#i will say one other interesting thing about him is he's the one wolf 359 antagonist who doesn't account for himself in his own big picture

[commsroom]

im sure you've talked about this before but what are your opinions on hilbert

hilbert is... a fascinating character. he's an archetype disguised as another archetype, concealing a real person with understandable motivations and sincerely held ambitions. in a way, that's very reflective of how his work has been hollowed out and warped with each iteration of himself he becomes to continue it. hilbert is an insidious type of evil, because his goals are noble and he doesn't enjoy hurting people, but he will carry out orders and rationalize his actions "for the greater good." which makes him an excellent foil for eiffel; hilbert is nothing if not a Big Picture thinker. "you talk about helping people, but what about the real, live people around you?" / "increasingly, i find them to be of negligible importance." etc.

i think it says a lot about wolf 359's character writing philosophy that hilbert's betrayal and big reveal is really kind of his first character moment. he's there for two seasons after that, but he's never redeemed, and his goals never change. what makes hilbert more complex, more real, more understandable, is entirely perspective.

and the tragedy of hilbert, i suppose, is that he sacrificed everything for what he believed was right, sold his soul to the devil for it, and then... wasn't even particularly good at it. he's a big fish in a very small pond, as far as wolf 359 antagonists go. his death virus was never going to be anything but a death virus, and cutter figured that out (and found another use for it) ages ago. in change of mind, he was so certain he had the right answer - of course it was the scientist, his work was threatened - and they wouldn't have made it out if not for fourier, who realized it was really about human relationships. in am i alone now? hilbert's part is the only one where no one else speaks. before he dies, jacobi cuts his comms line, and his final words are a cut off "can anybody hear-?"

so, again... hilbert is a narratively and thematically significant character. this is barely even scratching the surface of that. but do i like him? hell no. absolutely not. he tried to murder hera and then said "tell me you're not mourning that appliance" so i think it's fine that he died, actually. that's how i judge all wolf 359 characters.

[clonerightsagenda]

Iconic aro moments in literature... to me.

There's not a whole lot of explicit positive representation of aromanticism in media. However there are sometimes stories that so heavily deprioritize or complicate romance that I have jokingly started calling them aro icons even if none of the characters are actually aro, and now I am putting some of them in a poll.

Tragically the poll text limits are too short, so check under the cut for full descriptions + the poll itself.

Tiffany Aching getting hassled by a guy who won't take no for an answer so hard it's literally the end of the world until she uses a kiss to vaporize him. (Wintersmith). TBH most successful Discworld romances also feel like they were hastily tacked on out of obligation making the whole series iconically aro to me.

Wolf 359 being all about personhood, communication, and connection while the writers repeatedly stated no characters were being written to be romantically interested in each other. (Wolf 359)

Klaus and Violet each getting an obligatory love interest for one book before said love interest vanishes to get eaten by a sea monster off screen. (ASOUE)

Everything Katniss Everdeen ever says but especially responding to a love triangle by thinking "I can live just fine without either of them" (Hunger Games)

None of Father's sacrifices doing forbidden necromancy for romantic love and the only non-human entity with a romantic partner being a huge asshole and unrepentant villain (FMA)

Everything about Murderbot also but especially the "Thiago thinks you love my mother" "Not the way he thinks" exchange. Debated including this since I think SecUnit is intentionally aro but the poll would not be complete without it. (Murderbot)

Michael Tate building strong and entirely platonic best friendships with people he could potentially be romantically attracted to and writing everyone he's ever met letters when he thinks he's going to die and ending them all with "I love you" (Greater Boston)

I know I have joked about more things being huge wins for the aros but it is too early in the morning and I can't remember them. Please give me your own unintentionally iconic aro moments.

[4lph4kidz]

3, 4, 17, 18, 26 and 36 for the writer ask game. :3

3. What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

i play ridiculous music when i can't concentrate and need stimulation. running in the 90s. mad rat monday. spamton CD. this kasane teto song which i have seen (accurately imo) described as penis music.

4. What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

i can't really... think of any? there are words i like but i wouldn't say i hoot and holler if i see a chance to use them, or see them crop up in someone else's work. themes and ideas, yeah! specific words... idk.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

i've been doing a lot of probably entirely unnecessary research for my latest WIP which is... hm! how about i dm you about that one.

on the subject of research, i'm under no illusions, catabolic seed is sheer scifi nonsense (affectionate). i've purposefully held off from getting too in the weeds with it because i know i would stress too much about complex worldbuilding and scientific accuracy, so a lot of stuff that isn't directly relevant to the plot is broad strokes stuff. as per the main inspiration, wolf 359, i'm leaning more on the workplace comedy at the start (because, haha, i have a job, he just like me fr) but i may develop the sci fi elements more once its time to fully bring them into the story. what i do have is: detailed bios and job descriptions for each character, a rough layout of the spaceship Hemera, notes on robotics and spacefaring technology, rival factions within the worldspace, some alien biology stuff... i'm a pretty big science nerd, and i enjoy good hard sci fi! but we're not doing that here, we're putting guys in situations. this is about genre. verisimilitude. you're getting good old fashioned technobabble.

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

alright, how about this part from ch1 of catabolic seed! i made some pretty big last minute changes to the beginning of the fic because the pacing wasn't working, and i ended up pulling in a scene from much later in the story to serve as a dirkjake meet cute.

i like set up. establishing tone, creating atmosphere... the way you introduce a character, even one known already to the audience, is something i think is important and i enjoy playing with that a lot. originally jane was present and dirk was going to be pulling a bunch of wires out of the wall, which jane described as 'disemboweling her spaceship' but at some point i decided him popping out of the vent and scaring the shit out of jake seemed like a more fun idea so i ran with it. this establishses dirk as a potential threat, which leads to the stupid kabedon moment later, which leads to the jokes about the disney cruise liner and the engineering section flooding... i didn't have time to think it through all the way but as far as choices made on the fly go i think i made it work!

dirk being in the vents was also pulling from wolf 359, specifically referencing the character captain minkowski who i felt was kind of comprable to dirk in terms of her neuroses - it wasn't till i got someone else's eyes on it that they pointed out that i'd introduced dirk exactly like a fucking xenomorph, which was perfect, so i scrambled to insert a textual reference to the alien movies and doing some hasty worldbuilding while i was at it.

in general i think exploring the relationship from jake's point of view is super interesting. in an au where they don't already know each other, dirk is an interesting figure for jake to 'figure out' - aloof, mysterious, other - classic love interest stuff. which is perhaps less interesting than their deal in canon, but hey, i'm having fun running with it.

26. How do you get into your character’s head? How do you get out? Do you ever regret going in there in the first place?

hm, i don't know. i hyperfixated on the alpha kids pretty hard so i think i already have quite well-formed interpretations of their personalities and perspectives, it's not hard to dredge those up when i need them. i won't pretend my writing is for sure an accurate reflection of canon characterisation or anything but i'll go read passages from canon when writing and refining dialogue especially. and hmm. i do end up going to dark places sometimes, and nearly every fic ends up quite a bit darker than i mean it to... i'm totally fine. don't worry about it.

36. They say to Write What You Know. Setting aside for a moment the fact that this is terrible advice…what do you Know?

be bisexual, eat hot chip and lie

aside from my aforementioned interests in genre fiction, or biology, i can see what i'm grappling with as a person reflected quite clearly in what i end up exploring in my work. i have the past experiences of being a queer teenager who had no idea what was going on, grappling with mental illness and feeling incredibly alone. or i can draw on my experiences as an adult, finding myself as a person, going out into the world, and all the struggles therein.

[vonkarma2]

for the character thing: 1. Who I adore with everything, they are my favorite and forever will be! / 8. They're a favorite because my mutuals and the people I follow like them. / 13. Wish they had more hype. / 27. I would love to observe this character under a microscope.

Difficult question like one singular favorite out of every character from everything I’ve ever seen… I was going to be like omg IDK if I can answer this one guys 😔✌️but I can answer it easily it’s Minkowski from Wolf 359 I love her sm 💕💕💕 There are other characters I like a lot but I think she’s my favorite her personality + motivations are so endearing to me. This is excluding OCs because if I included them as candidates we’d be here all day

I genuinely like Micolash from bloodborne now just from seeing posts abt him occasionally I don’t know anything about bloodborne but whenever a video essayist mentions him (usually just to complain abt how his fight sucks lol) I’m like Micolash… my boy. Why is he called that why does he have a dumbass cage on his head. I mean I know why lore wise. Also Lady Maria from Bloodborne, Arashi from Enstars, Rui from ODDTAXI. I always liked Eiffel wolf 359 (like he was always my second favorite character lol) but I think people posting abt him has made me appreciate him more. Think abt him in more depth yk 

Can I say like every original character for this. Of course they don’t have hype it’s because they’re not in anything that actually exists. But idk they’re really fun to talk about so it would be nice to have them be more widely known ❤️ so people would know what the hell I’m talking about lmao. Also Carmen Farooq-Lane from TDT I think is really underrated she’s so funny + I think very sympathetic

I know this isn’t exactly the question but I think it’s in the spirit of what it’s asking basically my favorite characters to psychoanalyze are my OCs Cirillo and Angel and kind of Rocio as well actually. I used to think she was like relatively straightforward but I think she’s become a bit more complicated recently or like I’m trying to focus more on the nuances I guess. Like with regards to their motivation and their relationships with other characters. Also unfortunately Crow + Lennox + Baize from @werewolfstory, I like the other characters as well and think they’re interesting but they are the only ones I’ve actually written meta abt so far. I would say Kaleela as well but studying under a microscope feels mean to say about her. In terms of like characters from things ummm idk the main characters of the scarlet letter + macbeth were fun to discuss in English class. That doesn’t count. Going back to the original question of who I would study under a microscope and interpreting it as like who is a weird freak where you want to know what’s going on with them. Kabru Dungeon Meshi. Probably some others but I can’t think of them right now. Henry from TRC

[hephaestuscrew]

I'm in the mood to ramble about this scene from Ep14 The Kumbaya Approach:

TL;DR: This scene - in which Minkowski reveals her self-doubts and Eiffel tries to reassure her and manages to make her laugh after Hilbert's mutiny - is a really important one for the development of Minkowski and Eiffel's relationship. It's where they start to really rely on each other and to understand each other in more complex ways.

Eiffel makes himself emotionally vulnerable by asking for reassurance, first indirectly through his rambling attempts at reassuring himself (just before the beginning of the above clip, sorry I couldn't be bothered to reclip it), and then by directly telling her that's what he needs.

It's a good example of how the situation they've been put in forces them to depend on each other emotionally - I'm not convinced that Eiffel would have reached out to Minkowski for reassurance like this prior to Hilbert's mutiny. But Hera's offline and Eiffel needs someone to assuage his worries, so he asks Minkowski.

She doesn't give him that reassurance. She hears his anxieties and, instead of telling him things will be okay or even just that Cutter won't know about the alien transmissions (perhaps she's not convinced enough of these things to say them), she tells him she's sorry. She takes the responsibility for the whole awful situation.

Instead of responding to Eiffel's emotional vulnerability with strength and stoicism (which seems to be what he expects), Minkowski responds with emotional vulnerability of her own.

Eiffel's a little taken aback - he wasn't expecting or looking for an apology. I think hearing the despair in Minkowski's voice is the opposite of reassuring to him, but nonetheless the tables are turned - Eiffel, who was looking for reassurance, becomes the one trying to reassure Minkowski.

I think Minkowski has spent most of the mission wishing she had a Communications Officer who fully respected and supported her. But when Eiffel expresses unequivocal support for her in this scene (perhaps partly through platitudes, but genuine support nonetheless), she rejects and questions it. He tells her it's not her fault; she directly contradicts him. He says she'll figure something out; she asks for evidence to justify his certainty. She wants her crew members to think that she is capable of doing her job well, but the real issue is that she doesn't always fully believe this herself.

I think "it's my job to keep my crew safe" kinda sums up Minkowski's whole deal in terms of motivation. She cares deeply about other people and she cares deeply about the responsibilities of her role as Commander, and those two sides of her both feed into her determination to keep her crew safe.

(As an aside, I severely doubt that Goddard tells its Commanders that their main job is to keep their crew safe. Even under the surface-level Goddard approach to HR, I think the priority of a Commander is to ensure the completion of mission objectives. Keeping the crew safe is not Goddard's main focus, but at the end of the day, it is Minkowski's.)

It's interesting that she seems to include "Hilbert? Crazy" in her list of ways she considers herself to have failed in keeping her crew safe, as if she worries whether there was something she could have done to stop him going "crazy".

"Broken" is definitely not an adjective Hera would appreciate being used about her. It's an insensitive choice of word to use about someone who has constantly had to assert her personhood and her capabilities. But on the other hand, I think the most obvious alternative that might have occurred to Minkowski to describe Hera's condition in that moment would have been 'dead' (see Ep15, when Minkowski tells Hilbert he "murdered" Hera). Which would have sounded less dehumanising but also far more final (and therefore perhaps more painful to both Minkowski and Eiffel).

It is notable that Minkowski includes Hera as part of her crew that she wanted to protect - something which isn't a given for an AI on a Goddard mission. Minkowski expresses the conviction that Hera is a member of her crew who she wants to protect a lot throughout the show but I think this might be the first instance where she implies it.

"Me? I'd be dead if you hadn't found a way to let me back into the station" - this line suggests to me that Minkowski almost feels a sense of discomfort about the kind of dependence or weakness that having her life saved by another person (and perhaps by Eiffel in particular) might imply. This isn't really a thank you, and in fact I don't think we ever hear her properly thank him for saving her life during Hilbert's mutiny. Perhaps doing so would feel too much like an acceptance of her own weakness.She doesn't even really acknowledge it when Eiffel points out that she's saved his life plenty of times. Saving his life is kind of a given for her (see Ep4: "I am going to pretend that this line of thinking was never even insinuated" in response to Hilbert's suggestion that she shouldn't go out into a solar storm to save Eiffel).

I'd argue that the show as a whole argues that the desire for self-reliance Minkowski displays in the above line is not a good approach. (see Ep22 - HILBERT: You did not beat me. You needed help from AI, from Minkowski. / EIFFEL: Uh, yeah. It's called being a part of a crew. You ever meet anyone that could get things done all on their lonesome?")

I love that Eiffel's response to Minkowski doubting herself is "Come on, have you seen you?" Like it's so obvious to him that she ought to think she's entirely capable of coping with the situation. Like the idea that she wouldn't have faith in herself hasn't really occurred to him.

The call back to Ep4 Cataracts and Hurricanoes is nice because it shows that the times when Minkowski has saved his ass have stuck with Eiffel. But there's also something in the phrasing ("I jump out of space stations into solar storms just to save my idiot communication officer's life") that suggests Eiffel thinks that the risk Minkowski took in going out into that storm was too big for the reward of saving him. Which perhaps is partly because he's trying to emphasise that she goes above and beyond. But it is also the classic Doug Eiffel brand of self-loathing which makes me sad.

It isn't important, but I like to think Eiffel's inclusion of "I don't even mess up my hair while I'm at it" in his Minkowski impression is canonical evidence that Minkowski has Good HairTM that just naturally always looks amazing.

The fact that he makes her laugh in this scene is so important to me and (although they are perfectly expressed in Emma Sherr-Ziarko's performance) I think everyone should read the script directions for that moment: "There's a moment of stunned silence following that. And then we hear another first for the show - Minkowski LAUGHS. It's a genuine, joyful sound, as all the frustrations and the rage and the fear that have dominated their life for the past two days just all come out as a big, long laugh." I love that the script directions explicitly highlight the genuine joy of the sound, the fact that it's the first time we've heard her laugh, and the idea that it's an outlet for the negative feelings she's been dealing with.

Genuine laughter is a kind of vulnerability too, especially for someone like Minkowski who has tried so hard to project an image of herself as a serious authoritative figure.

When she calls him an idiot, there's a suggestion of affection in it that I'm sure wasn't there in the many previous times she will have called him an idiot. I think she's largely calling him an idiot because in spite of the dark situation they're in, he did a silly jokey impression of her, which displays his ability to not take things completely seriously, an ability that she really lacks. But I do think there's at least a little bit of her calling him an idiot because he sees her as a "badass space pilot" - at least a part of her thinks he's an idiot to think highly of her in that way.

Eiffel doesn't object to being called an idiot (to be fair, he's just called himself one). Instead, he chuckles like he's pleased to have made her laugh.

He says "At least I have you around to keep me out of trouble" - an expression of gratitude not just for a particular thing Minkowski has done, but for her overall presence, for the way she contrasts with him. I doubt he's ever shown her gratitude for that before, and I think it's a really valuable thing for Minkowski to hear in that moment when she's worrying that she's failed as a leader.

The reason why I think this scene is so important for the development of Minkowski & Eiffel's relationship is that it's kind of a paradigm shift for both of them. They've fallen into a pattern in which they've each tended to see the other as a two-dimensional collection of traits that they clash with, rather than as a fully rounded human being. But in this scene, those limited perceptions fall away.

There have been precursors to this scene in terms of their developing understanding of each other - e.g. Minkowski making Eiffel laugh after saving him from drowning in space, Minkowski admitting she's not okay at the end of Ep13 Gas Me Twice - and it's not as if they fully understand each other after this interaction (or ever!), but I do think it makes sense to view this scene as the beginning of them developing more nuanced perceptions of each other.

It's a moment when Eiffel sees Minkowski as not just an authoritarian leader who's always telling him off, or even just as a competent Commander who'll never take him seriously - here he gets a moment of insight into the fact that she is someone who has fears and doubts and insecurities just like he does.

I don't think Eiffel ever really made attempts to reassure Minkowski before Hilbert's mutiny. Not because he's an uncaring person, but because he's never seen her as someone in need of reassurance - and certainly not reassurance from him (see Ep7: "I’m so far beneath both of you that I shouldn’t even register on your radars").

For Minkowski's part, this is a moment in which she begins to see Eiffel as someone she can lean on. She begins to appreciate him as a valuable person to have by her side, perhaps even because of the very characteristics that have previously tended to annoy her about him.

To a lesser extent, this scene is a paradigm shift for the listener too. Minkowski is humanised to us by her self-doubt and by her laughter. Eiffel is shown to be genuinely caring and good at providing reassurance.

In this scene, rather than his more traditional attempts at reassurance, it's Eiffel’s sense of humour and ability to take things less seriously that actually get through to Minkowski and give her a moment of release in a dark time. The way in which he approaches the situation very differently to her is exactly what helps her in that moment. That's a key part of how I see their relationship; they each become a positive force in the other's life partly because they are so different in many ways, meaning that they are each able to give the other a contrasting perspective that's really valuable to them and helps them grow as people.

[aestheticcommons]

Double Media Feature

So if Die Hard, Sirens, and Brooklyn 99 had a baby...it would be this. It is hilarious. A bomb diffuse team on NYE trying to beat a record. It's short, it's great, it's got Jacobi, Loveless, and Eiffel from Wolf 359. I laughed out loud and started talking to the podcast.

So what am I working on while I do this?

I am revitalizing a copy of Maurice I bought from a used book store that fell apart upon opening it. I think the person who originally bought it never read it. It was a really copy glued together size 9 font affair with no margins. Add to this the fact that the book is close to 30 years old....and you can imagine the amount of damage. Maurice one of my favorite books. I think I like it for the reasons that other people like Jane Austen. I don't really care for Jane Austen, but I love the movie adaptations. They're great background noise. Plot wise though I get frustrated because it's still the upper class discarding the lower class (I am looking at you Sense and Sensibility) or supposing to lean into challenging class expectations by doing exactly what is best case scenario (That would be you Pride and Prejudice). The only one I really liked was Lady Susan and really I liked that one because it was SO much like Les Liaisons dangereuses.

Maurice is a favorite because Maurice chooses Alec and Alec chooses him. They really do forsake EVERYTHING for one another. I guess it's like what Pride and Prejudice would be if Darcy really did pick someone beneath him and the story was told from his side....or if any of the men in Sense and Sensibility had actually stood by any of the women they had knocked up or abandoned. It's more romantic to me I guess because it's.....

Yupe it's both of them going full Carly Rae Jepsen.

I've managed to get the thing type set correct, got the page numbers on there and did a few additions for my own sake. The joys of binding means that I can make the book "better."

Really by better I mean more user friendly. I've added a table of contents, and about halfway though an index (I had to redo it twice now, it's hard on the spirit to have SUCH failure), and the update of the global stance of homosexuality for 2022. I'm currently at over 100 hours on this project, but I think it's well worth the time given that legislation I saw take root in Virginia. I worry for the state of minority and queer texts with things like that in the wings, but to be fair I also worry about another Hays Code era given that some of the books tangled up in that lawsuit are straight couples.

This is how these things kind of start....legislation and the law can be dangerous. But maybe I'm paranoid. But...given what Texas and Florida and even Georgia have going on...needless to say I'm cultivating avenues to protect banned/challenged books. We always say it's to protect kids, but it's really about just removing chances to curate empathy I think. It's to casually and quietly make people "weird" or "strange" and in doing so make children grow up believing that those people might be wrong or evil. That's how you teach children hatred.

Now thinking about what I'm doing....I guess Maurice was the right choice to bind and customize. The whole book Maurice is struggling with who he is...

When I'm finished, DM me if you would like a copy of my edition? Anyone interested in my hundred of notes regarding the symbolism that I did when I was proofing my screwed up print outs that @evil-robot-cat had to pep talk me through?

[digitalhovel]

Late to the Party: Wolf 359 and personhood

I wrote the first draft of this piece in July 2020, but I never got around to editing it before my Fall classes started and my life became a hectic world of crunch. So, finally edited: here are my incredibly, remarkably am-I-too-late-to-comment thoughts on Wolf 359. New posts coming soon!

           Wolf 359 was an audio drama created by Gabriel Urbina that ran from 2014 to 2017, featuring an incredible group of voice actors, excellent writing, and a story that is, at various turns, humorous, adventurous, haunting, tragic, and compelling. It was a forerunner for the podcast explosion that has swept through pop culture in the last decade and continues growing. Perhaps it just feels that way because of how much I’ve seen it lauded on the internet, but I believe it’s true.

           If I were pitching this podcast to someone, I would sell it on the story. A small crew of people orbits a faraway star, listening to the frequencies of space for any signal that may be unusual. Though it begins as a relatively campy, workplace comedy about toothpaste rationing and plant monsters, the story takes steep turns into hard science fiction and rich, character-focused drama that captures the listener and drives them through to the story’ completion. Through the close quarters of the increasingly unreliable Hephaestus space station, the writers never give the characters enough space to avoid their problems and slow the plot down. This closeness also creates a sense of kindred and family that pervades the show’s themes and makes the audience feel that the characters really have something worth fighting for. Those characters begin relatively archetypically: Renée Minkowski is an uptight commanding officer, Doug Eiffel is a slacker and all-around generic man, Alexander Hilbert is a “mad scientist,” and Hera is a governing, feminine A.I. presence. However, by the end of the show, each is given the agency and opportunity to be the main character of an arc, and each grows beyond the limits of their original shells. The craft in the writing and design of this show is remarkable on its own, but the messages it delivers in the story set it apart as more than speculative fiction.

           Okay, so I’m about to go hard into spoiler with this one. If you haven’t listened to the show, I would highly recommend doing so if you’re interested. If you already have, or if you don’t care, on we go.

           Wolf 359 has many themes. It questions the values of discipline and rebellion, it contemplates what sacrifices are worthwhile to achieve a greater good, and, most existentially, it asks what it means to be a sentient, living person. The podcast confronts this issue time and again, examining it through the lenses of clones and artificial intelligence. The fundamental conclusion the series suggests is: if you appear to be a person, and if you have all the memories of that person, and you continue striving to be that person, then you functionally are that person.

But what happens if you suffer complete and total amnesia?

           In the final episode of the series, Doug Eiffel, bad idea extraordinaire, sacrifices his memories in order to also wipe the mind of Dr. Helena Price, one of the show’s primary antagonists. Because of this, Eiffel ends the show reflecting on a life he can’t remember, comforted by his friends, whom he is now 100% more respectful towards. So, if this new man is Doug Eiffel, what does that mean for him and his arc as a character?

           Doug Eiffel is a jerk. He disobeys instructions, he calls people by insensitive or offensive nicknames, and he acts as if his needs are the only ones that matter. He is the archetypal ideal of a straight, white man. His casual attitude provides a great deal of humor throughout the series, especially during its less plot-centric beginnings before space things start happening. It isn’t until the final season of the show that he learns how his actions have hurt and alienated the people around him, the only friends he knows. After this, he makes an effort to correct some of his behaviors, but he doesn’t have much time, because he is soon sucked into a star and put through a series of plot developments that prevent him from experiencing evident growth in how he treats and respects other people. This makes his sudden mind-wipe reversal seem like a shortcut. The new Doug Eiffel recognizes his previous self was an asshole and can now start again, but the emotional journey necessary to reach this point naturally is cut short. He gets a free pass on moral development, and it denies the audience a truly satisfying end to that part of is arc.

           The other significant part of Eiffel’s arc and motivation is the revelation that he has a daughter, whom he was prevented from seeing after he kidnapped her while drunk and proceeded to get into a car crash that injured his daughter and the passengers of the other vehicle. This information came to light in episode 35, during season three. The possibility of seeing his daughter again became the primary motivation for Eiffel, when before it was simply escaping space so he could get back to the luxuries of Earth such as porn and television. Honestly, this revelation works well. It provides conflict between Eiffel and Minkowski, who now has to decide whether Eiffel is a good person or not. It also provides depth and a severe flaw to Eiffel’s character that makes it difficult to accept him as the plucky “everyman” he acted as for the majority of the show. His memory loss comes at the immense cost of forgetting everyone he cares about, but he barely addresses this in the finale after waking up with amnesia. Perhaps this is the most sensible conclusion. With no memory, his daughter is just another person he has forgotten, and his logged memories will tell him more about the crew of the Hephaestus than his own family. But again, this removes the emotional weight from his character.

           This could mean any number of things. The plot could have required this, and Doug, needing that moment of selflessness to develop as an individual, was the most fitting crew member to lose their memories. It could be that Doug’s memories were wiped because the writers realized he was beyond redemption, and only a new slate would provide him the opportunity to change. It could be that this complication was intended from the beginning, and ending Doug’s arc without complete growth was both a human choice and a message about people who don’t change before its too late. No matter what, Doug’s arc ends abruptly, and it feels dissatisfying to have a magical reset button for him when the other characters have to keep their own memories of trauma (some caused by him, even).

This calls into question what Wolf 359 says about personhood. Personhood is defined by memory and experience in the series. This includes, most importantly, trauma. Betrayal, responsibility, and insecurity induced by trauma severely shape the arcs of every crew member of the Hephaestus. Eiffel escapes all this. It comes at a high cost, but if the show’s message about personhood is that it comes from memories, then Eiffel’s character arc ends in a single selfless act that acquits him of the consequences of his previous mistakes and wrongdoings. The Eiffel who wakes up with no memories is a different character, and pretending he isn’t does a disservice to his story in the previous 60 episodes.

           Wolf 359 has a wildly humanist message, and though the conclusion of Eiffel’s arc undercuts some of them, the series still gives many of the characters the endings they deserve. It is at turns hilarious, terrifying, and awe-inspiring. The story delivers on its evolution from hijinks into philosophical contemplation, and for that it deserves recognition, respect, and another binge listen once I’ve made it through my back catalogue.

[hurlumerlu]

Reepicheep. And I want an answer for every single one. Also: Minkowski, Marian, and Nightwing

alslkgjfyhdtt you don’t pull your punches X)

Reepicheep :

Sexuality Headcanon : that mouse is gay and there’s nothing you can do about it. Gender Headcanon : I feel like he has a very simple and straightforward relationship with his gender, the only problem being that other people make assumptions. Luckily, duels exist. A ship I have with said character : Listen I wracked my brain ALL NIGHT and I got nothing. Him and Caspian is too lover/beloved for me, we see him interract with our heroes when they’re kids, his fellow mice are all clearly crushing hard but he doesn’t seem interested. I will ship him with any minotaur who comes his way, though. Just because I can. A BROTP I have with said character : Lucy. The strong must protect the sweet. A NOTP I have with said character : Aslan. Not that Reepicheep can’t fuck God if he wants to but Aslan doesn’t deserve him. A random headcanon : that mouse is trans and there’s nothing you can do about it. (also he’s an excellent dancer) General Opinion over said character : what can i say except that he’s the best thing C.S. Lewis ever wrote ?

Minkowski :

Sexuality Headcanon : bi. (though when we didn’t know her spouse’s gender I was headcanoning her as a lesbian) Gender Headcanon : she probably hates how so many people tend to see her as a woman first and anything else second, but she wouldn’t define herself as anything else than a woman. A ship I have with said character : Minkowski/Lovelace (of course). A BROTP I have with said character : Minkowski & Eiffel (of course bis). i also really love her relationship with Hera. A NOTP I have with said character : I don’t really have one. Minkowski/Kepler would feel like a big disturbance in the Force though. A random headcanon : she’s a pretty good writter, even though it’s not particularly her thing. General Opinion over said character : she was never really my fave, but that’s only because Wolf 359 is so full of excellent characters. her sense of responsability toward her crew and the struggles it brings her are amazing and an excellent red thread all throughout the show. i also love how single-minded and dumb she can get when stress and powerlessness get the better of her, but that even at her worst she’s incredibly compassionate. AND i love the harpoon (of course ter).

Marian :

Sexuality Headcanon : it pains me to say that but she’s probably straight ? Gender Headcanon : well being a woman in her world is obviously not easy, but she draws strength from it, because drawing strength from the unjust things you fight is a very Marian thing to do. A ship I have with said character : the love bewteen Marian and Robin has been part of the myth for so long that i pretty much always ship them, but the bbc version is my favourite version of the ship. there’s a lust for life between them that is just A+ A BROTP I have with said character : Marian & Allan ! they’re perfect. Also Marian & Jack, and Marian & the abbess in a vaguely shippy way (what ? i said probably straight) A NOTP I have with said character : NOTP is a strong term but Guy/Marian just doesn’t work for me. i just... as a romantic prospect he’s kinda boring ? and seems to care more about Robin that her ? and they have zero chemistry ? and by the time the writers realize they need to sell us on that love triangle it’s far too late ? I just don’t really get it. A random headcanon : she has a very nice, mezzo singing voice and she’s not dead just chillin’ General Opinion over said character : fierce baby angel who deserves the best and is not dead just chillin’ I liked in earlier episodes when she was much more calculating than she became after, but the character developpment makes sense so it really doesn’t bothers me.

Nightwing :

Sexuality Headcanon : he’s bi. Gender Headcanon : he’s the kind of dude who says “it takes a real man to love [inserts “feminine” thing here] without shame”. A ship I have with said character : i don’t have any big ship, but Nightwing/Batgirl (or Oracle) would be the main one. and Nightwing/Deathstroke can be fun. BROTP I have with said character : the whole Batfamily, of course. also Nightwing/Starfire with benefits (and his friendship with Midnighter was anecdotic but fun) A NOTP I have with said character : nah ? i just don’t feel very strongly about his romantic endeavours tbh. A random headcanon : he’s not a good cook, but he definitely has a “kiss the cook” apron General Opinion over said character : i am contractually obligated to stan all the Robins but Dick has always been my fave among them. I tend to prefer Nightwing’s friendly, heart of the team iterations to his cold, calculating, vengeful iterations but i’m painting in broad strokes here, it’s great when he can be a bit of both, and I’m always happy to see him and to watch him leave.

thanks :D

[nellied-reviews]

Cataracts and Hurricanoes Re-listen

Hey! We've hit episode 4 of my epic Wolf 359 re-listen, which can only mean one thing:

Cataracts and Hurricanoes

In which Eiffel's off-structure, Minkowski gets to use her jetpack and everything is surprisingly action-y.

Honestly, I've not too much to say about thus episode. That's not because it's bad per se, but more because it's mostly just a straight-up sci-fi action episode. The plot revolves around the admirably straightforward premise of "Eiffel fell overboard", and looks at how the crew deal with that. There's a whole lot of tension, especially when Eiffel's suit springs a leak. But there aren't many shocking twists, or, until the end of the episode, many stand-out character moments.

That said, it's definitely the sort of story I expect from the show at this point. We've seen a couple of different threats and stories happening inside the station, after all. Now it's time to see what threats exist and what stories can be told outside the station. And the simplest way to do that is a "man overboard" story. It's tense, interesting and sets some basic ground rules of how being out in space, in this series, is going to work. How serious is it if somebody starts floating away? Do we have space jetpacks? Are spacewalks routine in this setting, or are they an all-hands-on-deck affair? These are all questions that this episode actually does answer, so that's pretty cool.

In this respect, starting with Also Sprach Zarathustra is also a smart choice. It's epic music in and of itself, but it's also so very linked to 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's "space music" and I, at least, link it to a certain grandiose, glamorous vision of space - just like Eiffel apparently does, which is why he picks it for the background to his ridiculous little space log.

When Minkowski interrupts, then, it's both just a really funny record-scratch moment and a sort of rejection of this grand, cinematic version of space we all have in our heads. Her irritation is a reminder that no, space isn’t glam, it’s just the place we live, and it's a pain in the butt, especially when things keep breaking. Spacewalks, in Wolf 359, are an irritating chore at best, and pretty banal, all things considered. 

And the reason for this spacewalk? Eiffel wants to realign a satellite dish to see if he can pick up the alien signal better. It's … a surprisingly competent moment for him? He also seems to have taken the initiative and suggested it himself, basically because he's curious. It's a fun reminder that Eiffel's actually quite good at what he does, and that he's sometimes even enthusiastic about it. We don't see that much later on. Maybe it just gets beaten out of him by the general stickiness of everything that happens after the star goes blue. Either way, it's on show here, which is nice.

When he goes overboard, then, there's literally no way it can be pinned on him. We're not dealing with another "Eiffel screws things up" episode. Instead, the issue is that the star suddenly does something unexpected - not the last time we'll see this happen. The sudden, unexpected radiological alert is perhaps our first hint that there's something off about Wolf 359.

It also doesn't escape my attention that this flare, timed exactly for when Eiffel is outside the station, may or may not be our first instance of the Dear Listeners reaching out to Eiffel. I don't know, it just seems odd that two flares hit precisely when there's somebody outside the station. Hmmm...

In any case, the flare itself sounds terrifying, and the revelation afterwards that Eiffel is off structure but his tether is holding is actually a relief - I thought his tether would be gone for sure. We start to get all sorts of alarming things happening, though, with water seeping into the suit and threatening to drown him (!), but also the radio cutting in and out. 

Even worse, Eiffel's been blinded by the flare, which makes the whole floating/drowning thing even worse! I can't think of much worse than knowing that you've got water floating about in your suit and slowly choking you, without being able to see it. Ugh. 

Interestingly, it also put us in the exact same position as Eiffel. He's basically just got radio contact to the others now, without any visuals, which works really well with an audio format. We can put ourselves in Eiffel's shoes, because we're seeing and hearing basically the same things he is. It makes things really tense, especially when we can hear him choking. Yikes.

Minkowski, in the face of this, remains incredibly calm and professional, and saves the day, with Hera's equally able assistance - while Hilbert seems more than willing to just let Eiffel die. Which tracks, given his general evilness, I suppose. I like that Minkowski doesn't even consider Hilbert's suggestion that they abandon Eiffel. She's by-the-book, and a bit of a hardass, sure. But she's got principles, and is protective of her crew. Letting Eiffel die is not even a worst-case-scenario option for her, which I can respect.

All of the interactions after Eiffel is safely on board are really lovely too. Minkowski's so clearly concerned for him! He thanks her for the jetpack rescue! They joke around a bit! It's a happy, small moment, and then we get Hera tracking Eiffel's vitals, and recording his music, and it just gets better! It's super, super sweet, and I love it. After so much tension, it's a welcome change.

It also does not escape my attention that Hilbert does not come and check in on Eiffel. What a charming guy.

And then it's over. I was genuinely surprised by the end of this episode, because it felt like it went super quickly, even though not that much happened. Plot-wise, certainly, the episode doesn't do that much. Character-wise, it's not doing anything particularly shocking. There's very little interpersonal tension. It's not even got too much of Wolf 359's usual brand of comedy going on. What we're left with, instead, is an episode which is just a fun, relatively simple sci-fi action episode. It tries to keep us on the edge of our seats, and I think it pretty much succeeds there?

I don't know what else can be said about Cataracts and Hurricanoes. It does what it sets out to do. It's pretty fun. By the end of it, we have a better idea of how space works in this series, and exactly how dangerous floating off into space can be - which sets us up well for future misadventures. Plus, there are some cute bits at the end. 10/10 would float off into space again.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

I said it before, but I do love how excited and enthusiastic Eiffel is as the start

I like to think I would be equally excited about going on a spacewalk

But let’s be real, I would be panicking about running out of oxygen

Aww he wants to make a mixtape of the ragtime music!

“I’m going to drown?! In SPACE?!” 

Space jetpack!!!

Eiffel calling Hera baby ^-^

[stilitana]

so i listened to this embarassingly quickly but let’s chalk that up to the self-isolation/working from home and leave it at that

wolf 359 reactions under the cut (spoilers):

firstly, that soundtrack was so good and i’ll be listening to those piano pieces forever

this show demonstrated the eternal power of the agatha christie principle: gather a ragtag cast of characters who’ve all got beef with each other, and trap them in a small space together. cue the instant tension and inevitable weighty revelations.

i adore that amid all the drama/action, there were so many moments when the writers let the narrative breathe a little and just allowed the characters to talk to each other, and play games with one another. the word games were delicious. these were often moments of levity and good character building, but they also all moved relationships forward or revealed something new, so don’t ever let anybody say that having chill little funny moments is useless narrative fluff. these were the best moments.

empty man cometh might be my favorite. am i alone now? and memoria were also just...so good. a lot of the mini-episodes were excellent as well, especially all the character ones. variations on a theme might be my favorite of the shorts.

normally i’m impatient and skip anything i perceive as extraneous to the central narrative, and come back to it later--im so glad i didn’t, the live episode was hilarious. ashamed that i even tried to skip change of mind because i was so impatient to see what was happening, but i felt too bad so not even five minutes into the next ep, i went back and listened to it, and that was the right move...it was so good.

every single character was fantastic. every single one. they were all complex--even the less central characters had at least a moment or two where they struck a different note, showed another side of themselves. kepler was the stand out on this front for me. i didn’t care at all about the si-5 crew when they first came in--i was actually annoyed and expected to hate them all, which is a risk you run when you introduce a bunch of new, influential characters so late in a story. they made it work so well. first i came around to maxwell, then jacobi, and finally (tbh it was his swan song) i was like, okay, kepler was a great character. they made him sympathetic without trying to retcon anything to force me to pity him or think he’d been good all along or anything. cutter and pryce were less human, so their redeeming qualities came more from being interesting. i think the voice acting plays a lot into this--cutter just on paper wouldn’t be half as fun

really impressed with how this same thing played out with lovelace--she went from this sort of mythic, predeceased character, to an antagonist, and finally to being such a central character to the crew that you could hardly imagine them without her. poor writing could have easily made her kind of character unlikable. i think characters like her often get short-changed and written as one-note action hero types who crash in and upend the narrative just to give the plot steam and provide friction. instead, she’s as fully fleshed out as the main characters, and seamlessly becomes one of them.

rip plant monster...i loved you :,(

so, the antagonists were multifaceted, and so were the protags. this could have also easily been sloppy. with eiffel especially, lazy writing would have made the reveal of his backstory super cheap, out of left field, and made you feel like you never knew him at all and leave you unable to reconnect. instead of going the route where the writer for some reason thinks they have to make their plucky protag gritty, the reveal of eiffel’s backstory doesn’t change him at all--and why should it? it’s his backstory--it already happened. instead, it only forces him and minkowski to have conversations they probably needed to have anyway, and fleshes out the reason he’s even there in the first place. on this note, it’s not ultimately his backstory that eiffel has to confront within the story as a major flaw--the backstory was a mistake in the past he’s been dealing with for years by the time we meet him. i love what they chose to do instead so much more: what he had to deal with was his current, present day behavior--how he effortlessly disrespects and belittles the people closest to him without even trying. the key there is, without trying--he has to make a decision to start. (”that’s the thing about you, eiffel--you try. you try really, really hard, and then--you stop trying” that was such a good interaction...god.) i could go on and on about how this was such a satisfying tack to take but i’m trying to cut it down. glib bastards like eiffel are so often a sort of male wish-fulfillment character where they get to say whatever the fuck they want without consequence, be lazy, be careless, and still come out on top, and still seem lovable, because hey, he’s funny. eiffel doesn’t get off that easily, and he’s a much better character for it, and so are all the others, for actually demanding better for themselves, because they know they deserve it, and because they all actually care about each other, so when they confront him, he doesn’t just shrug it off--he tries. (it takes him a minute. but he tries.)

hera broke my heart a million times i love her so much. she had so many complex inner conflicts that weren’t just boiled down to some dumbass bs like “boo hoo am i human.” her personhood is a given for the sorts of conflicts she has, as far as feeling inadequate, feeling unappreciated, like an imposter or a less-valued member of the crew. her and minkowski arguing was excellent and allowed them both a chance to be childish because hey, eiffel shouldn’t have the monopoly on that.

death was a serious thing. human life was highly valued, and its loss was never made light of. not even for antagonists (kepler, hilbert) or, in the most extreme case, pryce, who eiffel chose to make a sacrifice to defeat rather than just kill her, the one principle aside from doing as little work as possible he stood his ground on the entire story. team what’s wrong with handcuffs indeed...i just really loved that the main lead was a pacifist and that this line of thinking held sway in the narrative. it was really refreshing (i don’t think it should be--there’s just a lot of bad writing out there especially when things edge into the action genre) to see this stance on nonviolent conflict resolution wherever possible, because yeah, most people have a really hard time ending another person’s life...no shit. minkowski makes that call and deals with the fallout for the rest of the show--she’s not done dealing with it by the end, it’s going to be something she takes with her. sometimes eiffel’s passivity was depicted as a weakness, but he ultimately did diffuse a lot of situations and gave other characters the space to consider their options. i do think that sometimes the narrative’s insistence on eiffel’s dual pacifism/incompetence shifted the burden of action onto minkowski and lovelace and i’m not sure how i feel about that. i think where i’d have to look is comparing how pryce and cutter are dealt with--yeah, im willing to buy that minkowski wasn’t willing to trade all of her memories so that she wouldn’t have to kill cutter. but was she the one who had to have a body count as a conscious narrative choice, or were we just determined to maintain eiffel’s status as the sort of goofy, “innocent” one? or was that something minkowski was determined to preserve--because that’d be really sad and complicated and say way more about her than it would about him.

dear listeners. i loved everything about the dear listeners. it was everything i ever wanted from aliens trope-wise.

didn’t really get the total significance of surrogates or decima virus. those were the only two things that felt sort of hasty because the stakes suddenly went from “the lives on this space station” to “life on earth as we know it.” but apocalypse averted so whatever, the aliens just want music

i am conflicted about the fucking. amnesia. memory was SO important throughout, and questions of identity and personhood, and this is the only reason that amnesia ending didn’t enrage me. if i think about it more i’m sure there will be a lot to unpack with what’s being implied here

this has gotten REALLY long so im going to stop now and finish mindlessly entering data into excel. in short: i loved it 

[commsroom]

as an extension of how hera reads as trans to me, hera/eiffel resonates with me specifically as a relationship between a trans woman and a cis man. loving hera requires eiffel to decentralize his own perspective in a way that ties into both his overall character arc and the themes of the show.

pop culture is baked into the dna of wolf 359, into eiffel’s worldview, and in how it builds off of a sci-fi savvy audience’s assumptions: common character types, plot beats, or dynamics, why would a real person behave this way? how would a real person react to that? eiffel is the “everyman” who assumes himself to be the default. hera is the “AI who is more human than a lot of humans,” but it doesn’t feel patronizing because it isn’t a learned or moral quality; she is a fundamentally human person who is routinely dehumanized and internalizes that.

eiffel/hera as a romance is compelling to me because there is a narrative precedent for some guy/AI or robot woman relationships in a way i think mirrors some attitudes about trans women: it’s a male power fantasy about a subclass of women, or it’s a cautionary tale, or it’s a deconstruction of a power fantasy that criticizes the way men treat women as subservient, as property. but what does that pop culture landscape mean in the context of desire? If you are a regular person, attracted to a regular person, who really does care for you and wants to do right by you, but is deeply saturated in these expectations? how do you navigate that?

I think that, in itself, is an aspect of communication worth exploring. sometimes you won’t get it. sometimes you can’t. and that’s not irreconcilable, either. it’s something wolf 359 is keenly aware of, and, crucially, always sides with hera on. eiffel screws up. he says insensitive things without meaning to. often, hera will call him out on it, and he will defer to her. in the one case where he notably doesn’t, the show calls attention to it and makes him reflect. it’s not a coincidence that the opening of shut up and listen has eiffel being particularly dismissive of hera - the microaggression of separating her from “men and women” and the insistence on using his preferred title over hers. there are things eiffel has just never considered before, and caring for hera the way he does means he has to consider them. he's never met someone like hera, but media has given him a lot of preconceptions about what people like her might be like.

there’s a whole other discussion to be had about the gender dynamics of wolf 359, even in the ways the show tries to avoid directly addressing them, and how sexual autonomy in particular can’t fully be disentangled from explorations of AI women. i don’t think eiffel fully recognizes what comments like “wind-up girl” imply, and the show is not prepared to reconcile with it, but it’s interesting to me. in the context of transness (and also considering hera’s disability, two things i think need to be discussed together), i think it’s worth discussing how hera’s self image is at odds with the way people perceive her, her disconnect from physicality, how she can’t be touched by conventional means, and the ways in which eiffel and hera manage to bridge that gap.

even the desire for embodiment, and the autonomy and type of intimacy that comes with it, means something different when it’s something she has to fight for, to acquire, to become accustomed to, rather than a circumstance of her birth. i suppose the reason i don’t care for half measures in discussions re: hera and embodiment is also because, to me, it is in many ways symbolically a discussion about medical transition, and the social fear of what’s “lost” in transition, whether or not those things were even desired in the first place.

hera’s relationship with eiffel is unquestionably the most supportive and equal one she has, but there are still privileges, freedoms, and abilities he has that she doesn’t, and he forgets that sometimes. he will never share her experiences, but he can choose to defer to her, to unlearn his pop culture biases and instead recognize the real person in front of him, and to use his own privilege as a shield to advocate for her. the point, to me - what’s meaningful about it - is that love isn’t about inherent understanding, it’s about willingness to listen, and to communicate. and that’s very much at the heart of the show.

[clonerightsagenda]

I'm stuck watching broth simmer for a few hours, so I am finally making a post I have been sitting on for a while because I was laughing about it again last night.

In the past, I have made posts arguing for interpreting two relationships in Wolf 359 as pseudo-parental. The writers were pretty emphatic that while they had no objections to shipping, none of the characters were written as romantically involved or interested in each other. While they didn’t say if they *were* trying to write a specific kind of dynamic, I thought I picked up on some - whether intentionally written that way or not. (I feel the need to reiterate that I am not accusing anyone who ships those pairings of being morally wrong or supporting incest, which would be ridiculous but sounds like the kind of take you would see on this website.) But anyway, today I am going to make my case that I believe there was a *third* shitty dad in this podcast, and it is Warren Kepler.

As you read this you may be asking, Kat, are you trying to make enemies of everyone in the w359 fandom. The answer to that is no, honestly, but I am burdened by a fondness for Shakespeare allusions.

I will get to the Shakespeare bit, but first, some narrative parallels. In both Maxwell and Jacobi's backstory minisodes, Kepler is introduced in a way that aligns with their relationship with their parents. Maxwell has a restraining order against her family; in "Language Mapping" she refers to Kepler's behavior as harassment, says she's trying to get him to stop, and implies she *had* been looking into legal solutions but Goddard stayed just within the limits of what was allowed. In Jacobi's backstory episode, he admits he tried to join the military because of his dad, and Kepler is the one who gets him to join Goddard.

Thin, I admit, so let's get to the Shakespeare quote. "You have that in your countenance which I would fain call master" is from King Lear. You can read the wikipedia summary, but the play is a bit portentous. Lear falls for empty ego-stroking by bad actors while alienating people who have better intentions. One of those people is the Earl of Kent, who, burdened by fatal feudal loyalty, disguises himself to get back into Lear's service and follows him around for most of the play until Lear realizes he messed up and then dies about it. Invoking this scene is a bit of a self-own on Kepler's part. It comes from when Kent is interviewing (in disguise) to rejoin Lear's retinue. While Kent is flattering Lear, he's also tricking him, albeit for his own good. You could see this as foreshadowing of Jacobi blindsiding Kepler in season 4. Most relevant for this post is that King Lear is a play very focused on the relationships between fathers and their children, and Kent at one point says he loves Lear as a father. This says nothing good about poor Kent's actual family considering Lear is a shitty dad, but most? (all? I’d have to reread) of the family relationships in this play suck, so maybe it's still a step up. Among other things King Lear is about finding out your boss/dad is kind of an fuckup and yet remaining mired in his drama anyway as it develops a body count. If the shoe fits.

My last piece of evidence is extra-canonical, but in one of the AMAs one of the writers or VAs (I do not recall which) described SI5's relationship as a tired soccer parent and his two awful children. If it's not in the text it doesn't count, but I take this as evidence I am right.

So, does this actually land? Not really imo. Longtime followers know that I do not approach media with shipping goggles glued to my face (I don't even own shipping goggles) and even I was raising my eyebrows at points. I lay most of the blame for this on Noah Masur’s performance, and if the AMAs are any indication, he did it on purpose. If my immediate takeaway had been reading Kepler as an evil dad, I would have liked him more. That being said, torpedoing your relationship because you are clinically incapable of admitting you made a mistake and then dying.... that might be the oldest Bad Parent move in the book.

If you have read this whole post I'm not sure why, but the conclusion is that it's shitty dads all the way down. Truly the Fullmetal Alchemist of podcasts.

[gqdmitrivolodina]

Warning: this is post discusses ableism, the dictotmy of not scary mental stuff being treated better than the Scaries (trauma disorders, PDs, etc), and touches on racism. If you're going throw a hissy fit, please shut up and go away.

I find it very... interesting, how the wolf 359 fandom uses ableism when it suits them. Referring to characters as "psycho", not understanding how PDs work and effectively arm chair diagnosing multiple characters, making triggered jokes about characters with trauma- the list goes on. Anything scarier than anxiety is in the table for ridicule, bigotry, and anything else.

On some level this is partially because the show has this internal dictotomy as well. Hera, being anxious, has an episode two parter about her issues that's respectful and compassionate to her. Lovelace and Hilbert, two characters with trauma and possible psychosis, are never given this treatment and their behavior is always shown as "inhuman" and irrational.

In fact, Urbina once explicitly referred to Hera and Hilbert as being not human in the way think and behave- in the case of the former, it is literally true, and in the case of the latter, it isn't. The reason why Hilbert is classified as such, in my opinion, is because his thought patterns are those of someone who has not only been traumatized but is currently being traumatized, and doesn't remember a life before trauma and fear. To describe him as having PTSD or C-PTSD is inaccurate in the same way saying I have those things is inaccurate; there is no "post". This is considered "not human" because the behavior, morality, world view, and logic of those affected like this is different.

Please note: I'm not saying Urbina is a huge scary ableist. I'm saying he probably doesn't understand this sort of niche experience with trauma and reacts the way everyone who doesn't have this experience does. Which is ableist, but not new, and not something a lot of people will ever hear is wrong.

Additionally this explains why Lovelace is most able to relate to him; unlike Hilbert, there is a "before" but like him, there isn't a "post". As such, her morality and worldview drifts towards being like his. However, she still isn't respected. She's treated like she's inherently violent and untrustworthy, which is not true of those with what I'm gonna call "Ongoing Traumatic Stress Disorder" for simplicity. She's treated as less than human in more bombastic ways that Hilbert is- the scene where she's gasping for air in a body bag while being called and "it" for example. While her counterpart is dehumanized with violence, it's less personally violating. This, imo, is misogynoir. I'll probably discuss this in another post that discusses the clone thing.

Neither of these people are insane, in that their behavior is irrational. They are reacting appropriately to a situation or series of situations that most people will never go through.

And of course, we must also discuss the other characters affected; Cutter and Kepler.

As irritating as I find some of the fandom's characterization of Kepler as misunderstood or morally grey, I think I find the people that insist he must have a personality disorder worse. Kepler is a bully, a sadist, a manipulator, and an ineffectual man overfed on his own perception of being powerful. That's not a mental illness or a disorder. He's not a narcissist. Saying so is literally offensive to narcissists, who can and do lead fulfilling lives where they don't kill or torture people. Personality disorders aren't inherently abusive.

I don't have much to say on Cutter. He's... a walking stereotype. A camp man who's ~loony~! And ~evil~! As much as I enjoy villainous queers, he flat out isn't my cup of tea in the first place. But I'm not here to discuss that. Though unlike H&L, he doesn't have any mental illnesses that we can recognize, and unlike Kepler, isn't armchaired with anything specific, one of the defining characterizations of him is that he's crazy. He's a "muderous fruit loop". The man would give BBC Sherlock's Moriarty a run for his money.

In conclusion abled fandom be ableist and it's stupid.

[tcrmommabear]

Temporal Shift (TCR B-Day Bash)

Hey demons, it’s me, ya girl, coming back from the depths of depression and anxiety to throw this at you for TCR Week. In all seriousness, I’m finally in a really good place. It’s not all sunshine and roses, but for once in my life, I can actually think. I can actually love and enjoy things again.

But with that sappiness over with, I’m back, and better than ever, with some angst that’ll really kill ya ;)

For those familiar with Wolf 359, yes, I am giving you the AU you never knew you wanted, let alone was possible. To those not familiar with W359, it’s a space audio-log style podcast that @catsafarithewriter and I have been in love with lately. It’s funny, it’s dark, it’s exciting, it’s brilliant. If you don’t mind the spoilers, take a read down below! If you’re interested in it now, maybe skip this prompt until you get up to episode 47, past Special Episode “Change of Mind”.

For those who don’t care, enjoy down below :)

(Bonus: Here’s the song that Persephone listens to)

The station port creaked open, swinging in to reveal the deep expanse laid out before them. She stepped forward, trusting the heavy boots to hold her steady. There was no hesitation, the feeling of weight settled at her feet, the smell of stale, cycled air familiar.

Comforting.

She glanced back at her companion, watching as they took fearful steps forward, hesitating to lift and step. She laughed, stepping back to offer a hand. The other accepted, grip tight even between the stiff rubber gloves of their suits.

“So-o-o-o-o,” she began, breathless, never letting go of her hand, “how often do you do this?”

She shrugged, glancing back and meeting sapphire eyes. She flushed, nervous laughter tumbling out. “Oh, three or four times a week. Mostly when everyone is asleep.”

“I see,” the other hummed, grip tightening on her hand as they stopped walking.

“Louise,” she watched her jump, a smirk spreading, “is this your first space walk?”

She didn’t need much beyond the immediate silence, the way the taller tried to duck her head and hide.

“You were supposed to do ten hours our first week here!”

“I know, I know-!”

“Shock, scandal, utter betrayal!”

“Please don’t tell-!”

She waved a hand, cutting off Louise’s plea, “Your secret’s safe with me. So, let’s go.”

Louise paused, cocking her head. “Go where? What?”

She grinned, raising her hand to point at the stars. “Let’s go free float for a bit, c’mon.”

She smiled sheepishly, taking a step away from her. “You go ahead, Persephone. I’ll get there just… Not tonight.”

They shared a smile, though looked away when they felt each had stared a moment too long.

“Suit yourself,” she said, deactivating her boots. The sensation took her slowly, creeping upwards. She felt a tug, and realized her and Louise had never let go of each other. She twisted to face her, floating just barely above her. Louise reach her other hand out, which she easily took, their helmets gently knocking against each other.

Even as she was floating in space, she could have never felt so light, so free. She gave a giddy giggle, memorizing the pattern of her freckles, the way one eye looked greener than the other.

“Go on,” Louise breathed, “float with the rest of the stars.”

She could only nod, letting go, turning to face the vast expanse. Wolf 359 glowing, bright, shimmering. There was a crackle of music, her cassette playing through the comms. The only song that felt like home.

“So-o-o… What did we learn, Persephone?” he purred, creeping into the corner of her vision. She stood on her ship, never breaking eyes with the twirling ball of fire.

“You just… Had to ruin the moment, didn’t you, Duke?”

His suit was too finely pressed, the whites sharp enough to kill. He was difficult to look at, his voice really the only clue to who he was. He hummed, “Sorry. Just the way it goes, sometimes.”

She nodded, fists clenching. Let her chest expand, meeting eyes with her star. Fiery, bright, blinding.

“You know you can’t stay here…”

“I know,” she answered, firmly, “I just… Needed to remind myself of something. To see… To see her again.”

“But, humor me here, why this moment? Why here?”

“Maybe because… She was the real star. Because I knew, for sure, here. How much I would do for her.”

He was silent this time, watching as her star, out of focus and blurred, suddenly came into focus, stark and clear. Warping into a deep blue.

“It’s almost time,” he sing-songed, voice grating, tearing her further away from her moment, her precious memory.

“Was any of this real,” she suddenly asked, “Was this… Really mine? Or was this the story I was told so I’d think I-?”

“A question with an answer only you can determine for yourself, Persephone. Ready?”

She sighed, glaring, blurred as her world melted.

“I’m going to mess you-!”

“Clear!” giggled out.

Electricity surged through her, igniting her senses. The entirety of her body washed over her with the shock, washing away as quickly as it came. Another bolt, twice as strong, froze her in a snapshot, memories siphoning into her brain.

Moments of the life she lived.

Young, lips tight, fire in her eyes.

Nose bleeding, fist cocked, army written all over her.

Heart broken, family, friends, all lost, station echoing behind her.

Grim determination, false confidence, curling fear overtaken with frost from cryo.

Ice bathed in flames.

Electricity surged, surged, surged, overloaded her until she was hacking half her lungs out. Her world came to her in puzzle pieces and tsunami waves, understanding far from her mind. Voices called, pressure on her skull that she didn’t know how to process.

“I’d say we’re about… Half way there. After that kids? Training wheels come off.”

***

He locked Machida and Muta separately, hands still shaking as he entered the locking code. He took the long way through the station, working through the damaged and hollow halls until he came back to the medbay.

Persephone slept on the bed, chest rising and falling like it had never stopped. Like a bullet didn’t paint the back wall of the comms room with her grey matter. The shaking returned with fervor, but he sucked in an unsteady breath, digging his nails into the flesh of his palm. Let his chest expand.

No time for fear. No time for fear, for revulsion, for outright grief. He packed the feelings away, stored them in a little box out of sight, and set about to look for Haru. He scoured what remained of the ship, bunks, bathrooms, the mess, only to find her in the first place he thought she’d be, and the last place he wanted to find her.

Even with one less full body bag on the floor, the feeling of death weighed the room down heavy, obscuring the beauty of the stars with the cruelty on man. She didn’t look at him, staring out the observation deck window to the blue star haunting their station. He took a seat beside her, studying her face, following the tear tracks, examining the flecks of blood Persephone coughed onto her.

“Haru…” he began, but what do you say? What do you tell someone, when they’ve witnessed the craziest, most miraculous, most insane thing possible and called it their friend? Nothing. You say their name and sit like a fool with nothing to say. God, they needed to send out a better manual.

She turned to look at him, took in his own mess of an appearance, of a life, and turned away. Tried, measured, and found wanting.

“You can say it, you know…” she mumbled, never breaking eyes with the star.

“Say what?”

She laughed, rubbing her eyes as more tears began to build. “That… That all of this is my fault.”

He froze, heart cracking between his ribs. She watched as she started to cry anew, her hands pressing against her face. He packed everything away, his own sadness, his own guilt, his fiery rage at the world that’d make her feel like that. She was the only one that mattered.

“Haru, none of this is your fault!”

“I was the one who found the signal! The one who didn’t want to kill Toto, the one who got stranded and needed a dumb rescue, bringing the others here! It’s my fault she got shot!”

She wouldn’t- couldn’t- stop shaking, warmth and hope draining out her eyes and down to the floor.

“Stop that, stop that right now,” Yuki commanded, her sweet voice furious, echoing in the makeshift morgue. Haru jumped, looking around for the camera Yuki used to see.

“Yuki?” she called out.

“I won’t have my best friend thinking she’s the sole cause of this hell. It was all of us. It was none of us. It was a chain reaction of horrible decisions and the cruelty of monsters disguised as people. None of us could have prevented, or even predicted this. Not even me. It’s wasn’t you, Haru.”

“She’s right,” he jumped in, taking her hands between his, pulling her attention, “None of this is your fault. Persephone… Persephone made her choice. Machida, Muta, Hiromi… Toto… They all made their choices. You are not responsible for the actions of monsters.”

Haru hiccuped, gasping for breath to find an argument between their truths, but he wouldn’t have it.

“Haru, you are the bravest, the smartest, the kindest person I had the joy to meet. A regular, golden-orange sun will shine on us, one day.”

She nodded, and kept nodding, until he pulled her tight against his chest. He reached a hand, pressed it against the wall, hoping to do something to include Yuki in their human matters.

“I’ll get us all home safe,” he promised, “I’ll make Goddard pay for everything.”

She shook her head, pulling away. He saw the fury burning beneath her skin, jaw set in determination, “No, not before I burn them all to the ground.”

He nodded, rubbing his other hand down her back. She leaned back against him, warm and hurt and vulnerable.

“I’ll take care of you, Haru. And you, Yuki,” he said, confused when Haru pulled away again. Her hands found his cheeks, holding him in place, forcing him to look at her.

“Commander Baron, you can’t carry all of this yourself,” Yuki said, worry laced in her words. He sputtered, tried to reel back, prove he was fine, assure them that he could, but Haru stopped him.

“Baron,” she pleaded, soft, gentle, “let yourself grieve. Let it all process- Besides, I know about you and Toto.”

He jerked, glaring at Yuki’s camera accusingly. Her voice came out nervous, but not regretful.

“My duty is to protect my crew. And, according to my code that I had to bend for a loophole, that means spilling secrets to my best friend to keep her heart from breaking.”

“I pressed her for it, Baron,” she told him, tilting her head with a rueful smile. He didn’t like that look, that train of thought that’d keep him from… A wonderful chance, one day.

“Once, in the beginning, Haru. There was something, a wonderful and… Strange something. But that ended a long time ago. Died, when he hurt you and Yuki.”

She gave a shuddering sigh, shoulders sagging. She pulled him down, arms tight around her neck, his face buried in the crook of her neck.

“It’s okay, Baron,” she soothed, nervous laughter freezing in his throat. His breath hitched, lost in brown hair, the smell of metal and… That damn seaweed shampoo Toto made. The tears fell, Haru whispering kindly in his ear.

“Just let go.”

[hephaestuscrew]

Perspective at the end of the Wolf 359 finale

TL;DR: The last 25 minutes of the Wolf 359 finale are almost entirely from Minkowski's point-of-view and not at all from Eiffel's. And I'm emotional about that, particularly in relation to Eiffel’s memory loss and the crew’s return to Earth. 

General Thoughts on Perspective in Wolf 359

When I talk about point-of-view or perspective in this post, I'm obviously not talking about anything visual. Instead, I'm talking about which character's perspective we (the listeners) hear a scene from. Or, to put it another way, which character's (auditory) experience of the scene most closely aligns with that of the listener. Who does the editing of the scene encourage us to identify with? 

In the early episodes of the show, the framing device of Eiffel’s logs determines the audience perspective - we hear things 'through' the recorder. In a sense, this indirectly aligns our perspective with Eiffel's; although we aren't hearing things as if through his ears, the recorder largely functions as an extension of his perspective. 

After this framing device is abandoned, the lack of narration in the show (with a few exceptions) can make it easy to assume that we're always hearing things from a neutral perspective, a perspective not aligned with any particular character. However, the show often makes choices to indicate that we are experiencing a scene from a certain character's point-of-view. 

Sometimes this is in fairly obvious ways: we hear things from one side of a crackling comms line, we follow the characters into spaces that don't physically exist, we share their hallucinations or imaginings. Sometimes it's more subtle, coming down to things like when a scene begins, which side of a door the listener starts out on, which sounds and voices sound louder/quieter, or how the audio perspective moves through the space. And I’m pretty certain that if there's a single character whose point-of-view we share most often throughout the show, then it's our main protagonist, Doug Eiffel. 

Perspective at the end of the finale

The part where I find this issue of perspective most interesting is the end of the finale. Because after the last scene inside Eiffel's mind (when Hera runs a purge on the mindspace), I think almost all the choices about the show's perspective align the listener with Minkowski's point-of-view. And that feels significant, especially since Eiffel has been our primary point-of-view character throughout the series. 

INT. U.S.S. HEPHAESTUS STATION - LABORATORY

The first scene I want to talk about begins as Minkowski and Lovelace go into the lab where Eiffel's hooked up to Pryce’s machine. We enter the room with them, and they are at this point the only ones who are conscious. We see Eiffel in our mind's eye because Minkowski says he's there. So if the listener is aligned with a perspective in this scene, it's that of Minkowski and/or Lovelace. This makes the brief dramatic irony more painful. The listener knows what is happening to Eiffel, but Minkowski and Lovelace don't know until Hera tells them, so we experience the horror of learning about it for the second time through them. 

INT. GODDARD H.Q. - MAIN SPACE - 1300 HOURS (FLASHBACK)

After Eiffel gives his farewells, the scene is interrupted by the flashback of Minkowski and Eiffel's first meeting. This flashback starts with Rachel addressing Minkowski outside Rachel's office, and then we follow them through the door to where Eiffel is waiting. The scene could have started with the moment where Rachel introduces Minkowski to Eiffel, or it could have begun with whatever Eiffel was doing in Rachel's office before the others entered (knowing him, it seems likely that he was talking to himself/ whistling/ messing about with something on her desk). 

But because the scene starts outside the office with Minkowski, it’s clear that this is Minkowski's flashback, not Eiffel's (I suppose it could also be Rachel's point-of-view, but the audience hasn't been primed to identify with her and she's only really in this scene as a narrative device). Distressingly, it makes sense that this scene is from Minkowski's perspective, because she is now the only person who remembers that conversation. She's the one who might think back to her first meeting with Eiffel, now that she's going through a second kind of first meeting. 

INT. U.S.S. HEPHAESTUS STATION - LABORATORY - 0100 HOURS

Then we return to the present. Eiffel asks Minkowski whether he knows her, my heart breaks, etc. But in terms of the point I'm making here, what matters is that when Lovelace passes out and when Hera goes offline, the scene continues. Every character who is in this scene (if we count the halves before and after the flashback) is at some point unconscious, but it's only when Minkowski loses consciousness that the sound fades out. As her awareness of the surroundings fades, so does that of the listeners. The audience's experience is tied to that of Minkowski, so we are right there with her in that moment of despair with the alarms blaring and Eiffel asking her what they need to do.

The listener's experience of Minkowski's perspective becomes even more internal - there’s a point where all we can hear is what seem to be her thoughts ("What am I doing? I need to move. We can't be here. We need to move.") 

INT. U.S.S. URANIA - INFIRMARY - TWO DAYS LATER

We rejoin the action when she wakes up - the show entirely skips over the time during which Minkowski is unconscious. As a side note, the time jump is interesting in itself, because it means that two events that in another version of this show might have been the finale's climax (the crew getting onto the Urania and the Hephaestus falling into the star) happen 'offscreen'. We only learn what happened while she was out as she does. 

INT. U.S.S. URANIA - CORRIDOR/CREW QUARTERS - 2 HOURS LATER

Then there's the scene where Eiffel is listening to his old logs. I think I've said before that we re-encounter Season 1 Eiffel through the new version of Eiffel, but that's not quite it. The framing of that scene means that, when the audience witnesses Eiffel's re-encounter with his old self, it's not through his perspective but through Minkowski's. The scene begins with the sound of the door opening and Minkowski's heavy sigh (I think there's an intimacy to hearing someone's breath that suggests our perspective is close to that breath). We hear the log for a little while and only after that is Eiffel's presence confirmed by us hearing his voice. 

To illustrate the deliberate choices in this scene, I think a good contrast is the scene in Securite where Minkowski hugs Eiffel (yes, I do love to bring it up at every opportunity). The set-up in both these scenes is similar: Eiffel is alone in a room doing something at a computer, Minkowski enters, and they have a conversation. But the scene in Securite begins with the sound of Eiffel typing, before the sound of the door opening. This places the listener in the room with Eiffel before Minkowski enters, which encourages us to view the subsequent hug from his perspective (which I think works well to emphasise the unexpected-ness of Minkowski's loss of composure). 

They could have done the same sort of thing with the scene in the finale- we could have had a moment of hearing the log as Eiffel listens to it before Minkowski opens the door. But instead, the scene starts with Minkowski entering the room and with her sigh when she sees Eiffel. We are placed in the doorway with her, watching a character we've grown to love trying to work out who he is now. 

INT. U.S.S. URANIA - BELOW DECKS - 2 HOURS LATER

The possible sticking point in the point I'm making here is the scene where, with the support of Lovelace, Hera talks to Pryce. Minkowski's not in this one, so it can't be from her perspective. I do think this scene is very emotionally significant, but I'm not going to focus on it here. I just wanted to acknowledge that there is a short scene in these last 25 minutes that isn't from Minkowski's perspective. But, perhaps significantly, it isn't from Eiffel's perspective either. 

INT. U.S.S. URANIA - OBSERVATION DECK - 1 DAY LATER

Then there's a final sequence of interwoven scenes. Minkowski talks to Jacobi, then to Hera and Lovelace, then to Hera and Eiffel. She's the only character who is involved in all these conversations. She's the constant thread that ties that final sequence together. If you look at the script, you'll see the sections of this sequence are all linked together with directions like "She [Minkowski] OPENS A DOOR, going into - INT. U.S.S. URANIA - COMMON ROOM - CONTINUOUS". These directions make it clear that we are following Minkowski around the ship, which suggests again that we are sharing her perspective. 

What's the significance of all this? 

If it's true that - as Gabriel Urbina once said somewhere that I now can't find - the core of Wolf 359 is about conversations between Eiffel and Minkowski, then the show begins with the listener's perspective positioned very much on Eiffel's (often rather misleading) side of those conversations. But it ends with us positioned with Minkowski's point-of-view. There's a way of thinking about this that makes me feel sad and a way of thinking about this that makes me feel hopeful, and I don't think the two are at all mutually exclusive. In fact, I think they complement each other. 

The sad thought: 

The use of Minkowski's perspective gives a particular emotional resonance to Eiffel's memory wipe. We experience that loss through the point-of-view of one of the characters who will feel it the most deeply. And by ending with a perspective character other than Eiffel (who would have been the obvious choice), the show creates a sense of distance between the listener and post-memory-loss Eiffel. There's a shift in the listener's relationship with him, just as Minkowski is navigating the shift in her own dynamic with Eiffel. 

Whatever your stance on Eiffel's identity post-memory-loss, the Eiffel we see after the memory wipe seems less perfectly suited to being our point-of-view character than the Eiffel we've known for most of the series. He seems quieter, less likely to be the one telling the story, more likely to be the one listening. 

By cutting us off from Eiffel's perspective, the show adds to the uncertainty about whether he is still the character we've come to know. When he asks "Am I still that same person?", it feels like more of a question - or at least like a different kind of question - because we experience it from an external perspective. 

The hopeful thought: 

For four seasons, Minkowski has struggled with the question of whether she's in control of her life. For four seasons, she's been striving to make sure her crew gets home safely. With that in mind, it feels fitting that we experience the crew's return to Earth from their Commander's perspective. It feels fitting that she speaks the final lines of the show. It's a bittersweet ending, but it's her moment, and she's earned that. 

[junipersdragon]

Thoughts After Finnishing The Bright Seasions

Just be warned, there are some spoilers about the podcast, so if you haven’t listened to the whole thing, I suggest not reading this post.

Dr Bright: God, do I love this woman! I wish I had her as my therapist! She is so kind and practical to her pacients. I’ve actually began using one of the breathing exercises that was mentioned in on of the episodes, and it works really well for my anxiety. Joan Bright, best therapist 10000000/10

Sam: Boy, can I relate to Sam. Having clinical anxiety and depression is really tough and I struggled a lot with panic attacks this past year. I can’t imagine how it would be like to loose your parents in such a tragic way, but having someone to love and help you heal, even if you’re taking a break from each other, Of very good. Having a suport system is always good. Also the fact that the crossover Ars Paradoxica with The Bright Sessions is cannon blows my fucking mind.

Caleb: I love this boy. I love him. I would do anything for this boy. He is so kind and loving and sweet and, let’s be real here, that’s hard to do when you’re openly gay and in high school, empath or not. When he and Adam finally got together, I was gushing so much with feelings I nearly dunked the rag I was cleaning with into the toilet. Also, taking a flask with herbal tea in it to a party is now one of my main stratigies when I go to college

Adam: once again, I love this boy and would do anything for him. He is so sweet and very relatable. Having depression is very difficult, especially when your partner can’t quite understand your feelings. However, Caleb always makes an attempt to understand and talk with him. I’m so glad that Adam was a much bigger part of this podcast than I expected, because I truly love him and he and Caleb are such a good couple together. I cry every time at “You keep me green.”

Chloe: ACE PRIDE ACE PRICE ACE PRIDE!!!! God, I love how diverse the cast is with their sexualities in this show!!! Chloe is confirmed to have multiple past boyfriends and girlfriends, all while being ace and not having any intrests in having sex with them! It’s so good to see this kind of representation and I wish there was more of it in mainstream media. Chloe has such a big and beautiful and loving heart and I love her so much as a character! I could probably listen to an entire podcast just about her and Frank’s art adventures.

Frank: A smaller role in this podcast, but an important role nonetheless. Without Frank, many things would be left unanswered and the fact that whe know normal people can be inhanced and become atypical is a very interesting topic that I really hope comes up in The AM Archives. He and Chloe’s relationship is so pure and I just think that they are the best best friends ever.

Damien: oh, this man. I have a love/hate relationship with this man. His character is so solid, his morals are grey, leaning into black, but towards the end of the podcast he gets a redemption I never saw coming, to the point where I can truly say that I would love to listen to a podcast about Damien tracking and coping without his ability. He’s a very good antagonist and though he isn’t the main one, is my absolute favorite.

Mark: I love Mark. I love everything about his character, to his enthusiasm about the 21st century, to his relationship with Joan and Sam, to his voicemail. God, I love his voicemail. This man is pure comedy and hurt and I love him so dearly. I hope that his art helps him begin to cope and I hope that he and Sam get back together as some point in The AM Archives, because I love them so much together.

Wadsworth: Ah Yes, the Queen bitch. I hate this woman’s guts for everything that she has done because she is unapologetically evil and confident. She is such a good antagonist and I hope to never hear her appear in The AM Archives, but let’s be real, she probably will at some point. I hate this woman, but god, did her actress do a good job portraying an outstanding villain.

Green: Owen is a morally grey character and, for a really long time throughout the podcast, I hated his guts. I groaned right along with the characters whenever he called. But towards the end of the podcast, I fell in love with this goofy and morally grey guy. I’m so happy that he’s the director of the AM now, because I know he, Sam, and Bright will do amazing things.

Rose: We didn’t get to know Rose very much, but boy am I glad that she is there. Without her, we never would’ve gotten such an amazing 50th episode! The music in that episode was amazing and gorgeous and if I had money, I would be listening to those songs until my ears bleed. I love the blend of specialities we have in this show, with Chloe being ace, Mark being Bi, Damien being Pan (I think? Though it’s never really confirmed what his sexuality is), and Rose being lesbian. I hope we get more of her in The AM Archives.

*Bonus Episode Characters*

Myra: Yes, The mom character. Myra is a very interesting character, What with her past of abuse and her astrial projection. She loves her daughter very much and I know that she is a good mother and a good person.

Melanie: This character is a prime example of what it is like to be apart of the LGBTQ+ community in a dangerous country such as Iran and Seria. She falls in love with a girl from her dig team and I gushed at the clouds parting to reveal the stars. I wish for a day where everyone in the LGBT+ community can be safe and love who they love.

Austin: I would die for this child. I love this child and if anything were to happen to him, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.* I know how it feels to feel like you’re invisible. I lost a lot of friends this year, so walking around, it felt like I wasn’t even there. But I love Austin so much. He is such a sweet boy with a big heart and has great taste in music. I would love to hear an episode with Dr. Bright rocking out to P!ATD.

Lou: *see Austin* Lou is such a sweet girl and I am so glad that her episode was made. Loosing a friend is hard, especially when you know you can never see them again. I lost a friend this year, not to cancer but due to school drama, and it hurt quite a lot. But I am glad she is using her ability to do something to help the eart and I’m glad she is slowly moving on.

Victor: I’m not quite sure of what I think about Victor. He’s an interesting character with a morally grey past, but I can’t help but smile at the fact that he and his sister are finally reconnecting after so long. Family is very important I’m my culture, though as I learned, family isn’t nessicarily the one you’re born into, but the people you love the most in the world.

Arthur: I can’t not head Zach Valenti’s voice and think of Eiffel from Wolf 359. So I will forever headcannon that they are the same person.

Rory: *see Austin* when I think of Rory, I think of this cute yet badass teen rocking a leather jacket and red streaks in her hair. Her ability is distructive, but I’m so glad that she’s learning to control it properly.

Niko: *see Austin* Non-binary pride, bitches! As someone who’s best friend is trans, I absolutely adore this character! They’re voice and their humor and everything just makes me grin ear to ear. I want more Niko in my life and would gladly listen to anything to do with them.

Vanessa: Chloe’s Mom has got it going on, guys! Man, I love the chemistry that her and Joan have. They are just such good friends and I laughed so much during this episode. I also cried when the death of Chloe’s sister was finally explained. I would gladly listen to a podcast where it’s just Joan and Vanessa shorting the shit together. They are my brOTP and I live for it.