#but also we are addicted to seeing the most powerful and dangerous overlord in hell suffer

[forget-me-ghost]

All things considered, I'm glad that this fandom (despite fighting over everything) can agree that what we mandatory need is to see Alastor suffer more.

We all are just bullies who want that egotistical, prideful man to ugly sob. We want him to have more mental breakdowns, to second quess himself and struggle with emotions that he has been pushing away for over a century now.

Such an enjoyable collective to be around we are.

[fandoms-and-salt]

My thoughts on Hazbin Hotel's villains, because I think they have a problem

Valentino

Val is just. where do i even start.

His introductory scene is largely comedic and makes his freak-out over Angel just living somewhere else the butt of the joke. The same scene conveys that he is already losing control over Angel and can’t do anything about it, since Angel is ignoring his calls, and Vox convinces him that ignoring this blatant misstep is the better option. This is an okay scene (i even found it funny), but it’s a bad villain introduction. Especially a villain that we are meant to take seriously and, from the perspective of the main characters, fear.

(There’s also an inconsistency with Angel in ep1-2 feeling free to ignore Val’s calls and messages, but in ep4 he is stumbling all over himself to please Val)

His introduction had to be made from the point of view of one of his victims to set up a proper tone of menace to him, instead of making it from the point of view of his fellow overlords, who view him as a whiny dumb piss baby. This scene would be okay a lot later down the line, in my opinion, when we are already familiar with what a despicable dangerous asshole he is, and the characters (Angel Dust) begin to step up to him more. We see his facade crumble alongside the main characters to reveal who he truly is without all his power and control - a whiny sex-obsessed loser.

There's also an issue of us not really getting a scale of his power. This guy is portrayed as an extremely forward hot-tempered dumbass, who has to be verbally guided to make a better strategic move than a “just kill and rape everybody”. He freaking licks the princess of Hell, talks down to her like she is one of his porn actresses, and physically assaults a person under her care right in front of her, and she is supposed to be someone more powerful than him, and he should know that.

This guy can’t manipulate and strategize for his life, so to compensate for this (and make his rise to power more believable), he needs to have some truly impressive physical power. And tearing apart some character offscreen and wielding some guns doesn’t cut, bc basically everyone can do that in hell, what makes him special? Show off how his vaping powers can really fuck people up, poison dozens, hypnotize them, make them addicted to him! Make him so uniquely dangerous that he doesn’t even need to be smart and cordial to rise to power!! Otherwise, how the hell we should believe that he owns the whole porn industry of the Pride Ring, including legally owning his workers, if the show puts more focus on his stupidity and lack of tact than on whatever power he has?

Like he is meant to be our main antagonist and threat, alongside with his TV boyfriend, until the angels come back in the finale, don’t just waste them away on lame jokes.

Speaking of which.

Vox

I like Vox. I like his voice actor’s performance and the voice effects and filters that they give him to reflect his mood. I feel like he had a better introduction than Val (which is not a high bar to clear): it showed that he is pretty smart, strategic, and image-conscious. With this and his heavily implied power to hypnotize and stalk people through his tech, the fact that he is in power and the threat that he poses are much more believable.

Anyway, this gets completely wasted 10 minutes into the first episode he appears in, when he gets verbally floored by Alastor. And he cried about it right after. And later in the same episode we see him fail again at another one of his schemes, bc he chose the most incompetent spy ever. Once again, silly comedy shatters any kind of illusion of threat that the villains might pose. Which also leads me to..

Alastor

Who is not really a villain, and this is kind of a problem. He really could have been a great threat and an antagonist, but i really don’t believe they are going to go in that direction.

Alastor is a very OP character and is the one holding power and control in basically any interaction he is in, including the villains. And since he is an ally of Hazbin Hotel, whose goals (the details of which we are not aware of) partially align with theirs, he completely fucks over any kind of tension regarding anything that might threaten the Hotel or it’s residents. Because you can just throw Alastor at it and make it go away. Because the writers just can’t have him lose.

And we don’t have any reason to believe that he would just refuse to help, because so far? He does whatever Charlie or Vaggie ask him to do. He might be a smug dick about it, but he still does that. He even agrees to film a TV commercial (twice!) despite his vocal hate of such technology. Furthermore, he has to make a deal with Vaggie so they don’t have him do something like this again (granted, this scene might hold some additional implications in the future, but so far this is all the context we got). Why can’t he just refuse to do things that he doesn’t want to do?

Which they could have fixed if they made his power more limited. Either by reducing the scale of his power so he is at most on the same level as the villains,

OR have his presence and help be limited. Make that the characters often can’t access him for help or he just. refuses to help them. He even says that he is here to have fun and watch them suffer, so wouldn’t them struggling to, idk, get rid of Sir Pentious, for example, be entertaining for him? Or balance out his help with instances where he causes conflicts and problems on purpose. Beyond just him annoying Vaggie for comedy’s sake.

And if any of this is what they are actually going for, then you need to make it a point to the audience that yes, this guy is powerful, but don’t expect him to productively help with any of the narrative threats and problems.

And lastly,

Adam and the angels

I don’t like Adam. He is annoying as hell and his jokes are drawn out and not funny at all. The logistics of him being an angel when he is Adam and when he acts like this, give me a massive headache that is related to a whole other topic i’ll need to make a separate post about.

Despite all this, Alex Brightman is doing a great job selling how utterly insufferable he is. His song is also pretty good, one of the more memorable ones in the show. And he (and the angels by extension) is also the most menacing and competent villain on the show so far. ...Do you see my predicament here?

Granted, this is not a very high bar to clear, as established with. the other ones. For example, in contrast to the pilot, we are only told about how dangerous and deadly the exterminator-angels are. “[Sinners] never managed to kill one of us [angels]” “In the latest extermination, [angels] killed the highest 18% percent of our [sinner] population” etc etc. We don’t see the angels killing anybody on screen, we barely see the aftermath of the extermination.

What we do see is the panic and helplessness with which most of the hell population treat the exterminations, including Charlie. We see Charlie struggling to convince Adam of her plan, barely able to talk back to him, which sells Adam as the more powerful in the interaction. We see Adam not showing all his cards to Charlie, like the fact they are planning to completely wipe out the whole Hell/Pride Ring, showing that he is not completely stupid despite his whole deal (well, there’s implied to be some kind of plan here, but i’ll talk about my problem with the logic in another post).

Otherwise, we don’t have anyone else to compare with him, since Charlie is the only one who interacts with angels on-screen. But all of this so far gives a suitable illusion of how dangerous and powerful the angels are. But what will happen if angels are faced with our all powerful Tumblr Sexyman Mary Sue? Will the universe let Alastor lose and then collapse in on itself? Or the other obvious option?

Anyway, in conclusion, Hazbin’s villains are not very good so far. Their main problems are the fact that the writers can't properly establish their threat and lever of power, or they undercut this with unsuitable comedy. Also, they don't know how to use their OP main character, so they won't ruin the stakes of the story.

[warsofasoiaf]

Character Analysis: Jon Irenicus

Irenicus is a fun villain, and I think nailed one interesting element of writing down, that of bringing down the villain’s threat in an interesting and believable way. The hero typically grows in power in any story, not just in a game where your progression is literally your XP, but what the villain does, how they grow, is also interesting. If the villain is more powerful than the hero, and also does things to grow and learn, theoretically the villain should still be wrecking house. BG2 wove this into the story itself, where the more you learned about Irenicus, the less menacing he became, culminating into where he was arguably your lesser at the end: he was powerful but only aping what you were. 

Obviously, spoilers for BG2 abound.

Baldur’s Gate II introduces us to our villain almost as a cold open. Fresh off the high of defeating Sarevok, you leave Baldur’s Gate after being pressured to leave by “dark forces” and by those who suspected that you shared similar heritage to Sarevok. Seems a bit odd, honestly, to oust the Bhaalspawn with suspicion given that during the course of Baldur’s Gate I, you saved two of the Grand Dukes. It’s certainly understandable that folks would fear your heritage and you’d want to move on to greener pastures, but something more than a 3-minute cut scene would have probably set the scene better.

However, this opening, and the ‘cutscene’ that follows gives Irenicus a grand initial reveal to the player. This guy is an ultra-powerful wizard, and he speaks with a clinical detachment as he states: “It’s time for more experiments.” It’s a wonderful opening to illustrate exactly what you’re dealing with. He’s clearly interested in your godly soul, and exploiting it to some unknown purpose. What is unknown, as he gets called away by some unspecified intruders by a golem. In the next scene, magical traps are set off as an unspecified Shadow Thief gets disintegrated. Story-wise, this serves no purpose, it’s purely meant to be a way to show off the new spell effects and other cosmetic changes to the engine from Baldur’s Gate II, with the disintegration dust and the screen shaking. But it does help illustrate the power level that Irenicus is throwing around. Save-or-die spells were relatively rare in the lower level of Baldur’s Gate I, even Semaj, Sarevok’s mage companion, wasn’t firing off disintegration willy-nilly. Throwing around disintegration spells clearly shows that Irenicus is a new high-level baddy. Later we see that he killed characters from Baldur’s Gate I off-screen, Khalid and Dynahier, two of the three sets of paired companions from BG1. This gives their partners reason to join in with the player character, but it also serves to show his power; Irenicus is such a bad dude that he can wipe your party before the game starts, like he was getting coffee. It might be a cruel cut, but that’s its intent, to make the player character mad at the villain, to want to punch his smarmy face in.

Commensurate in the danger of Irenicus is the need to find out what’s going on. Irenicus clearly knows something about your godly soul and so you want to find out what he knows. Even for an upstanding lawful good character, growing in power means finding a way to effect good on a larger scale, and perhaps to overcome the evil in your tainted blood. After all, no matter how good you were in Baldur’s Gate I, you still were an incredibly powerful killer. Sure, most if not all of them were bad dudes, Mulahey the iron ore poisoner, the bandits of Cloakwood, the Iron Throne and their plans to take over the Sword Coast. But chaos and destruction follow in your wake, and that chaos undoubtedly would hurt innocent civilians; Saradush in Throne of Bhaal is clear of that enough. Even just knowing more about what is going on could better prepare you for the next Irenicus or the next Sarevok.

When you go through the starter dungeon (another piece of game design, you are being tutorialized but the pastoral instruction of Candlekeep makes no sense for someone who already had an adventure), pieces of the man start to fall into place. He holds a bunch of captive dryads as concubines to remind him of someone he lost. He keeps an immaculate bedroom for a companion that is never there, with an alarm ready to dispatch the golems to kill any who cross the threshold. There’s a woman that was in his life that is no longer there, and the loss pains him, or at least, it seems that it should. Chatter with Imoen and the dryads show that this mystery man is trying to elicit feelings that he had lost, and that’s an entirely different case of worms than pining over a lost love. There’s some element of almost-unwilling psychopathy to these actions. Other hints in this dungeon illustrate this as well. His servants, discarded in vats and forgotten about entirely, would at first evoke classical evil overlords casually disregarding their own subjects. He’s almost all of the way there, but there’s enough there that the player is suggested that there has to be something more to it than that. He does seem to have some sort of sociopathy to him, where people are objects that he can find fascinating but he has no empathy. We see this later with Wanev, who Irenicus spares solely because he was hit by a spell that left him a lunatic, which Irenicus found funny, the administrator of a jail for the insane now rendered an insane patient himself.

He is powerful though, that much is clear when you break out of the starter dungeon. His display of magic collapsed part of Waukeen’s Promenade, and when the regulatory magical body of the Cowled Wizards comes to shut it down, Irenicus is capable of swatting mages like they were mosquitos. Just like the Shadow Thieves that he had been fighting, Irenicus seems more annoyed at the interruptions than any physical threat posed by his myriad foes. He’s definitely a powerful wizard, and when he finally submits to the Cowled Wizards, he does so clearly as their superior, dragging Imoen along with him. It’s fairly plain from a game design perspective what Irenicus is doing; he’s going to Spellhold so you have to get there. Good characters want to rescue Imoen, evil characters want to interrogate him to unlock the power in your blood. Either way, the player character is given a goal, and Irenicus disappears physically from the story for the moment.

He isn’t absent though. In your dreams, Jon Irenicus waxes philosophical at the player character, evoking thought-provoking questions. He explains the paradox of your existence of being born of murder, given life from the act of taking life. He speaks about accepting the gifts that will be given to you, regardless of whether or not you want them. These dream sequences are clear upgrades in quality and presentation from the spoken-dialogue text boxes from the first game after you beat major milestones. David Warner does a great job here in delivering Irenicus’s lines, he feels like a evil mentor speaking about philosophical topics with the same detachment that he tortured the player character with in the opening. While we find out later that these dreams aren’t sendings from Irenicus but rather parts of your character’s godly subconscious, they suggest to the player going through Chapter 3 that Irenicus does indeed know a hell of a lot more about you and your godly blood, keeping the player interesting in finding out exactly what it is you need to find out. The other quests in Chapter Three don’t have much to do with Irenicus, aside from some random events with the guild war in Athkatla at night, where the player will find out pretty quick that one side is powered by vampires, the level drain and click-dialogue of “your blood is rather inviting” isn’t exactly hiding that there be vampires engaged in a secret war with the Shadow Thieves. Even then, it’s tangential. You knew the Shadow Thieves were attacking Irenicus, which suggests at least some level of camaraderie with the vampires, but as we saw with the deep dwarves in Irenicus’s lair, he doesn’t care about followers, and they might simply be disposable assets if anything at all. If you want to know about Irenicus, you’re going to have to get it from the man himself. 

Of course, as befits a high-level mage, Irenicus breaks out of the prison in a cutscene, kills the Cowled Wizards and goes back to whatever unsavory plans he thought up for Imoen, teleporting into the lobby and chewing the scenery with his “I CANNOT BE CAGED!” speech, reinforcing his position as the central big bad and confirming the Cowled Wizards as mere obstacles. This part of his plan has been made clear. Far from the meddling Shadow Thieves and Cowled Wizards, Irenicus can continue his experiments on Imoen in Spellhold, and it falls on the player character to go there and end it. Irenicus, of course, knows this too, and he makes sure he has contingency plans to deliver you to him. I’m of three minds on this. On one, he’s so powerful it seems that he is so powerful, and Amn so large, that plenty of these isolated areas within the continent would service just as well for Irenicus’s lair. Why waste time with all of this blah-blah-blah and just take what he wants? It’s not like teleport spells are beyond his ken. On the other hand, it’s a good way to break up into the freeform quest design that Chapter Three gives, offers the chance for your characters to level up and get cool gear, lets you rock the stronghold quests which definitely let you feel your class and increase replay value, and the idea of the forbidding wizard in the island lair is an excellent backdrop. On the third, it’s in-character for an immortal mage to have plans within plans, even to the point of complexity addiction, although his conduct afterward sort of torpedoes this idea. 

That is, after he recaptures you, he immediately goes back to work to his experiments, and after another trippy dream sequence with Imoen, you find his plan. His goal is to absorb your divine soul, taking it for his own. He doesn’t explain anything more, but now that he has you, he discards you just as he has so many others. Telling his sister Bodhi to dispose of you is what keeps him from being someone like the Riddler, since he’s actually going for a proper smart villain play and killing the soulless husk he leaves behind just in case he pulls a protagonist move and comes clawing back for his stolen soul. It’s Bodhi’s instability, her desire to hunt you brought on by her vampirism, that keeps you alive. After the player character becomes the Slayer, Bodhi tells Irenicus, but true to his condescending nature, he simply...ignores the PC, writing them off as someone who is going to keel over any second due to their lack of soul, completely oblivious to the fact that Bhaal’s avatar was the Slayer, and it’s clear that something is replacing the void that he left within you. The PC must effectively turn that dismissiveness against him, by releasing the imprisoned mages within Spellhold, from the powerful but mostly harmless Dili to the megalomaniacal Tiax. Yet this hard-fought battle does not end with Irenicus’s death and your victory, instead Irenicus goes to pursue his other, as-yet unknown goals while he sends another band of cutthroats to die at your hand. 

Yoshimo is sort of my feelings on this Irenicus’s Spellhold plot writ small. As powerful as Irenicus is, he really doesn’t need Yoshimo, not if he has Sarmon Havarian and so many others. Yoshimo shows up in the starter dungeon, and is useful if a bit obsequious in a “who me?” sort of fashion. He doesn’t have a really good reason to stay with the party from a story reason that he gives you. He could have said: “Hey, thanks for getting me out. Deuces!” Yoshimo’s geas gets him to want to stay with the party, otherwise he’s dead. In that sense, it makes sense for him to want to be with the group. And as the only thief who gains levels aside from the absolutely annoying Jan Jansen, he’s useful for dealing with annoying traps, because reloading a game because your main PC tripped a trap and got petrified is certainly frustrating. Game mechanics though, interfere with this. You as the player character have control over the six-person party and if you want Yoshimo to be there, he’ll be there, and if you don’t, he’ll sit in the Copper Coronet, geas be damned. He’ll stand right there until you go back in after the Underdark chapter, in which case he flops over dead and hardly anyone cares. That’s a system engine limitation certainly, but it’s remarkably clumsy. What is good though, is Yoshimo’s regret during this. He knows he has to betray you and is forced to do so, and he genuinely likes you. The writing that happens is crisp, Yoshimo truly does apologize and Irenicus backs up his dismissive assholery by telling him to shut up. When Yoshimo confronts you in Spellhold, his writing is crisp. “No redemption, and no second chances. My heart to Ilmater.” He fights you and goes down swinging (which was annoying the first time I played because he had the Celestial Fury +3). And you can actually take that heart to Ilmater, occupying a valuable inventory space through the next chapters until you can reach Waukeen’s Promenade again, where you can choose to forgive him or not, but give the heart to Ilmater either way. It would have been saccharine to restore Yoshimo, but this way, I feel, is more powerful in a world with such powerful enchantments to see the effects on the people whose lives it ruins. So the game can be clunky at parts, and Irenicus can be as well, but there’s true craft and joy in it.

Back to Irenicus though, we get the sense of more to him when we see the intro splash screen for the next Chapter. Making a dark bargain with the drow, we see that they have captured surface elves, one of whom immediately refers to Irenicus as Joneleth, suggesting a backstory far deeper as Irenicus immediately resorts to killing the prisoner after being the one to suggest interrogation instead of immediate execution, a lashing out that seems out of character for the clinically-detached evil villain we’ve been coming to know. The backstory is clear in the Forgotten Realms, the dark elves and surface elves are mortal foes and anyone who is known to the surface elves to ally with the dark elves is a great betrayal. As the PC goes through the Underdark and comes out, they are captured by the surface elves. Through a conversation with Eldoth, it can become evident that the surface elves know more than they are letting on, such as when they are the ones who suggest holy water and stakes to fight Bodhi, despite not knowing anything about either one of them. After you slay Bodhi and restore Imoen’s soul to its rightful place, you can call Eldoth out on it. Irenicus is “the Shattered One,” an exile of the elves, and it’s here that Irenicus’s story becomes apparent.

Irenicus was a powerful wizard and lover of Queen Ellesime named Joneleth. Yet in his heart, Joneleth yearned for more power and sought to take the essence of the Tree of Life, the lifeblood of the city of Suldanesselar, for himself and Bodhi. This dark ritual nearly killed many that existed within Suldanesselar, and so Joneleth and Bodhi were punished, stripping their elven nature and immortality away from them, leaving them with a mortal lifespan, thus Joneleth became Jon Irenicus, the Shattered One. Bodhi sought to become a vampire to transgress the mortal years she had, but Jon had felt that it degraded her to that of a high-functioning beast. Irenicus’s scheme was far more grandiose if also possessing an elegant simplicity: he lost an immortal soul and so he needed to take one for himself. The Bhaalspawn was the perfect choice, powerful enough to defeat Sarevok and awaken the power within, weak enough to be captured and have the divine soul snatched away. With his stolen soul freshly acquired, Irenicus now looked to the second part of himself, to revenge himself on the elves. The dark elf invasion ultimately failed, helped out by the PC butchering the leadership of Ust Natha, but Irenicus is still going with golems and summoned demons to destroy the city, usurp the power of the Tree of Life, and complete his long ago schemes. 

I... I do not remember your love, Ellesime. I have tried. I have tried to recreate it, to spark it anew in my memory, but it is gone... a hollow, dead thing. For years, I clung to the memory of it. Then the memory of the memory. And then nothing. The Seldarine took that from me, too. I look upon you and feel nothing. I remember nothing but you turning your back on me, along with all the others. Once my thirst for power was everything. And now I hunger only for revenge. And I... WILL... HAVE IT!!

When confronted by Queen Ellesime, she even asks if there was any part of him that remembered the love he had for her, and the PC sees that it’s her that was in his mind for the beautiful bedroom way back in chapter one. It was almost certainly her that Irenicus thought of when he was with his dryad concubines. And when she poses that question, he answers with the above quote, that he feels nothing. While it seems like this is a loss of depth, that he’s just a flat character, I don’t think this is the case. Irenicus had the chance to change, for self-reflection. Instead, he remembers it as all the others turning their back on him, without any recognition that his schemes nearly killed them. It’s the classic abuser mentality, how dare you make me do these things to you. When his victims tried to defend themselves, he lashed out and remembers only their ‘cruelty’ to him. It’s this that makes Irenicus, for all his great arcane might, so small. Where before he was this intimidating figure, now he’s a petty man, and fittingly, it’s here that you can kill him. Temporarily, at least, because there’s still one more dungeon. Irenicus and you are still battling for your divine soul, and after a few self-reflective quests of your own, you duel Irenicus, who dies pitiably, torn to shreds by demons as his power fails him. It fits the heroic and thematic heft of the arc. As you grow in power, Irenicus diminishes in threat. He was your torturer, an inhuman menace, then he became just a man, torn apart by tiny demons that you probably could take down by the truckload. 

There’s good things to learn here. Irenicus isn’t a super-unique villain, although some of the villain tropes are personalized for the sake of the Baldur’s Gate story specifics. But he does his job admirably. David Warner’s voice work, and the special effects (pretty good for when the game came out in 2000) really was able to sell Irenicus as an enjoyable villain. 

Thanks for the suggestions, Anons who were looking forward to this.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[chinesegal]

Hazbin Hotel criticism I disagree with

I dont agree with the point that Hazbin Hotel is a bad depiction of hell because it isnt shown to be a bad place to live and sinners dont get real comeuppance for their actions.

Hazbin Hotel hell is obviously filled with lawlessness and violent crime, like real impoverished cities and communities. We see imps try to rob Stolas despite him being an overlord, were it not for his powers or bodyguards he would have been seriously hurt. The mascot in “Loo Loo land” says “if you get hurt, just try to sue us”, implying that lots of people get injured in their rides, but the theme park would never get sued. 

Overlords like Val and Alastor have incredible power and are feared by most, but they are the exception, not the rule. Most sinners/demons live in danger of being beat up and taken advantage of by stronger and more powerful people, like Angel Dust and the sheep girl.

Some also say that Hazbin Hotel’s comedy fails at being “dark” because it doesnt show consequences for bad actions.

Someone made a point of why Alastor doesnt get any comeuppance for his actions since he’s so evil, why dont we see him get hurt in the pilot? My answer is that he’s made up to be this charismatic media-man and a powerful threat. Showing him made fun of would ruin his mystery. The fans would see him as a joke rather than powerful, threatening demon lord he’s supposed to be.

@honesthazbinarchives I feel like tagging you here, because I wrote this in response to one of your posts, and because I want to tell you about why I disagree.  Hazbin Hotel shows people like Angel Dust suffering, he is being abused by Val who in my eyes definetely isn’t romanticized, because Addict definetely does not show Val’s abuse of Angel in a positive light, no matter how many instagram images and merch there are of him. 

You said that Hazbin fails at showing negative actions have consequences. I feel like an adult cartoon shouldnt have to spoonfeed morals to the audience, adults are supposed to already know right from wrong. 

[malreginamills]

My Take OUAT Villains Part 1

Regina - An intimidating personality with softer side and capability of empathy and selflessness . She was a fine mom before Henry started to see that she was a mean boss of the town . Then she became more strict with him BUT when fairytale stuff came to play , she became a  bad parent and she almost became her mom when her magic returned before she realised that she has done too much evil  .  He was not a good son either . As EQ , she was a  feared villain with max body count ONSCREEN not OFFSCREEN . I assume that there may be only few who outdid her .  She has a life full of crap and is a pawn of others all the time before she  came back to being a hero . She is a better hero than Emma and as good as Snowing .  She is only villain who used to be a hero .Regina as a hero is even more dangerous adversary than EQ . Unlike other villains , she and Rumple did true to resist temptation for evil  until Rumple himself made things worse . As a villain , she is delusional . She is  the most scary of them all but there can be villains as bad as her or WORSE  . She has crossed many lines BUT if there are some lines she won’t cross . I doubt she would like to have a child with David to piss Snow .

Rumple - A complicated guy whose favorite passtime is creating villains out of his students . He was a coward BUT he was also a father . He is incredibly selfish and makes big plans  when he can achieve his goal by smaller plans as well , a trait also seen in his students . He was a teacher of Regina for a longer time and made sure of the fact that she became a monster . WEmmaonce said about WRumple that he may be razing villages so , it is safe to say WRumple did stuff like that in the past since I doubt he would be razing villages in lockup  for 30 years . If WRumple did that so , it means real Rumple also did it . I doubt Rumple raped people BUT he  tricked them  . I think he stopped mass murder when  Belle was around but continued with being a trickster  and mastermind . He was relatively saner than Regina sometimes since he used brains more than she did as a villain . As a hero Regina was the saner one .  I think that Charmings were too nice to him in S2 and too mean to Regina in S2 . In S4 , they were really nasty to him BUT they were not heroes nor villains that season . He became likeable in S6B AND S7 . He did have lesser pain than Regina since spinsters were actually  nice guardians  to him and he was not always that much troubled  and tortured

Cora- Deliciously evil woman who cares for her daughter BUT her morals warped with Rumple's shadiness is what  is really what turned Regina evil . She made her daughter's life way worse than hers and Rumple's . She scared the hell out of me BUT I was sad when she died . UW Cora was more likeable .  I remember her as a redeemed villain than a hero.  She was more cunning than Regina and as cunning than Rumple . If she lived longer than Rumple , she would have been worse .  Also S3 shows her daughter Regina as her own antihesis .  She is literally heartless and sees love as weakness . Voldemort anyone ?

Hook - He was fine in S2 and WHook was likeable in S7 BUT from S3-7 , org Hook was all about Emma and CS . He lived longer than Regina , Cora and Zelena so , he should be as bad or worse BUT they whitewashed him SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH that even Snow's half heart had more darkness than that in S3 and in S6 . He himself talked about destroying villages in his song  and it shows that he is as bad as the Mills ladies . He likely was into rape and he had many one night stands that even Regina would be aghast .  Also his revenge is not justified or reasonable and it makes Cora look justified in hating Eva and Regina reasonable for hating Snow. It was he who separated Rumple and Milah and then in S5-6 he acted that Rumple was worse . Regina had really good reason to loathe Rumple  yet it never looked like that she was in mood to dance on his grave since she believed that life is precious .  He was also a homewrecker .  I think that he is worse than Rumple and can be as bad as Cora . His DO self showed us his true evilness . At least Regina would be trying to restrain herself from all that  DOness .   He did not take time to become a  full fledged villain as compared to Regina , Cora  and  Rumple .  It took him seconds to do that .  He was definitely done dirty in later seasons . I still love HOOK’ s past self more . 

Greg and Tamara - WHY ? They are foreigners  . They do not make sense to me  . Other villains have done way more evil  than they can dream of though they were almost  about to commit mass murder  BUT they are delusional .

Pan - IDK how many he killed, how much evil he did  BUT apparently , he  must have done a lot of that . Even Hook finds him demonaic and treacherous (although he did the same for Rumple ) . He was more twisted than all the others  mentioned before .  He utterly lacks any decency . He seems to be vain , self seeking  , power hungry  , immortality loving , uncaring , callous person  . If he succeeded , even Cora and Hook would  look  tame and humane .He is a  narcissist . Its like Disney Mother Gothel , Disney Ursula and our  Rumple together as one person . He was not only an evil power seeking overlord like Rumple and Cora but also he  was sick  and awful . He was both terrifying and terrible .  It was the best  culmination of fairytale evil with real life evil .

 Zelena - She makes me like Pan sometimes . At least Pan , Cora , Regina , Rumple and Hook did not start the system of brands . According to her  villainy needs to be branded like footwear and clothes . She  is  awfully competitive. In fandom she aroused a need of debating on who is more powerful . Every time she boasts  about being more powerful , she needs to be punched on her face . OMG Regina literally did that .  She branded herself as wicked and branded her sister as evil . She  does not terrify me BUT she is perhaps the most devious one of all . For someone who has undergone pain , she sounds like a spoilt brat  who whines like all the time . Everytime Regina is tired of her life problems , it looks like that she is in pain . In S2  Regina did a lot of whinning BUT she did not sound like this  sick brat . Regina did seem like someone who has undergone a lot of crap  .  I think that Zelena as a spoilt princess of Oz who was pissed about her true heritage  and ditched her adoptive family and killed them would make more sense and would do justice to her S3-5A personality . In 5B-7 , her softer side was apparently a bit forced and so was her new relationship with Regina but it was more true to her backstory  and her S3-5A self BUT it was like having Regina in earlier seasons back sometimes .  Her  WWW wardrobe should beas good as EQ’s . She should also have more hairstyles as WWW . I think that Zelena is also arrogant and narcissistic as compared to anyone else . She is incredibly self obsessed .   Regina was a mass murderer and rapist  . Rumple was self serving , selfish and power hungry  magic addict . Hook was a s*x addict  and a mass murderer   . Cora was a power loving mass murderer and a heartless .  Pan was relatively less self obsessed .  Quite many seem to come from a sadder place BUT she looks life she came from a posh life . Even young Snow and young Eva were not that bratty even though they are actual brats . Her rape of Robin to have a child with him to piss Regina shows how twisted she is . She also feels like an awkward addition since   she has never said the iconic villainous line , “LOVE IS WEAKNESS .”  She tries to outdo REGINA so , she must have tried to be more evil  and she must have killed even more since she is like Regina killed 1 guy , I would kill 10 . 

Ingrid - A short term villain but she was basically another Regina . She was also xenophobic towards muggles due to her bad experiences but later , she came to her senses . She was an unintentional succcessful attempt at making another  EQ and Cora . I wish she stayed longer . We also got a dark Elsa . Her subtelty  was awesome  . She was basically my fav beside Rumple , Regina and Cora .  I still wish if Regina was one of the people she wanted as a sister along with Emma since I do not want  Emma to be left behind either . She is way better than Zelena . I think she should be nicer to memory of Helga at least . 

Maleficent - We heard things about her more than we actually saw her do stuff .  Since Regina has more  some traits of Org Maleficent than her .  Kristen did a fine job with her and did make her scary in the way Mitchel made Ingrid scary . BUT I never saw her interrupting gatherings . Regina did that one .  I never saw her  plotting and being cruel . I never got the mistress of Evil . I never saw the woman she really was  when it came to Briar Rose. What was her foul temper like ? She was redeemed quickly .  I think I was better off with one redeemed Maleficent and now there were 2 of them  .  I wanted her evil at larger scale .  Maleficent did show some wickedness in S4 and it was awesome  BUT I think I preferred REGINA , CORA , HOOK , RUMPLE  , INGRID and even ZELENA level villainy  . Maleficent , these are the experts  .   Maleficent was  more a victim than a villain . Most of others were both . She may be a fine chracter BUT she was a poor villain . 

Ursula - Don’t ask . She hardly came in before she went away . 

Cruella- This is a good villain . Only born EVIL person besides Pan before 6*19 came up . She is better than Zelena and Maleficent  combined . I would love to see Cruella at her worst . I think this character demanded to be explored more .  She does not have standards at all . She tries her best to be the evilest  and can succeed . No wonder Issac had to stop her .  We can only imagine that her villainy would be the worst of worst . 

Issac - He is soo sick and awful . Can’t say anything more . He is rebirth of Greg and Tamara who are just meh . 

Dark Swan - What is this monstrosity ? I would prefer Zelena  and Maleficent over this . Apparently , I think “Black Swan” would be better  than what this name is  . And also , we all hoped that Emma would dabble into some Cora , Rumple , Regina , Past HOOK and Ingrid level EVIL and have a maniacal laugh .  We may have had EQ back . It would be good to see Snowing’s faces when Emma becomes New EQ . We wanted mental issues , rage problems , broken heart , betrayal problems , trust issues , past issues  driving her mad . Trying to convince WickedGoldenHookedQueen to join her in her delicious rampage with only Zelena joining her . Zelena the brat and Black Swan a psycho  teaming up  . BUT instead we got an unhealthily obsessed woman who got Robin Hood killed unintentionally . SHE MADE DARK HOOK .  She caused mayhem in Camelot and Storybrooke just because of Hook ? If it was really her , she would have let Hook die instead of making him DO .And after she stops being Dark Swan ,she drags her family to UW ? What is this ? High level character assasination . OH WAIT , Emma’s potential for darkness , her capacity to be Evil lies with Lily . Why they made her Darknessless . It makes sense that she is not that evil  . I think this should be resolved .  In my headcannon , she got the potential for evil back when she was sent to WR since In WR Cruella never left  so ,  WR Maleficent never lost Lily so , WR Emma still has darkness . If they continuede , we could have had Evil Emma back . For now , Dark Swan is terrible , not terrifying . I find her name Emma ironical now since she is not whole .

[undeath1245]

Predictions/headcanon for Hazbin Hotel

Here are my predictions and headcanon for what’s to happen next in the show.

The next episode would most likely introduce Baxter, Mimzy, and Crymimi. Since the staff consists of Charlie, Vaggie, Alastor, Niffty, and Husk, and their only guest so far is Angel, I believe the the new three characters ought to be guests as well. Now the question is: how did they get invited to the hotel? My best guest is that Alastor might have summoned them over there like what he did with Niffty and Husk. He also probably threatened their existence if they don’t cooperate and stay in the hotel. Either that, or he used his charm to lure them into the hotel.

From what I’ve seen with a few fanart, one of the show’s conflicts ought to be the protests against Hazbin Hotel. The protesters would use extreme, lethal force to get the hotel shut down by any means, most likely out of sheer annoyance from Charlie’s song or out of pure spite. I believe that Katie Killjoy would endorse these protests, even starting a smear campaign against the hotel, once again, out of pure spite. And speaking of Killjoy, I think she’ll start off as a lesser villain before building her way up into a bigger threat. Despite her wealth and status, I believe she’s somewhat of a flunky compared to her superior, of whom I believe to be Vox. I also believe her to be somewhat of a name dropper, always bragging on and on about her meet-ups with Pentagram’s dangerous overlords, which leads to my theory about her becoming an overlord later on in the show.

Valentino would serve as the main antagonist of season one. I assume that the first conflict would be him calling Angel and demanding him to come back to the studio. He’d probably attempt to manipulate Angel by telling lies about Charlie, telling him that she only cares about the hotel and her theory about possible redemption for sinners rather than the sinners themselves. Later on, probably in the season finale, Valentino would confront Charlie face-to-face and get his Angel back. He’d try to talk her down, saying something about her using Angel for her own benefit, the hotel. Or, saying that she is weak, commenting about how her father is right about her; cue Charlie going apeshit on Valentino.

Angel Dust would be pressured into going back to the wrong side of the tracks, meaning leaving the hotel and embracing his toxic self even more. I believe he would be pressured by Cherri Bomb first, considering their friendship and a potential “it’s-either-them-or-me” conflict. Later throughout season one, he’d be manipulated by Valentino to return back to the studio, as stated earlier. At first, Valentino would lie to him that Charlie and Vaggie are using him to benefit the hotel. But later on, I believe Valentino would use Angel’s drug addiction against him. This would prompt Charlie and Vaggie to go and rescue Angel from the pimp’s clutches, ergo beginning the Valentino–Hotel situation. Afterwards, I assume, he would eventually warm up to the hotel, including getting along with Vaggie; I like their dynamic.

I believe by the end of the season, there’s gonna be new additions to the Hazbin crew, namely Cherri Bomb, Sir Pentious, and Tom Trench. The former two: well, it’s pretty obvious that they’ll join the crew soon. Plus, I want more Angel and Cherry moments, including them annoying the shit outta Sir Pentious. In Tom’s case, however, I assume that he’ll be fed up with working with Killjoy that he’ll finally stand up to her, probably fight her, and join the hotel. Adding to this, I believe he’s somewhat of an almighty janitor, appearing as a butt monkey at first before immediately showing off his soldier-like prowess, considering that he served in WWI and died in the battlefield.

During season two, if there’s going to be a season two, Charlie would have to learn to use her long-untapped demonic powers to protect her hotel after the Valentino fiasco. We would see a reason why she never ever uses her powers, of which I predict her powers are nigh-apocalyptic, capable of wiping away a chunk of Hell itself or erasing millions of souls. I also believe we might see her character development backwards, similar to that of Rose Quartz from Steven Universe. I assume she started off as a happier demon princess before gradually evolving into an angry, pessimistic, depressed person of mass destruction after finally realizing what kind of horrible world she’s living in. Eventually, she would realize what kind of person she’s becoming and better herself into the happy, but struggling demon princess she is today.

[theradioghost]

Audio Drama Podcast Recs

EDIT: well jesus this thing is getting old! If you’re looking for podcast recommendations I would recommend checking some of the newer posts I’ve made. I’ve expanded my subscription list from about 30 to over 150 in the years since I posted this, & at at this point it’s a pretty inadequate rec list.

Because I’ve gotten a few questions over time about podcast recs, both from people who are curious about audio drama, and fellow denizens of Podcast Hell™ who need something new, I wanted to put together this list so I could go a bit more into detail about why I love and recommend each of these amazing audio dramas.

Rather than trying to rank them, I tried to organize this list roughly based on popularity, at least based on my dash! More well-known shows are listed first, and then my faves that I don’t see getting nearly the love that they deserve. Especially with the volume of new innovative audio drama being created, there’s some really good stuff out there not getting nearly enough attention. Which is not to say that, if you’re a new podcast fan, you have to start with the most popular – but those shows are more likely to have an active fandom. (Of course, there are a ton of great podcasts out there, and plenty (both popular and obscure) that I don’t listen to yet.)

I also have a podcast rec tag and a very long list of audio dramas, if you want to go hunting for something beyond these recommendations here. Additionally, if you want more details or content warnings about any of these shows, feel free to message me on or off anon and I’ll do my best to answer! This post really focuses on the positives of each show and who I think might enjoy them.

WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE – Community radio from a friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, the dog park is forbidden, the mayoral candidates aren’t human, the weather is a mystery, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep.

If you know anything about audio drama podcasts, there’s like a 99.99% chance you know about Night Vale already. If not, just go listen. It’s weird and amazing and beautiful and helped to make a lot of this possible. Or if 100+ episodes plus live shows is overwhelming, don’t (but come back to it someday. It is magical).

For people who like: surrealism, humor, ‘radio show’ format, somewhat less emphasis on plot, diversity, indie music, experimental storytelling, a large back catalog of episodes, a fandom considered large by regular standards and not just podcast standards.

ALICE ISN’T DEAD – As she travels across America, a trucker tells the story of her search for the missing wife she had presumed dead, of the mysterious danger stalking her down freeways and backroads, and of the much bigger – and more terrifying – mystery she is uncovering.

The first and most popular of Night Vale Presents’ other podcasts. Gothic Americana soft horror lesbians! The writing, atmosphere, and orchestration are all superb, as is Jasika Nicole’s monologue performance. I personally recommend car/transit listening. (Also, you can get the whole soundtrack for free, and you should definitely do that.)

For people who like: surrealism, horror, Americana, female leads, lesbians, atmosphere, introspection, mystery, great music, something to drive to.

WOLF 359 – Doug Eiffel doesn’t want to do his job, Hera is a friendly but faulty AI, Dr. Hilbert is probably a mad scientist, Commander Minkowski wishes she wasn’t in charge of these idiots, and together, the four of them make up the entire crew of the USS Hephaestus space station. It’s not a picnic at the best of times: they’re isolated in a constantly malfunctioning tin can, orbiting a red dwarf star eight light years from Earth, and working for a shady corporation with coworkers they can’t stand. Then Eiffel starts to receive inexplicable transmissions from deep space – and everything gets so, so much worse.

It’s a hilarious office sitcom! It’s a character-driven deep-space sci-fi thriller! It’s a tragic, thematically powerful story about personhood, communication, and isolation! It’s all of those things, often within three lines of one another and frequently all at once! Wolf 359 is probably a masterpiece and now, heading into its fourth and final season, it continues to surprise and impress me every single time. Alan Rodi’s music is evocative and superb and the cast and writing are top-notch. One of the best. Listen to it.

For people who like: excellent character-driven writing, great music, well-written women, a gender-balanced ensemble cast, intimate sci-fi, hilarious and often referential humor, scary corporate overlords, cerebus syndrome.

THE PENUMBRA PODCAST – In Hyperion City, metropolis of a far-future Mars, a private eye named Juno Steel is pulled into life-threatening criminal conspiracies, and tangles with an even more dangerous, nameless thief – who could be his worst enemy or the love of his life. Within the Second Citadel, human civilization is protected by knights who venture out into the jungles to fight the monsters that threaten them – but some knights are discovering monsters who seem just a bit different. On the Painted Plains, a train-robbing bandit steals away a schoolteacher – and her heart. All of these and more are stories waiting to be heard behind the doors of the Penumbra, the grandest hotel this side of Nowhere. And absolutely none of them are straight.

Fabulously written genre-bending “queer AF” anthology show. The best is the Juno Steel series, about a bisexual, nonbinary sci-fi PI, which remains eminently and hilariously quotable even as it wrenches your heart out with genre-deconstructive depictions of mental illness and one of the most believable and emotional romances I’ve seen in ages . The Second Citadel fantasy series is also starting to come into its own in the second season and the standalone stories from the first season are a pretty damn good listen (LISTEN TO THE GAY WESTERN. DO IT.) I love this show, I love everyone from this show, I love everyone associated with this show, and I love Mick Mercury.

For people who like: playing with genre tropes, OTR, noir fiction, diversity, romantic chemistry, a variety of stories, suspense, heartache.

THE BRIGHT SESSIONS – Dr. Joan Bright isn’t an ordinary therapist, but her patients aren’t ordinary patients. Sam’s panic attacks bring on bouts of involuntary time travel; Caleb has it hard enough negotiating teenage emotions without also experiencing the feelings of everyone around him; Chloe can’t escape hearing other people’s thoughts; and the less said about Damien, the better. But Dr. Bright, too, is more than she first appears.

It’s a hard-hitting and poignant show about mental illness and people recovering from deep traumas, and also it is about superpowers. As the concept implies, the show is highly character-driven, and it develops an ensemble cast incredibly well. These guys are friends with the Wolf 359 crew and apparently have taken lessons from one another in how to ramp up a plot from “fun” to “oh god why,” but let’s be honest: that’s what we’re here for. Also, unjustifiably sweet gay teen romance, really cute friendships between ladies, at least one cat.

For people who like: highly character-focused narrative, superpowers, moral questions, ensemble casts, cool female leads, shady government activities, great acting.

ARS PARADOXICA – One minute, Dr. Sally Grissom is conducting cutting-edge physics research in her lab in early-21st-century Texas. A single mistake later, she’s on the deck of the U.S.S. Eldridge, in Philadelphia, 1943, smack dab in the middle of a classified WWII weapons experiment. She’s accidentally put time travel into the hands of the US government just as the nuclear era kicks off. And she can’t ever go back.

I assume everyone has heard of ars P because I assume that everyone knows Mischa Stanton. (They work on what must be like 50% of all podcasts that exist at this point, including The Bright Sessions.) Everything they do is pretty much a must-listen, but especially ars p, the “sad time show” to Wolf 359’s “sad space show.” The writing sticks out to me for its sense of consequence; it’s a major theme of the show that everything that happens will have serious and cumulative effects. Deservedly award-winning sound design. As a bonus, it crossed over with The Bright Sessions; if you like one, you might like the other.

For people who like: sci-fi, period settings, cold war thrillers, cool female leads, time travel with rules, complex and grey moralities, science lesbians, diverse ensemble casts.

EOS 10 – Dr. Ryan Dalias has enough to deal with just as the new head surgeon on a massive space station (alien aphrodisiacs, space anti-vaxxers, mind-controlling plants…) But as if that weren’t enough, his boss is an alcoholic misanthrope who has received an unwelcome ultimatum about his drinking; the nurse may or may not be inclined to bite people; there’s a deposed alien prince in the examination room who won’t put his pants back on; and an intergalactic terrorist who wants his name cleared is hiding in the cargo bay. And those are the people on his side.

I have my issues with EOS 10, not least of which is that it is still mired in a two-year hiatus (though Season Three is finally going into production soon? FINGERS CROSSED). I usually forget those issues when I listen because it’s still a frankly hilarious space comedy and the entire main plot is kicked off because of a potentially deadly boner. Think of it as the strange offspring of DS9 and Scrubs. Come for wild space shenanigans, stay for surprisingly heartfelt storylines about addiction (and even wilder space shenanigans). If W359 sounds cool but maybe a little heavy for you (or if the first season was your favorite), EOS 10 might be more up your alley.

For people who like: Star Trek, comedy, space scifi adventures, alien characters, gay space pirate cowboys, waiting.

THE THRILLING ADVENTURE HOUR – “America’s favorite new time podcast in the style of old time radio.”

An anthology show like The Penumbra which takes a comedic approach to its old time radio inspiration instead (and it is very OTR inspired – not just playing with the same genres). Has a lot of segments, not all of which are created equal; two are standouts. Sparks Nevada: Marshall on Mars (which has a continuous plot) follows a deadpan robot-fighting lawman, the Martian tracker who provides him with somewhat vitriolic companionship, and their various allies across the sci-fi-comedy-western landscape of Space Future Mars. Beyond Belief (which is episodic) stars alcoholic socialites Frank and Sadie Doyle, who may be world-renowned paranormal experts, but who mostly just combat supernatural evils so they can get back to their two greatest loves: booze and one another. It was recorded live, often featuring celebrity guest stars (most notably and frequently Nathan Fillion), and recently ended its many-year run.

For people who like: OTR, forties/fifties culture, really REALLY cute couple chemistry (Beyond Belief), humor, much more lighthearted content, a large back catalog, great music, corpsing.

GREATER BOSTON – Leon Stamatis’s perfectly organized life abruptly ends one day at the top of the first hill of a roller coaster – and that’s where the real story begins. His death will start a domino effect of change rippling through a Boston where activists agitate for subway lines to form their own city, shadowy executives watch over offices where magazine editors predict the future, and Google Calendars are updated from beyond the grave.

Guys, I am never gonna shut up about this show. At this point it’s probably my favorite podcast. Experimental fiction, a sort of regional-gothic-slice-of-life, with a plot that builds into the story of an interconnecting community of people, all of them growing and learning and changing and interacting, even the dead ones. And it plays more brilliantly and hilariously and beautifully and poignantly with format and writing and character than you’d think possible. I sometimes see it compared to WTNV (the “weird town” angle), but I think it’s likely to appeal to fans of The Bright Sessions: its characters may be dealing with incredibly strange situations, but the focus (and the appeal) is the development of those characters and their relationships with one another. Alternately, just literally everyone should listen. It’s that good.

For people who like: ensemble casts, experimental fiction, awesome women, strong character development, lesbians, playing with format, characters named Extinction Event, political intrigue, great music, Boston.

WOODEN OVERCOATS – Siblings Rudyard and Antigone Funn, along with their assistant Georgie, run a funeral home on the tiny Channel island of Piffling. It’s the only one, which is how they remain in business even though Rudyard is a punctuality-obsessed misanthrope and Antigone hasn’t left the morgue in daylight for 17 years. Then the world’s most perfect man, Eric Chapman, opens another funeral parlor directly across the street.

A British sitcom about rival funeral directors in a small town, with all of the dry, witty black humor that implies. "British” does always feel like the best adjective to convey the distinct sense of humor here. Also, it has amazingly high production values. Like, it just sounds really, really good. Also, it’s narrated by a talking mouse. The third season was just announced, so now is a really great time to catch up.

For people who like: black comedy, British comedies, rivalries of both business and sibling kinds, mysterious backstories, just a whole lot of dead people jokes, a more episodic structure.

THE BRIDGE – Once, you could drive all the way across the Atlantic in luxury and style, using the Transcontinental Bridge. Now, the Bridge is virtually abandoned. The employees of its Watchtowers are the only people left to tell its stories: stories about ghosts, about curses and illusions, about vanished and abandoned people and places, about the monsters whose places these were before the Bridge, and the strange and dangerous people who came there to find them.

IMHO, possibly the highlight of the writng for The Bridge is that they can create atmosphere like nobody’s business, and the show has a gorgeous soundtrack to boot. The characters are charming, the plot is intriguing, and the world they are building is like absolutely nothing else. Like Archive 81 below, it might appeal to those who’d enjoy Lovecraft if he didn’t suck so much in every possible way, although it’s much softer on the scary factor.

For people who like: atmosphere, storytelling, great character dynamics, sea monsters, spookiness, really fun ladies, ghost stories, mysteries, the bottomless depths and siren’s call of the ocean.

THE STRANGE CASE OF STARSHIP IRIS and UNDER PRESSURE – Starship Iris is the story of Violet Liu, a biologist forced by circumstance to join up with a ragtag crew of spacefarers to determine whether the explosion which killed every other person onboard her spaceship was really an accident. Under Pressure presents the notes of Jamie McMillan-Barrie, a researcher whose literary background did not prepare her to negotiate the kind of office drama that takes place on a research station at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Both of these are part of Procyon Podcasting Network, which also has more upcoming shows which I am beyond thrilled about; both are also incredibly diverse, both in-universe and behind the scenes. Both are charming and very, very gay as well as racially diverse; I’m particularly fond of Starship Iris, but everything that comes out of Procyon is more than worth a listen. They’ve started pretty recently and have only a few episodes each.

For people who like: space scifi, found family tropes, workplace drama, human/genderless alien romance, space lesbians, diversity, cool female leads.

THE ORBITING HUMAN CIRCUS (OF THE AIR) – The dreamy, accident-prone janitor of the Eiffel Tower does his best to get himself a place in the fantastical, impossible radio variety show being broadcast from the tower every night. Will he ever be successful? Will the show survive his attempts? And just where do the mysterious and magical acts come from?

Considering it’s a Night Vale Presents podcast and stars an A-list of my favorite underappreciated creatives I was kind of shocked at how little discussion I see. OHC is so charming and dreamlike and heartwarming; it’s like recapturing the feeling of a particularly magical bedtime story. It features Mandy Patinkin singing Cheap Trick and you need that in your life. Also, it has a platypus in it.

For people who like: OTR, John Cameron Mitchell/The Music Tapes/Neutral Milk Hotel, a gentler weirdness than other NVP podcasts, Paris, charm, experimental storytelling.

WITHIN THE WIRES – You are a patient at the Institute. You have been instructed to listen to this series of relaxation tapes to aid in your treatment. You must trust my voice. You must trust only my voice.

NVP’s other highly underappreciated show. WTW manages to tell a narrative in a format (self-help relaxation tapes) I would have never thought possible, and though it’s difficult to say much about what makes it so good without spoiling the effect of that excellence, it’s a great choice if you’re weird-fiction-inclined. Like Alice Isn’t Dead, it also features lesbians. (It may not be good for anyone who has trouble with unreality, disturbing second-person commands, or depictions of institutionalization.)

For people who like: experimental storytelling, WLW love stories, surrealism, dystopic fiction, suspense.

INKWYRM – Mella Sonder was hired to work with a recalcitrant AI, not to be personal assistant to Annie Inkwyrm, head of outer space’s premiere fashion magazine – and the two of them will probably be fighting about that, along with all of the other disasters they get tangled up in, until the star they’re orbiting explodes. Or until they fall in love.

My money’s on the latter (fingers crossed please make it happen), but this show just finished a really fun first season and I absolutely cannot wait for more of it. I’m a sucker for dysfunctional coworker comedy, and an even bigger sucker for girls falling in love; this offers both and is excellent, and is just incredibly done for an amateur podcast. The peeps making it are inspiring and badass and really, really talented.

For people who like: The Devil Wears Prada, scifi, diversity, vitriolic romantic tension, cool female leads, alien characters, wlw romance, incompetently homicidal AIs.

THE BEEF AND DAIRY NETWORK – The number one podcast for those involved – or just interested! – in the production of beef animals and dairy herds.

Honestly almost impossible to describe. What really gets me is the hilarity of how it somehow perfectly imitates the public radio/industry podcast style, delivering you important updates from the world of cattle products, except not from a world anything like ours. Endless beefy fun times with the occasional sharp right turn into body horror and potent unreality played for comedy. This and Alice Isn’t Dead are my dad’s favorite podcasts, which probably says something about him.

For people who like: Wooden Overcoats (it’s by the same folks!), weirdness, humor, much less of a focus on narrative, ‘radio show’ format, satire, rich beef sausages.

ARCHIVE 81 – Dan Powell is missing. He was hired, so he thought, for a simple job cataloguing an archive of tapes for the New York state government: a series of interviews that a woman named Melody Pendras conducted with the tenants of an odd apartment building. Then the story on the tapes becomes impossibly strange and terrifying, and so does Dan’s life.

Another one where I’m not sure whether everyone knows about it and just isn’t talking, but they should be. It’s probably a sign of how fantastic A81 is that it’s one of my favorites even though I ordinarily can’t stand horror. This post really extolls its virtues in a better way than I can. This show has some of the most incredible sound design I’ve heard yet, so if visceral body horror conveyed solely through the audio medium isn’t for you, then neither is Archive 81. On the other hand, if you like extradimensional lesbian apotheosis and the nickname “Boombox Fuckboy,” listen to this. On top of that, the acting is superb. (The creators, Dead Signals, also did an apocalyptic scifi survival-horror miniseries thing called The Deep Vault, which is similarly beyond well-made.)

For people who like: horror, weirdness, found footage format, great music, absolutely stellar atmospheric and action sound design, excellent and realistic acting, The King in Yellow, a ‘Lovecraftian’ feel not based on hatred of anyone who isn’t straight/white.

JIM ROBBIE AND THE WANDERERS – Three trouble-seeking wandering musicians (one brash and upbeat, one an argumentative engineer, and one a grumpy robot brought to life from a radio and assorted cutlery) wander a post-apocalyptic America populated by strange towns and fantasy beings, some friendly, others dangerous.

This is another show that really charmed me right out of the box. Not to mention that it’s a take on “post-apocalyptic” that I’d never seen before – why have grim ruins or cannibalistic societies when you can have giant friendly genderless bees, an NYC inhabited by partying undead, towns full of squid-people, and desert-dwelling leprechauns? It’s much more of a fantasy take on the genre and the characters are incredibly sweet. I was also really impressed by the quality bump it’s undergone over its run so far.

For people who like: fantasy, more lighthearted narratives, fun and creative concepts, a villain called “The Fig-Wasp King,” great music, friendship, cool female leads, diversity.

THE HIDDEN ALMANAC – A thrice-weekly, four-minute show hosted by the plague doctor Reverend Mord, offering historical anecdotes from another world, the feast days of unlikely saints, and useful gardening advice. 

Tired of that one analogy from every news article of the 2013 Night Vale boom (“like Stephen King/H.P. Lovecraft wrote A Prairie Home Companion”), writer/artist Ursula Vernon decided to take a crack at recreating Garrison Keillor’s other show, The Writer’s Almanac, in a similar fashion. Compared to WTNV, it comes off as less ‘weird’ and more fantastical, and is on the light side continuity-wise, though both the historical events and the frame show have arcs. In the past couple of years there have been a lot more story arcs, many lasting months, and a lot more appearances from guest character Pastor Drom and other characters. I find it incredibly charming and relaxing.

For people who like: fantasy weirdness, the actual Writer’s Almanac, WTNV, gardening, vitriolic friendships, worldbuilding, short runtimes, less of a focus on plot, large back catalogs, worldbuilding, crows.

[srseattlestreetnews]

Seattle Street News 50, Mind Control

Local News:

Clone Crisis Connected to Dragon Prince

Reporting and tips have led to some new revelations in the ongoing clone crisis. There seems to be an organization called the “Hand of Dusk” which is behind not only the proliferation and infiltration of clones, but also the summoning of the purple dragon we are calling Prince a few months ago. Sources say this “Hand of Dusk” is some sort of dangerous and deranged dragon cult. What are they up to?

Tipsters! All you tipsters in meat space or in the Matrix, send more tips on the Hand of Dusk. Send in any information you have no matter how small or innocuous. Only by working together can we stop this scourge, and since our corporate overlords don’t seem to be interested in working together, we have to do it ourselves outside of normal channels.

Corps! Get your members tested for clones and let the SSN know your results. But it isn’t just clones you need to look out for. Sources have indicated that Hand of Dusk cultists have infiltrated multiple Seattle megacorps. This conspiracy is extensive and it threatens not just the corps, but also the citizens and SINless. Don’t let your corp arrogance blind you to the dangers affecting us all.

More importantly, Citizens!, there is a conspiracy growing like a poison that is threatening us all, in the form of a dragon cult, a dragon, and the attempted undermining of our democracy. This conspiracy has only been able to thrive because it has used the megacorps, with their extraterritoriality and lack of accountability, and with their secrecy and lack of transparency, to grow, to gain resources, and to threaten us all.

This is the fault of cultists. But Megacorp negligence and unchecked power is what enabled it. Tir Tairngire has more oversight of megacorps, maybe it is time for UCAS to take more of an oversight role in corporate doings. For all our safety.

 Crime Up at the Docks After Barghest Attacks

Two weeks ago, the Knight Errant precint near the docks, was attacked by a pack of Barghests. An HTR response team went into the precinct to help, but in the subsequent battle to destroy the barghests, the entire precinct was burned down. Later investigations noted that before the destruction, the precinct had had all of its equipment stolen. Knight Errant’s incompetence in being able to a) stop the barghest attack, needing to rely on HTR and b) having their precinct completely destroyed is an embarrassment. And the result? All my tipsters tell me that crime and smuggling is up in the docks area in the absence of the Knight Errant precinct.

This leads SSN to suspect that the barghest attack was probably a deliberate attack, but was it orchestrated by corps or by gangs? We’ll continue on with our investigations on the matter—tipsters send in information. Dock workers? Are you still safe?

 Corp News:

Event Horizon:  An Exploration Into The Morally Bankrupt And Culturally Genocidal Monoculture Of The Horizon Media Empire—(by demmalition1)

The Horizon Group is one of the most depraved and homicidal groups of mad men to ever walk upon God’s Green Earth. They take all that is good in life and the artistic pursuit of creativity and distill it into a microcosm of what they want you to see and hear. You will see the pictures of the valiant executive and the scary technomancer. You will hear the screams of a goody-two-shoes corp employee before she is rescued by the noble officers of Knight Errant. You will get some variations on this from time to time, but all in all they are the monotheistic monoculture that you all put in place for better or worse. Yes, I’m putting the blame of their meteoric ascendancy to godhood firmly on your shoulders, dear readers. You choose to watch their crap, to soak in their controlled and sterile messages of corp dominance each and every day of your routine lives. Their toothless criticisms of any misdeeds on their parts are swept under the rug. Even the slightest scent of criticism will send the beast into a blinding bloodthirsty fury as it hunts down the ne’er-do-well and rips them asunder in order to keep the public on their side.

They take all that is good and chew it up, only to regurgitate it back into your mouths as revolting and vile trash that you happily lap up since you know no better. You’ve only tasted the creative vomit that’s got a flavor of bleach, worried that anything that might form even the slightest agitation to your diet would overwhelm your delicate digestive tract. You’ll then regurgitate the same thing to your friends and family, spreading the corporate line just as they planned, removing any thought of questioning their lordship over the domain of your supposedly-critically-thinking-mind.

Anything taken as unique like the hit show “Hammer and the Fang” is eventually diluted to its basest elements and repackaged for the widest audience out there. Nope, we clearly don’t want an engaging story about the overreach of power by the police and the (previously) inherent thought of basic rights for all beings, not just those with SINs. You want them to hunk off another formless blob of aggressively indistinguishable gray blocks as “Hammer defeats Nails in this thrilling Season 1 midseason finale!”  Nope, anything else would be too hard hitting for you.

Horizon is one of the few corps that knows what they’re doing. Starting small in 2061 as a high-level think tank to help earthquake and gang stricken Los Angeles, they hit it big in 2063 after scoring several extremely lucrative PR contracts. Their successful fending off of Aztechnology with the help of the PCC secured their spot to solidify themselves as “The Horizon Group” soon after while restoring LA and UCLA along with their two big spin-offs: Singularity (Matrix) and Charisma Associates (PR). When the Crash 2.0 hit, they were mercifully spared as the rest of the world was ravaged by the fallout, emerging soon after to help rebuild much of the California Free State. After seizing CATco’s Corporate Court seat in 2065, they became the unstoppable AAA that we all know and hate. There’s been a push as of late by the corp to go into my hometown of Chicago (aka Cee Zee, the Noose, Hell on Earth) and replicate LA. All I can say is... you can’t do worse than Ares, those pigfucking whoremongers deserve whatever’s coming to them.

Despite CEO and President Gary Cline’s repeated talks of cleanliness, all is not well in the land of the never-setting-sun. His use as a puppet to dance and wave in front of the public with his larger-than-life lifestyle to razzle-dazzle and distract them from the whisper of a shade’s shadow is truly troubling. They’re the corp so concerned about their public image that there is something hiding behind the smiler’s false face of deceit. A smile and a handshake to distract you from the pickpocket of your mind, wallet, and whatever else he may purvey to your bounty of information. For each awakened team-building exercise in “cross relational synergy workshops” we get a Bogota defeat. For each meta and AI friendly act, we get a Las Vegas Massacre. Even their well-touted P2.0 Social Network and LMG(U56) programs had and still have horrible consequences for everyone involved (remember Christy Daee?). Don’t even get me started on their Cal-Hot sim systems addictiveness and dubious legality or their amazingly absurd abuse of skilljacks.

Their internal voting system is known as “Consensus 2.0”, a way for all employees to provide individual input and vote on the direction that they think the corporation should head. Though this may seem like a good idea, a direct democracy can have disastrous consequences as is showcased by the Las Vegas Massacre of a group of protestors (mostly Technomancers) who were fighting for equal rights. Safeguards were put in place after this allowing “The Board” to reject any proposal that they think would undermine their public image. And God forbid their public image should be hurt. They do perform a lot of charity work, I’ll give them that, but the nefarious duplicity behind their motives of control is not something to be shirked off the minds of the people so easily. Rumors of involuntary kidnappings and medical experimentation on possibility hundreds of Technomancers should not be taken lightly. Nor should self-generated war crimes in order to build public support for manufactured wars be forgotten lest we revert to pliable semi-sentient slime for them to mold. An attractive succubus is still a demon no matter how eloquently it speaks or how beautiful it looks.

“We Know What You Think” is not just a phrase that they toss around lightly. They say it with confidence because they tell you what to think, no independent thought required. Another, unofficial motto of theirs I see mentioned around in the Matrix is “Better Living Through Copyright”. Can’t really blame them, they got laws in place that make the old Fifth World “Mickey Mouse Laws” look like a joke (that they will then patent, trademark, and copyright before suing to death you or anyone else who dares repeat it for a fraction of a nuyen). They’re the guys who’s Spec Ops teams don’t go in guns blazing. Good ol’ Richard (an unofficial internal name for the Dawkins Group) will instead infiltrate the offending corp and through power memetics and industrial-scale cultural engineering persuade them to stop. They’ll then buy only Horizon branded goods and services. Freedom of Thought be damned.

I’m going to propose something, dear reader. Let’s all go down to the same Stuffer Shack and buy the same burger and gush over the same show with the same revelations as everyone else. Let’s also pass by the SINless beggar on the street who was born and will die alone all because she had the misfortune of having a SINless mommy and daddy. Let’s keep filling our minds with mush and our bellies with chemically altered food designed to placate us and keep all the cattle in line as we go to the slaughterhouse of mainstream media. We’ll wear our little ear-tags of “Team Jorge” or “Team Kelly” and argue over the banal nothingness of the modern media zombie empire we’ve allowed to be constructed in front of our very eyes. We could turn the channel, but Horizon owns damn near 70% of all media in the greater Seattle Metroplex. Good luck finding anything of value anyways, it’s all corp owned (except us at the SSN). It’s amazing what ¥225 billion will buy you. Don’t complain, remember, you made this.

Now tune in, zone out, and pray to the altar of your media overlords. You better hurry up, I hear this episode’s the one where Hammer gets his trick knees fixed.

I wonder where all of this will lead us. Hope the ending is a good one, this story sucks so far.

 Entertainment/Supernatural News:

(Angelyne Billboard sighting in the Barrens)

Angelyne Sighting in Downtown!

Last week, a tipster in the Barrens noted an Angelyne billboard sighting. It showed up out of nowhere, as they normally do, a portent and an omen of an impending possible sighting. And sure enough, last night, Angelyne The Undying was seen driving her pink convertible downtown! This has been the first Seattle sighting of The Undying in ten years. What is she up to? Why did she show up in the Metroplex this week after such an absence? Might she be releasing a new album sometime soon? Who was she visiting? What was she doing here? Any tipsters with information on Angelyne the Undying, send in tips!

 Features:

Once More 10--(by Breach)

Although Renraku had claimed to have SCIRE under control by mid-2061, in 2063 the UCAS military seizes control of the arcology and declares it “officially” liberated of the AI’s influence. But while the arcology was cleared, the world was not.

Official history will never tell you the story I am about to.

Deus survived Renraku’s assault and even the UCAS “cleansing”; somehow, in its experimentation on the arcology’s residents, the AI had discovered a way to write its source code into the minds of people, and engineered its escape through a thousand of these meat-drones, who would be numbered among the “otaku” who could connect to the Matrix without need for cyberdecks to process the sensory input.

Unfortunately for Deus, and fortunately for the rest of us, a second AI named Megaera, which Renraku had employed to combat Deus, was uploaded into the Network as well. The two factions of the Network fought a years-long shadow war among each other, each side recruiting more otaku into its ranks to replace losses.

Pax, one of the leading figures in Deus’s faction, made an alliance with the terrorist group Winternight, and plots were hatched. Winternight, with the aid of Deus’s Network, secured weapons of mass destruction both biological and nuclear; Sioux military forces foiled what appeared to be a nuclear attack, but it takes many months for a Corporate Court-sponsored team of counter-intelligence and shadowrunners to fully bring Winternight to heel.

And it was all too late.

Early in 2064, Novatech - Villiers’ megacorp du jure - announced an IPO of 20% of their stock for public sale to commence on November 2. The UCAS stock exchange undertook a massive upgrade project to prepare for the IPO - and this all played into Deus’s plans, which was to upload himself across the entire Matrix, taking over every connected device on the planet. And he very nearly succeeded.

Fortunately, Megaera had known of this plot and together with the Matrix’s first AI, the program Mirage (part of the Echo Mirage team from the first Crash, if you remember) they managed to stop Deus and thwart his plans - but the fallout of their struggle would ruin the entirety of the Matrix, bringing down the entire world network in what would come to be called Crash 2.0.

This time, it was not just networks, however - because Winternight was part of the plot as well. The Winter of ‘64, which started in August, was later proven to be the result of Winternight rituals, meant to cripple the world. As the three AIs battled in the IPO launch, Winternight launched its own attacks, unleashing a Crash-like virus named Jormungand that trapped many in the Matrix (some of whom would go on to become e-Ghosts), and killing many more.

The second prong of the Winternight strike is in the physical realm, as EMPs were set off to further cripple the worldwide network, and nuclear warheads detonated at fault-lines around the world in an attempt to tear the very land itself apart. The warheads, however, fail to detonate with the force science would expect, and the damage and fallout is largely contained locally.

Someone is responsible for saving the world that day - it could have been much worse. I hope they know our gratitude.

Questions about history? Ask Breach! breach.ssn@gmail.com

 Gang News: 

Ancient JuL33T Murdered!

Shocking news out of Puyallup gangland! Ancient Street Sam JuL33T was found poisoned in her quarters the morning of her wedding of mobster Enzo Gianelli. Belial is on the warpath and expect there to be a lot of gang violence over the next few days. Also expect runner teams to be dispatched to find out her murdered the Street Sam.

 Seattle Street News is an independent activist news source released weekly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays

[Watch CorporateSINs on every Wednesday, 6pm PST or on Youtube at, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11c7BLFQtc&list=PLHKocVDXoWBtzze1SGGUnU6KB5UFrDLFo]