#but in the end its Silo

[spockvarietyhour]

Now that I've finished Rome here's The State of Shows I'm watching, starting with currently airings:

For All Mankind Monarch: Legacy of Monsters With @kiranerys: Stargate SG-1 (S10) Stargate Atlantis (S03) both her first watches Fringe (S03) rewatch for both of us, but I'd missed/skipped some episodes originally. Due South (S01) her first watch but I haven't watched it since it originally aired. Foyle's War (S02) my first watch FlashForward her first watch Chernobyl also her first watch Star Trek Prodigy ditto Crusade (S01) her first watch Letterkenny (final season)

All of these alternate w whatever we feel like, random episodes of comfort shows whenever we have the time.

we are going to get back to Russian Doll, and we plan to do Poker Face, The Bear, and His Dark Materials soon-ish

Regularly watching: Stargate Universe (S01), rewatch, gets delayed whenever I end up with too much of a backlog on gifs. The Witcher (S03), I proooobably won't continue this once Henry Cavill leaves. Occasionally Watching: Robocop: The Series The Rockford Files (S05) Upcoming: Silo (S01) next up now that Rome's done Scavenger's Reign (S01) Vigil (S02) Castlevania Nocturne (S01)

I almost did Invasion or Falling Skies but I found better files for Falling Skies so Silo it is!

[boundinparchment]

Will keep my commitments I’ve agreed to through the year but I’m gonna dip semi-permanently and see how it goes. my final writing that will be posted here will be the kinktober piece.

This isn't sustainable for me, not good for me, and honestly, there’s little point in sharing my writing here anymore. no one even cares to reblog and if likes are all that happens, why bother. I get more meaningful engagement from AO3 comments and things just get lost here.

maybe i’ll change my tune again one day and find peace in just posting but all I see is endless consumption despite my own efforts. I do not have the bandwidth for fighting against it right now.

all I’m doing is hurting myself and giving very important parts of myself, creatively and otherwise, to a place that doesn’t deserve them.

[shamblz]

I think I'll be a miner actually

[fchsadfa]

Catch this turning into a vent blog

*barely restrained rant about marketing and portfolio week*

[prokopetz]

I'm curious for your thoughts on the most left field take I've heard on d&d 4e - specifically, that it is best dusted off if you want to play as magical girls.

I'm aware there are far better ttrpgs for such a goal, but it was such an odd analysis of 4e that it stuck in my head for years since.

Basically, the problem with tabletop RPGs that a. expect a non-trivial amount of system mastery when it comes to building characters, and b. support multiple distinct modes of play is that people who enjoy throwing big numbers around are going to be tempted to spec heavily into one of those modes of play at the expense of sucking at all of the others. You see this issue in many flavours of D&D, where characters who spec heavily into combat end up with no cool toys to play with in exploration mode, and characters who spec heavily into exploration struggle to contribute in combat. It creates a perverse incentive to make yourself bored at the table because you're constantly spending 50% of each session twiddling your thumbs.

One approach to solving this problem is to institute some form of game-mechanical siloing: player characters are given distinct, non-competing sets of rules toys for each supported mode of play, so it's not desirable – perhaps not even possible – to favour one by short-changing the others. This is the approach that D&D4E tried, largely successfully. However, some players found it counterintuitive, because it didn't provide a good narrative rationale for why your character's rules toys should be siloed in this fashion. You ended up with players squinting at the flavour text of their combat moves and arguing that a strict reading suggested their rogue ought to be able to double-jump, or trying to drop into exploration mode in the middle of a combat round in order to take advantage of one of their exploration mode rules toys, both of which tended to break the game in interesting ways.

Conversely, when there is a good narrative rationale for why player characters aren't allowed to cross the streams in a game which supports multiple distinct modes of play, such siloing can be an easier sell. Take Tumblr's favourite indie game Lancer, for example; Lancer has a great deal of D&D4E's DNA in it, except its two mechanically distinct modes of play aren't "combat" and "exploration": they're "piloting a giant robot" and "not piloting a giant robot". There's typically very little narrative ambiguity regarding whether or not you are, in fact, currently piloting a giant robot, so D&D4E style siloing of player-facing rules toys rarely creates situations that are difficult to reason about.

And what's another popular genre of media which will handily furnish any tabletop RPG based on with a built-in narrative rationale for having two mechanically distinct modes of play?

Yep: magical girls.

[hell-isnt-deep-enough-for-me]

Public View

Alex x F!Reader x Sebastian

Warnings: masturbation, smut, panty kink?, voyeurism, semi-public sex,

A/N: honestly just porn. plot if you squint but other than that its just me being horny for Alex and Sebastian

____

You can see the way he looks at you. Eyes scanning your figure as a light blush covered his pale complexion. Lightly biting his lip occasionally as his foot tapped on the ground, trying to distract himself from you to play pool with Sam. But the sight of you was too intoxicating.

It was thrilling. You’ve never had such power over someone like this before. At first, you thought Sebastion was just a shy guy who only talked to his small circle of friends. It turns out you were wrong about how he truly felt about you when you were standing outside his bedroom door two days ago. 

“Mmph…fuck (Y-Y/N)...” The sounds of gasps and pleas coming from his mouth made you smile wickedly as you couldn’t help but bite your lips and rub your thighs together. The stairway to his room was dark, so you were hidden from sight if anyone were to pass by. 

You could hear him choking out moans, and with a twisted grin, you turned the door handle, putting on an innocent facade.

He could hear you talking to his mom upstairs about her building you a new silo. Nothing important, really, but the sound of your voice always got him bothered. Your sickly sweet tune was a song that he never wanted to end.��

God, he was so pathetic. Getting hard at his bed from a simple conversation that wasn’t even directed at him. When you did talk to him, all he could do was stare at whatever part of your body that was filling his needy fantasy of the day. 

It could be something as simple as your lips that had his head reeling. The thought of them wrapped around his cock made his mind foggy. What he wouldn’t give to feel you sucking him dry to the point where he can’t speak words. You’d look up at him with a lustful stare as you teasingly used your nails to scrape the inside of his thigh. With thoughts like these, it was much easier to lay on his bed and free his aching cock from his pants.  With his dick springing up as soon as it was free, he wasted no time grabbing it. Pre already covering his tip. With a shaky moan, he moved his thumb across his slit and had to bite back, letting out a loud whimper. 

His eyes shut harshly as he started spewing random sentences in his horny daze. With every pump from his fist, his cock twitched as his fantasies of you filled his mind. Licking his lips at the thought of you with his cock all the way down your throat had, him bucking into the air. 

He’d barely even started before he could feel his stomach tighten and his toes curl. Cumming so quickly felt even more pathetic than usual. Your name falls off his lips like a chant.

“Hey Sebby-oh my god!” His eyes went wide hearing your voice, knowing he’d been caught in such a vulnerable position. If only that turned him off; instead, the idea of you catching him jerking it off while crying your name managed to fulfill one of his depraved fantasies. 

Your shocked tone while calling his name made him let out a whiny moan as his cock sprayed his cum all over his black hoodie. Having you catch him made him cum even harder than he ever had. He didn’t get the chance to explain himself before you quickly said sorry and left in a hurry, closing his door behind you, leaving him still wanting more. 

~~~

It felt like a walk of shame the way Sebastian walked towards your farm.  Knowing that you saw and heard him moaning out your name made his cheeks burn, and his pants tighten.

God, he was coming over to say sorry and was already getting a hard-on? He’d be disappointed in himself if he cared more. 

Once he made his way through the backroads to your farm, he tried looking around and finding you. Knowing it was early, you should still be working on your farm chores. That way, it could just be you and him, and no one else had to hear what happened. 

While passing by an already-built silo, he noticed you kneeling by the water in the small lake on your property. He hid behind the silo to watch you for a second, see what you were doing. You were covered in dirt and sweat. Despite your appearance, he couldn’t help but imagine the body you hid under your clothes. 

“Can’t believe I dropped my fishing pole.” Your annoyed voice only stirred his cock awake as he watched you try to grab your submerged fishing pole. Your body contorted as you tried desperately to get your fishing pole without getting into the water. Leaving you ass up as you hold onto the edge of the pond for dear life

“Just a little more-” Your fingers reached into the cold water, making you release a ‘brrr’ in response. The fishing pole was right there underneath your hand, and all you had to do was move a little bit deeper-

“Shit!” The edge you held onto gave way, making you splash into the cold water of the pond. Your entire body was submerged in the pond before you returned for air with the fishing pole in hand. You felt your body shake in response to the cold water. You rush out of the cold water to avoid hyperthermia. Your wet clothes clung to your skin, squeaking with every move you made. 

The way your clothes hugged your body had Sebastian's cock throbbing in his pants. He could see your bra through your wet shirt. The way the water cascaded down your face had him sweating, thinking about it being his cum flowing down your face instead.

He could see you dropping your fishing pole beside you as you tried pushing your wet hair away from your eyes and rubbing them, trying to regain your sight. He kept looking at you from behind the silo, cursing himself for how his cock was aching for you. He came here to apologize, and here he was, struggling to not pump his cock out in the open while watching you.

Just then, your closed eyes opened. 

“Finally, I can see.” You looked around, hoping no one saw you go face-first into the water. You were almost convinced that no one saw until you saw a familiar patch of black hair in your peripheral vision. You let out a chuckle before turning your head in his direction.

“You have your fun staring?” With a dark blush covering his cheeks, he steps out from behind the silo. Putting his hands in his pockets as you see him trying to hide the visible tent in his pants. 

~~~

You took your time finding an outfit to bring to the saloon. It was much more skimpy than your usual attire. The dress you chose managed to cover your ass by only a hair. One wrong move, and it’d be out on display. Your dress even granted the perfect view of your cleavage. Knowing that this was a drastic change in attire, you couldn’t wait to see what would Sebastian’s reaction to seeing even more of your exposed skin. You had him trapped by friends and with people everywhere, nowhere to go to play with his pretty cock.

Watching him struggle to pay attention to Sam’s pool moves made you giggle. His eyes stared at your chest longer than it was at the pool table. His eyes trying to commit every piece of skin to his memory. You caught his eyes, and while his eyes widened, you sent him a little wink as you looked toward the man that just walked into the saloon. 

It was pretty shocking to see the jock here, knowing he never comes to the saloon. But your question was answered when you heard him ordering for his grandparents. What a sweetie.

“Hey Alex, can I borrow you for a second while you wait for your food?” Alex’s eyes scan your form as a lustful glint fills his eyes before smiling at you. 

“Sure, what do you need?” You grab his hand, telling him to follow you. You lead him towards the backroom of the saloon, not before sending Sebastian another wink as you licked your lips at him. The simple gesture had Sebastion growing hard in his pants, and his legs turned into jelly. He had to excuse himself, lying to his friends that he needed to go to the bathroom. Which was conveniently right next to the backroom you had led Alex into not moments earlier. 

Through the slightly dark room, he couldn’t find you or Alex. But he could definitely hear soft gasps and barely audible moans. His cock twitched in his pants with excitement as he desperately tried to find where you and Alex hid. 

Hiding behind some barrels, he saw you and Alex completely hidden from the view of the saloon. Sebastian moved closer silently to get a better look at what was going on outside from his hiding spot. You or Alex didn’t seem to notice him…yet. His cock stirred in his pants as he watched you and Alex share saliva and kiss each other harshly. Your back was pinned against the wall while your legs were wrapped around Alex’s waist. Your hands move over his shirt in a teasing way.

He was never the biggest fan of Alex, but seeing the jock grind against your clothed pussy, making you let out such beautiful noises had him pulling his pants down so his cock could be slightly exposed to the cold air of the saloon. He bit his lip harshly to not give away his location to the people he was watching.

“Gonna fuck ya real good. Have you fucked out to the point you only know how to say my name.” Alex’s words sent shivers down Sebastian’s spine. His cock twitched at the thought of you being so blissed out that you only knew the name of the person who was stuffing you full with their cock.

“Bet you even wore this dress just to get fucked, huh? Wearing something that barely covers your ass and that gives everyone a great view of your tits had to be on purpose. I bet everyone wants to pound their cock into you. Wanting a taste of the farmer whore.” Hearing such words leave Alex’s mouth made Sebastion feel even more like a pervert than he already did. Hiding behind some barrels, watching his crush about to get absolutely ravished in front of him. 

The sound of Alex’s zipper coming undone and the look on your face as you grabbed his hair and pulled him over for a kiss. He could hear the harsh kissing before you let go and started kissing and licking up his neck, hearing Alex's breathy noise in return. Once he heard you gasp, Sebastian moved even closer to the both of you. He was a little more exposed here, but he just needed to see.

You bit your lip as Alex pushed up your dress high enough that it bunched up so he could see your perfect ass. He caught Alex moving your panties to the side as he prepared to fill you up. Even from behind the barrels, he could see how wet you’d become simply from the damp spot on your panties. Sebastion bit his lip when he saw Alex lining up his cock to your cunt. Grabbing his own cock even harsher at the sight of Alex’s fingers digging into the flesh of your ass.

Before you could say anything, Alex’s hips moved back before slamming into you harsh enough to knock the wind out of you and had Sebastian bucking up into thin air. The sound of Alex’s hips meeting your pelvis with every thrust made your toes curl and had you letting out cute moans and whines. Your moans, along with Alex’s sighs, had Sebastian gripping his cock harder as he tried to fuck his fist to match the same pace you were being fucked at.

“So tight..feels so fucking nice.” Alex’s words only interested the hidden man even more in what was happening. The sound of skin slapping against skin quickened. He could see tears form in your eyes as you pulled Alex even closer to you. You wanted to taste the man turning your insides into jelly. Trying to speak straight grew harder as you felt Alex move his hand between the two of you and start to rub your clit at a pace that was just perfect. The sight had Sebastian’s eyes glossy as he tried to hold himself back from cumming. He wanted cum at the same time you did. But that was proving to be much more difficult.

While watching you marking up Alex’s neck with bites and kisses, he noticed that your eyes moved from Alex over to him. Exactly where he would be hiding. Sebastian felt his blood go cold as you moaned out from a particularly hard thrust, looking directly at him. He saw your eyes fill with lust as the room felt hotter. 

You dug your fingers into Alex’s hair and pulled him closer. The feeling of the jock’s lips against your own made you smile. So soft as he bit your bottom lip, enticing a little moan out of you. The way his rough fingers rubbed your clit had you shaking as you gripped onto his jacket just for stability. 

Your eyes couldn’t help but move over to the hidden man behind the barrels. You liked the sight of Sebastian’s wide-eyed red face when he noticed you caught him watching. The feeling of being watched only made you more turned on. Knowing someone as cute as Sebastian was watching you get fucked in the back of a storage room made your legs quiver. You let out a loud moan when you felt Alex’s cock hit a particular part inside you, making you see stars. 

Alex’s name became a mantra as you cried his name. Letting anyone close enough to hear what was happening. The way you cried out to him was so intoxicating. Sebastian studied your blissed-out face as he desperately tried to match Alex’s thrusts. He could feel his stomach tighten with every pump of his cock. Biting his lip harder to avoid giving himself away, he tried to hold back just so he could cum at the same time you did. 

Thankfully, after all the harsh thrusts Alex delivered to your cunt, your toes curled, and he could see how your face contorted to pleasure. Alex grabbed you by your hair and kissed you to swallow your moans. The sight had Sebastian finally able to cum all over the saloon floor in front of him. He clenched his teeth to avoid letting out a loud cry of your name.

“Alex! Please!..I can’t-” Your whines only stirred the hidden male’s cock back alive as he saw the jock's hips begin to stutter and how his breath became more ragged.

“What a slut, your cunt squeezing me so tight. Gonna fill you up to the point it’ll be dripping down your legs when we walk back. Let everyone know the true whore you are.” The image of you walking back to the open crowd with cum flowing down your legs had Sebastian's already overstimulated cock ready to release once again.

With a few more stutters of Alex’s hips, he stilled inside you with a shaky breath. You let out a loud moan as you squeezed your eyes shut. The simple sight had Sebastian shooting another load onto the saloon floor. He desperately tried to be able to breathe normally. His body shook as he continued to stare at your ruined form. 

The sound of Alex pulling out of you had him gulping as he watched yours and Alex’s cum drip onto the floor. He could see the mess you’ve become from being used so thoroughly. Your legs quivered as you tried to catch your breath. Alex’s hands rubbed your still exposed hips while kissing your bruised lips.

“I wanna keep these, just as a little reminder. So be a good girl and take them off for me, hmm?” Without a second thought, you unhook your legs from Alex’s waist and put your feet on the ground. Your legs shake as you do what he asks. The sound of Alex’s zipper closing reminded him to do the same. With a red face, you handed him the cute panties you hid underneath that short dress. 

“What a good girl. Now you better run along, or everyone will see you as the slut you are.” Nodding your head, you quickly walk around Alex before letting out a loud yelp as Alex smacks your ass harshly. He let out a chuckle at your reaction. As you walked out of view, you sent another lustful stare at the man hiding behind the barrels. 

After waiting a few moments, Alex started to walk away as well, only to stop directly in front of Sebastian's hiding spot.

“You have your fun, pervert?” His blood ran cold at Alex’s words.

“Here, you obviously need them more than me.” With a cocky laugh, the jock tossed your panties directly toward him before walking off.

Even though he was caught, the fantasy of it happening again plagued his mind as he shoved the soaked cloth into his hoodie pocket.

[kingprinceleo]

Silhouette Timeline Master Post !

Silo is from my 1000 Years Bound Au- (Summary) (Horror AU) 500 years into the future, Miles finds himself at the mysterious kingdom of Solar Sanctum, ruled by the long absent King Shadow. Shadow invites Miles to stay as a collaboration of great minds to try and solve the murky state their world has fallen into. It isnt long before Miles starts to realize Shadow is no longer the man he remembers, and starts to get tangled up in his web of madness.

----

Silo is one of Shadow's little oopsies ! She was meant to be a trial experiment, bioengineered during one of his many attempts to bring order back to the planet. Shadow completely tunnel visioned by his own vision for his work, failed to comprehend the burden that accompanied bringing a creature to life. He succeeded in creating a living breathing being. And it horrifies him. (cw for almost violence against a child)

Not too long after his meltdown, the Black Arm part of his brain overrides his disdain for this creature, and for a short while, he fulfills the role of being a parent to her. Creating a nest and taking care of the babys every need.

Once he returns to his normal mindset he starts to neglect this kid again, he refuses to acknowledge its his daughter, and even a person at all. All he sees her as is an experiment he wants nothing else to do with while he moves on to other research. Most of the responsibilities fall on Valentine and Tails. Tails is suspicious and frustrated with Shadow, unable to get any answers out of him about Silos origins. More often than not, Valentine is the one handling Silhouette, sneaking out of the castle and bringing her to the edge of the kingdom where an apple orchid resides. She spends time learning about taking care of children from the wolf Crisp, a widowed mother of three. Shadow usually never notices the childs absence, and doesnt really care when he does. And when he does care, its usually because hes doing something like this:

They also start figuring out Silos abilities, being able to turn into a black liquid and taking whatever shape she wants. Shes also near silent. No one is sure if she took on Shadows immortality yet...

Plot stuff happens whatever,,, Shadow takes a huge L

Shadows physically weak and incredibly frail, he cant move at all for weeks, eventually getting a custom walking chair. Major loss of chaos energy from his body from overloading, now any minor usage of chaos energy can fuck him UP.

In his eyes, hed fallen from godhood, now abandoned to be a pathetic regular person. And now word is getting out around the kingdom. He cant hide behind being all powerful, he needs to start at least pretending to act normal real fast. And that comes with acknowledging Oh hey . theres like . a princess by the way. his daughter who he is totally raising.

Valentine needs to be at Shadows side around the clock for a couple years, so Silhouette spends a lot of time at home in the castle, usually being very clingy to Shadow, she loves to nestle into his collars and his quills

This continues even when Shadow starts setting her to the side again to focus on rebuidling the kingdom. Now a toddler, shes getting sent off to go hang out with Crisps family pretty often, they become like a whole family to her. Despite that, Silhouette often sneaks out of the house to walk all the way back from the edge of the kingdom to go be with her father again. Shadow starts sending his Shadow Eye, Baja to accompany her so she stops doing that.

As she gets older she starts understanding the expectations Shadow is holding over her head. She is the offspring of the Ultimate Lifeform, and he expects something made of his own blood to be nothing short of perfect, an exact copy of his grace and excellence. At the same time, however, she is never supposed to surpass him. He plans to remain the Ultimate Lifeform until the end of time.

Perhaps she would have considered his cruel edge and bitter tongue normal affection had she not spent years with a family who's shown her what love looks like. She appreciates them so much, but she cant help but try to desperately claw out the same type of affection from Shadow. It deeply pains her and stirs resentment for her half siblings whenever her father comes over to the orchid, either to pick her up or at the request of Val, and she watches Shadow interact with the other children. He views them as lesser, but because of this, the lack of expectation for them, he comes off as a little kinder. Tolerating things he would never allow Silo to do in his presence, coldly reprimanding her in the hollowing silence of their black arms hive mind. He trained a lot of her emotional responses out of her, leaving her with a dead expression most of the time.

As a teenager, the noise in the back of her mind gets louder, deadset on destruction. Part of her wants to kill Shadow. Shes afraid of that side of herself. She starts acting out, trying to distract him from his work to get his attention, positive or negative attention she doesnt care anymore. It starts small but as he keeps turning a blind eye, expecting Val to handle it, she is the head guard after all. Gradually she increases the intensity, committing real crimes in the kingdom and testing how far she needs to push that old man, from stealing to committing arson. Shes willing to tear this whole kingdom apart if it means Shadow will come and stop her.

Eventually, Shadow does! Additionally, Shadows in a much better mental and physical state than he was years ago, where he was genuinely at his worst. After a lot of talks with Miles, Val, and Crisp and realizing the worst parts of himself are being manifested in this child before his eyes. He goes to finally give her what she wants.

Hes still not a great parent, but now he puts more effort in, working with Silo to get her behavior in check, being overall more available and open to her.

[tangerine-dream-machine]

do you wanna see the west with me?

Notes below!

This is not a realistic road trip at all, but here are the places/activities shown:

Yorktown Battlefield, Virginia: the site where General Cornwallis surrendered in 1781, bringing the end of the Revolutionary War

Liberty Bell, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: the famous bell with the message "Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof", and later a symbol of liberty for abolitionists and suffragists

Drive-in theater: outdoor cinemas that reached their peak in popularity in the 1950s to 60s; the film is The Searchers (1956)

Kayaking: a fun lake/ocean activity

Trail of Tears National Historic Trail: this trail crosses nine states and follows the forced displacement of Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Muscogees, and Seminoles due to the Indian Removal Act in 1830

Traffic (and billboards): a bane to many and common in car-dependent cities

Cedar Hill Cemetery, Vicksburg, Mississippi: one of the oldest cemeteries in the US still being used; predates the Civil War and includes a Confederate burial site

Devil's Tower, Wyoming: a majestic (and sacred) butte and the first US national monument

Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah: a flat, empty salt pan estimated to hold 147 million tons of salt and a popular racing site

Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming: a geyser in the world's first national park known for its reliable eruptions

Gas station, Nowhere, USA

Horseback riding, Montana: no comment, just a fun time

Las Vegas, Nevada: the world renowned Sin City, a place that caters to many vices

Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex, North Dakota: group of missile defense facilities including missile silos and the pyramid-shaped radar system; built in 1975 and decommissioned after one day of operation, a "monument to man's fear and ignorance"

Hoover Dam, Nevada and Arizona: hydroelectric power plant on the Colorado River; the highest dam in the world at the time of its completion in 1935

Space Needle, Seattle, Washington: an observation tower with a revolving restaurant built for the 1962 World Fair "Living in the Space Age", a theme chosen to show the US was not lagging behind the USSR in the Space Race

Sequoia National Park, California: home of the world's largest tree by volume (General Sherman) and the highest point in the contiguous US (Mount Whitney)

Muir Beach Overlook, California: a former base station overlook with dugouts that gained importance immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 as a means to watch for attacks on nearby San Francisco

@usukweek

[19burstraat]

I love that kaz's revenge kind of... fails. I really love that he doesn't quite get a satisfying revenge on rollins, and I've always thought that was... well, the point. I said more about the specific scene with pekka here but like. it IS a turning point for kaz, it's just not the one he wanted. kaz gets about three narrative warnings/pieces of foreshadowing that it's not going to go how he wants it to go, but he really doesn't heed them until it's too late.

the first is the broken leg from the heist on the bank that helped pekka scam them; while its main narrative purpose is that it's the source of kaz's disability ofc (which feeds into his personal arc and his dynamic with wylan), and it exists outside of the pekka stuff, it arguably has a secondary purpose as the first in a series of 'don't pursue this, it's going to hurt' warnings, which he ignores.

the second warning comes when kaz lets pekka out at hellgate for personal score settling reasons, wastes time and fucks up the plan, and then starts a big domino effect where rollins turns the dregs on him, teams up with van eck, and hires dunyasha to attack inej.

(there are lots of other mini-nods to kaz absolutely refusing to let go of what happened and it informing everything he does; making nina give muzzen fake firepox, the fake pandemic, his interest in fifth harbour being implied to be because that's where he crawled out of the harbour, his dynamics with jesper and wylan, the body boats taking everyone out of the city, etc, but these are the big slip-ups)

the third strike feeds from that; the sweet reef sugar silo job is an almost perfect copy of the second stage of rollins' scam on jordie and kaz; sugar stock prices being driven up due to scarcity. it going so horribly wrong (because pekka anticipated it, of course he did, he made it up) and almost getting inej killed by dunyasha is a final warning to kaz to, effectively, let go or be dragged. if he carries on living in the past like this, he's going to lose his new family, not just his old one.

I think pekka's inability to remember jordie's name was more crushing than kaz admitted to himself, at least on the page; "it was a start" feels almost defeated after all that, and it lacks closure. kaz only gets one more point of view chapter (iirc?) one which feels quite reticent (it's the council of tides one and it's quite short) and he's quite quiet for the rest of the book, at least until the last inej chapter. he gets probably the cruellest wake-up call he could have been given. he doesn't get what he wants, and he'll never get it, because rollins still can't remember jordie's name by the end of the novel. it's time to move on. to his credit, he does it; he does what he always does, which is rise to a challenge. half of kaz's appeal lies in his ability to do that, no matter how hard the task, but it's a hard bandage to rip off.

unfortunately he does not really let go until he's being dragged, when his idea of what his confrontation with pekka should be like, crumbles in the face of pekka just not being able to remember jordie's name, no matter what kaz does. kaz is dragged to the precipice and told, look– here's inej, here's rollins. choose. and that's when he finally has to let go and start doing things for the future and inej, not the past and rollins and jordie. (remember that bit when he's drowning in SOC and he tries to think of revenge, and he can only think of inej instead? he always knew what he was going to pick, really).

he gets rollins out of ketterdam, but it's definitely hollow, in my estimation; the one thing kaz wanted him to remember, and he couldn't, because it wasn't important to him like it was to kaz. there's one final nod to kaz making everything about what happened to him and jordie (sneaking the grisha, colm, and matthias' body out of the city via the bodyboats and 'the bodymen don't bother to rearrange them') but I think inej saying "he doesn't say goodbye. he just lets go" comes at the perfect point; up until then it wasn't true, but now, kaz has finally been forced to (somewhat) let go, having never ever done that before.

but kaz buying inej her ship and a berth at fifth harbour (where he crawled out of the harbour and vowed to start the entire revenge plot) is a nice indication that he is trying to close that part off and move forwards with her, rather than staying in the past. and I really like that it's inej who actually makes the threat against pekka's life, to make sure he stays out of ketterdam; it's hard to know if kaz told her anything that prompted that visit (if he did, I doubt it was much, and I actually suspect he didn't know she'd gone there at all) but no matter what the circumstances, it indicates that he doesn't have to go on alone anymore, and he can finally turn away from that obsession. shared burdens n that. it's not a sad ending, it's honestly a good one for both of them, but it was a pretty rough journey to get there, and he had to fail first.

[toaster-boi]

i think the Ace Combat franchise can best be summed up by the ending of Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies.

you've taken the enemy's capital, you've finally faced down the rival ace pilot who you've come to deeply respect from the story of a small child orphaned by the war you've just won, and the bittersweet feeling of an end to senseless bloodshed fills the air.

but- wait. "[next mission]?"

briefing plays. a low tone, subtle electronic track plays throughout. cut to mission start: a cutscene, which only a few other missions opened with.

the sky is gray with either clouds, smoke, or ash; you can't really tell, but the gray and brown haze blots out the sun. the air is filled with meteors raining down on the ocean below, a handful of lasers pierce the fog of war. the only adequate descriptor is armageddon.

the music goes straight for the throat: a latin choir singing in a minor key, the opening to a track sharing its name with the mission itself. "Megalith Agnus Dei," with Megalith being an island-spanning ICBM launch complex in the shape of a fucking gigantic stone crucifix currently taking potshots at the remnants of an asteroid that previously razed the neighboring continent hard enough to cause a fascism-enabling refugee crisis.

Agnus Dei, literally "Lamb of God," is in reference to the player. you, Mobius One, are made into a direct allusion to the biblical Messiah, a literal divinely-ordained sacrifice sent from the heavens to absolve mankind of the sins of its past, and then ascend to the heavens once more.

you finally have actual wingmates, background characters from throughout the game now flying under your insignia. their objective is literally just to take care of enemy aircraft while you fly into the exhaust trenches of Megalith, to blow up the missiles from inside the facility, then fly straight up to not crash into the silo walls.

the last missile does not have exhaust trenches, but a tunnel you barely fit into, and the silo's launch doors aren't open when you enter.

to recap, you are sent in as the last hope for salvation from a military breakaway terrorist organization who, out of a desire for revenge, is making sulfur and coals rain upon the earth. you are sent up the length of something shaped like three crosses, and are then sent up the length of the center one and pass underground with a sealed exit and no expectation of escape. you then fucking fly straight upwards with and explosion at your back as the exit opens and the world is saved.

this is a game about fighter jets that came out two days after 9/11. on the PS2.

[insanityclause]

Deadline’s Contenders Television, the event where stars and showrunners talk up their shows ahead of Emmy voting, has unveiled its lineup.

The event kicks off on Saturday April 13 and runs through Sunday April 14 at the Directors Guild of America in LA. There will also be a virtual livestream of the event. Full details of the event and an RSVP link can be found here.

It will give you a sense of the hits of the last twelve months, as well as some shows that you’re about to be talking about, as the networks, studios and streamers vie for some awards love.

Stars attending include Tom Hiddleston, Nicole Kidman, Brie Larson, Kristen Wiig, Rebecca Ferguson, Lily Gladstone, David Oyelowo, Common, Jimmy Fallon, Giancarlo Esposito, Joey King, Andrea Riseborough, Sebastian Maniscalco, Bill Pullman, Kiefer Sutherland, Logan Lerman, Kelsey Grammer, Matt Bomer, Jonathan Bailey, Allison Williams, Maya Erskine, Nathan Fielder, Skeet Ulrich, Jeff Probst, Omar J. Dorsey, Harriet Dyer, Patrick Brammall, Sophia Di Martino, Sarayu Blue, Ji-young Yoo and Taylor Zakhar Perez.

Shows that will be featured across the two days include Parish, Masters of the Air, Lessons in Chemistry, The Morning Show, Silo, Palm Royale, The New Look, Survivor, Colin From Accounts, A Murder at the End of the World, True Detective: Night Country, We Were the Lucky Ones, Under the Bridge, Murdaugh Murders: The Movie, Loki, Alice & Jack, Genius: MLK/X, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, 3 Body Problem, Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie, Lawmen: Bass Reeves, Frasier, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Fallout, Expats, Red, White & Royal Blue, Fellow Travelers, The Curse, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, Platonic and Bookie.

There will also be numerous top showrunners and exec producers including Chuck Lorre, David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Alexander Woo, Benny Safdie, Graham Yost, Gary Goetzman, Lee Eisenberg, Abe Sylvia, Brit Marling, Zal Batmanglij, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Francesca Sloane, Lulu Wang, Sarah Schechter and Nicholas Stoller.

The studios, networks and streamers participating include AMC, Apple TV+, CBS, CBS Studios, FX, HBO and Max, Hulu, Lifetime, Marvel Studios and Disney+, Masterpiece on PBS, National Geographic, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Peacock, Paramount+, Prime Video, Showtime, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros. Television.

The event is sponsored by Apple TV+, Eyepetizer Eyewear and Final Draft + ScreenCraft in partnership with Four Seasons Resort Maui and 11 Ravens.

---

Both Tom and Sophia will be there.

[bobwess]

SPN Finale Fix-it Fic

Posted here in its entirety given the times. When we're back online, please find me at Bob Wess on ao3.

Jack watched Chuck fade out of view through the back window, breathing in a slow sigh of relief. They succeeded. He was done.

"And we're sure sure that he can't figure out how to get his power back?" Dean confirmed, glancing up in the rear view mirror. "I mean, he was God. He knows literally everything."

"He doesn't anymore." Jack said softly, leaning his head back against the seat and closing his eyes. "That much knowledge would kill him, he's human. He can't remember."

"You doing okay back there, kid?"

"Yeah." He replied weakly.

Dean kept his gaze for a moment before he just turned back to driving.

Sam glanced back, doing his best to mask his concern. "You get some rest, Jack. You did good back there."

"Thanks." Jack failed to mutter. Closing his eyes didn't help, but once he had he forgot how to open them. He had existed his whole life… just one moment in one place.

Right now he was everywhere. Like electricity, a thought and he could see it. Anywhere in the world. He checked in on Donna, Eileen, Bobby, Charlie... He peered through the bunker. He looked in the silo. He could do all that from the car speeding down the highway, one single path through the infinite multitudes.

It was an adjustment.

Chuck's memory was fathomless, and it was spreading like wildfire across his brain, unfolding eons in seconds, cataloging an eternity in the void balanced with Amara and Death before he took breath and birthed the warriors of his sister's confinement. Jack saw the moment the horsemen split. He saw the big bang. He saw the creation of angels, crafted from the supernovas of a chaotic forming universe. He watched countless worlds rise from sparks into empires and fade to dust. He found himself catching up to the present. He watched Sam and Dean's life from birth, not sure if the tears were only in his head when he watched a demon slit his wrist over Sam's crib. He watched John Winchester impart his discipline on them. He watched a knife in Sam's back and hellhounds at Dean's ankles. He felt a physical punch to the gut when Castiel laid a hand on Dean's shoulder in hell.

Dean Winchester is saved.

"That was when the connection broke." Jack thought he had said it out loud, but when no one in the car responded he realized he was mistaken. It was too much of an effort to speak up again.

He watched it again, once, twice. It made him feel physically nauseous. All of the unfathomed cosmos were perfectly in tune with Chuck, the small flicker of an angel's doubt was like a lightning bolt. Angels obeyed. That was all they knew how to do. They weren't like his archangels with their own intuitions, angels were merely an extension of him, programmed to follow orders.

"He wasn't pulling the strings." Jack tried to assure them, but again he realized he hadn't moved his lips. "Chuck wanted to see the story… he didn't want to write it. Not until the end. That was all you…"

He watched Ruby corrupt Sam in parallel to Dean's corruption of Cas.

Castiel wasn't the first angel to pull away from heaven, but he was the first one to be tainted with the soul of a righteous man rather than the temptations of sin. It was fascinating.

Chuck never knew which path Dean would take, but he knew where every possible path could lead. Not a single prediction saw Dean get into that church. Castiel had achieved the unachievable. Providence was subverted. A thousand new paths opened up and the cosmic rush was intoxicating.

He almost forgot to reach through and pull Dean out of that church before Lucifer stepped into the world and melted the flesh off his bones. Sam too, why not?

He spent simultaneously millenia and mere hours, riding the high of being confronted with the true unknown. He was disappointed when the puzzle pieces started sliding into place, the picture clearing. New paths were cemented; The story was different now, but he could see it again. The loss was impossible to set aside.

Raphael had smited Cas so thoroughly there wasn't even enough to scrape into the empty. This provided him with a unique opportunity. He could pull him back together. He was careful, taking care, hundreds of years within frozen time. He had to get it perfect, he could not risk losing the small shard of Dean's soul that severed his bond with fate.

When Cas came back. the paths blurred and when it was done these three improbable rebels had averted the certainty of the apocalypse. Once again as the earth sealed over and the dust settled, Chuck had found himself already craving the uncertainty of Castiel. He went to work rebuilding him again.

The dread Chuck felt when Dean took the mark competed with the thrill of seeing where that led, and suddenly he felt connected to Dean in a way he never had any human before. Reconciliation with his sister, a trip through the cosmic potential at the edges of interminable realities, and by his return the story of Earth had been turned on end.

Jack felt the wave of hatred for himself, and he imagined giving a weak smile at the emotional mess he'd have to sort through to reconcile that later. He turned his back, wishing to avoid reliving the pain and turmoil he himself caused from a whole new perspective. Chuck's omniscience seemed to flicker and fade after Sam's soul splintered into his shoulder anyway.

He rushed through to the end, desperate to catch up to the present in the diminishing hope that he'd be able to wrestle these memories under control. Time had been moving so fast at the start of… well, time itself. Now each second was painfully slow, and he aged centuries sorting through Chuck's analysis of every minute. "Sir, this is a radio shed."

Chuck was choking down on the reins, brushing right up against the his own applied limits to affect free will before finally tearing everything down in every reality but one. And then he began to deconstruct that.

Jack was distracted by feeling the pull of every soul as they were erased off the planet. An instant for any observer on earth, but each person one at a time for him.

He almost missed Cas and Dean run out of Death's library.

"When Jack was dying, I made a deal to save him.…"

Jack blinked back tears again, heart racing as he watched the scene continue.

The empty was tearing open. Cas tried to throw Dean to the side, but the hunter grabbed his arm, pulling Cas close and throwing his arms around him.

"Dean, please-" Cas shouted over the sounds of the slithering void reaching towards them. Jack could feel the second hand panic exploding out from both of them.

"I love you, Cas." Dean breathed, directly in Cas' ear. He arched involuntarily as he felt the ink touch his back, but he held on tight. His prayer was clear. You aren't going without me.

Jack felt Chuck himself invade the room, standing in the silence left behind, the violence of moments ago fading into absence, a world once again without Death, a world missing an impossible pair. And a wholly unsatisfying ending.

Jack felt another nauseating twist in his gut when he felt the idea blossom.

He'd just build another.

No.

It was easy, really.

Please no.

The memories continued, pushing through every attempt Jack made to slow them. His hands… the perverse hand of God, sewing together a human body, stuffing it with a hastily crafted approximation of a half finished soul. Cracked drywall smoothed over with reconstructed memories, edited to his liking. The story would be finished. He didn't rip everyone off this earth just to end it there.

Chuck left him on the floor, phone ringing on the ground, and a memory of staying silent while Cas was ripped from existence.

Jack tore his eyes open, gasping for air as he pulled himself out of it. He locked eyes with Dean in the mirror, and felt the shudder down his spine.

It wasn't Dean.

Dean was in the empty.

Dean was gone.

This isn't Dean.

"You sure you're okay?" Not Dean asked over his shoulder, suggesting to Jack his expressions had all been in his head.

"Yeah." He replied softly.

.

He didn't tell them.

The imposter was acting normal, and Sam was none the wiser, and with all of Jack's wisdom he didn't know what to do besides do nothing at all. He said his goodbyes and stepped out of time to think.

"You want to bring them back." Amara's voice wasn't accusing, but it wasn't necessarily approving either. "This is your idea of hands off?"

"I'm doing it."

"Interfering is what got Chuck in trouble in the first place."

"I'm not Chuck." Jack said firmly. "And I'm not leaving them there."

She looked across the bunker at the figure that couldn't see them. "What are you going to do about him?"

Jack closed his eyes. "I don't know."

"You know you won't be able to pull Dean out with that thing here."

"That thing is Dean… sort of."

"And that's the problem." Amara finished. "The soul can't exist in tandem like that. They'll consume each other as they try to merge."

"He doesn't have a soul." Jack said mournfully. "Not really."

"Close enough to cause problems."

"It's not fair anyway." Jack murmured. "To Sam…" Sam hadn't noticed yet, but Jack was counting the days. The new Dean was a bluff, a collection of memories and intent robust enough to ride out the last apocalypse to completion, but it was never meant to navigate the world any further. The seams were coming undone, and soon they would be without subtlety.

"I don't want Sam to know." Jack paused. "He shouldn't have to know how long his brother has been gone, or where.

"You're not going to be able to wait much longer."

"I'll figure it out." And he did.

Five inches.

The slightest adjustment, five inches to the left, letting a vampire and a poorly placed hook do the dirty work for him.

Jack kept his eyes on every corner of earth, heaven, hell, and purgatory to try to hide from tearful goodbyes from a whisper of his father. He blocked out Sam's despaired prayers, begging him to help.

I am helping. I can rescue him now.

Jack finally used the last spark of an imposter Dean's almost-soul to rip a hole into the nothingness beyond reality. He liked to think that this Dean had been Dean enough that he'd have willingly sacrificed himself for a chance to rescue his family from the Entity.

It was enough to steel himself for the task ahead.

With the presence of God and the audacity of a Winchester, he stepped through, and he wouldn't be leaving without his fathers.

---

Find me on ao3 (Bob Wess) when it's back, and if you are desperate for more fics right now, you can check out my fanfiction .net account. I've polished the fics before cross-posting to ao3, but they're all here.

[watcher0033]

WHAT IN THE EVER LOVING FUCK OHMYGOD THIS IS MY MOST INVESTED SCIFI SHOW SINCE DARK AND TRAVELERS HOLY CHICKEN NUGGETS I NEED FUCKING ANSWERS OHMYGODOYGOD

GUYS WATCH SILO IT. IS. SO. FUCKING. AMAZING.

I beg of you.

Pure awesomeness for 10 episodes.

Main Character is GIF above and she will awaken every sapphic bone in your body. She’s certainly awaken mine and I’m bloody asexual.

Rebecca Ferguson is so hot as Juliette in this even when she’s being an asshole. I’m like I can completely understand darling lemme lay down my life for u. Yall the pull of her is sooo 😚 my beloved feral alley cat

Actually I think this is a very carnal love letter to all ITs and engineers out there with how attractive every casted Mechanics are lmao

It’s a murder mystery with red level type of fascist regime conspiracy and the pacing is managed so fucking well you’ll never get bored and may at times cursed out loud of pure annoyance when the intro show itself and maybe break your phone just to hit the skip button immediately

It’s so good you’ll keep gasping like a toddler like you just watched the twists the first time though said twists has been already established few episodes ago and a constant cloudy backdrop to every interaction/conversation/literally every fucking scenes

Me: Oh my god. We’ve established this already. Please inform the other characters WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME. Go, GO GO

Characters, being informed:

Also, Me: *gasps with them*

The tension is so fucking good. You will not tear your eyes away.

All the adrenaline of excitement and frustrations with the fucking questions that keep piling up and cry-inducing cliffhangers are all fucking worth it because the payoffs are literally everything. I am madly hyperfixating. This is love.

Official summary: *crying because it barely eclipses the sheer fucking genius of this show but also cant think of something better because it feels like trying to wiggle in a tiny room surrounded by electric fences. Electric fences being spoilers*

Give it a shot it’s so worth it. I just clicked on it on a whim just to play it in the background while working. And now here I am at midnight rambling like Im high.

Best scifi shows of the fucking year. 👏🏼 Maybe one of the best scifi shows ever. It certainly is in my top 3.

Say it with me: TRUTH BEFORE ORDER.

tw‼️ CLEAN 💀

That ending. That ending. That fucking ending. SEASON 2 COME OUT.

[reikunrei]

I'm not gonna make as in-depth a post about it as my other DW analyses, but a month or so ago I watched the season 1 episode "Dalek" and now I'm thinking about it in relation to what Vecna's ending might look like.

A lot of people complain when they hear folks (such as myself and my friends) say they want Vecna's end to be tragic in some way. They interpret it as us saying we want him to be redeemed, or forgiven, or be made into a "good guy" who actually did nothing wrong, or whatever. Which (setting aside all the Henry/Edward stuff, which I'd argue is a separate discussion anyway) isn't the case at all. Not necessarily, at least. Vecna has done a lot of heinous things that can't be overlooked.

However, that doesn't mean he's entirely unsympathetic. He's very relatable in his motives and is a fun way to explore revenge and justice in the extremes. He's an example of the cracks in the Capital S System. However, I would agree that Vecna as a person and as a concept shouldn't be given a full pass on everything he's done just because his reasoning has a strong foundation.

"Dalek" offers a really interesting alternative where the Dalek in the episode is given multiple chances to "redeem" itself or is shown sympathy, only to constantly push back against it and refuse the kindness offered to it up until the very end. Even so, its eventual self-destruction is still tragic.

This is for multiple reasons, but the one I want to introduce here first to set the tone is: It's tragic because there's no changing what's been done to the Dalek, what the Dalek has done, and the general circumstances of what a Dalek is and their history. Rose wants to help the Dalek, but it's simply not feasible given the circumstances.

So, let's get into some of this episode.

We open on the Doctor and Rose landing in an underground bunker in Utah, USA, having followed a signal "calling for help." Inside this bunker are rows and rows of glass cases containing extraterrestrial artifacts, owned and collected by a man named Henry van Statten. We learn that one of these is a live specimen, which van Statten keeps in "The Cage," where they've been attempting to get it to speak for some time, often resorting to physically harming it and making it scream. Okay, NINA silo.

The Doctor goes in to speak to it, since van Statten wants to know what it is, and we get this exchange:

Some abridged Doctor Who history to explain this interaction: The Daleks are an alien race that's been around for the entire run of the show, first introduced in the original series. As it pertains to the 2005 reboot, early in the show we learn that the Doctor is the last Time Lord in existence because all of them died in the Last Great Time War. The Last Great Time War was fought between the Time Lords and the Daleks, and it was ultimately ended by the Doctor themself killing (or sealing away) both the Time Lords and the Daleks to stop the conflict and save the universe(s).

The Daleks and the Time Lords have had beef for... basically forever, as far as I know. The Daleks also make multiple returns throughout the rest of the series and still remain a recurring antagonist, though I don't know what's been going on with them past like... season 7 or so. We even get a few more sympathetic portrayals of them, but we don't need to talk about that today.

I should also briefly explain here that the Daleks were bred and evolved to hate. They exist only to kill things that aren't Daleks because they see anything that isn't a Dalek as "wrong." They have such a strong will to live in order to push this regimen that they almost don't die, as their bodies will simply refuse to do so, unless ordered or killed by force. Okay, Vecna. In short: they basically only know hatred and anger, and anything else simply isn't part of their genetics. There's some nuance to this in the greater lore, but I won't touch on that here because it's not introduced in this episode.

Anyway, back to the episode!

Once the Doctor realizes that the Dalek is damaged and can't actually kill him, he starts laying into it, circling it and asking "What are you good for?" and "What's the point of you? You're nothing." The Dalek says it's awaiting orders (something it's bred for), and the Doctor breaks the news that all the other Daleks have been destroyed by him and it won't be getting any orders.

Admitting to his own self-hatred, the Doctor switches on the chains holding the Dalek, electrocuting it. The Dalek begs for pity, and the Doctor says, "Why should I [have pity]? You never did." Then, van Statten enters The Cage with guards and pulls the Doctor out, at which point the Dalek returns to refusing to speak.

The Doctor speaks to van Statten more, telling him about the Time War, learning how the Dalek fell from the sky "like a meteorite" and surmising that it must have fallen through time as the only survivor. And at this point, van Statten smugly eyes up the Doctor, now knowing that he, too, is an alien not of this Earth, and chains him up to be studied and tortured just like the Dalek. There's honestly so much I could say about van Statten and his similarities to Brenner, so I might do that some other time.

Meanwhile, Rose, who's been tagging along with van Statten's assistant, unaware of what's happened thus far, sees security footage of the Dalek being tortured by one of van Statten's scientists and goes to The Cage to investigate and try to help.

She talks to the Dalek, asking if it's in pain, saying that she can help because she has her friend, the Doctor, with her. The Dalek says yes, it is in pain.

Rose continues to insist they help, but the Dalek says that its race is dead and it will simply die alone. Rose places a gentle hand against its "head," which burns her, and as she pulls away, that Dalek shouts, "Genetic material extrapolated. Initiate cellular reconstruction."

Having gotten DNA from Rose, a time traveler, the Dalek is able to regenerate, fixing all of its damage and breaking free of its chains before hacking out of The Cage and gaining access to the entire bunker. In short, it starts killing people indiscriminately and drains all power from the bunker, from Utah, and from the entire west coast of the USA, also downloading all of the information from the internet at the same time.

Most of the rest of the episode is an extended chase scene, where Rose and the assistant, Adam, are trying to get up to a higher level of the bunker, though are often relegated to stairwells and detours in an attempt to keep the Dalek locked away as deep as possible. At one point, Rose and Adam are being escorted by an armed guard when they come face to face with the Dalek in a stairwell, and the armed guard starts trying to talk it down:

Martin "but but but I locked you kids up because I loved you" Brenner, over here.

The first major hint that we start to see something is awry with the Dalek is it and Rose making eye contact, and Rose leaving the interaction feeling like the Dalek saw her as more than just a target for extermination, and rather that "it knows [her]."

Then, after some more chasing and some more mass murder, the Dalek addresses the Doctor. It says that, now with no place to get orders from, it will follow "the Primary Order," or the "Dalek instinct to destroy" and conquer. The Doctor asks why, though. What's the point of doing that at this point when it's the only Dalek left? The Dalek can't answer that and just asks what it should do, wherein we get this impeccable line that aired on public television in the year 2005:

He rips into the Dalek again, really showing his anger as he screams, "Why don't you just die!?" at which point the Dalek responds with, "You would make a good Dalek" before ceasing communication. Mic drop of the goddamn century!!! That scene still drives me absolutely batshit. Anyway.

Rose and Adam are rushing to try and escape the vault portion of the bunker, but they're running out of time. Adam makes it through the final door as it's shutting, but Rose doesn't and is now trapped with the Dalek. Rose talks to the Doctor over her cellphone, telling him that it wasn't his fault and she wouldn't have missed any of this for the world. The Dalek fires its laser, the call drops, and the Doctor reluctantly accepts that she's dead.

However, unbeknownst to him, the Dalek didn't actually kill Rose.

They have a brief back-and-forth, and Rose questions the Dalek's hesitation to kill her.

The Dalek speaks to the Doctor again, revealing that Rose is actually alive and uses her as leverage to get him to open the bulkhead and let the two of them out. Rose pleads with the Doctor to not open the door, but the Dalek uses the Doctor's emotions against him, saying, "What use are emotions, if you will not save the woman you love?"

Rose and the Dalek take an elevator up to where the Doctor and van Statten & co. are hanging out, with the Dalek all the while continuing to act strangely.

The Dalek approaches van Statten, threatening to kill him for torturing it, but Rose tells it not to do it, and it listens. She asks it what else it could want that doesn't involve killing, and the Dalek answers with "freedom." Vecna when...

Rose takes the Dalek ahead, closer to the surface. It blasts a hole in the roof, bringing in a ray of sunlight. Rose says she thought she'd never feel it again, at which point the Dalek asks what it feels like before opening its metal casing to expose the actual Dalek inside. It feels the sun on its skin and reaches out toward the light.

In this moment of vulnerability, the Doctor appears, having grabbed one of the alien-made guns that van Statten has in a feeble attempt to actually kill the Dalek. He yells at Rose to get out of the line of fire, but she refuses, even when he tries to justify it with the number of people the Dalek killed that day, or the fact that it was the Dalek race that created the downfall of the Time Lords. She urges the Doctor to pause and just look at what the Dalek is doing.

Love a good TFS word.

The Dalek asks, "Why do we survive?" and the Doctor doesn't have an answer. When the Dalek once again says that it's the last of its kind, the Doctor explains that it no longer is a Dalek. Having absorbed Rose's DNA for its regeneration, it's begun mutating into something new. Rose asks why that wouldn't be a good thing, but, as I explained earlier, it's because Daleks view themselves as superior, so if they're no longer a Dalek, then they're not worth living.

The Dalek is experiencing human thoughts and emotions, ones that it can't, nor wants, to comprehend, and it asks Rose to order it to die, saying that "This is not life. This is sickness. I shall not be like you!" With some more pushing, Rose finally relents, quietly saying, "Do it."

Guy who says he's not gonna go as in-depth before proceeding to do so anyway. But trust me, I could say a lot more about this episode, I just wanna keep this brief and explore this one concept without the plethora of off-topic potential references.

I hope you can see some of the bones of what I'm getting at in how this could potentially be applied as inspiration for ST5, but let's get into some of my thoughts.

1) Paralleling the Doctor and the Dalek

This is something I've talked about in a lot of my other DW posts so I won't rehash it too much, but it's incredibly telling to me that we, once again, get this emphasis on muddying the waters between "good guy" and "bad guy."

Through the season, we've seen the Doctor grieving his people, constantly saying he's the last Time Lord in the universe and being generally depressed about it. We're very frequently reminded of how sad he is about it, and we're meant to be sad about it, too. More often than not, it's meant as a way to show a deeper bond between him and his companion whenever he shares that information.

Then, we meet this Dalek who is also the last of its kind in the universe, and who is also suddenly made to grieve the loss of its people. From the get-go, it's framed as a sympathetic creature begging for help as it's tortured, and only once the Doctor's bias is brought to light do we get any sort of inkling of an opposing stance.

Then, almost right away, we see their roles essentially swapped. Sure, the Dalek is a formidable opponent with an innate desire to kill everything it sees and perhaps maybe should be eliminated for the sake of the greater good. However, the Dalek is weak and vulnerable, with no way to defend itself, and the Doctor does the objectively shitty thing and tries to kill it while it's cornered. The entire episode has a bad ick about it. Even if the Doctor is technically justified, you still feel bad watching him take advantage of a situation to harm a defenseless creature.

The Dalek says it itself: the Doctor would make a good Dalek, allowing his hatred to drive him to make some morally fucked up decisions. He encourages his fear and rage to guide his hand, and it's not until he has an outside perspective - specifically from someone he cares about the opinion of immensely - that he backs down. If and when we get a similar scenario with Will and someone else having to talk him down... I'm seated.

In the end, it's hard to have sympathy for the Doctor without also extending that to the Dalek.

It very much makes me think of the larger fandom's perspective on Henry in ST, and how they'll dish out heaps of sympathy and empathy for the other characters, and even encourage them to do shitty things for the sake of "revenge" or "taking what they deserve," but then turn around and look at Henry's objectively worse situation and claim that he doesn't deserve that same courtesy simply because of a slightly less appealing past.

To specifically tie it to comparing the Doctor and the Dalek, I'm looking at how we're meant to compare Henry and Will to one another. We see two sensitive boys who come from imperfect households with a desire to be loved and accepted for who they are. We see them go through hardships beyond our imaginations and, the key here, is how their situations during and thereafter are different.

We see the perspective of the Doctor first, and we feel bad for him! When he attacks the Dalek, it feels justified given the history between their races. In ST, we see the perspective of Will first, learning everything he's been through, and thus when he says "we have to kill [Vecna]," it makes sense! We've been led to believe that everything that's happened to Will has been enabled by this one guy, so of course it's justified to want to put a stop to him, and we cheer on the other characters when they come to Will's aid.

But then we get the perspective of the Dalek. We see it admit that it's in pain, that it's sad, that it yearns for freedom and an end to its torture. In ST, we learn more about Vecna, about his (alleged) past, and the trials he's been through to shape him into who he is today, and his desire to make things better. It, then, also makes sense for these characters to react the way they do, even if it's not ideal, and even if their methods and motives aren't the most morally clean.

(I'd also be remiss if I didn't at least briefly tap in on the whole "perspective" thing with what James is discussing in his upcoming big thesis post about TFS. Definitely keep an eye out for it, because it's a super interesting exploration of perspective and how that paints certain behaviors/scenes in different lights than we may have initially been led to believe.)

When I first watched ST4, I wasn't in the fandom at all. I was entirely unaware of the vitriol being slung at Vecna and Henry. I watched him do all these inexcusable things, but then... we have NINA Henry explain what (allegedly) happened and why he is where he is, and I thought... oh.

We're told that this guy had a good reason for doing everything he did. Even if everything he's done is reprehensible, I still sat there thinking "wow, he didn't deserve any of that, everything could have been avoided if he was just treated with decency."

With the Dalek, even after we see what it's done, we're meant to feel bad for it. Should it be forgiven? Perhaps not, but it was just doing the only thing it knew how to do after being put in a situation by someone else (van Statten) that allowed it to do the damage that it did, much like Brenner essentially enabling the creation of Vecna by cornering a child into the lab and forcing his hand.

All in all, it really pushes you to accept that someone who is "good" can do bad things because they think it's what should be done, and someone who is "bad" can be offered a chance to change and become better, and it doesn't even have to be detraction if they refuse that help. And, ultimately, I wouldn't be surprised if Vecna is offered help, but refuses it because it's too late. Not because he's being petulant and stubborn, but because there's genuinely no point, much like with the Dalek (even if the Dalek is being more petulant and stubborn than anything).

2) Vecna and the Daleks

By no means do I want it to come off like I'm directly correlating Vecna to the Daleks. There's too many key differences, particularly in what they are, for me to do that with a straight face.

I already explained that Daleks are born and evolved to hate. That's the only emotion they feel, because anything else would give them doubt in their Primary Order. Meanwhile, Vecna very much is a person. Even if he's not fully human, there's a human core there that allows him to hesitate and feel something other than disdain for humanity (I will always and forever stare at the way he kept El alive. Sir, I know you're not that cocky. Just kill her. Unless she....... means something to you......?).

Throughout ST, everything that comes out of the UD is distinctly nonhuman. I remember very early on in ST4 thinking it was weird that they made something from the UD so close to human. So, even if we're led into the story believing that Vecna is something purely monstrous, by the end we're shown that he is, in fact, still a human and always has been a human.

It's similar, if not slightly inverted, to what happens with the Dalek in this episode: We open on this strange alien creature and learn it was the reason for the downfall of the Time Lords, but by the end, it's been infused with enough human DNA that it becomes even harder to treat it with cruelty.

And I know I said I wasn't going to get into the deeper lore of the Daleks, but I have to just mention one of the myths of their creation from the short story "We are the Daleks!" published in 1973:

So like... um... anyway... just chew on that a little bit, I guess!!

As a final note for this thought, I do also find it interesting that even their motives could be considered similar. The Daleks kill everything that isn't a Dalek. And, yes, it is because of hatred, but it's also specifically about guaranteeing their own survival and making the universe fit for them. Not too far off from that, we have Vecna wanting to reshape the world into what he wants it to be so that he can exist freely. It's not exactly one-to-one, especially given that Vecna's motives are more of a commentary on the flaws of society while the Daleks are committing a "racial cleansing" (the Doctor's words, not mine), but I'd be remiss to not at least touch on it.

3) Objective Perspective

Rose gives us a very stark show of what bias can do in this episode. She showed sympathy before she knew anything about the Dalek, and while she does become frightened and tries to flee from it, by the end of the episode she's managed to either fight against or accept her fear and continue to try and help the Dalek and show it kindness.

It reminds me a lot of what we see with D'art in ST2, to the point that Rose's experience is almost beat for beat what happens with Dustin:

Finding the demoslug and growing fond of it because he doesn't know what it is.

Becoming frightened when he learns it's a "baby demogorgon" and tries to trap it.

Learning that he can have a connection and cooperate with it even if he's still scared.

Even Will manages to fight against his fear, understanding that D'art is just in a vulnerable position and needs help more than anything.

On top of Rose's demeanor with the Dalek, we also get to study how she reacts to the Doctor as the episode progresses. By and large, she's disgusted with the way the Doctor is behaving, calling him out multiple times and begging him to see the bigger picture. He's hurt, of course, but he can't continue to resort to violence under the guise of being afraid when this Dalek is no longer the same as the Daleks he hates. She doesn't even fully understand that until the very end, and still she can see that it's changing and it's been deserving of compassion this whole time.

The Doctor and the Dalek both hate each other and hate themselves, and Rose is the only one who can cut in, generally understanding both sides of the argument, to get everyone to back down. She's viewed both the Doctor and the Dalek with a clean, unbiased lens, which allows her to take in all the information she's given without any sort of judgement clouding her decisions.

Sure, her fear does take over a few times, but it's almost exclusively when her life is in immediate danger and she never takes it out directly on the Dalek. As soon as the Dalek refuses to kill her, she can wrangle herself into at least trying to approach things calmly and objectively and attempt to talk the Dalek down rather than resorting to brute force.

It makes me wonder just how, exactly, this is going to go down for Vecna. We've been given a lot of information thus far, but everyone has a different set of pieces without a way to combine them correctly just yet, and there's so many personal stakes involved that it becomes hard to parse out what's really an objective reading.

Will has been personally affected by the UD and the MF, which also affected his immediate family and friends.

El lived in the lab for her whole life and knew Henry personally, and potentially was the catalyst for finally creating Vecna.

Brenner has a desire to make himself look good as he works for his own selfish gains, and puts others in harm's way to get there.

Multiple people have had their lives directly altered by something Vecna did.

Vecna himself has a mess of wrongs against him that he's desperate to "fix."

etc. etc...

It's really just a whole big mess, and it's going to take a lot of work for someone to break out of the personal feelings involved in order to get everyone on all sides to step back and do some self-reflecting.

It's interesting to me that "Dalek" is not only a lesson in sympathy for others, but a lesson in sympathy for oneself. It's a large part of the Doctor's arc in this first season, and sympathy in general has been a huge part of ST throughout the whole show (which I know I've talked about endlessly irt these comparisons to DW), and it's a sentiment becoming increasingly pushed on our "villain" characters.

Like how the Doctor is "brought down" to the Dalek's level of cruelty and the Dalek is "brought up" to the Doctor's level of deserving sympathy, our "villain" characters in ST are being brought up to the protagonists' level of deserving sympathy, and our protagonists...? Well, we've already been blessed with loads of imperfect "good" characters in this show thus far, so I will not be surprised when that gets taken to the extreme.

It's already in line with El's monster vs superhero internal debate: a good character can do something morally reprehensible, with or without "proper" motive, and they will still be deserving of compassion.

In conclusion, while obviously I don't think it'll be a one-to-one, I do think that this DW episode offers an interesting route for Vecna's arc to take, specifically in regard to his demise. While a character such as Henry or Edward, who were dragged into this situation against their will, might be deserving of forgiveness/clearing their names and may still be able to be "saved," in whatever form that may be, someone like Vecna might simply be too far gone. There's no going back at this point, and it just has to be accepted.

I was talking to James about this, and I agree when he said it wouldn't be surprising if Vecna was offered help, he earnestly thanked them for it, but then had to refuse it anyway. I wouldn't be shocked if El wants to help him so badly but ultimately has to accept that sometimes things can't be undone, and they simply have to run their course, even if it has an unsatisfactory outcome. Especially if that outcome was one that could have been avoided had they gotten to the problem sooner. That is the tragedy.

The Dalek is a bit more complicated than that, obviously, given what it is as a species and its refusal for help being because it sees no point in existing now that it's "contaminated," but I think you can pick up what I'm putting down. The Dalek could have accepted the help and could have striven to change like Rose thought it could, but it simply wasn't in the cards and would have caused more pain than not.

The Daleks come up again in future episodes, which I might talk about someday, but I felt like this one was a good exploration of what you can do with an established villain and flip the narrative until they're almost entirely sympathetic while our "good guy" seems ridiculous for behaving the way he does. It is not a stretch to apply that sentiment to ST, especially because we have even more of a foundation for compassion toward our "villains" in that show than the Dalek got in this episode.

I could talk a lot more about this episode, too. There's so many trains of thought that this inspired, but, again, I want to just talk about this topic for now, so all the weird "why is this so ST" bits can stay in the vault (or you can go watch the episode yourself, which I highly recommend! It's a good one).

Overall, just knowing that DW was some level of inspiration for ST makes me excited to see what the Duffers took from that classic series and how they'll use it to inform their own final season, and specifically how they'll further the "no one is special/better/worse" message they have going on. We'll see!

[macleod]

Musing on remaking the browser (and internet) as we know it.

HTML+CSS is by far the best 'component' library there is, but JS really tends to be the main cause of bogging down the entire thing and drowning out the performance gains.

The idea is something along these lines (this ended up being far longer than initially intended):

HTML Viewer, directly from a plain HTML source, I've even considered using a headless browser, taking a 'photo' of the webpage, and then laying out a bitmap onto it, might not be needed, but could be cool and useful.

Once a user, or a function 'clicks' or focuses on a section of the bitmap, then the embedded language uses this is as a target selector to manipulate the data of the HTML viewer source, directly without page loads. Similar to an SPA but, without JS, similar to 'hot-wire', but again without JavaScript.

a separate database built into the 'browser' similar to indexdb, but likely something more similar and powerful such as SQLite with permission guards for applications (think OAuth, running locally).

This would obviously change the dynamic properties of a 'browser', and would make it more akin to an enhanced PDF editor with dynamic input (pop-ups instead of dynamic forms, etc.). But, I am starting to believe the problem and performance issue of the browser is less the sandbox (which this would enhance), but because we've forced a data language into what should be a static component library with targeted source changes.

This is a difficulty that we're seeing the weight of, we only have two major browser types, two engines. There have been so many attempts to recreate them, but they are all attempts at recreating the worst parts of a rendering agent that combines and forces the merger of highly volatile dynamic data into static components.

They have said for years that no one can 'make a new browser rendering engine' because of how many variables and issues and decades of bad choices and changes from the infancy of development.

Gopher, and the similar, are interesting projects, but they lack in several regards: data entry, minimal schematic support for modern HTML and CSS capabilities, and they are attempting to recreate an entire protocol. The protocol we have for file and web transfer is excellent, despite its shortcomings, but it is highly stable, reproducible, and effective.

If we were to remove 'dynamic' capabilities, such as forms, or text boxes, and all that JavaScript entails, the HTML viewer would be minimal for performance. The embedded language on top would hold the data separately from the process—rendering inputs to be sanitized and standardized. If the browser fails, your data would be backed up, you would have a complete revision history of all data ever processed, and you would have. This is likely the path forward for something akin to the Solid Project, where you own your data.

Every 'browser' becomes your own personal data temple or silo, and every web page becomes 'server-side' generated and modified with targeted manipulation or key:values from the integrated (stateful) database by your locally running browser.

When you go to someone else's website, most of which is just static content anyway, you get the HTML source, and the source for a/any(?) scripting language that would use the values from the browser overlay tracker for targeting to rewrite and submit specific HTML components.

The manipulator overlay would be an entirely separate process, with a simple message transfer between the two. This entirely separates your data into a stateful persistent object (no more losing your form data as you type due to a reload, or failure, or anything else, with full history) and your dynamic script, if a site needs it (most don't), would be in its own process. There would be a message transfer queue, likely using the built-in database with @\tagged hooks for event dispatches.

You would be able to have fully sandboxed, extremely performant, websites, while owning your own data. The browser as a server HTML renderer, the webpage as an “image” (sort of), and an 'overlay' selector for an embedded image to submit changes to individual HTML components.

If you were to separate it into three extremely slim, minimal, processes, with an integrated database with OAuth style permission switches. You would have just created a new browser, and a new way for the web to work, using virtually no memory, enhancing security, and with far less complexity. In a way, this would turn the web into a 'native' application.

You also would have quite a bit of backwards compatibility to the pre-NewWeb.

You should own your data, websites should be static, data should be dynamic, and browsers should be performant.

Just some musing on the topic, I'm working on something similar, but not exactly in regard to this—so maybe I'll spend some time and add it to the ever-growing projects list.

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART ONE REVIEW ROUND UP

Attention: The review roundup might contain spoilers for the film

Other than Hunt himself, trying to secure the key to The Entity are a number of returning figures: Simon Pegg’s affably frantic Benji, Ving Rhames’ cool Luther and Rebecca Ferguson’s classically enigmatic Ilsa Faust, perhaps the best thing that happened to the franchise since Cruise. (https://www.thewrap.com/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-one-review/)

Dead Reckoning brings back Rebecca Ferguson’s silky-steely Ilsa Faust, of the most engaging characters from the franchise’s last two entries, Fallout (2018) and Rogue Nation (2015)...a gorgeously staged duel between Faust and Gabriel, set on a slender Venetian bridge: Faust wears a silky topcoat whose tails whirl about her as her sword slashes through the air, intensifying the already intense aura of Venetian mystery and drama. (https://time.com/6291965/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-one-review-tom-cruise/)

Last but definitely not least, Ilsa Faust returns for another unpredictable mission, played by the always enchanting Rebecca Ferguson, who continues to command every scene that she is in with her passionate and gritty performance. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffconway/2023/07/05/mission-impossibledead-reckoning-part-one-is-the-thrill-ride-of-the-summer/?sh=7d5eeb2a18ce )

It's Rebecca Ferguson as the returning Ilsa Faust who provides the film with its soul. While they may be busy saving the world, Hunt and Faust get a couple of brief moments that demonstrate how much they mean to each other, and it's the most romantic thing I've seen in a Hollywood action blockbuster since The Empire Strikes Back (I could mention the influence of another spy movie but that would be a spoiler). The film might be packed with bombastic action but it never loses sight of its human relationships. Some of the most memorable moments are simple gestures, including a smile from Faust to Hunt that will melt your heart. (http://www.themoviewaffler.com/2023/07/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-one-review.html)

Thanks to Hunt’s longtime cohort Ilsa Faust (god bless you,Rebecca Ferguson...(https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-1-review-tom-cruise-1234779044/)

...it gives its veterans requisite time in the spotlight (with Ferguson remaining these films’ charismatic secret weapon) (https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-review-tom-cruise-is-better-than-ever)

...the occasional helping hand from the ever-elusive Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson, magnetic but alarmingly underused)...(https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-one-review)

The biggest sin of Dead Reckoning, however, is how it wastes two of its best talents with Fallout MVP Vanessa Kirby, reprising her role as The White Widow, and franchise mainstay Rebecca Ferguson, reprising her role as Ilsa Faust. Don’t get me wrong, both actresses are nothing short of spectacular in their returns to the role...Ferguson, who has arguably been the best character in the franchise since her introduction in Rogue Nation is criminally underseen throughout the movie. And what we do get of her results in significant baffling decisions that are made about her character, that will ultimately get fans of the franchise very upset (and we’ve never seen them very upset!) (https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2023/07/05/noc-review-mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-pt-1-is-a-non-stop-thrill-ride/)

Whereas Haley Atwell takes center stage in Dead Reckoning Part One, Rebecca Ferguson’s Isla Faust unfortunately takes a back seat. The Dune and Silo star is fantastic as usual, yet when almost everyone else has so much to do in this script, it’s disappointing to see her receive the short end of the stick. This is a rather bizarre decision on Christopher McQuarrie’s behalf since he was the one who made a star out of the character in Rogue Nation and Fallout. You also can’t help but feel like Dead Reckoning Part One falls into some old action genre tropes by shoving one female character to the side in order to let another one thrive – as if this movie couldn’t allow Atwell and Ferguson to shine together. Maybe Ferguson’s shooting schedule is now too packed to even include Mission: Impossible? Regardless, it’s the most damning aspect of this sequel.(https://discussingfilm.net/2023/07/05/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-one-review-tom-cruise-reaches-new-levels-of-absurdity/)

For all that the film primarily functions as a bone-jangling espionage thriller, it’s the fuse-fizzing chemistry between Cruise and Rebecca Ferguson, returning for her third stint as MI6 spook Ilsa Faust, as well as Cruise and Hayley Atwell, making her first appearance in the series as Grace, a world-class pickpocket and rent-a-thief, that makes everything click. Whenever it shifts focus away from the winning Atwell-Cruise-Ferguson trifecta, the film really suffers. (https://lwlies.com/reviews/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-one/)

Dialogue-free vignettes between Cruise and Ferguson, whether they’re sharing a platonic hug on a rooftop or holding hands on a gondola in Venice, are tender stolen moments.(https://freshfiction.tv/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-one-review-another-action-master-class/)

There are still plenty of bullets fired, but there’s also a moonlit sword fight between Gabriel and Rebecca Ferguson’s ice-cold (and oh so cool) Ilsa Faust atop the Ponte Minich, a luminous bridge in the Sestiere Castello.  (https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-one-review-1234881243/)