#Fringe Research

[noctivagantpodcast]

Hello my ghosties, my ghoulies, and my moth people!!!

We here at Noctivagant Podcast are exactly ONE WEEK AWAY from our first anniversary livestream!!!

We'll discuss our favorite books so far, chat with you (our moth people), talk about the future of the show, and generally goof around on the Midnight Roads!

Join us at 8pm on July 21st:

[clairenatural]

I love watching bronlies make long posts calling reciprocated destiel a "fringe" theory that get less than 10 notes. yeah okay

[massvelocity42]

im writing a paper for school on breaking bad and need data so im asking if you could fill out this form! even if you havent seen the show your answers will still be valuable and also reblogs and sharing are highly appreciated! https://forms.gle/JwX5S1VLzJc3ARGf9

[popsicle-stick]

I don't know anything about England but I'm interested in how the characters' locations inform their characters like Seward's. I'd like to know more about the implications of being from Purfleet/Essex for example (Though iirc Stoker immigrated from Dublin well into adulthood so I don't know how well he knew all the cities.)

there's so much to be said! i really don't think that stoker meant much intentionally, but the placement of the asylum in purfleet specifically is interesting.

long post so i'm cutting this!

the asylum at purfleet, essex, is an example of the common 19th-early 20th century phenomenon of establishing psychiactric hospitals in the rural counties surrounding london - simultaneously serving as a 'tranquil' location away from the city, while also serving the dubious, cruel purpose of squirelling away would-be patients into residences away from the city - out of society, out of sight, out of mind.

in terms of jack seward himself, purfleet is a kind of an in-between, nothing place - things and people pass through, not much stays. (there's a reason why whitby is remembered as 'the dracula place', and not purfleet.) it's quite literally on the edge of london - of society - and in that scene where jack's looking despondently towards the sun setting west over london, his own isolation becomes palpable - from society and from the world as a whole. the endless, transient, liminal feel of the essex saltmarshes just....gives the vibe. this was a scene that felt particularly gothic to me - jack is the custodian of his very own haunted house, here, in all its bleak, isolated glory.

It was a shock to me to turn from the wonderful smoky beauty of a sunset over London, with its lurid lights and inky shadows and all the marvellous tints that come on foul clouds even as on foul water, and to realise all the grim sternness of my own cold stone building, with its wealth of breathing misery, and my own desolate heart to endure it all.

this is an fascinating parallel with the count's situation in transylvania, which is NOT the topic du jour here so i'll stop before i ramble but compelling nonetheless! like the count, though, he's a liminal figure - in london, but not quite in london. in the group, but not in the group. alive, but not really living. wide awake in the witching hour, unsure how to re-integrate with society.

it's also worth noting that the opening of dickens' great expectations has pip in his childhood home on the kent marshes - which would pretty much be the opposite bank of the thames from purfleet. in great expectations, pip's village serves a similar role - the quiet, bleak, nowhere-place directly placed against the bustling cosmopolis of london.

in terms of other characters and locations, i've written a bit before about jonathan (and mina possibly) hailing from exeter, devon, in the south west of england - which is much further from london.

jonathan and mina, in terms of the group dynamics, are outsiders: they're very much lower middle class, hyper-aware of the importance of money and societal etiquette as a means for survival and social betterment. this is a personal hc of mine, but i like to think of jonathan as having the long supressed remnants of a devon accent. south west accents are often the subject of a lot of ridicule and mockery in the UK (akin to a southern US accent) and hiding that regionalism, in both the 1890s and today's britain, would be a means of survival and progress for him - i think the fact that he's always given a standard home counties RP accent in adaptations cuts out a major aspect of his character. he's a devon boy!

in contrast to all this, lucy's hampstead residence shows her affluence. it, too, at risk of breaking my social isolation metaphor, was on the edge of london at the time - but was known more as a wealthy suburb with huge areas of greenery at hampstead heath and highgate. there's something to be said, though, about a place like highgate cemetery - a liminal place between the dead and the living, between city and country, haunted at night by a vampire - and the same could be said for purfleet.

arthur is hard to pin down - for the life of me i CANNOT work out where 'ring' is supposed to be - at first i thought it might be a shortening for ringwood, hampshire, which could work! but i just don't know. his character does scream privileged southern/home counties though, and if anyone has any followups on 'ring' and its wherabouts i would LOVE to know because this has been bugging me for ages. lmao

tl;dr, psychology and sociology as informed by place is SO fucking fascinating to me like it just. it affects so much. from the liminality of certain places lending themselves to the supernatural, to characters being mirrored by their surroundings and vice versa, to the social implications of where you call home. it's just!!! interesting!!

[sparkofthetelling]

the motto rn is repeating "it can't possibly be that hard" as I talk myself through trying to figure out how an entire repository of code I didn't write using a library noted for being hard to deal with for something I haven't talked to anyone about in a whole month like it's definitely that hard, why do I need to lie to myself

[oraeliaa]

Yummy vintage western shirt research <3

[ladyeidolons]

New hair, who this?

[richardgrimes]

if fringe can pretend the kresge building looks completely different than it does irl then i can too

[toothsalad]

today instagram’s algorithm just decided I’m in a toxic relationship???

[dangerously-human]

Was plagued by nightmares all last night, but because they were a blend of Fringe stuff I was thinking about before bed combined with stress dreams about these stupid data submissions for work, they felt terrifying in the moment but were objectively hilarious (and incredibly dumb) once I woke up. The main thing I remember is that the code I was writing for work - and yes, I could remember and see specific lines that had been giving me the dry heaves during the day - somehow came to life and got blended into yet another Olivia Dunham but Worse, because some evil genius was like "yeah let's make this woman suffer MORE, and more absurdly," and I'm pretty sure in at least one of the half-dozen escalating iterations of this dream, I had to kill evil sentient R script Olivia, so. There's probably a lot to unpack there, but my main takeaway was that I cannot WAIT to actually sleep like a real person this weekend.

[cat-eye-nebula]

“Headless Women” in Film & TV Marketing

“The trope of decapitating women and fragmenting them into sexual parts is systematic. Women's bodies are made equivalent in the consumer's mind to other desired objects: boats, cars, gadgets. This dehumanization of women in our own mainstream culture hides in plain sight. It informs young women about themselves before they have learned to think critically about who they are and what they want.”

The Tumblr project Headless Women of Hollywood purpose is to showcase the way movie posters tend to market films using women’s bodies—minus that crucial bit with the brain and face. This is a strange marketing trend film-goers might not notice until someone points it out. So far it’s more than 100 “headless women” TV and film posters, with more being added daily. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, American Beauty, Crazy, Stupid, Love, and Minions all have used headless women in their ad campaigns. (Full article)

[sciencefor2]

FRINGE and Science

Hi again!

Today I come to talk about science in series and recommend one I'm watching again by fate. There are hundreds of series whose main theme is science, but the one that marked my adolescence was FRINGE. But why?

Let's start at the beginning. Fringe was a controversial science fiction series that began in 2008 and ended more than a decade ago. It promised us the intrigue of The X-Files and the dynamics of Lost that J.J. Abrams was already getting us used to, and to be honest, I didn't give a damn about that pilot episode that leaked before premiere day. But it caught my attention enough to keep me watching, just out of curiosity. Every Tuesday, after the first season, it was Thursdays and finally moved to Fridays; I was stuck there with a lousy level of English, trying to understand what they were saying, and I got hooked on the series. My English level improved thanks to Fringe significantly, and I enjoyed the science and fiction that the series offered me.

Do you know what really caught my attention about Fringe?

In 2008 I started my studies in chemistry, and Fringe gave me that science portion within an alternative fictional reality. And the fact is that behind this series was a scientific team reading hundreds, thousands, millions of scientific articles to include scientific experiments and new ideas in the series and transport us to that new world created by Abrams. So when the episode was over, I typed in keywords to find the articles on which they were based or some news that I could distinguish fiction from reality. So little by little, I was introduced to the dynamics of the scientific method in my own way and created an idea of what I wanted to be as a chemist.

So if you want a series, albeit an old one, that teaches you the scientific method in its pure state, the ethics behind that mad scientist as co-protagonist, Fringe is the series for you.

Later, I will introduce more short reviews about series with more science than plot and talk more in-depth about a specific episode.

Have you seen Fringe? Did you like it? And can you tell the difference between real science and fiction? I read you.

Holiti de nuevo!

Hoy vengo a hablaros de ciencia en series y recomendaros una que estoy volviendo a ver por cosas del destino. Tengo que decir que hay cientos de series cuyo tema principal es la ciencia, pero la que me marcó mi adolescencia fue FRINGE. Pero, ¿por qué?

Comencemos por el principio. Fringe fue una serie polémica de ciencia ficción que comenzó en 2008 y terminó hace ya más de una década. Nos prometía la intriga de Expediente X y la dinámica de Lost a la que nos estaba acostumbrando ya J.J. Abrams, y siendo sincera no di un duro por aquel episodio piloto que se filtró antes del día del estreno. Pero me llamó lo suficiente la atención para que siguiera viéndola, solo por curiosidad. Cada martes, después de la primera temporada eran los jueves y finalmente pasó a los viernes, estaba ahí pegada con un nivel de inglés pésimo intentando comprender lo que decían y vaya que me enganché a la serie. Gracias a Fringe mi nivel de inglés mejoró muchísimo y disfrutaba de la ciencia y de la ficción que la serie me brindaba.

¿Sabéis lo que me llamó la atención de verdad de Fringe?

En 2008 comencé mis estudios en química y Fringe me daba esa ración de ciencia, dentro de una realidad alternativa de ficción. Y es que detrás de esta serie había un equipo científico leyendo cientos, miles, millones de artículos científicos para poder incluir experimentos científicos y nuevas ideas en la serie y nos transportara a esa nuevo mundo creado por Abrams. Cuando terminaba el capítulo, cogía y tecleaba palabras clave para encontrar los artículos en los que se habían basado o alguna noticia en la que pudiera distinguir la ficción de la realidad. Así poco a poco, me fui introduciendo en la dinámica del método científico a mi propia manera y creándome una idea de lo que quería ser en un futuro como química.

Por eso, si queréis una serie, aunque antigua, que os enseñe el método científico en su estado puro, la ética detrás de ese científico loco como co-protagonista, Fringe es la serie adecuada.

Más adelante, introduciré más short-reviews sobre series con más ciencia que argumento e incluso hablaré más en profundidad sobre algún capítulo en concreto.

¿Habéis visto Fringe? ¿Os gustó? ¿Sabríais diferenciar la ciencia real con la de ficción? Os leo.

[ranvwoop]

I love Seren actually. Wish i could draw him one day. here he is

[zillychu]

I’ve gotten a WAVE of asks about this AU, so I decided to flesh it out some more and answer some of those questions!

I’ll probably polish this extended summary up at some point and submit it to AO3. But for now, here’s a rundown of my thoughts–please feel free to send more questions! I’ll update this post if I get any more. But if you’re someone who wanted to write fic for it, don’t worry, you don’t need to take my headcanons as gospel. It’s a pretty basic AU honestly lol

Summary:

The portal accident results in a violent explosion that wipes out the whole block, and condemns all of Amity Park. Danny haunts the city for 100 years, before Sam and Tucker find him. 

Setup:

In the 1920’s, 19-year-old Danny went into the incomplete portal on his own, hoping to help out his parents. Ripping the portal open through unnatural means created a huge burst of energy that resulted in a massive explosion. A good portion of the Amity Park population died, many were injured, and the ones on the fringes relocated–Amity was quickly deemed too dangerous due to the excess ectoplasm in the area that attracted ghosts. 

While the disaster was in Amity, the fallout was seen around the globe. Before, natural portals were rare, short-lived, and rarely allowed ghosts to fully slip into our realm (the most severe cases being on par with poltergeists that most people didn’t believe in). Now, natural portals pop open frequently around the world, large enough to allow the entirety of a ghost into the physical plane. They’re more common the closer you get to Amity, but they happen enough elsewhere that this change was something of a small apocalypse before people settled back down and found out how to combat at least some of their new, permanent neighbors. 

Danny is unaware that he’s only half-dead, believing he’s a full ghost. He ends up sticking around Amity, unintentionally making it his haunt. His grief and guilt over causing the death of his loved ones (and many others) makes him isolate and avoid human contact. Though he has, at times, scared nosy people away from the city in a mix of territorial instinct–and to get them to leave before a less friendly ghost finds them. 

Ghosts are much more of an uncontested danger in this AU. Lesser ghosts are practically mindless, and while stronger ghosts are capable of reason, their interests are limited. They’re highly territorial, possessive, and often destructive. Most worrisome is that they also like to snack on the life force of anything alive. No one is sure what dictates a ghost’s propensity to attack or hunt the living for their life force since ghosts don’t exactly experience hunger. At least, not the way we do. If a human is rescued before their life force is fully drained, they can make a full recovery–though humanity has still not yet found what this “life force" is. 

And since the Fentons’ research died along with them, there aren’t many tools available to the public to protect them from ghosts. Most homes have standard ghost shields and some weapons are available on the market, but certified ghost hunters are required to take care of anything more powerful than your average spook. 

Sam and Tucker met in high school, and are now rooming together for college very close to the Amity border. Rent is surprisingly cheap when you’re a stone’s throw away from a condemned area crawling with ghosts. Sam is the one who drags Tucker along with her fascination over finding out more about the city, and its largely mysterious demise. Sam is aware of the danger, but feels ghosts have a place in this world just like everything else, and does exercise caution–like one would while foraging in the woods with a known tiger population. 

What she and Tucker weren’t expecting was to run into a ghost that felt almost human. One that hasn't hurt them, not for lack of trying–while being powerful enough to walk past ghost shields without so much as a flinch. The long white hair is familiar in the whispers of the ectobiologist community, but there’s no way it could be the rumored ghost king Phantom, right?

About Danny:

He has very long hair, claws, and black sclera. His hazmat suit is more torn and ragged, with exposed hands and feet that fade into a burnt black.

His hair tends to float a lot on its own. It can start morphing into fire under duress. 

He does still technically have gloves and boots, they've just charred and melted into his skin towards the ends. He can't take them off in his ghost form. His hands and feet have a leathery texture that's tougher than the rest of his skin.

The white of his hazmat suit is both supposed to look like flames, and also a battered look representing his more violent, explosive death.

Overall, he appears rather listless and sad, with an unnerving air of danger around him–even for a ghost. 

Danny’s “ghost sense” comes out as white smoke.

He does breathe black smoke at times, usually when agitated. 

He's already fought and defeated Pariah Dark by the time Sam and Tucker find him, technically making him the Ghost King. This is heavily speculated by ghost experts, despite there being no real proof beyond a massive battle that scarred Illinois. He has not donned the Ring or the Crown, and captured sentient ghosts are hesitant to answer questions surrounding him. Danny basically has the throne but doesn’t do anything with it, and finds it meaningless enough to routinely forget he has the title. He only fought Pariah because he knew otherwise, humanity would have perished. A lot of ghosts are scared of him because he's so hard to figure out, and he's strong. 

Danny is usually very quiet and speaks softly, because his lungs were damaged in the blaze that half-killed him. He's technically healed since becoming a ghost, so it's more of a compulsion due to the traumatic memory. That, and he’s just… very forlorn and distant, shy around humans who don’t seem to understand how dangerous it is to keep hanging around him.

His memories pre-accident are extremely fuzzy. He knows the very basics of who he was, but specifics have been muffled due to trauma and isolation. He routinely forgets human habits, etiquette, etc. and tends to act more like a full ghost with some odd quirks. 

He does try to scare Sam and Tucker off numerous times. Unfortunately for him, they realized they shouldn't have been able to escape a ghost that strong–but they did, because he let them. 

Sam and Tucker think he's mute at first! He doesn't speak a word to them until several encounters later, when he fumbles his whole scary act and saves them from another ghost. 

He’s still half-ghost, though he doesn’t figure this out until Sam and Tucker come along trying to unravel the mysteries behind the Amity catastrophe. Physically and emotionally, he’s been stuck for 100 years–so his human form is still 19. It’s unclear at this point if he can age normally like a human as long as he stays in human form, or if he’s immortal. 

Danny's family did not turn into ghosts, though he sometimes worries he'll find them in the afterlife as shells of their former selves. He doesn't know if it's better or worse that he's not sure he'd recognize them. 

(Danny also still has some living family. Take a guess.)

Yes, he knows how to Wail. Understandably, he very rarely uses it. You do not want to witness this.

Danny :) is not immune :) from the allure of eating a human's life force :)))

[plaguedocboi]

We all love the beach, right? I sure do. Where the sea meets the land is a magical place. It is the overlap of two very different worlds; our sunny, sandy, beautiful home and the alien waves that beckon you into the inhospitable wilderness of the ocean. When crossing that foam-fringed boundary, one must remember that you are no longer in your world. You are entering the sea, and the sea is vast and dark and dangerous. It is more untamed than the wildest jungle and full of creatures that can kill you in a hundred different gruesome ways. Every wave whispers to you that you do not belong here, you may only visit for a brief time if you want to leave with your life. Hold tight to the warm sunlit sand that fringes the barrier of this place, or you may never see it again. Welcome to the beach. Enter at your own risk.

1. Tamarama beach, Australia

This is know as both the smallest and the most dangerous beach in NSW. There is a permanent rip current that runs along the rocky northern shore, but at any given time there could be more hidden in the surf. Large waves break just a little ways offshore, posing a hazard to swimmers but an attraction for surfers. Although there are rarely deaths here, lifeguards have to rescue multiple people a day. Interestingly, this beach is only around sometimes! Occasionally all the sand will wash away and all that’s left is a rocky outcrop. There’s no way to be certain when the beach will come back or how big it will be or what it might look like. I guess it never gets boring to visit.

2. Isle of Ré, France

This island is not the only place you can go to see square waves, but it is one of the places most famous for this strange phenomenon. This is called a cross sea, and occurs when two opposing wave patterns intersect. Although this is certainly a tourist attraction, it is best to observe from a distance, as cross seas can be very dangerous to both ships and swimmers. Cross seas can cause powerful rip currents and walls of water up to 10 feet high, rolling ships and dragging people underwater. (As a side note, my mother thought I had made up cross seas as a freaky supernatural event in my book. Unfortunately, I did not.)

3. Dumas Beach, India

This is supposedly one of the most haunted places in India. Although this beach is full of tourists during the daytime, no one remains after dark, for fear that they will become the next ghost to wander the sand. Apparently, this beach was once used as a burial ground, and said to be black due to the human ashes mixed in. At night, people report hearing voices and seeing apparitions, and even dogs behave strangely once the sun goes down. There have also been multiple unexplained disappearances and at least one recorded death. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, there definitely seems to be something eerie happening on this beach.

4. Morecambe Bay, UK

This is an interesting one, as it’s not technically the water that’s dangerous. The ground is. This estuary features extreme tides, with the water level dropping and rising up to 32 feet twice a day. This exposes an expanse of mud flats and channels which are composed of loose, wet material that can absolutely suck you in and trap you. If this happens when the tide is coming in, it can quickly turn deadly. This has happened many times going back through history, including one incident in 2004 where 23 people died. Yes, all at the same time. No, I don’t want to delve into that incident too deeply in this list as it’s extremely horrifying and tragic. Feel free to research it yourself.

5. Monastery Beach, Oregon

This has earned its nickname “mortuary beach” by being extremely dangerous. Over 30 people have died here, including people who weren’t even in the water. In 2015, a woman walking along the beach was dragged in by a wave and drowned. The beach has multiple factors that make it so deadly, including a steep drop off, unpredictable waves, and strong undertows. This beach isn’t even safe to walk on. I um. Don’t like that.

6. Hanakapiai Beach, Hawaii

Despite its beauty, this Hawaiian beach is not recommended for swimming except for expert surfers. During the summer, this beach is a popular place for hiking, sunbathing and sightseeing, but during the winter the sand is washed away and the waves crash against the cliffs directly. Even in the relatively safe summer months, this beach has no barrier reef to break up the strong waves and powerful currents, which leads to a dangerous situation where swimmers can quickly be swept out into the open ocean and drown. At least 30 people have died here, and 15 of the bodies have never been recovered.

7. Lake Michigan. Just, all of it.

Despite all the Great Lakes being somewhat terrifying, Michigan takes the title of the most dangerous lake in the country. Yearly, Lake Michigan has more drownings than all four other Great Lakes combined. The reason that Michigan is especially hazardous is that, well, it’s kind of weirdly shaped. Thanks to its 300+ miles of uninterrupted parallel shorelines running north-south, it forms huge waves and strong riptides and long shore currents. It is also a question of numbers; Lake Michigan has more public beaches and large population centers than the other Great Lakes. All in all, a recipe for disaster.

8. Playa Zipolite, Mexico

This is also called the “beach of the dead”, so it’s inclusion on this list seems pretty self-explanatory. These waters have strong undercurrents that rotate in a circular pattern, either pushing you into shore or pulling you out to sea. There is a pervasive rumor that 50 people drown at this beach a year, although this is… somewhat exaggerated. In fact, very few people drown at this beach these days, as it has actually gotten less dangerous over the years. There used to be a steep drop-off that would catch people by surprise, but due to several severe storms in the early 2000s, the beach has eroded back and now gently slopes down instead. Although very few people die at this beach nowadays, multiple rescues are performed every day due to the dangerous currents.

9. Cyclops, Australia

This is a particular type of wave that forms off the coast of Esperance, Australia, as the sea floor rapidly goes from deep, open water to a very very shallow reef. It is… unsettling. The longer I look at it, the weirder it gets. It’s like an ai generated image. I couldn’t even pick one picture of it so I made you a collage.

It is considered one of the most dangerous surf spots in the world, and can only be accessed by boat. To quote pacific surf dot com, “the reason the wave is dangerous is because it does not act like any other wave in the world. It engulfs itself due to the massive change in the ocean floor when the wave rolls up.”

10. Nazare, Portugal

This area of Portugal is home to some of the biggest waves in the world. Just offshore is an underwater canyon, plunging down to 16,000 ft deep. This allows large, fast deep-water waves to move into shore unimpeded, and when they hit the shallows close to shore all the water gets suddenly pushed up, resulting in waves up to 80 ft tall. I think the picture speaks for itself in this case. Probably best to not get in the water if you see that shit.

That was fun, wasn’t it? Before I go, let me end this on a different note than the rest of my lists; some actual advice for if you should you ever decide to visit these beaches (or any beach, really). Rip currents are incredibly strong (believe me, I know) but very narrow currents that run perpendicular to shore. To get out of a rip current, swim parallel to shore. Trying to fight the current will just tire you out and eventually leave you exhausted and way the fuck out in the ocean, which is typically when you die. Swimming parallel to shore will get you out of the current, and once you’re free you can swim back in at your leisure. And, just in general, never fight the sea. The sea will win.

[flatstarcarcosa]

also a potential reben NF au would absolutely just mostly center around him and i and have very little else in transplanted lore because i don’t have time for all that