posters, or the image of dreams that we see in sleep, Or alertness, but it's certainly not the reality, it's the nightmare in which the heroine wants to live.

The music also added a dreamy atmosphere in keeping with the rosy picture of the life of the heroine in this virtual world, something that we are not used to in “Black Mirror” episodes, and music was used in the first half of the episode in which Lacey’s dreams flourished. "Before everything turned against her. A golden opportunity came to "Lacey" to rise from 4.2 to a higher evaluation than that, which is a wedding celebration of her childhood friend Naomi, who has a rating of 4.8. Because her obsession with ratings began to dominate her, she even accused her brother of failing in his life because his ratings 3.

 The cruel aspect of the world of this episode is that a few evaluations of a person mean a lot, as their negative effects are reflected in all aspects of his life. For example, the owner of the evaluation of 1 or 2 may not open the doors of the shops, and he may not be allowed to walk freely in the streets, because People will treat him like an outcast, and he will get less ratings from them even if they don't know him, he will not be able to book flights, and he will lose opportunities to go out on romantic dates, and of course he will lose his friends like "Chester" Lacy's fellow in the work who lost his ratings after he split up From his Lover, so that all coworkers decided to give him low ratings, and to turn his life into hell, and everyone begged with him to restore his good ratings again.

 After Lacey failed to reach her friend's wedding, she could not conceal her feelings, she announced her anger, and she lost her temper, which caused her annoyance around her, which led to giving her low ratings that reduced her overall evaluation, turning from 4.3 to 2.8, which made her psychologically pressured , it increased her insistence to go to the wedding again to regain some high evaluations, this phobia is a phobia that affects a person when he feels a loss of his position in society, as if he misses a social event, or his contact with others decreases, which is reflected in his psychological effects, so he feels fear, stress and gets hurt Depressed.

On her wedding trip Lacey in the last half of the episode, the Bastille grades began to fade into darkness and gradually return to grayscale. On the way, Lacey meets a woman named Suzan, who offers to deliver her to her nearest station. Lacey refuses to help her - although everyone refused her because her evaluation is low - only because this lady evaluates her differently, but Lacey accepts her lack of trick. The woman spoke to her about her life before her evaluations decreased and that her excessive frankness and anger after the death of her husband, who suffers from cancer, caused her evaluations to decrease and people hate her, but in the end she did not regret her losing these hypocrites. Lacey refused to be like Suzan, she refused to take off the dress of this world because she became addicted to her and did not imagine her life without him, but after arriving at the wedding and she had lost everything she was unable to conceal her angry feelings, she revealed the true face of her friend Naomi and the truth Her relationship with her was not as good as she claimed.

All this imagination raises fears within us of the future, but what really increases this fear is that this life system will actually become reality. For example, since 2018 the Chinese government has planned to implement a social credit system whose purpose is to assess the eligibility of trust in the Chinese people, which amounts to about 1.4 billion people. , And it will start at the end of 2021, but it has already started tentatively / experimental in Soju. The nature of the system gives each citizen 100 points in his account related to his identity card or his account on social media, so if the individual does a good thing like volunteering in a charity or contributing to recycling garbage, donating blood, or sending positive messages about his country through the communication sites, then His reviews will increase and in return he will get a free subscription to the gym and discounts on public transportation tickets and fewer waiting times in hospitals, either if he does bad things like crossing the traffic lights while they are open, or cancel reservations or books of comments or incorrect assessments on any service or even dealings With someone with fewer reviews, his ratings will be reduced, he will be punished with canceling flight reservations easily, he will get lower internet speeds and will be prevented from booking in restaurants that will be limited to those with high ratings only.

Although this episode is on the surface of the third season of the Black Mirror series as a nice episode compared to the upcoming episodes that show the unknown future, it is still a strong and emotional slap in the face of the viewers. While most of Charlie Brooker’s work is based in essence on the future question “What if,” this episode is a demonstration - with brightly colored aspects - of the life we ​​are heading towards, with little insight. Yesterday, we depended on the fact that our electronic life is adjustable, including our speech, our outward appearance, and our mental health, but it is impossible to keep up with this comic drama in our real life unless our goal in life is to lose self-esteem. The thin line between maintaining an outward appearance and true self-esteem is gradually becoming disorganized in this era; This episode aims to warn the viewer of the consequences of this fade.

 Today, more than 4 billion people are using the Internet, and most of the youth of this generation spend most of their time on social media, sharing our personal and professional feelings and accomplishments through the Internet, and preserving our documents no matter how important they are through it as well, this is a type of addiction that does not seem to be able to Stop it, prevention therapy doesn't make sense here, harm reduction is our greatest hope at the current stage, and what Charlie Brock writes seems to be a detailed guide to what to prepare for.

Finally, can we close our eyes and claim that what is happening in this Science Fiction series is just a fantasy, can we guarantee that this will not happen personally to each of us?

Written by Talal Mohd @TipikTJ

Specialist in Marketing and Entrepreneur

[thevideogamestudies-blog]

Enchantment? Enchantment!

    The Dragon Age series is definitely in my list of favorites, I have replayed the latest edition to the series, Inquisition, an embarrassing amount of times. Bioware did a pretty good job with adding lore and history from the other games into Inquisition, but not making it completely confusing and unplayable for those who have never touched the previous games. There is enough dialogue, writing, etc. that keeps new players in the loop, but if somebody doesn’t need any prior knowledge of the series to play Inquisition then why bother?

© BioWare

*** under the cut includes violence and blood of fictional characters and fictional creatures ***

 Synopsis

  Dragon Age: Origins takes place in fictional Ferelden during the 5th blight, “a period when darkspawn find and corrupt one of the Old Gods, which is transformed into an Archdemon and leads the horde to attack the surface world,” (Dragon Age Wiki). Your character is recruited by the Grey Wardens, guardians trained to kill darkspawn. After an attack on the Grey Wardens, the main character and his/her allies, Alistair, a Grey Warden, and Morrigan, an apostate mage, are searching for an army to help defeat the Archdemon and end the blight.

© BioWare 

Character Creation

   Players have a smaller selection of classes and races to pick in Origins compared to other RPGs. There are only 3 classes: mage, warrior, rogue, and only 3 races: elves, humans, and dwarves. Starting off your character will have general skills but learn more talents and specializations throughout the game from other characters or the menu. Each race has two different backgrounds to choose from, making each playthrough unique. Jeff Haynes observed in his playthrough, “Dragon Age provides a ton of customization without a level cap, so it's possible to take two characters with the exact same background and develop them in completely different ways.” Haynes later criticized this feature, “The largest issue that I had with the Origin feature is that some of the background elements fade away too easily as the game progresses, becoming little more than an afterthought. Simply tossing these endemic problems aside without any attempted mediation or resolution seems unrealistic and forced, and insults the plot of the game...a portion of the game revolves around uniting Ferelden against the Darkspawn, it would seem like you'd have to address these issues of racism somehow, especially if you happen to be an elven character. Simply tossing these endemic problems aside without any attempted mediation or resolution seems unrealistic and forced, and insults the plot of the game.”

Storyline 

    Dragon Age: Origins has an overwhelming amount of positive reviews about the story. Dave Snider commented in his review, “BioWare officially started calling Dragon Age: Origins the "spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate II," you could almost hear a large sigh being let out from the role-playing contingent who worshipped that seminal game and have been disappointed time and time again by similar claims over the years,” Snider quickly eases the fanbase’s worries by adding, “After spending some 60 hours with Dragon Age, the only bit of soothing calm I can offer towards that worry is that this game is not only the deepest, most story-focused title yet from BioWare, but one you will instantly want to replay.” Origins has similarities to Bioware’s previous titles, such as a traditional fantasy setting populated by dwarfs, elves and humans with stereotypical fantasy lore and archetypes, “But just because it's familiar in spots doesn't mean that it's poorly executed. There are a lot of subtle touches--like the way humans from the neighboring state of the Orlesian Empire speak with a French-tinged accent--that help make the world work,” (Snider). Kevin VanOrd commented on the traditional setting as well, “Ferelden is a colorful and fascinating kingdom that takes enough cues from well-known fantasy tropes to be familiar, but bends enough conventions to feel original. Dragon Age features dwarves, but their caste-based society and the social paragons that rise above it twist the norms enough to keep you intrigued. Mages remain under the constant watch of templars, a restriction that doesn't sit well with those who view such policing as virtual slavery. The role of religion in human circles is of particular note. Chantries provide refuge to those worshiping the all-powerful Maker, and chanters recite the holy word near their houses of prayer.” “Dragon Age brilliantly combines the genre’s old-school conventions with a few modern twists to create one of the most addictive and expansive RPGs of its kind. Attempting to summarize the experience of Dragon Age in a few paragraphs is almost ridiculous given the depth of the game’s content,”stated another reporter, Joe Juba. 

However Jeff Haynes, IGN author, had a different take commenting, “The plot of Dragon Age is extremely rich with details that unfold over dozens of hours of play...The biggest issue that arises with the storyline of Dragon Age is that plot elements suffer from repetitiveness. Even though different cities house unique quest events, they all incorporate similar motivating factors – assassination, betrayal or murder. Even though the results of your actions vary, it can become a bit stale. Not every single city needs Macbeth, King Lear or other Shakespearean styled machinations to drive the action forward.”

© BioWare

Characters

The memorable companions and unique backgrounds and their witty remarks are what make Origins so great. There are many compilations of every sidekick’s banter on Youtube. “Characters are generally complex, defying the unrealistically simplistic labels of "good" and "evil," and the game is the better for it,” expressed Gerald Villora (sic). Nicolas Tan added in his review, “The side conversations between characters are also hilarious enough to make you stop in your tracks and listen, offering a welcome change of pace to the serious and grave task of slaughter and world-saving.” 

Combat

My personal take on the combat style was: “meh”. This was my first time experiencing this kind of combat in video games, and I am not that big of a fan, so I just keep the game on easy mode. Dave Snider observed, “You'll probably spend a good portion of time in pause mode, manually issuing commands to your entire group, especially if you're working with more than one mage or if you're the type to obsess over the survival of each party member,” he later added, “The combat in Dragon Age is where the game feels closest to its computer RPG roots. This is a classic "pause-and-command" type of game, and it comes with all of the difficulty and micromanagement...the game's boss fights, in particular, get extremely tough and require proper mana management, some well-timed potion-chugging, and a keen eye to watch out for scripted events.”

© BioWare

In The End

    Dragon Age: Origins may look a little ugly due to age and awkward animations, and the combat may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the intriguing storyline, with interesting politics and debates within the world, and memorable characters who provide endless amounts of laughter makes the game well worth it in my book. Definitely put this game on your “to play next” list.

Works Cited

Haynes, Jeff. “Dragon Age: Origins Review - IGN.” N.p., 3 Nov. 2009. Web. 

    https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/11/04/dragon-age-origins-review

Juba, Joe. “Dragon Age Review: BioWare’s Return To Classic Form - Game Informer.” N.p., 5  

Oct. 2009. Web. https://www.gameinformer.com/games/dragon_age_origins/b/pc/archive/2009/10/05/review.aspx

Snider, Dave. “Dragon Age: Origins Review - Giant Bomb.” N.p., 3 Nov. 2009. Web. 

https://www.giantbomb.com/reviews/dragon-age-origins-review/1900-223/

Tan, Nicholas. “Dragon Age: Origins Review - GameRevolution.” N.p., 18 Nov. 2009. Web.

    https://www.gamerevolution.com/review/44937-dragon-age-origins-review

VanOrd, Kevin. “Dragon Age: Origins Review - GameSpot.” N.p., 3 Nov. 2009. Web. 

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/dragon-age-origins-review/1900-6238631/

Villoria, Gerald. “GameSpy: The Consensus: Dragon Age: Origins Review - Page 1.” N.p., 3 

Nov. 2009. Web. http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/dragon-age/1041838p1.html

[f-imaginings]

Didn’t think I’d have to do this but I’ve got people coming to me left and right over this nonsense, conveying threats to have my work reported and pulled down blah blah blah, so let me summarize my case publicly and let you all make up your own minds. 

I’ll start by saying truthfully that I’ve never read TNP. I don’t generally read fics with non-con in them bc of bad past experiences, but from reading the prologue when researching what i supposedly plagiarized the writing seemed really good and enjoyable, with interesting themes and references. I’m sure its a lovely fic and people who enjoy it should as it stands on its own merits. 

I also haven’t plagarised anything. There is a lot of he said she said happening over that so I’ll just present the facts I have and let people make up their own minds. So far there’s just been one side of the story very loudly being told. I’ll say my piece here and people can make up their own minds. 

So I’ve never read their story. I’ve been getting some nasty harrassment though claiming I plagarised it to write my own story, which is Knowing Me, Knowing You on ao3. It’s a Billford fic, and it’s inspired by abba lyrics, Gravity Falls the series, and Journal Number 3. 

Two days ago I got this anonymous comment on my fanfic. 

This anonymous poster spammed the comments in the fic in many chapters, and also felt the need to tell everyone who regularly comments on my fic by replying to their comment how shitty my writing is and that it’s plagarising this other fic I’ve never read. 

The link to the full comments thread is here if people want to read and do their own sleuthing. 

The comments rather spitefully tell me how my writing is terrible, how I’m scum, how unoriginal I am ect. I’ll let you all read it and make up your own minds about whether this is fair to say or not. 

I then decided to go speak to the author of this fic i had supposedly plagarised, because I thought it was a misunderstanding, or that a follower of theirs who was very zealous had took it upon themselves to go rogue and harass other writers who (these are the similarities as far as they’ve been explained to me) write Billford, and have written about a human Bill helping Stanford with the portal. 

Here is my conversation with the author of TNP, screenshotted, so you can read that and make up your own mind about it too. 

It was quite startling for me to have been spoken to like this when I went amicably to a fellow writer hoping to solve a situation that was groundless and unnecessary. I was called a liar, and passive aggressive for having approached the author directly with the situation seeking a resolution. 

In an ideal world I would like an apology for this behavior, but I won’t hold my breath, I’m just here to state my case and clear my name. 

This is my fanfiction. It’s 163243 words long as of it’s last update. I started writing it on the last day of January 2017, and since then it has inspired me boundlessly. I get a lot of joy out of writing it, which is clear to see when you look at how quickly I’ve been churning out these words in this small space of time. Three months have gone by and I’m on 18 chapters and it’s been wonderful to write, I’ve had some lovely reviews from folks, and these have been the first negative reviews I have seen for it. 

I asked people who have read both of the works, my own and TNP, what the similarities were that led the author to believe I had plagarised. 

What I heard as feedback was:

Similarities

Both Billford pairing fanfics

Both involving human Bill

To do with building the portal

Differences: 

Storyline

Plot

Character design. My human Bill is black. He’s black, with gold eyes, yellow hair, and gold binding tattoos sewn into his skin. I’ve been told their Bill is italian??? Not sure where the similarities are there. 

Dynamic between Bill and Ford (TNP apparently has Bill and Ford sharing the nicknames darling and kitten. Rest assured, through the entirety of my 160,000 word fanfic not once do my Bill or Ford ever call each other anything even remotely resembling ‘darling’ or ‘kitten’ they are more likely to call each other a pain in the ass in my fic) 

World building

Characters (mine contains plenty of Fiddleford, Wendy’s mum, who I have called Willow Oakwood bc a lumberjack falls in love with her, Lazy Susan, Keyhole and Amorphous Shape, the paradox buddies, Pyronica and Kryptos on the front lines, Argos Panoptes, Raha Diniero ect) 

Sexual content (TNP contains rape and sexual harassment, my work is a slow burn of epic proportions, they only kissed for the first time in my last chapter, and Bill is averse to being touched by Stanford at first. My work also is entirely consensual as I can’t write non-con due to personal experiences)

Key events (my story involves events such as hunting down the gobblewonker with a harpoon, nearly being devoured by the island head monster, going on a double date with lazy suzan and wendy’s mum and raising the undead, giving birth to the summerween trickster, stealing treasure from Quentin Trembley’s grave, a heist at the Cryptix Noire Warping Black Market’s, and Fiddleford’s wife Patricia telling baby Tate to stop crying) 

Writing style (My writing is more light hearted, I make lots of jokes because I want to enjoy my own story. I’m told TNP is more serious)

Direction (I do not know where TNP is going, having never read it, but I know my story is going to follow along with canon up to the betrayal, after it, following Ford through the portal, and back out for Weirdmageddon) 

Having completed four years of university studying English literature, I’m very aware of how serious plagiarism is, and how seriously allegations of plagiarism need to be taken. If someone’s poured their effort into creating a work, they deserve to be credited for that work, and if a work was created in reference to something else it’s respectful to cite your references. So here are the works I have referenced in order to create this fic. 

- Hirsch, A, 2016, Journal 3; Gravity Falls, Disney Press, LA. - Gravity Falls, complete series, 2016, DVD, Disney XD, created by Hirsch, A, et al. - Abba’s complete back catalogue. 

I’ve also referenced several Wikipedia pages; the page on black markets, on hyperpyrexia, on Leonardo Da Vinci, on stethoscopes, on Argos Panoptes in Greek Mythology, and the page listing the different planets and races in the entire Star Trek series. I’ve relied on the Gravity Falls wikia to help me maintain accuracy with character names, places, details about the Shack and so on. 

I haven’t referenced, nor have I read The Ninth Paradigm. I would have tentatively liked to from reading the synopsis, but I have decided I won’t be reading it any time soon following the conversation I had with the author of the fanfic, which has soured me somewhat from consuming their content.

I work full time, 38 hour work weeks, and run a second job on the side. Something I don’t have time for is drama. I’m quite frankly surprised I even have the time to dedicate to writing this fanfic of mine, but I do, because I love Gravity Falls, I am excited about the story I’m writing, I get to laugh at my own jokes when I’m writing, I get to entertain myself, and in posting this here, hopefully entertain others.

I’m not writing this to impress anyone with my prose or build this fic into anything more than it is, it’s just a bit of fun set to Abba lyrics, inspired by Dipper in the shower singing Disco Girl aka Dancing Queen.

If I were a younger writer, or if I were less confident in myself, this kind of harassment, both in the comments here on ao3, and the conversation I had with the author of TNP when I looked to resolve the situation, would have been incredibly damaging. If I were a younger writer, being harassed, I would find the fandom uninviting, toxic, incredibly discouraging and unhealthy.

Billford as a pairing has a small enough fandom as is, looking through the tag on tumblr, there are anti-shippers adding to that environment of harassment. Adding to that environment of harassment within the fandom can only be damaging. I believe fandoms should encourage writers and content producers, that fandom should be a community where you support one another, and the base content you all enjoyed that brought you all together.

Gravity Falls fans are smart. They followed a quirky, clever, coded show from start to finish and loved every bit of it. I’m presenting the above information here so that you can all make your own minds up about this issue. I think that’s fair.

That’s all I have to say about this issue.

[funface2]

The Simpsons: 10 Funniest Memes Only True Fans Will Understand – Screen Rant

The Simpsons has had an unrivaled impact on pop culture for the past two decades. This has resulted in video game spinoffs, movies, comic books and vast amounts of merchandise relating to the characters from the town of Springfield. And in the digital age, memes.

RELATED: 5 Things Family Guy Does Better Than The Simpsons (& Vice Versa)

So, so many memes. Whether it has to do with the Simpsons family or any of the countless memorable ancillary characters that have appeared on the show, here are 10 memes about The Simpsons that are sure to strike a chord with the fans:

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10 Political Commentary

There was a time when The Simpsons was known for its biting social commentary in the form of hilarious satire. Age has mellowed out the show considerably, but fans are still using scenes from episodes to comment on existing socio-political norms. In this meme, two scenes from the show become a metaphor for Brexit.

In the first scene, we see both Bart and the fish embody the UK, suggesting that the UK is driving a knife through its own heart via Brexit. Similarly, we see a similar scenario play out between Mr. Burns and Maggie, with Ireland represented in the back as a mute spectator. Pretty deep for a meme.

9 The Years Keep Getting Worse

There is a general sentiment these days that the days just keep getting worse, with each new year bringing us close to greater political instability, natural disasters, and the spread of hateful ideology. How much of it is real and how much is exaggerated hysteria is debatable.

But here we see that sentiment aptly summarized by Bart falling down the stairs, with each new step down representing a fresh year of greater pain and going further away from the goodness of the earlier years. Does the present generation somehow think bad things are a recent invention, and the earlier world was some kind of paradise free of hate and bigotry?

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8 Poor Smithers

This scene riffs on one of the longest-running gags from the show, with Smithers getting put in a situation that would be a paradise for others, but which only fills him with revulsion.

RELATED: 10 Jokes From The Simpsons That Have Already Aged Poorly

This meme talks about the double attraction of alcohol and chicken wing purchases, while Smithers is just the average Joe being tempted by both, and desperately trying to ignore them in a bid to save money.

7 You Can’t Get Ride Of The Ads

Barney is a permanent fixture at Moe’s Tavern. Much like online ads are a permanent fixture on your browser. No matter how hard you might try to remove the ads, they will always find a way to reappear at the touch of a page refresh button. Just like Barney will always find a way back to Moe’s bar, no matter how many AA meetings he attends, and how hard Moe himself physically tries to remove Barney from the premises.

In both cases, you begin with brief relief at having successfully gotten rid of a pesky nuisance, and the resulting greater irritation at turning around to find it right back at its old spot.

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6 A Bitter Life Lesson

The jury is still out on whether or not Homer can be classified as a good father. But he does give his children some interesting advice on occasion, with more than a grain of truth. After a despairing Bart declares a day spent stuck to a pole without pants on in full view of the public as the worst day ever, Homer kindly reminds him it is only the worst day so far.

RELATED: The Simpsons: 10 Darkest Treehouse of Horror Episodes, Ever

Oof. Brutal but honest. It is exactly how a person stuck in a crappy job would feel on the first day, only to be reminded by more experienced co-workers that there are many more even worse workdays left to weather.

5 Gallows Humor

The death of Maude Flanders was where The Simpsons got real. Her demise was played straight, with no last-minute return for the character or the whole thing being revealed to be some kind of elaborate illusion. Maude really did die, and Ned Flanders was left a broken-hearted man. It was the end of one of strongest relationships on the show, handled in a sensitive and tasteful manner.

RELATED: The Simpsons: The Best Episode In Every Season, Ranked

But that won’t stop people from making memes about his misery. And here they found the perfect opportunity to combine Pokemon with The Simpsons, with the silhouette for Diglett, the digger pokemon resembling Maude’s gravestone. Poor Ned.

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4 Moe’s Brave Face

Moe Syzzlac may very well be the most tragic character on the show. He has no family. Most women are repelled by his appearance, his only friends are his drinking customers, and he regularly tries to take his own life and keeps failing in those attempts.

Whenever Moe tries to smile, it feels like he is trying hard to push down all that misery deep inside and put on a brave face. But the cracks into his soul revealed by the pain in his eyes and the forced nature of the smile tell a different story.

3 His Own Worst Enemy

Whatever the context of the scene this meme was taken from, it becomes a tragic metaphor in meme form. Barney has severe impulse control problems, leading to his perennial drinking habit that destroyed his life.

One episode revealed that Barney has a sensitive, artistic side that would have made him a gifted filmmaker if only his obsession with alcohol did not rule his life. Barney is literally his own worst enemy and the one hell-bent on ruining his life.

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2 The Many True Predictions

The Simpsons has gained notoriety for showing all kinds of outrageous events taking place in their world… and then those events take place in real life. This has even led some to believe that the creators of the show have some sort of future-seeing ability.

Whatever the truth is, it’s surprising how often the show has predicted significant world events and still continues to do so. Like the last election, for example.

1 Getting Meta

Over the years, with each new increasingly, outrageously stupid and dangerous stunt he pulls, Homer has become synonymous with a dumb person. So much so that being compared to Homer in any capacity automatically labels you a moron. Such is the power of this trend that even the show itself could not resist making the joke.

This was one of the few instances of the show, which usually plays itself as a straight satire, breaking the fourth wall to comment on its own impact on pop culture.

NEXT: The Simpsons: The 10 Best Episodes Of Itchy & Scratchy

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[swipestream]

Pathfinder Playtest Review, Part 3

This is part 3 of my review of the Pathfinder Playtest from Paizo. You can see part 1 here and part 2 here. In this part of the review, I’ll comment on Advancement and Options, and Playing the Game. The fourth segment will contain my thoughts on with Game Mastering through Appendices.

If you’re interested in reading along with me during the review, you can pick up the free PDF of the playtest rulebook at Paizo’s site:

Advancement and Options

Advancement

When I hit the advancement section, I was expecting a long and involved process, which is the nature of the crunchier games like Pathfinder. I was pleasantly surprised to find the advancement instructions to be only a single page. It’s straightforward and simple. I like this quite a bit.

One thing I made a strong note of is that each level is 1,000 XP. The increasing experience point requirements for higher levels has gone the way of the past for Pathfinder. This means gaining levels is a linear process, not an increasing barrier. I find this incredibly interesting on how higher-powered obstacles will turn in experience points for the characters. I’m assuming the XP award information will be found in the GM section, so I’m looking forward to getting the other side of the coin for this process.

Archetypes

There are seven archetypes offered in the playtest book, and they mention that this is a sample. The seven they have are just enough to give a taste of how things work, but still provide some options for characters during the playtest process. Based on this taste, I can’t wait to see the full buffet of choices for the archetypes.

Archetypes appear to be replacements for prestige classes. Like with prestige classes, some of the archetypes can be taken at lower levels, which others have higher requirements, including some events that must happen with the character before the archetype can be chosen.

There are two types of archetypes: multiclass and prestige.

Multiclass archetypes allow a character of one class to tap into the powers of another class, but in a limited fashion. This allows for a fighter to gain some healing ability or maybe some rogue skills. Like with the rest of the power-gain systems, these are based on feats. One thing to note here is that a character cannot multiclass into a class they already have. In other words, you can’t be a cleric and gain extra cleric goodies by multiclassing as a cleric also.

Prestige archetypes are, as the name implies, more like prestige classes. These archetypes can focus in a character’s abilities and adds some new options for their class. While the text in the playtest book is limited, I can see some expansion happening not only with the choices available, but more in-depth descriptions of the archetypes as well.

I like that the archetypes are placed in the “options” section of the book because they are far from required to call out a character as being special or unique, but there is extra flavor and style that can be gained by leveraging an archetype. One thing to note, is that an archetype does not directly deliver extra “class abilities or powers” like prestige classes did. Choosing an archetype just opens up more options for feats that a player can choose from for her character.

Animal Companions

Building an animal companion is much like building a character in that you have stats, feats, actions, and types of companions. There are some sample builds of animal companions, but they are base stats, not final stats. I’ve read through the animal companion section three times so far, and I have to admit that I’m still fairly well confused about how to stat out an animal companion. Seeing a “final stat block” of one of the examples would have helped me piece things together to see how it all works. My advice to Paizo for this segment is to look at the descriptive and rules text in this section an clarify things quite a bit.

Having said this, I think there are some slick options and actions for animal companions. I like them quite a bit, but I also didn’t see a limitation on which actions which types of animals could use or have. Maybe there were some things taken out of the final text to make the playtest book shorter that could have clarified everything in here.

There is also a section on familiars, and this section is pretty brief, but does explain familiar abilities and how they interact with the spellcaster. Somehow, this section is very clear to me on familiar stats and abilities, unlike the main animal companion section. The only thing I see that’s missing, which will probably land in the final product, is what happens when a familiar dies. This has always been key to this genre of RPGs, so I’m kind of surprised at the oversight in this area.

Deities

There are two pages of brief summaries for the deities found within Golarion. There are 20 of the world’s deities summarized here, and these summaries include alignment, edicts, anathema, and favored weapon. If you note that domains are missing here, that’s because they are included with the cleric class information earlier in the book. This is what I was talking about in my “part 1” of the Pathfinder playtest review. The deity information is split across two section and hundreds of pages, which makes finding all of the details about a single deity cumbersome and slow. The domain listing should be combined with this section for ease of use.

Playing The Game

Now for the meat of the game mechanics themselves. There are 35 pages of rules. I’m hesitant to dive into the details of all 35 pages of the rules because that would make this portion of the review extremely lengthy. Instead, I’m going to gloss over repeating the rules, and just give my impressions and the highlights.

Modes

There are three modes called out in the text. Any veteran player will quickly see these and wonder why they are called out as they are “obvious.” However, to a new gamer, these are excellent call outs for them and are also top-notch reminders to the grognards in our groups.

The modes are encounter, exploration, and downtime. In short, encounter modes occur when seconds matter, detailed tactics come into play, and determining the order of PC and NPC actions really matters. Exploration modes occur between encounters. This can be creeping down a dungeon corridor, traversing overland terrain, or moving across a densely populated city. Lastly, we have downtime modes, which occur when the characters are in their home base, passage of time is measured in days or weeks, and not much dangerous action is going on.

I like these different modes because I’ve made plenty of characters that could create magic items, but never really had a chance to leverage those abilities. Calling out the fact that downtime exists, would allow such a thing to take place.

Checks

The detailed descriptions of how to do a check make things clear. This is a good thing because there are subtle adjustments to the game between current Pathfinder and the new Pathfinder on what gets added into a die roll. The main change is skills are simplified. Basically, each skill add is equal to your level. Then an adjustment ranging from -2 through +3 is added based on the character’s proficiency rank.

The math formula for calculating the final result of a die roll is a little intimidating, but it’s not that bad. Of the 10 numbers involved in calculating the final result, one is the die roll, 4 are captured on the character sheet and summarized there. This leaves circumstance bonuses/penalties and conditional bonuses/penalties as well as the mysterious “untyped penalties” left to deal with. The circumstance/condition/untyped numbers don’t always exist, so it’s still basically, a d20 added to a single number that’s pre-calculated and written on the character sheet. Honestly, the diagram at the top of page 292 is great an should remain a reference.

Degree of Success

Success and failure are still the same. If you get higher than the target number, you succeed. Lower than the number, and you fail. Pretty simple. However, critical successes have changed a bit. If you get a “natural 20,” then you get a critical success. Also, if you get greater than the target number plus 10, then it’s also a critical success. I like this change to reward specialized characters and great die rolls. On the flip-side, a “natural 1” or less than the target number minus 10, then it’s a critical failure. This change makes for interesting storytelling for those times when the die rolls go extraordinarily well, or drastically poor.

Fortune and Misfortune

A new addition to Pathfinder, but not a new addition to gaming in general is the concept of “fortune” and “misfortune.” With fortune, there are two options. One is a reroll, and the other is rolling two dice and taking the better of the two. The same thing applies with misfortune where a successful roll may require a reroll, or two dice are rolled and the lower of the two are taken. This is explained in a sidebar before the actual rules of when fortune and misfortune applies, so I hope they clarify how to obtain and lose these conditions.

Dying

There’s an interesting twist and change with dying. Instead of it being based on HP or constitution, there’s a new concept here called “dying value.” If a character’s dying value reaches 4, then they die. When a character hits zero HP (you can’t go negative in this system), then you gain 1 or 2 dying value points (1 for a lethal hit, 2 if it was a critical hit). At this point, saving throws kick in to see if the character recovers. Success indicates a return to 1 HP. Failure adds 1 dying value, and a critical failure adds 2 dying value. When a dying value of 4 is reached, the character dies. Of course, these rules only apply to PC, main villains, important NPCs, etc. The typical minion or mook should be removed from combat if it reaches zero HP, but that’s up to the GM to decide.

Honestly, I don’t think I like this system very well. It could be that I’m comfortable with the current system and it makes sense. I’m not sure how this simplifies or improves the game any, but I’m willing to give it a shot and see how it plays out.

Actions and Activities

As I talked about in part 1 of this review series, there are different actions and activities. There are free actions, reactions, and activities. Some activities consume more than 1 action in a character’s round. Each character gets 3 actions in a normal round. These can be moves, attacks, spellcasting (which usually consumes more than 1 action), reactions, and so on. These changes in how many things a character can do in a round appear to really streamline and simplify things. I think this is a beneficial thing for the overall gameplay in a system that many already complain that takes too long when encounter mode kicks in. We’ll see how actual gameplay works out when I get a chance to put rubber on the road with this system.

Areas of Effect

I just wanted to note here that with all of the changes Paizo is making to Pathfinder, they are leaving the various “areas of effect” from spells and powers untouched. This tells me they think that these portions of the rules are already clear, play well, and are dialed in. I agree.

Hero Points

Each PC starts a session with 1 hero point. She can earn more through good role playing, heroic action, taking notes, running initiative, bringing food/snacks to the game, etc. The book outlines that no more than 1 hero point should be awarded for in-game actions per session. Also, no more than 1 her point should be awarded for out-of-game actions per session. All PC’s hero points reset back to 1 at the start of each session.

Hero points can be used for three different things: staving off death, rerolling a d20, or taking an extra action in a round. These cost 1, 2, and 3 hero points, respectively.

I’m conflicted on the addition of hero points. I like the meta-game currency that many games use because it allows the players to drive the narrative of their characters more. This is a good thing. However, I think that Paizo dropped the ball here. The use of hero points is so incredibly limited, and expensive in hero point cost, that they are likely to be rarely used. Because of this, I’m not sure Paizo should have wasted the ink on printing the rules. They should open up the use of hero points with more options and consider reducing the cost of rerolling a single d20 to 1 hero point.

Perception

The section on perception explains everything a new or experienced player/GM needs to know about how the difference senses work, how things are detected (or not), and how different levels of light impact vision. While it feels like second nature to “know” these things about a game, having them defined in clear terms will help remove or reduce disagreements about how perception works.

Encounter Mode

This section details how combat works. The key change here is that initiative is based on the perception skill, so make sure your fighter-types have some focus on this skill. Also of note, is that initiative is rolled once at the start of combat to determine turn order and this order stays this way (barring someone with a high roll shifting to a lower position).

The steps in encounter mode are well delineated and easy to follow. I think even a newcomer to the hobby could leverage the text to fully understand how things work. Well done here, Paizo.

Basic Actions

The basic actions are lined out in their own blocks of text. I love this layout choice. In past iterations of games within Pathfinder’s lineage, each action type was smooshed in a paragraph alongside other blocks of identical text without the breaking headers that make things easy to find and reference. The way they have things lined up here, it’s easy to read, easier to understand, and surprisingly easy to find on the page when needing to do a lookup of a detail.

The common basic actions are outlined here along with some of the less common things like burrow, fly, mount, etc. that are in their own list to prevent muddying the waters for the common actions.

Exploration Mode

The exploration mode section is divided up into areas like traveling, socializing, and resting.

The travel section of things calls out most of the common activities that go on while traveling across large swaths of land. The details are fairly high level and allow the GM and players to collaborate on how things go.

The socializing section calls out different activities that go on here, but again it is at a high level. I hope Paizo does a bit of a deeper dive into this area beyond two-thirds of a column on the socializing. Maybe this is just a taste for the playtest?

Rest and daily preparations is pretty basic and doesn’t need much detail, so they cover it well here. To call note to the HP recovery, it is now the constitution modifier (minimum 1) times the character level in HP regain for natural healing.

Downtime Mode

There is all of half a page dedicated to this mode, and I was hoping for more. Granted, the skills section covers the various rules for the skill-based activities that can occur, but I really hoped for more. Things on my “expectation list” were: managing a stronghold, running a business, overseeing a guild, and so on. Perhaps this will land on the list of things we’ll see in an expansion book down the road.

Conditions

The “Playing the Game” section wraps up with a lengthy segment on conditions. It’s a long list of the various ways a character can be changed, adjusted, boosted, and limited. The list is, in traditional Pathfinder style, very long, but it’s also necessary for the game play to run smoothly. I like what I see here. The only thing that could make this a little better would be a bullet list of all conditions with a brief summary like what would be found on a GM screen. Putting something like this up front, before the details descriptions, would be a handy reference for GMs and players alike.

Conclusion

Now that I’ve consumed the “meat” of the book, I’m liking what I see. I think some refinement to the rules descriptions here and there would benefit the final product. This, of course, is what playtesting is for, so I think Paizo is on the right track for getting a 2.0 of Pathfinder nailed down and running smoothly.

Am I convinced to “upgrade” to the new version yet? I’m not sure yet. I think part of this comes from the “edition inertia” that I currently have. I own 30+ Pathfinder rulebooks and Golarion books at this point. That’s not counting third party support material, adventures, campaigns, etc. that I also own. This is a lot of things to step away from and set aside in favor of investing in the new edition. It’s become clear to me that conversions between Pathfinder editions will be required, so I can’t just pull a “1.0” book off the shelf and use it on the fly.

I am liking what I see, and I think this would be a fine entry point for a new gamer (especially if Paizo does a “Beginner Box 2.0”). Overall, I like it, but we’ll wait until I finish up with the book to make a final determination on what I do with the new version of Pathfinder.

Pathfinder Playtest Review, Part 3 published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[kayawagner]

Pathfinder Playtest Review, Part 3

This is part 3 of my review of the Pathfinder Playtest from Paizo. You can see part 1 here and part 2 here. In this part of the review, I’ll comment on Advancement and Options, and Playing the Game. The fourth segment will contain my thoughts on with Game Mastering through Appendices.

If you’re interested in reading along with me during the review, you can pick up the free PDF of the playtest rulebook at Paizo’s site:

Advancement and Options

Advancement

When I hit the advancement section, I was expecting a long and involved process, which is the nature of the crunchier games like Pathfinder. I was pleasantly surprised to find the advancement instructions to be only a single page. It’s straightforward and simple. I like this quite a bit.

One thing I made a strong note of is that each level is 1,000 XP. The increasing experience point requirements for higher levels has gone the way of the past for Pathfinder. This means gaining levels is a linear process, not an increasing barrier. I find this incredibly interesting on how higher-powered obstacles will turn in experience points for the characters. I’m assuming the XP award information will be found in the GM section, so I’m looking forward to getting the other side of the coin for this process.

Archetypes

There are seven archetypes offered in the playtest book, and they mention that this is a sample. The seven they have are just enough to give a taste of how things work, but still provide some options for characters during the playtest process. Based on this taste, I can’t wait to see the full buffet of choices for the archetypes.

Archetypes appear to be replacements for prestige classes. Like with prestige classes, some of the archetypes can be taken at lower levels, which others have higher requirements, including some events that must happen with the character before the archetype can be chosen.

There are two types of archetypes: multiclass and prestige.

Multiclass archetypes allow a character of one class to tap into the powers of another class, but in a limited fashion. This allows for a fighter to gain some healing ability or maybe some rogue skills. Like with the rest of the power-gain systems, these are based on feats. One thing to note here is that a character cannot multiclass into a class they already have. In other words, you can’t be a cleric and gain extra cleric goodies by multiclassing as a cleric also.

Prestige archetypes are, as the name implies, more like prestige classes. These archetypes can focus in a character’s abilities and adds some new options for their class. While the text in the playtest book is limited, I can see some expansion happening not only with the choices available, but more in-depth descriptions of the archetypes as well.

I like that the archetypes are placed in the “options” section of the book because they are far from required to call out a character as being special or unique, but there is extra flavor and style that can be gained by leveraging an archetype. One thing to note, is that an archetype does not directly deliver extra “class abilities or powers” like prestige classes did. Choosing an archetype just opens up more options for feats that a player can choose from for her character.

Animal Companions

Building an animal companion is much like building a character in that you have stats, feats, actions, and types of companions. There are some sample builds of animal companions, but they are base stats, not final stats. I’ve read through the animal companion section three times so far, and I have to admit that I’m still fairly well confused about how to stat out an animal companion. Seeing a “final stat block” of one of the examples would have helped me piece things together to see how it all works. My advice to Paizo for this segment is to look at the descriptive and rules text in this section an clarify things quite a bit.

Having said this, I think there are some slick options and actions for animal companions. I like them quite a bit, but I also didn’t see a limitation on which actions which types of animals could use or have. Maybe there were some things taken out of the final text to make the playtest book shorter that could have clarified everything in here.

There is also a section on familiars, and this section is pretty brief, but does explain familiar abilities and how they interact with the spellcaster. Somehow, this section is very clear to me on familiar stats and abilities, unlike the main animal companion section. The only thing I see that’s missing, which will probably land in the final product, is what happens when a familiar dies. This has always been key to this genre of RPGs, so I’m kind of surprised at the oversight in this area.

Deities

There are two pages of brief summaries for the deities found within Golarion. There are 20 of the world’s deities summarized here, and these summaries include alignment, edicts, anathema, and favored weapon. If you note that domains are missing here, that’s because they are included with the cleric class information earlier in the book. This is what I was talking about in my “part 1” of the Pathfinder playtest review. The deity information is split across two section and hundreds of pages, which makes finding all of the details about a single deity cumbersome and slow. The domain listing should be combined with this section for ease of use.

Playing The Game

Now for the meat of the game mechanics themselves. There are 35 pages of rules. I’m hesitant to dive into the details of all 35 pages of the rules because that would make this portion of the review extremely lengthy. Instead, I’m going to gloss over repeating the rules, and just give my impressions and the highlights.

Modes

There are three modes called out in the text. Any veteran player will quickly see these and wonder why they are called out as they are “obvious.” However, to a new gamer, these are excellent call outs for them and are also top-notch reminders to the grognards in our groups.

The modes are encounter, exploration, and downtime. In short, encounter modes occur when seconds matter, detailed tactics come into play, and determining the order of PC and NPC actions really matters. Exploration modes occur between encounters. This can be creeping down a dungeon corridor, traversing overland terrain, or moving across a densely populated city. Lastly, we have downtime modes, which occur when the characters are in their home base, passage of time is measured in days or weeks, and not much dangerous action is going on.

I like these different modes because I’ve made plenty of characters that could create magic items, but never really had a chance to leverage those abilities. Calling out the fact that downtime exists, would allow such a thing to take place.

Checks

The detailed descriptions of how to do a check make things clear. This is a good thing because there are subtle adjustments to the game between current Pathfinder and the new Pathfinder on what gets added into a die roll. The main change is skills are simplified. Basically, each skill add is equal to your level. Then an adjustment ranging from -2 through +3 is added based on the character’s proficiency rank.

The math formula for calculating the final result of a die roll is a little intimidating, but it’s not that bad. Of the 10 numbers involved in calculating the final result, one is the die roll, 4 are captured on the character sheet and summarized there. This leaves circumstance bonuses/penalties and conditional bonuses/penalties as well as the mysterious “untyped penalties” left to deal with. The circumstance/condition/untyped numbers don’t always exist, so it’s still basically, a d20 added to a single number that’s pre-calculated and written on the character sheet. Honestly, the diagram at the top of page 292 is great an should remain a reference.

Degree of Success

Success and failure are still the same. If you get higher than the target number, you succeed. Lower than the number, and you fail. Pretty simple. However, critical successes have changed a bit. If you get a “natural 20,” then you get a critical success. Also, if you get greater than the target number plus 10, then it’s also a critical success. I like this change to reward specialized characters and great die rolls. On the flip-side, a “natural 1” or less than the target number minus 10, then it’s a critical failure. This change makes for interesting storytelling for those times when the die rolls go extraordinarily well, or drastically poor.

Fortune and Misfortune

A new addition to Pathfinder, but not a new addition to gaming in general is the concept of “fortune” and “misfortune.” With fortune, there are two options. One is a reroll, and the other is rolling two dice and taking the better of the two. The same thing applies with misfortune where a successful roll may require a reroll, or two dice are rolled and the lower of the two are taken. This is explained in a sidebar before the actual rules of when fortune and misfortune applies, so I hope they clarify how to obtain and lose these conditions.

Dying

There’s an interesting twist and change with dying. Instead of it being based on HP or constitution, there’s a new concept here called “dying value.” If a character’s dying value reaches 4, then they die. When a character hits zero HP (you can’t go negative in this system), then you gain 1 or 2 dying value points (1 for a lethal hit, 2 if it was a critical hit). At this point, saving throws kick in to see if the character recovers. Success indicates a return to 1 HP. Failure adds 1 dying value, and a critical failure adds 2 dying value. When a dying value of 4 is reached, the character dies. Of course, these rules only apply to PC, main villains, important NPCs, etc. The typical minion or mook should be removed from combat if it reaches zero HP, but that’s up to the GM to decide.

Honestly, I don’t think I like this system very well. It could be that I’m comfortable with the current system and it makes sense. I’m not sure how this simplifies or improves the game any, but I’m willing to give it a shot and see how it plays out.

Actions and Activities

As I talked about in part 1 of this review series, there are different actions and activities. There are free actions, reactions, and activities. Some activities consume more than 1 action in a character’s round. Each character gets 3 actions in a normal round. These can be moves, attacks, spellcasting (which usually consumes more than 1 action), reactions, and so on. These changes in how many things a character can do in a round appear to really streamline and simplify things. I think this is a beneficial thing for the overall gameplay in a system that many already complain that takes too long when encounter mode kicks in. We’ll see how actual gameplay works out when I get a chance to put rubber on the road with this system.

Areas of Effect

I just wanted to note here that with all of the changes Paizo is making to Pathfinder, they are leaving the various “areas of effect” from spells and powers untouched. This tells me they think that these portions of the rules are already clear, play well, and are dialed in. I agree.

Hero Points

Each PC starts a session with 1 hero point. She can earn more through good role playing, heroic action, taking notes, running initiative, bringing food/snacks to the game, etc. The book outlines that no more than 1 hero point should be awarded for in-game actions per session. Also, no more than 1 her point should be awarded for out-of-game actions per session. All PC’s hero points reset back to 1 at the start of each session.

Hero points can be used for three different things: staving off death, rerolling a d20, or taking an extra action in a round. These cost 1, 2, and 3 hero points, respectively.

I’m conflicted on the addition of hero points. I like the meta-game currency that many games use because it allows the players to drive the narrative of their characters more. This is a good thing. However, I think that Paizo dropped the ball here. The use of hero points is so incredibly limited, and expensive in hero point cost, that they are likely to be rarely used. Because of this, I’m not sure Paizo should have wasted the ink on printing the rules. They should open up the use of hero points with more options and consider reducing the cost of rerolling a single d20 to 1 hero point.

Perception

The section on perception explains everything a new or experienced player/GM needs to know about how the difference senses work, how things are detected (or not), and how different levels of light impact vision. While it feels like second nature to “know” these things about a game, having them defined in clear terms will help remove or reduce disagreements about how perception works.

Encounter Mode

This section details how combat works. The key change here is that initiative is based on the perception skill, so make sure your fighter-types have some focus on this skill. Also of note, is that initiative is rolled once at the start of combat to determine turn order and this order stays this way (barring someone with a high roll shifting to a lower position).

The steps in encounter mode are well delineated and easy to follow. I think even a newcomer to the hobby could leverage the text to fully understand how things work. Well done here, Paizo.

Basic Actions

The basic actions are lined out in their own blocks of text. I love this layout choice. In past iterations of games within Pathfinder’s lineage, each action type was smooshed in a paragraph alongside other blocks of identical text without the breaking headers that make things easy to find and reference. The way they have things lined up here, it’s easy to read, easier to understand, and surprisingly easy to find on the page when needing to do a lookup of a detail.

The common basic actions are outlined here along with some of the less common things like burrow, fly, mount, etc. that are in their own list to prevent muddying the waters for the common actions.

Exploration Mode

The exploration mode section is divided up into areas like traveling, socializing, and resting.

The travel section of things calls out most of the common activities that go on while traveling across large swaths of land. The details are fairly high level and allow the GM and players to collaborate on how things go.

The socializing section calls out different activities that go on here, but again it is at a high level. I hope Paizo does a bit of a deeper dive into this area beyond two-thirds of a column on the socializing. Maybe this is just a taste for the playtest?

Rest and daily preparations is pretty basic and doesn’t need much detail, so they cover it well here. To call note to the HP recovery, it is now the constitution modifier (minimum 1) times the character level in HP regain for natural healing.

Downtime Mode

There is all of half a page dedicated to this mode, and I was hoping for more. Granted, the skills section covers the various rules for the skill-based activities that can occur, but I really hoped for more. Things on my “expectation list” were: managing a stronghold, running a business, overseeing a guild, and so on. Perhaps this will land on the list of things we’ll see in an expansion book down the road.

Conditions

The “Playing the Game” section wraps up with a lengthy segment on conditions. It’s a long list of the various ways a character can be changed, adjusted, boosted, and limited. The list is, in traditional Pathfinder style, very long, but it’s also necessary for the game play to run smoothly. I like what I see here. The only thing that could make this a little better would be a bullet list of all conditions with a brief summary like what would be found on a GM screen. Putting something like this up front, before the details descriptions, would be a handy reference for GMs and players alike.

Conclusion

Now that I’ve consumed the “meat” of the book, I’m liking what I see. I think some refinement to the rules descriptions here and there would benefit the final product. This, of course, is what playtesting is for, so I think Paizo is on the right track for getting a 2.0 of Pathfinder nailed down and running smoothly.

Am I convinced to “upgrade” to the new version yet? I’m not sure yet. I think part of this comes from the “edition inertia” that I currently have. I own 30+ Pathfinder rulebooks and Golarion books at this point. That’s not counting third party support material, adventures, campaigns, etc. that I also own. This is a lot of things to step away from and set aside in favor of investing in the new edition. It’s become clear to me that conversions between Pathfinder editions will be required, so I can’t just pull a “1.0” book off the shelf and use it on the fly.

I am liking what I see, and I think this would be a fine entry point for a new gamer (especially if Paizo does a “Beginner Box 2.0”). Overall, I like it, but we’ll wait until I finish up with the book to make a final determination on what I do with the new version of Pathfinder.

Pathfinder Playtest Review, Part 3 published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

[carol38banks]

Review: Irina Gorin’s Tales of a Musical Journey

Back in the summer of 2015, as a huge fan of Irina Gorin’s YouTube channel, I attended Irina Gorin’s first ever piano teacher workshop held near her hometown in the Indianapolis area. Here is a photo of Irina and I during the workshop.

Over the past two years, I have been using Irina’s self-published method book, “Tales of a Musical Journey”, more and more with my students. As I have become more familiar with the books and am seeing its results in my students, it has become my favorite piano method book.

If you’ve watched any of Irina’s teaching videos on YouTube, you have seen for yourself how Irina successfully develops in her students a healthy physical approach the instrument as well as expressive and sensitive playing — even in her youngest beginner students. Irina’s books are the result of combining what she feels is the best of Russian piano pedagogy and the best of American piano pedagogy. This makes Irina’s method unique and quite different from typical American piano method books.

In this article, I’d like to share an overview of Irina’s method and the reasons why I like it so much.

Book 1 – Tales of a Musical Journey

“Tales of a Musical Journey” consists of just two levels, each consisting of a single all-in-one book: Book 1 and Book 2. Book 2 is designed to lead directly into Late Elementary level repertoire. Irina says she will never write a Book 3. I love the simple elegance of this!

“Tales” uses a story-based approach. Each chapter of the book introduces musical concepts and skills through a story involving characters and events within the “magical kingdom of sounds”. Sometimes, I choose to just summarize the stories during lesson time, assigning students to read them in their entirety at home — but usually I take the time to read aloud the chapter’s entire story. The learning is within the story, after all. And the stories make the learning memorable.

Book 1 begins with a gradual introduction to playing the piano, while focusing on developing freedom and flexibility of all upper body parts: shoulders, arms, wrists, and fingers; and on developing awareness of pulse and basic rhythm values.

The early pieces in Book 1 require students use only finger 3. This is a major point of departure from typical American method books, which from the beginning require students to use all five fingers in a so-called “5-finger position” — which to a child’s hand, Irina points out, is equivalent to an adult hand stretching open across seven or eight keys. It is challenging to develop a comfortable way of playing while the hand is stretched open, so Irina deftly avoids the issue by allowing time for students to play using only finger #3 before gradually adding other fingers. This enables students to develop comfortability with the large muscle movements required press and release the keys with a beautiful tone and without excessive tension. Fingers 1 and 5, the more awkward fingers, are added towards the end of Book 1.

On a related note: Irina believes in developing non-legato touch before legato or staccato. Book 1 is devoted exclusively to non-legato playing.

Technique development in Irina’s method is not only sequenced brilliantly, but it is embedded into the way the pieces are composed. The pieces are composed around the emerging technical and musical skills that are most comfortable for a child’s hand. There is no need for a separate technique book.

Rhythm skills are first addressed through activities that build awareness of pulse at various tempos: clapping, marching, chanting poems, and playing along with accompaniment on the CD. Rhythm notation is taught through the use of black and white circles, representing short and long durations, before traditional rhythm notation is introduced. (See this blog post for more on using black and white circles for rhythm games.)

Staff notation is introduced beginning with Middle C and gradually moving outwards into the treble clef and bass clef. However, this is not a typical American “Middle C approach” that carries the potential pitfall of becoming reliant on a “Middle C position”. In “Tales”, students become comfortable playing anywhere on the keyboard the piece requires. In fact, already in Book 2 they are comfortable shifting across the keyboard during pieces.

By the end of Book 1 (100 pages in length), students can read and play simple pieces, in duple or triple meters, that use basic rhythm values and pitches between Bass G and Treble F.

Book 2 – Tales of a Musical Journey

As much as I love Book 1, I love Book 2 even more. The pieces are charming, with varying moods and styles. The pieces contain many articulation markings (prompting non-legato, legato, and staccato touch) — far more than typical piano methods do at this level — requiring students to learn early on to pay close attention to detail.

Book 2 begins with two non-legato pieces before introducing two-note slurs for the first time. Once students experience success with legato with two-notes slurs, they are given three-note and four-note slurs. Staccato is introduced half-way through the book. Other music notation symbols introduced include accidentals, dynamic markings, ties, and eighth notes.

I have found additional use for Book 2 apart from after Book 1. Book 2 is perfect for transfer students or any students who tend for example to play with a level of unnecessary tension, miss articulation markings (slurs, staccato, shaping phrases, etc.), or are uncomfortable moving across the keyboard during the course of a given piece. I have given Book 2 to students of mine who completed early levels in other method book series but who, I noticed, did not have the same ease in their playing approach or attention to detail as my “Tales” students. In those cases, I combined or replaced their other books with “Tales” Book 2 and de-emphasized the built-in storyline, which continues from where Book 1 left off. I was delighted with the results. Book 2 is a go-to resource in my teaching.

By the end of Book 2, students are playing Late Elementary level pieces and are ready for their first classical repertoire. From here, I recommend any book of easiest classical piano literature or a choice anthology of Late Elementary repertoire, such as my recent personal favorite: the Celebration Series’ Preparatory A book.

Closing Comments

There is a learning curve when it comes to teaching with “Tales”. Teachers who are accustomed to the approach of typical American method books will need to learn to adjust the differences. In my experience, the investment is worthwhile. Learning how to use Irina’s “Tales” has opened my eyes to more effective learning sequences — particularly for piano technique — and made me a better teacher.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know that in recent years I’ve been quite interested in Music Learning Theory (MLT). Although Irina’s method was not intended to follow principles of MLT, my opinion is that her method allows more room for MLT melding than typical American methods do.

Even as an interminable experimenter with piano methods books, I have a feeling Irina’s “Tales of a Musical Journey” is bound to remain a core favorite of mine for years to come.

Learn:

If you are interested in learning from Irina’s approach, I recommend subscribing to her YouTube channel here. Secondly, if you have opportunity, I highly recommend attending her workshop for piano teachers. There is much to learn from Irina that is not covered in her books. This summer (2018), Irina is giving only one U.S. appearance due to being in such high demand in Asia this year. Registration information is here.

Here is a link to some printables I created after attending Irina’s workshop.

If you decide you’d like to try using Irina’s books with your students, you’ll be happy to see this Google Spreadsheet created to correlate pages from the books to related teaching videos from Irina’s channel. So helpful!

In addition, you’ll want to request to join the facebook book Irina administers to support teachers who are using her books. You can request to join here.

Purchase:

Tales of a Musical Journey is available on Irina’s site and on Amazon.com:

Purchase Book 1 directly from Irina’s site or at Amazon.

Purchase Book 2 directly from Irina’s site or at Amazon.

Browse her other materials, including a Guidebook for Teachers, Supplemental Kit containing props, the CDs of accompaniment tracks (I have these loaded on my iPad to use during lessons), a Christmas book, and more.

Thanks for reading my review! I hope you’ll consider checking out Irina’s “Tales of a Musical Journey”.

[Visit Review: Irina Gorin’s Tales of a Musical Journey to view the original blog post at Color In My Piano.]

from Color In My Piano https://colorinmypiano.com/2018/01/30/review-irina-gorins-tales-musical-journey/