#it definitely would have consumed more of early voyager

[giffingthingsss]

It's interesting for me to think of what Seska's background could have been. It's interesting that this cunning spy should be so drawn to Chakotay. A twisted person kind of desperately clawing after something. Of course the desire doesn't express itself in any way approaching healthy.

And it's interesting that she winds up in a society where she has to play submissive, although no doubt she would have ended up murdering Cullah and ruling the Kazon through her son.

[curio-queries]

ARE YOU SURE?!

Production Notes from eps 1 & 2

At this time, I'm not planning to do full response posts for these episodes. Maybe once I'm done with my Run BTS series but for now here's some production thoughts.

My initial thoughts are they've done an excellent job of merging the concepts for Bon Voyage and In The Soop while also adjusting for a reduction of members from seven to two.

To really understand this though, let's talk about some of the logistical requirements and goals of the previous shows for comparison.

Logistical Assumptions

So I think y'all do realize that there is SOME amount of planning that has to happen for a show like this to be made but honestly...the way some of you talk, it's like you think this footage just magically appears in front of an editor, capturing whatever the members happened to wander into. These aren't self-recorded vlogs. This is a full production with a crew, a budget, and a deliverable requirement; just like any other TV show.

One of the cutest moments for me was at the brewery when JM was teasing JK about a summary of what the show about. I KNOW this was the 5 second explanation that both of them would have had to say/hear dozens of times while pitching the show. That's what's so endearing about the way JM says it and JKs reaction.

They also know that statements like that, captured during filming often end up in promos. All the members are very aware as they're being filmed what footage ends up being used. We've heard them time and time again, 'please use this as the thumbnail', 'please keep this in', etc.

Jimin has always been the most vocal about questioning if the content works for their intended purpose. How many times have we heard him say 'can this even be used?' or 'this will be cut'. Usually it sounds to me like he's aware the footage they're getting in the moment doesn't align with the predetermined plan. But as is common with the footage we getnof the members, even though it wasn't according to plan, doesn't mean it's not releaseable.

The main point of JMs AYS concerns being his sickness. I'm sure he thought the show was in jeopardy of not fulfilling their deliverable requirements since it would be difficult to completely edit out. There is a legitimate concern that if they aren't able provide the agreed-upon footage, the show would never air. I'll talk more about this in my section on the edit.

For now, here's a list of SOME of the basics that have to be managed for y'all to keep in mind when consuming any kind of produced content.

Camera management: How many and what kinds of cameras need to be brought along? Are there special operators required like a drone operator. How often is the footage saved. How is it backed up? When and where are batteries charged? Who locations require early access so the crew can place stationary cameras prior to the member's arrival.

Sound management: Someone is making sure the microphones are charged, and capturing correctly. Being mic'd up is one of the easiest indicators of when the show is actively being filmed or not.

Security: this is BTS. The members didn't go anywhere without a security consultation and discussion of requirements.

Crew management: These are people that have to have places to eat, sleep, and have time off as well. They don't just vanish into thin air as soon as their job is done.

Location approval and tax requirements: Every country in the world has different regulations, incentives, and permits to be managed. The US varies these laws state-by-state.

Budget: Businesses don't stay in business by not managing the finances. We can talk more about this if anyone's interested but there are definitely some interesting points with how much on-screen time we got over the years regarding members' spending on the shows.

There's more but let's leave it at the for the moment and talk more about why I think this show was such a good blend of Bon Voyage and In The Soop from a production standpoint.

What was the initial goal of Bon Voyage?

I believe it was to promote the band and the members to viewers by giving us access to what it would be like to travel to various destinations around the globe. They knew the episodes still needed a catalyst though so there were various preplanned activities and games to motivate the editorial narrative.

BV1 was very experimental as they were obviously managing the challenges of such a production. There was a heavy emphasis on trying to make the members seem like regular ppl and seeing how they would tackle the problems many of us face with travel, chiefly budgetary and managing how to feed all of the travelers with strict spending limits.

BV2 completely game-ified the concept with the mini challenges and breaking everyone into different groups. It's very clear that this is not the strategy they preferred as BV3 was much lighter on the control. There were still some structured activities and events but the members were experienced enough to bring forth some of these moments themselves during the shoot rather than as a completely planned itinerary.

BV4 was a continuation of this with us also getting footage of the members being included in the event planning as well. I'm not saying they didn't have input in the planning of the previous seasons but by this point, production knew the members understood the requirements of a successful show as well as many of the necessary logistics. But it was still a travel show with some key events to fuel the storytelling.

How about In The Soop?

Enter pandemic. They obviously still wanted to do another show once they worked out what was permissible to film at the time. But now the changing of locations would not be a part of the engine. How were they going to ensure they still had a viable show? They did put in place a semblance of their previous formula with that silly daily schedule (that was ignored nearly to the point of being completely edited out) and a couple of events like the 94s mountain hike and vhope's car drive. But overall, they realized they had to rely purely on the members to find story moments and insure they were captured. Their trust was rewarded though and ITS1 was a hit.

Now ITS2 is a more interesting case. I do believe it may have started with the same intent as season 1, but it must not have been long in the pre-planning stage before a new goal was added: controlled access of a BTS tourism destination. I'm sure I'll go further into this topic whenever I do finally make posts on this series, but it's very plain to even the casual fan that the ITS2 location was a planned financial investment.

Enough about the location though, what were the filming objectives? Honestly? Not much. The members were clearly ready for a break and were mired in the uncertainties of the time period. Balancing the focus of the english-solo-songs era with the preparations for ch.2 solo activities resulted in an odd lack of direction for the members, which is evident in the show. Yes, there are great moments and segments but there's no progression and very little footage of all the members all together except during certain meals.

But ITS2 is still hailed as enough of a success that there was justification to add to the franchise with Tae's friendship installment.

But what does all this mean for Are You Sure?

We'd heard from many of the members during ch.2 that they would like to continue Bon Voyage so it honestly wasn't surprising that we'd eventually get another travel show featuring our beloved BTS members. Early in episode 1 of AYS, Jungkook says he's never traveled so loosely before. However this show was justified, it definitely wasn't planned to be another hyper-detailed barrage of JM & JK going from activity-to-activity like early BV but it also couldn't be as aimless as ITS. For as long as the conversation was surrounding the name of the show, we never hear them suggest Bon Voyage 5 because AYS was never intended to be another installment of that series.

This is why I said AYS is a perfect mesh of the two kinds of shows. Granted, the first episodes definitely had some unexpected obstacles due to the unexpected health concerns but I think the production team managed it well. Although, I'm convinced there's at least one activity they did have planned that had to get scrapped to let our poor guys rest and recuperate. I also wouldn't be surprised if by the time they started filming in the US, they hadn't locked another destination and schedule with how unsure JM & JK are when talking about the scope of the show. (And I hope we get some update on the poor motorcycle, I want to know how it got where it needed to be from the rainy grocery parking lot).

The Edit

The overall tone of the show is very lighthearted. Kind of surprisingly so for me. It's not the vibe I would have necessarily expected but it's one of the points that leads me to say they have merged BV and ITS so wonderfully.

A major aspect of BTS's content is usually the chaos and shenanigans the surround the members. Now much of that is emphasized in the context of one of these shows but I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if the edit had tried to make up for the lowered member count. Instead, it's a very laid-back edit. The quality and tone of the on-screen captions was world's different from some of the BV seasons (thank goodness!)

Now, about Jimin's illness. There's a reason why the coverage is cut the way it was to only bring us in on the story once both JM and JK started talking about it lightheartedly. If we'd had all of that footage chronologically, we also would have had building tension throughout the day's activities. But this way, we're able to enjoy the show per the original pitch as much as possible.

This show would have been planned during the time when the members were under heavy scrutiny for how successful they'd be as individuals and how their content will be received without the full seven members. Again, the way some of y'all talk about these shows, it's like you don't realize that the members are aware of how this content is structured. They are. They absolutely are.

Also, a big part of greenlighting AYS would have been a discussion of how it could be made with just 2 of the 7 members. JM and JK would have to take on a lot more of the burden since there wouldn't be other member to cut to. The solo vlogs we got at the beginning of ch.2 absolutely would have been used as a proof of concept. There are easy comparisons to make between JKs camping vlog and the camping scenes we got in these first AYS episodes.

Another key justification of the show could have been as promotional material for the current musical releases. While they did highlight quite a bit of both JK and JM's work in these episodes, the narrative definitely wasn't tilted in the direction of promotion. I love that because it's absolutely not what I would have expected.

What am I looking forward to for the remainder of AYS?

From a production standpoint, I'm already curious about the following:

Will there be any tonal shift? Specifically now that JM and JK have some uncertainties about the viability of their US adventure. Will it seem like they're compensating?

We know Tae is going to be in at least the next episode. How is this going to handled narratively and will there be any visible contradictions from that narrative in the production?

At what point was the final quantity of locations and shoots locked down? And when/if will JM and JK make mention of this.

If/How will the music promotion narrative shift? It's clear that this episode could not have been released until after MUSE's release once they decided to keep the footage of JK listening to Who. But when was that decision made?

What are your thoughts on the production of AYS so far?

Editing to add a link to my post on episode 3. Surprisingly I had a lot more to say!

Are You Sure?! Production notes from ep 3.

And there has been even more to say so here's a MasterList link

Are You Sure?! MasterList

[stargazer-balladeer]

Mornings with you [Genshin Impact]

Characters Included: Aether & Kazuha

Notes: LMAO- albedo was supposed to be here,, including venti and xiao but my brain is like nope. Anyways, hope ya’ll like this!

Reader’s Gender: Neutral

Warning: None

Aether

Traveling from one country to another is quite exhausting for Aether and time consuming, so the time between you two is quite limited. When he spends time with you, he tries making the most out of it, even if it means pushing himself.

Sometimes Aether is an early-riser, sometimes he isn’t. When he wakes up, whether you’re awake or still sleeping beside him, he would take this time to admire your face. Thinking to himself how he was lucky to have you by his side.

Also the type to press kisses on your face if he wakes up first, he likes hearing your giggles early in the morning.

“Good morning! Had a nice sleep, love?”

Would love it also if you do the same to him, though that usually ends in a tickle fight and you two ended up breathless from all the laughing. Loves moments like this with you, just merrily laughing, just you and him.

If you try to get out of bed, Aether would immediately protest and would persuade you to stay with him a little longer. Good luck trying to resist his puppy-like eyes. He would pout and whine if you manage to resist. Would stop only if you promise him more kisses later.

Depending on how exhausted he is, he would either help you make breakfast or just wrap his arms behind you. Smiling contentedly either way as you two talk about things that comes to mind. You can’t tell me that Aether isn’t into gossip cause he is. Would tell you everything he heard from the citizens and from his friends.

Lets you use the bathroom first before him. Also the kind of guy that doesn’t protest if you ask him to wash the dishes. Asking him if he wants to shower with you? He’s embarrassed but he won’t turn it down.

It’s a MUST that you two share a goodbye and welcome back kiss. As he’s ready to do commissions from the Adventurer’s Guild, he would press his lips against yours and smiles.

“Just to remind you that Paimon will probably join us later for dinner. I’ll be back by sunset. Take care of yourself! Love you!”

Kazuha

Honestly, he’s excited to be in your arms again after voyaging with the Crux. They are a good company, Kazuha says, but they could be too much sometimes. Voyaging in the sea is tiring, even for a wanted man like him. Always on-guard for things to happen and not having a peaceful mind.

Definitely an early-riser. But instead of waking up and going about his day, he prefers staying in bed with you a little while longer. Admiring you and taking notes every freckle, blemish, and like on your face.

Seeing your face the first time he wakes up makes Kazuha smile, even if you’re drooling or snoring away, he can’t help but find you ethereal. Discovering sides of you that he didn’t knew before is making him fall for you even more. He would tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, smiling gently before pressing a kiss on your cheek.

“You make everything around you so dull. If you wish to sleep more, go ahead. I’ll still be here when you awaken… the birds are chirping loudly so early, the sun is rising in the horizon, good morning, my love.”

You can’t wake up before him even if you tried, whenever you open your eyes, you would meet his pyro-red eyes immediately. Kazuha lets out a chuckle every time you tried waking up before him and pout when you failed, would reassure you with his flowery words and press kiss on your lips.

Has a morning routine. I can see him practicing his sword skills outside. Would come back inside after 15 minutes or so of practicing. Would take a shower after, if you haven’t showered yet, he would ask you if you want to join him.

Kazuha would definitely help you cook breakfast, he’s well-versed in the cookery due to him being on the constant run and having to make his meals on his own. Even though he doesn’t look like the kind that’ll start a food fight, he would start one with you if he’s in a playful mood. Swiftly wipes his index filled with syrup or flour on your cheek, the war has begun. Don’t worry much about the mess, Kazuha promises he’ll help you clean it up after.

Talks about his adventures with the Crux while eating breakfast, sometimes imitating the way a storyteller in Liyue Harbor tells their tales making you giggle and him smiling throughout it. He even tries to mimics Beidou’s and the crew’s voices, which sounds horrible making you burst out laughing at his attempt.

Presses kisses on your knuckles when you two are about to part ways. Rubbing his thumb over it while looking at you with a smile and eyes so fond.

“May you be safe, my beloved. Let the wind guide you safely to wherever your destination is. If you ever have a problem, don’t be afraid to call me, I’ll be able to hear no matter how far I am. Safe travels.”

[x] Main Page || [x] Mondstadt Page || [x] Inazuma Page

[clandonnachaidh]

Light Across The Seas That Severed

Read on AO3

It always surprised Jamie Fraser, the things that made him think of Claire Beauchamp. Along with the usual triggers—the gut punch when he caught a whiff of someone wearing her signature perfume, the seizing of his heart when his eyes were automatically drawn to messy brown curls on a stranger walking down the high street, the ache in his chest when someone walked past who had the same cadence as her laugh—it was the small, unexpected ones that hurt the most.

He could be walking into the village and see her hair in the colours of the water as it ruffled over the rocks in the burn, so real to him that it felt as though he could reach out and tangle it through his fingers. His carefully curated playlist would end and Spotify would betray him, blasting a song that he had kept at bay, conjuring memories of the two of them dancing like fools on the nights that they laughed so loud that it seemed even the walls shook as they brushed their teeth in the cramped bathroom of their dorm.

It was torture. A delicious kind, but torture nonetheless. One that he had thought to turn into prose—at the recommendation of his therapist. It had been explained to him that grief and loss were themes that could be explored in ourselves if we attempted to write them from another’s perspective. And so here he was now, years after she had left him, sitting at his late father’s desk with a whisky in one hand and a pen in the other, trying to make sense of what had happened and how he had ever been stupid enough to watch silently as her light, his Sorcha, slipped from his life.

On yet another night spent in the same position—the room dark with only a lamp beside him to illuminate the black moleskin notebook—he reclined, the chair creaking under his weight. His father’s old office chair, with it’s worn leather and rusty hinges, wasn’t built to accommodate a man of his size but he’d found that it actually helped to coax the words from his brain, as though the physical discomfort made his emotional pain easier to access. He seemed to need a little nudge to allow himself to sink deeper into parts of his past that he had spent so long trying to keep locked away.

When the whisky finally made him brave enough to open the door, the memories flooded out onto the paper: the sight of her pink lips pouted in frustration as she struggled to lift her belongings from the boot of the taxi on the first day of university, the first time she laughed at one of his terrible jokes (why do the French only use one egg to make an omelette, Sassenach? Because one is an oeuf!), the first time he helped her into her coat and his fingertips brushed the skin behind her ear (their maiden voyage to the on campus coffee house, faces taut in disgust as they realised that their unrelenting back and forth had caused their coffees to go cold). He wrote about falling in love with his best friend and why he had wasted so much time worrying about how to tell her.

Jamie had spent hours, days, months, sitting in his father’s chair, consumed by the fruitless pursuit of trying to plot the points of their relationship. Although he could vividly picture the scenes, he didn’t recognise the people anymore. He had been young, too young by half to know what he wanted out of life and she had been more than he could have dreamed of. He had fallen in love with her instantly, as he was sure most people did at the sight of one Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp. But that was years ago and they had both changed, she was living her life in Boston as a brilliant surgeon while Jamie languished in Lallybroch, living in his old bedroom while his sister and her family had the run of the house.

The burn of the whisky slipping down his throat was a pleasant distraction but the batch still made his eyes water slightly and he made a mental note to tell Ian that the recipe could still do with some tweaking before it could be sold under the Mac Dubh name. He had made a modest success of himself, that was true, now the creator of the fourth highest selling whisky in Scotland. Broch Tuarach had changed from a small farming village that nobody really knew of to the home of one of Scotland’s largest and most successful distilleries, and Jamie was often credited with bringing jobs and tourists to the village in numbers that hadn’t been seen before. There had been a boom in the local economy allowing the village to thrive and he was seen as a pillar of the community, people jokingly referring to him as Laird, or the more familiar Himself, when he passed them in the street although the official title was held by some landowner that lived down south somewhere and had only stepped foot in the area once.

Still, he thought, this batch wasn’t ready for marketing just yet. Jamie put the glass down, rubbed his tired eyes with his even more tired fingers and decided to call it a night, making his way down the hall to his bedroom. His limbs felt heavy as he went through the motions of getting ready for bed. Finally stripping off his shirt and jeans and crawling under the covers, he cast a cursory glance at the phone he had left charging on the bedside table.

Sassenach

Missed call 23.02

He screwed his eyes shut before opening them again as if to knock some sense into them but the notification was still there. The rough pad of his thumb hovered over it, almost afraid that if he attempted to open it, it would cease to exist. He pressed the lock button once to blacken the screen, paused, and then pressed it again to bring it into view and still it remained.

It must have been an accident, a slip of the hand while she was trying to call someone else. He reminded himself of the time difference, it would be the early evening where she was and she could be tired after a long day or maybe even rushing between surgeries. She probably hadn’t even noticed that she had called him. He had to fight his inflating ego when he considered the fact that she still had his number, but blushed in shame as he recalled the frightened face of the poor spotty teenage lad in the phone shop who he had made swear that he wouldn’t lose any contacts or photos when he upgraded to his new handset.

Realising that he was now sat straight up in his bed, his heart beating a slightly faster staccato than usual, he opened the notification. Just seeing her name (or rather, his name for her) on his screen again did things to his body that he wasn’t in control of. His hands felt clammy while his mouth was dry. This was different than just scanning her Facebook page in the dark, looking at her perfectly posed pictures that she chose to share, and lamenting the absence of candids that he had so loved taking when they were friends. She found one of them once, one he had snapped of her the day that they had taken the ferry over to the Isle of Arran for a few nights. Knowing that she didn’t have any remaining family, he had insisted that she spend the summer break from university at Lallybroch with his family and she had happily accepted. However, after a few nights in Jamie’s massive ancestral home, filled with more Fraser bodies than they could count, he promised to take her away for a few days of peace and had driven her to the ferry terminal at Claonaig without divulging their destination. They had been blessed with a beautiful summer’s day for the crossing to Lochranza and he’d thanked God that he managed to keep his breakfast in his stomach. Or rather, that he almost had until they were in sight of the island. Jamie had burst from his seat and had made it to the toilet just in time for his stomach to erupt, sweat dampening his brow until his wame was empty. Shivering and definitely worse for wear but at least grateful in the knowledge that there was nothing else to come up, he had returned to the deck of the ferry to see Claire out in the sun, her forearms resting on the railing as she looked out over the water. The way that her hair whipped up in the wind made Jamie’s chest tighten and before he knew it, he had taken out his phone and snapped a picture.

Months later, Claire had snagged his phone from the table of the bar that they were sat in, too quick for Jamie. She quipped an eyebrow at him in victory, chastising him that he had yet to show her pictures of his latest niece when she stumbled across the photo. He watched as her throat bobbed, swallowing emotion that he wished he could taste before looking at him straight in the eye. Without being asked, he told her that he couldn’t help himself. And she smiled shyly before cooing about Jenny’s new daughter.

The memory flooded his senses and Jamie closed his eyes, filling his lungs with a deep breath for a count of four, holding it for a count of four and then letting it out for six in a vain attempt at calming his racing mind. His whole body felt as though it was vibrating, alive for the first time in what he could remember at the mere <em>thought</em> of Claire Beauchamp.

It took Jamie a second to realise that the vibration wasn’t coming from his body. Or rather, it was, but from a specific part of his body. His hand, the one that was holding his phone, was shaking rhythmically, the screen bright against the darkness of the rest of the room.

Sassenach calling…

The breath jittered from his lungs as he tried to take a steady breath. Watching, almost as though someone else was moving his body as he thumb accepted the call and he slowly raised the phone to his ear.

“Claire?”

On the other end of the phone, he heard her let out a heavy breath. His heart seized as he listened to her break, all too familiar with the sound of her crying.

“Claire, are ye hurt? Tell me what’s—“

“Frank is dead.”

Ice fell heavy in his chest at the sound of her voice before he even took stock of the words that she had uttered. To hear her voice again.

“Oh, lass… Mo chridhe, I am so sorry,” he whispered the words, truly meaning them as he wished for nothing but her happiness. Anything to bring her from the pain that she was feeling.

“He— oh God, he’s dead. He’s really dead.”

He knew in that moment that he would cross oceans for her simply to bring her peace. He had always known the truth of what they shared, how he responded to her call but nothing had prepared him for the tsunami of pure need that he would experience when he heard her cry down the phone about her dead husband.

“I’m sorry, mo chridhe, I’m so sorry,” he repeated at the sound of her hyperventilating, his shoulders creeping up around his ears as he wished he could bear the pain for her, “What do you need, Claire? Anything.”

“He’s in the ground,” she whispered as though saying it out loud would make it more true, “God, Jamie, I don’t know what to do.”

Hearing his name fall from her lips was a balm that he didn’t know his soul needed. The hairs on his arms stood to attention as a shiver rippled through him, clenching his jaw to steady himself and give her his full attention.

“Do ye have people around ye, Claire? Have ye folk in Boston?”

[ineffablefool]

@one-with-the-floor tagged me for Happy Questions Time and it seems like fun so here we are!  Thank you for tagging me and I hope the floor is comfy.

Rules: Tag nine people you want to know better. exactly as many people as you want, even if that is zero.  Seize your destiny!

Three ships: Aziraphale/Crowley obvs, and uh.  Uhhh.  I’ve never... really shipped anyone before this?  Like, back when I was watching X-Files (it started when I was about 12), I could tell I was supposed to have an opinion about whether or not Scully and Mulder would get together, but literally I was just like “aww, if it would make them happy to be in a relationship then I say good for them!  such nice young people they are.”  Drawing a blank otherwise.  Does “If Lupin and Fujiko were to ever retire and settle down then it would definitely be with each other because nobody else would ever be able to truly understand either of them” count?

First ever ship: /shrugs, points up to bullet #1

Last song: buh.  uhhhhhh.  I don’t really have chances to listen to music on my own anymore so I can’t even remember.  Housemate was playing dubstep on the Google Homes while holding a snake, the other day, because he figured since snakes can “hear” via feeling vibrations, they maybe like dubstep.  Does that count?

Last film: I think the last movie I watched as a movie was the new Matrix?

Currently reading: other than Internet fanfic, literally nothing.  I’m one of those former “reading three books at a time, all the time, constantly” kids who burned out at some point.

Currently watching: Ronin Warriors (or Legendary Armor Samurai Troopers if you’re fancy), which is one of those loveable 80s “friendship means dressing up in silly costumes (and/or piloting robots) as a team and punching things” shows that Japan produced so many of.  Also running through some old MST3Ks.  (Pro tip, if you want to give MST3K a try, do not start with an early season when the writers were still amateurs.  Start with, I dunno, The Sword And The Dragon or Time Chasers.  The intro song basically tells you all you need to know about the show.) (Oooh, or The Magic Voyage Of Sinbad.  This is a Soviet film based on a Russian folktale which freakin’ Roger Corman redubbed into being about Sinbad.  And the film itself, Sadko, is beautiful.  I want there to be a remastered blu-ray of it so I can watch it straight in its original glory.)

Currently consuming: an absolutely scrummy Yunnan Golden Needle!  One of my favorites from Adagio, and not too expensive for a Chinese black tea.  (Hit either me or @/aethelflaedladyofmercia up if you want a five-buck gift certificate; when you use it, we get point thingies.)

Currently craving: A biscuit.  I should grab a couple when I go down to make more tea.

Whee!  Fun!

If you are a person I have ever had a conversation with (in Tumblr messages or a series of reblogs or AO3 comments or whatever) then I would probably enjoy seeing your answers, but it’s okay if you don’t wanna.

[pixiebuggiewrites]

Sorry Wrong Number!

Masterpost - Previous - Next - Ao3 link

Chapter 6: A pleasant morning, a slightly less pleasant midday

Despite how late she returned home the night prior, Marinette was pleasantly surprised to find that she hardly overslept. That makes two days in a row now, the girl was on a roll. That or all of the late night akumas had finally made her a permanently light sleeper. Either way she was glad for her newfound semi-punctuality, especially given the busy day she had ahead of herself.

Her to-do list for the day, while short, was fairly time consuming. First she needed to head to the fabric shop to get the supplies for her most recent batch of commissions, then she needed to meet up with Alya (who she was so not looking forward to dealing with) so that they could get started on their english project, and after that she needs to interview the previous nights akuma victim for their case file.

Which reminds her that she should check and see if Chloe ever responded to her text. Opening up her messaging app, she’s greeted with two texts. The first is from the number she texted last night, the one that has turned out to be the number of someone who is very much not Chloe. Marinette was all of a sudden very grateful for the code that her and her team had come up with for any messages regarding hero work. Hopefully she could just thank the unknown number for alerting her of the mistake and leave it at that.

The second message was what had her worried though. This one actually was from Chloe, and the contents of the text were a bit concerning.

(XXX)XXX-XXXX: Hey DC it’s Chloe can you call me when you get a chance? I kindasortafuckedupreallybadlydidsomethingstupid

Now Marinette was sure that whatever Chloe had done couldn't have actually been that bad, so that wasn't why she was worried. No, she was worried about her blonde friends current emotional state. Chloe had come a long way from her 13 year old self, but she did still have insecurity issues on occasion. Judging by her text, the blonde was panicking, likely in an anxiety spiral. Something that she too was well known for doing, she would call the heiress as soon as possible to make sure that she was okay before saying anything to her about Mayuras return.

Anyways, it’s not like there was much she could do about it until later in the day, seeing as it was currently around 4 am in Gotham. So instead, the young designer focused on getting ready for the day ahead of her.

After some deliberation with input from the kwami’s, she settled on a nice outfit. The ensemble starred a black pinafore with subtle floral embroidery, paired with a light pink long sleeve underneath, both items of course being MDC originals. Shoe-wise she kept things fairly simple with a pair of black high top sneakers and white knee-high socks. Deciding to keep her hair down today, all that was left was choosing which kwami to bring along with her.

Tikki of course was a given, but she typically rotated out wearing a secondary miraculous so that the kwami could get to experience the outside world, even if it was from Marinette's purse.

Hmm today seemed to be a good day for Kaalki. It had been awhile since the horse kwami’s last voyage out of Marinette's room, plus they would be going to a cafe which meant free sugar cubes. While Kaalki would not be pleased about the ‘free’ part, Marinette's wallet sure would. She may run an extremely successful business for her age but kwami food sure does add up to eat a decent chunk of her budget. So yeah, free sugar cubes it is.

After slipping on the magical glasses and getting the two kwami into her purse, she was finally ready for the day, and so made her way downstairs to the Dupain-Cheng bakery.

“Good morning!” she greeted her Maman, who was serving customers at the register. The bakery was already quite busy, seeing as it was a Saturday afterall.

“Good morning sweetie, any exciting plans for today?” Her Mother inquired between customers.

“Not really, just have to pick up some fabrics and work on that english project.” She sort of left out who exactly she was working on said project with, but she really didn't want to risk having to dodge the question of why Alya never came around anymore. Luckily her Maman just nodded.

“Oh by the way, Jagged and Penny are coming over for dinner tonight, so make sure not to be home too late.” 

Well that made for a slight change of plans, she would just have to interview the akuma victim during her patrol instead of during the evening beforehand. Not a big deal, but it was slightly inconvenient, even if she did enjoy seeing her Aunt and Uncle with their busy schedule.

“Of course, i’m going to head out now, can you tell papa I said hi next time he comes out of the kitchen?”

“Will do, oh and Marinette?”

“Yes Maman?”

“Don't forget to grab breakfast.” Her Mother smiled and went back to serving customers.

Smiling back, Marinette grabbed a fruit tart and made her way to the fabric shop.

                                                        ----------

Luckily the fabric shop wasn't that busy, and Marinette was able to drop her supplies back home with enough time leftover to get to the cafe early. After finding a good table to set her things up at, she decides to go ahead and order an iced coffee to drink while waiting for Alya. Due to all of her time spent with Master Fu she was typically more of a tea drinker, but to get through this she would likely need the extra bit of caffeine coffee would provide.

Roughly ten minutes later, Alya walked through the door of the cafe. Time to get this over with.

While her former best friend didn't usually take much of an active role in the bullying Marinette had been experiencing at the hands of her classmates, she definitely encouraged a lot of it. Hopefully the fact that they were meeting out of the classroom meant that they could start on the project without any incident.

And for the most part it did. Despite the awkward tension between the two they managed to delegate who did what, with Alya doing the research portion and Marinette assembling the presentation itself.

Just as Marinette was about to leave though, Alya stopped her.

“Hey… have you noticed anything different about Adrien lately? Nino says he’s been acting strange and we’re all a bit worried about him.” The glasses girl inquired while putting away her things.

Well that caught her attention.

“Strange how?” She honestly didn't really care about whatever drama was currently happening in her old friend group, but on the off chance that he was experiencing side effects of the memory wipe spell, she needed to know so she could fix it. Magical backlash was no joke, despite her dislike of the blonde he didn't deserve having to deal with the effects of a spell gone wrong.

“He’s just been distant lately, almost like he’s been avoiding us. You didn't say something about Lila to him again did you? I know you're into him but just because Lila does too doesn't mean-” 

‘Ah so that's what this is about, I walked right into that one huh’

“Alya.” She cut the wannabe reporter off “I haven't had feelings for Adrien in years. I also have no idea why he’s avoiding you guys or why you assume I had anything to do with it. If you want to know so badly, try talking to him yourself.” She got up from her seat “If that’s all, I’ll be going now.” And with that, Marinette began heading home, looking forward to having dinner with her honorary uncle and aunt in a few hours.

But before that, she had a couple of text messages to take care of.

------------------------------

Taglist (open!!):

@queencommonsense @toodaloo-kangaroo @nickristus-dreamer @savagenutella46 @solangelo252 @adrestar @crazylittlemunchkin

[mia-cooper]

Fanfiction Questions

from here

Fandom Questions

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Involved as in ‘frantically read every book I could get my hands on, daydreamed about being part of that universe and wrote stories/made art inspired by the books, if not actual fanfiction’? Mm, probably The Chronicles of Narnia when I was six or seven. The next great obsession was The Silver Brumby when I went through my horse stage around age 12, and then Sweet Valley High when I was 15. Hahaha.

2. What is your latest fandom?

Marvel! I’m not into comics and I’m definitely not interested in consuming every last bit of canon material or memorising the variations of every universe, but I love (most of) the movies and Agents of SHIELD is pretty cool.

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

Star Trek Voyager. No contest. I venture to suggest that the older fandoms, the ones that are all about defunct shows, are a hell of a lot more chilled. Maybe because we’ve come to terms with our shitty canon endings and learned that liking the ship you hate doesn’t make someone problematic, unlike some newer fandoms I could name (Yes I’m talking about you, Game of Thrones fans. What the fuck.)

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

I’ve dipped a toe into one or two fandoms for shows or books I’ve really enjoyed and backed the fuck out when the vibe gets weird (oh hey, it’s GoT again), but nope. No regrets.

5. Which fandoms have you written fanfiction for?

All the Star Treks except TOS, and a Trek/MCU crossover. I’d like to write more for MCU someday. Plus I’ve written longhand entire notebooks full of teen romance shit that bore an uncanny similarity to SVH, and my first short story was a fantasy fic that featured a girl whose guardian was a wise talking lion who led her into mystical secret worlds, which is kind of familiar.

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Wow. I’m going to define ‘involved in’ as ‘cared enough about to have an OTP’, but I’m guaranteed to forget a ton. In no particular order:

Voyager: Janeway x anyone who can get her off

Discovery: Lorca x Cornwell or Pike x Tyler x Burnham (or any combination of)

DS9: Kira x Jadzia Dax

TNG: Picard x Vash, I guess? I don’t really have any TNG ships

ENT: T’Pol x Trip x Hoshi (or any variation therein)

MCU: Cap x Widow

AoS: Coulson x Skye... no May... no Skye... I don’t know

CAOS: Madam Satan x Zelda

Timeless: Garcy

The Good Place: Eleanor x Tahani

The 100 (shut up): toss up between Clarke x Bellamy and Kane x Abby

Veronica Mars: Veronica x Leo (first run), Veronica x Logan (s4)

Orphan Black: Cosima x Delphine

BSG: Apollo x Starbuck

SG1: Sam x Jack

Arrow: Olicity (so over the show now though)

This Life: Milly x Egg

Yeah you know what... I’m drawing a blank. I can’t think of any other shows where I’ve been invested in The Romance that much.

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

I’m too tired to do every fandom, and besides, I can come around to almost any ship if the headcanons (or fics) are convincing enough. I do have a few hard no-gos, but they might be someone else’s OTP so I’ll shut up about them.

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

Reluctantly. The MCU movies are not something I ever thought I’d enjoy beyond a dull evening’s entertainment. I never expected to get attached to the characters. And yet.

9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

Voyager is my forever fandom and the only one where I’ve really interacted with other fans. The best things about it? In general, everyone is just cool, accepting, open and basically awesome. And talented. I love my Party Bus people.

10.  Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

Sure. The 100, Veronica Mars and Agents of SHIELD are the ones I’d dip into more frequently. I really enjoy crossovers between Trek and BSG or the Stargate variants, too.

Ship Questions for your Current Fandom

11. Who is your current OTP?

Janeway x Chakotay.

12. Who is your current OT3?

Janeway x Chakotay x Paris.

13. Any NoTPs?

A few.

14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?

Janeway & Tuvok! Also Torres & Chakotay, and I’d have killed for more Janeway & Torres in canon. (If they kissed sometimes that would be okay too)

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?

Yeah. Paris x Seven. There are like two fics in existence, and yet ... the potential! (Sorry, B’Elanna)

16. Are there any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

Nope.

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Janeway x Paris. And they’re still way up there, but not quite at the top.

18. What ship have you written the most about?

84% of my fics feature Janeway x Chakotay as either the primary or secondary pairing... holy shit.

19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

Paris x Torres. I mean, I feel them. I just don’t generally feel the need to write about them.

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

Chakotay x Seven. In another universe, it could’ve been beautiful.

Author Questions

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Actual story that was clearly fanfic? A farcical drunken romp told in the 24th century equivalent of email format called PADDemonium (see what I did there?)

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Lol, a few things that should probably have never seen the light of day for various reasons, some of them leola related. But I’ve only deleted two fics that I can recall.

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Relieved. It’s a 30k AU Chakotay moral dilemma backstory that brings in DS9 characters, Section 31 and his longstanding history with AU Janeway. I did so much research for it (way back in the days before memory alpha and chakoteya.net) and I’m really proud of how I wound in canon stuff across series but changed a few key bits and pieces. Only problem is, it’s a sequel to ...

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

... Pressure, which I can’t even read without cringing. My characterisation of Janeway, even Angry Maquis AU Janeway, is way over the top and there are moments that verge on Mills and Boon and give me first, second and third hand embarrassment. God, I’d love to rewrite it. Actually, that’s a lie. I want someone else to rewrite it so I can read it without covering my eyes and moaning.

25. What’s your most popular fanfic?

Desperate Measures, by about 70,000 light years, lol. Although Fragile Things beats it on bookmarks.

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

You know what? A fair percentage of the time, I think of the title first and come up with a plot second. Aside from that, I prefer shorter, punchier titles that clearly tie into the story (Flight Risk, Speechless), though sometimes it’s song lyrics (Burn Our Horizons, your body like a searchlight) or a literary quote (Required to Bear, All the Devils are Here) or a turn of phrase from the story itself (The Prisons You Inhabit). Hey that was fun. Thanks for letting me pimp the shit out of my stories.

27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

Ugh, it depends on the day. Summaries are harder, I think. I never want to give away too much of the plot, but there has to be enough there for people to know whether they’ll bother clicking. Funny story: I actually ran the stats on this a few months back. Here they are for your edification:

Fics with a one line plot summary = 54%

With two or three line plot summary = 18%

With a short snippet directly from the fic = 16%

With a snippet + a one line explanation = 3%

With a one line plot summary plus a line to date the fic (eg "set in season 3", “episode tag to Worst Case Scenario") or the fic prompt = 7%

And finally, a quote from something other than the fic = 2% (that's only 3 fics).

28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

Ooh. I’ll say the final scene in Explosive.

29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not?

I used to regularly ask @jhelenoftrek​ and @littleobsessions90 to beta for me, and both of them are brilliant at it. Lately I’ve been posting without sending my stuff off for editing. This is partly because I’m impatient to get stuff out there, partly because I don’t have as much time to write/edit, and partly because I’m a little less focused on improving my writing and more on enjoying it for its own sake.

30. What inspires you to write?

Little bits of episode dialogue I haven’t noticed before, other people’s fanfiction, stray conversations, fic prompts, song lyrics, random headcanons, fever dreams, dares ...

31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

I’ve been really lucky with comments on my fic. The least helpful comment I’ve ever received was on one of my early 30k fics and all it said was “Did you have to take the name of the lord in vain?” Which is kind of funny. The nicest thing anyone’s ever said? I’m very partial to the feedback that starts “I don’t even like this pairing/genre/trope/show but you made me love it”, and particularly “I’ll read anything you write, I don’t care what it’s about.” But all comments are gold. The little heart button is cool too.

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

I’m not someone who can tune out music I love, or leave it in the background to inspire me. If it’s on, I’m fully invested in it. I’m that annoying person in the car who flips radio stations every three seconds until I find something I like and then it’s on 11 and I’m singing along to it. I’m also really picky but extremely eclectic, although there are genres I can’t stand (anything with autotune makes me stabby). That said, sometimes I find a song that I can’t stop listening to for weeks and often that perfect combination of music and lyrics will inspire me to write a fic. For example, I just plotted out an entire J/C story because of this song.

33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

All of the above. Although I’m not sure if my longest epic is huuuuuge or just huuuge.

34. What’s the word count on your longest fic?

101,467.

35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about?

I have two drabble collections. One is all J/C, full of responses to random prompts and I add to it sporadically. The other is episode additions set on Kathryn Janeway’s birthday (May 20) and added to annually.

36. What’s your favourite genre to write?

Angst, definitely. Sometimes it’s smutty angst or fluffy angst or hurt/comfort angst, but often it’s just fucking unrelenting angst. And I’m okay with that.

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

I did the stats on this once, too, haha. Pretty sure I came out fairly even on first and third person with a smattering of second person in there. I’m probably even-ish on present vs past tense, too. I make it a point to mix it up to avoid my writing getting stale or same-y. And sometimes a fic doesn’t really click for me until I try it in a different POV or tense or from a different character’s perspective.

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs?

I mostly write for canon characters - the fun is in all the different ways you can interpret and imagine them - but I’ve been known to throw in the odd OC, or focus on a character who only got a brief cameo appearance, or write about someone who only appears in beta canon, or who only rates a mention on screen.

39. What is your greatest strength as a writer?

Oh, wow. I’m not sure. I guess the thing I value most about my own writing is my willingness to try different styles, characters, pairings and so on. The thing I strive for most is characterisation that feels true, and I really love it when I get comments on that. Exploring a character in a way that rings true with a reader is the best thing ever.

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Overly long sentences and adverb abuse, haha. No, truthfully, there comes a point in most of my fics, particularly the longer ones, when I really just want to scrap it because in my heart I know it’s dreadful. Usually that passes once I slog through the ‘I don’t wanna’ stage because I’m a bloody-minded bitch, but sometimes fics do get left in the dust half-written. Honestly, though, they’re the ones that probably should stay there.

Fanfiction Questions

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

This is hilarious because I was just talking on discord about my problematic ‘to read’ pile. My unread AO3 subscription emails currently number 29 and my phone browser has 71 tabs open. So here are 5 random picks from that list of exactly 100 fics I should be reading:

Sex on the Beach (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by @traccigaryn​

The Ruby Ring (T, Janeway/Chakotay, Janeway/Tighe) by @trinfinity2001​

Earth is But an Idea (T, Janeway/Chakotay, Carter/O’Neill) by @caladeniablue​

Home (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by Cassatt

Wise Up (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by KimJ

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

Only five? Shit. Okay. In no particular order, these are five of the writers I keep coming back to:

quantumsilver (also here)

northernexposure

LittleObsessions

Helen8462

Cheshire

But there are so many others. My chosen fandom is chock full of amazing talent.

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

All of the authors above for various reasons, but also august because her writing is so spare and delicate and devastating, and runawaymetaphor because she writes the most delicious Janeway/Paris, and @seperis​ because I read In the Space of Seven Days literally 20 years ago and I still haven’t recovered, and I could be here all night raving on this topic but there are still many questions to get through.

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

Janeway x Paris. I’m so happy there’s been a little bit of a resurgence in J/P fics lately. Thanks, @curator-on-ao3​, you’re doing the lord’s work.

I’ll also take Janeway x Johnson content any day of the week.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

What the hell? I can’t pick just one! Ugh!

... but okay, here’s the first one that came to mind when I tried to think about this: if you came this way by tree. I’m not sure I’d call it my favourite, but it’s one I revisit often. Ugh, there are so many other fics I’m thinking of now that I really want to list.

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Oh, that’s hard. I should probably pick an angsty smutty J/C because that’s a fair proportion of what I write and it’s good to let a new reader know what they can expect. But honestly, I think the best fic I’ve written is The Uncharted Sea. (It’s safe for work. Maybe not for makeup.)

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why?

The Archive, of course. Where else can I find ad-free hosting on a stunningly user-friendly interface with absolutely no moralising content restrictions and the world’s best tagging system? That Hugo award is well deserved.

Tumblr is good for headcanons and meta and gifsets and a few other formats that I’m less likely to post on AO3 because I’d feel like I was pissing off people who subscribe to me by giving them some random garbage.

I also have my own website, but I’m not really sure why. Sometimes I post fic there that doesn’t make it to tumblr or AO3.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not?

I try to. Honestly I do. I love it when I get reviews, so I figure paying it forward is the least I can do. I’m less scrupulous about leaving comments when I’m busy or reading on my phone.

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not?

I mean, I love it when people reblog, but I certainly don’t expect it. @arcadia1995​ is amazing for reblogging stuff *blows kisses*

Nobody owes fanfic writers shit, but I feel like there’s a tacit agreement that if you like what you just read for free and you’re on a platform that makes it easy to do so, you leave a review or at least a kudos, because I’m not gonna lie, posting a fic you’ve worked super hard on and seeing it get very few kudos or comments is a bit deflating. I’m sure a lot of us have been there.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

During Voyager’s original run I was trawling the internet for Endgame spoilers (I don’t know why; I usually love surprises) and I guess I googled (or whatever the 2001 equivalent of googling was) something like “how does voyager get home” and somehow I stumbled across Revisionist History. At first I had no idea what I was reading - was this a lost story pitch that somehow got leaked? A professional novella commissioned by the showrunners?

Then I started following links and discovered yahoo groups and webrings and Trekiverse and fanfiction.net and all sorts of incredible things I’d never guessed at, including the now defunct ‘archipelago of angst’, a collection of Voyager writers who focused mainly on a darker Janeway than most of the other fic writers I was encountering, and I was hooked. So I wrote a few of my own pieces, and then I lost interest for 15 years. I’m still not sure how I got dragged back in.

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

Honestly, in what other way can I indulge my obsessions, hone my skills and talk about it endlessly with like-minded people? Where else can I instantly find a plethora of fiction about the exact topic I feel like reading about on my mobile device and for free? Fanfiction is fucking amazing and I’m so glad it exists in my life.

[jacereviews]

Review: Mobile Suit Gundam

Television (Anime) Consumed in: English Sub Also known as: Gundam 0079. OG Gundam. Gundam TV

Note: This review covers only the first television series. This is not the franchise as a whole or the 0079 movie trilogy. Those will come along eventually.

Airing from April 1979 to January 1980, animated at Studio Sunrise and directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, I’m sure most if not all of you know what “Gundam” is even if you might not have watched or read any of it. I have watched the debut of this long-running series over the last few weeks and had the lovely experience of seeing the birth of Real Robot Mecha and many other pieces that would become part of Anime Culture. Though the question tends to come up with genre fathers, does it still hold up? Or did this simply work in an era of lower standards? This review will not contain any major spoilers, though for the sake of analysis I will have to discuss how the series handles its plot and characters even if I avoid going into major detail. Alright, let’s rock.

PLOT: So while Mobile Suit Gundam *is* the story of the One-Year War, it is also not. The year is Universal Century 0079. The Earth Federation now covers more than just Earth, with lunar colonies and artificial satellite space colonies known as “Sides”. However Side 3 has risen up in rebellion, calling itself the Principality of Zeon, and has in a swift move of advanced technology and facist war culture fought a destructive war against the Earth Federation, taking out many Sides and even conquering parts of Earth. By the time the show has started, this war has cost a toll of half of the human population. However this show isn’t about the war as a whole, more so it’s the story of one ship, the White Base. Classified military vehicle White Base docks at Side 7, carrying with it prototypes of the Earth Federation’s Mobile Suits. However Zeon gets a jump on the federation, launching an invasion on Side 7. The White Base makes its escape with the civilian population of Side 7 on board. The rest of the series follows the voyage of the White Base, from its escape to Earth, to its fights in the operation to end the One Year War. Rather than a large scale lens the plot is told through mostly the experiences of the White Base and its crew, we actually see more from the perspective of Zeon than we do from other Federation forces, and every instance of other Federation views are directly on the White Base. While this focus can lead us to becoming intimately familiar with a size-able cast, it means that any large scale operations the White Base partakes in feel similar to the independent skirmishes it partakes in, as we see only the perspective of the White Base crew and the opposing general, mostly hearing about other fronts through radio reports and discussions. However this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but those looking for a bigger war story might be a tad disappointed. In general I found the plot to be rather engaging. It mostly moved at a pretty fast speed and kept shaking things up enough that the constant battles didn’t get very old. As the stories are told in a more episodic manner most conflicts tend to get resolved in a timely manner and we move on. However the downside of the episodic nature is occasionally you just get uninteresting episodes (such as Episode 7) where the whole thing feels pointless and feels like it needs to move on with the overarching plot. Aside from the arc on Earth dragging on occasion most individual episodes tend to make noticeable progress and push along the course of the narrative. Occasionally it even feels like the story is moving too fast, some enemies get steamrolled, some interactions turn a significant result after only a few minutes, but it never felt like the story overall moved too fast, and a lot of these happened towards the end of the series, where anyone familiar with the production of Gundam might be able to estimate why. Though mostly grounded, towards the end the plot takes some strange turns with the introduction of the concept of Newtypes, which could make the show more or less interesting depending on the viewer. To briefly touch on the ending, I thought it was pretty good. It’s definitely not the most climactic of endings (as one wouldn’t except a war story to climax with a final episode called “Escape”) but it was satisfying none the less. It was messy and chaotic only insofar as war itself is messy and chaotic, and it put a good bow on the stories of our characters, though some epilogue would’ve been nice (like perhaps a “Where are they now?”).

For this section I’d give a 7.5/10, it’s good but nothing amazing.

CHARACTERS: It might seem odd that I didn’t mention any characters in the plot section, but that’s because the crew of the White Base act together as a unit, though definitely not to discredit their individual characters. Let’s start with the main character Amuro Ray. Amuro is the 15 year-old son of the Federation engineer Dr. Tem Ray, he moved out with his father to Side 7 so his father could work on developing Mobile Suits. Amuro himself is pretty technology-savvy (having built the series mascot Haro). Through a large part being forced and a small part choosing himself, he ends up piloting the prototype mobile suit, Gundam, after the invasion of Side 7. As a natural pilot and engineer, he becomes the leading man of the White Base’s combat forces, being the main pilot of the Gundam and doing some rodeos in the other Mobile Suits. Over the course of the series we see him develop from a semi-anti-social teen who’s hesitant to shoot another human to an ace soldier. His arc develops slowly with plenty of bumps caused by his immaturity, but he does naturally grow and develop over time and by the end he’s quite the force to be reckoned with. While not a particularly unique or shockingly nuanced character, he’s more than serviceable and in a lot of ways represents different aspects of the world of Gundam. Being both the civilian dragged into the catastrophic war and eventually being our lead into the secret of the Newtypes. Other people of note on the White Base include Bright Noa, the military officer pressed into active command of the White Base after its captain becomes incapacitated. He starts off as a rather unsympathetic hard-ass, who’s stiff nature both causes him to be effective in crisis but also to break hard rather than bend. He learns to warm up and adapt, over time becoming the heart of the White Base and its leader. By the end of the show he was one of my favorite characters. Sayla Mass is also a character of note, initially working as a coms officer and eventually becoming a pilot. She’s the only female pilot and despite taking a long time to become decent, she becomes one of Amuro’s most reliable comrades by the end. Her past also slowly becomes revealed as it holds some of the secrets to the origin of the One Year War. Last character of the White Base I want to give special mention to is Kai Shinden. Kai starts out as the cynical voice of the cast, showing a desire for self-preservation and satisfaction, being generally unsympathetic to the “we’re all soldiers now” narrative everyone else plays. However for a few episodes in the late 20s his character arc becomes the main focus, it’s one of the stronger parts of the show in my opinion, and seeing him go from unlikeable douche to a character with his own baggage and reason to fight was nice, even if the arc itself was tragic. However the characters I mentioned early are stand out rather than the whole cast. I mean no disservice to Hayato, Ryu, Mirai, and Fraw Bow, who have some pretty good development of their own, just more interweaven into the overarching story rather than taking a front seat. They’re good characters in their own right, but they aren’t the shining stars you’ll never forget. As I mentioned earlier in the plot discussion, we also see the perspective of Zeon quite a bit and as such they have some pretty strong characters themselves. First and foremost is the show-stealer Char Aznable. The Red Comet, Char is a Lieutenant Commander of the Zeon military, and the one leading the chase of the White Base. Char is a very strong character both in combat and presence, he stands out for his masterful Mobile Suit control (notably his Mobile Suit is painted red) and his quick thinking and strong tactics. Even in a losing battle Char is known to keep his Mobile Suit intact and is already preparing for the next battle ahead. As much as Char spends his time hunting the White Base, he has grander ambitions within the Zeon Military. His wit is not only in combat strategy, but in politics and people, making him a joy to watch. He too has a hidden past, covered up like his face, which he always hides with a mask. Some other notable Zeons are Garma Zabi, the son of Zeon ruler Degwin Zabi, who alongside his siblings play major roles as opponents and leaders in the Zeon military. And Ramba Ral, a lieutenant in the Zeon military and an old fashioned soldier through and through. He’s rather likable with his noble patriotism and respect for his opponents, treating them as equals rather than lessers. He’s a good man who just happens to be on the opposing side, he inspires admiration and respect from both his soldiers and the viewers. All in all Gundam does a good job of developing and both likeable and large cast. Char himself is worth a bonus point.

8/10, loveable cast but only Char reaches anything above good.

VISUALS: Keep in mind this series was made in 1979. It’s old, no way around that, but not necessarily bad. The designs are pretty good even if there’s not a lot of stand out. The Mobile Suits and technology generally look pretty good, but I felt some of Zeon’s newer weapons introduced in the later half were a bit much on the design aspect. The Gundam itself is iconic, but I wouldn’t call it amazing. If anything my favorite mecha design was actually the Guncannon. The backgrounds never really stood out to me as anything too amazing, and I wonder if it’s intentional that the series mostly avoided showing futuristic big cities. The animation itself is hit and miss. There’s a lot of cool direction and interesting ideas. Due to the nature of mecha anime in the 70s, a large amount of the violence had to be separated from humans. For a war story there’s very little blood as most battles are fought with machines and explosions. A good amount of times some interesting presentation tricks were taken to show death or extreme violence. Covering up blood and death in the chaos of war is hard to do believably but Gundam pulls it off. Towards the end though the gloves come off and we occasionally see some people get straight murdered. However to balance out all the unique tricks and ideas are loads of animation errors and inconsistencies. Weapons and gear changing between scenes, pieces of machines vanishing for a bit, derp faces, you name it. The series has lots of them but they’re never really distracting but aren’t fun (or are fun depending on who you are) to notice. The only real egregious one is a derp face Ryu makes once that keeps showing up in the episode opening recaps (which aren’t themselves bad) for a bit. Other than that they mostly go over with no problem and don’t much damage the experience. Though there are interesting ideas in direction, I never really found any point where the animation was particularly impressive. It’s a 70′s TV anime though, so we just have to accept that. Not everything can be Akira. After the introduction of Newtypes we occasionally get some unique and trippy visuals but they themselves aren’t much to write home about even if they’re nice to watch.

5.5/10, It’s mostly passable, the good and the bad balance out a lot. Though the mecha designs are iconic for a reason.

AUDIO: Starting with voice acting it’s a pretty flat even. Char’s got a good Seiyuu, so does Garma. Nothing too amazing, no Mamoru Miyanos here. No real negatives either, the kids can be annoying but they’re little kids, little kids are annoying. The narrator is pretty good and Haro’s got a nifty sound. Everyone is nicely distinct though. It’s average and that’s fine. The music is more notable though. There’s some good bops in there, the few times the show puts a full insert song make for a good time, though the regular OST does it’s job quite well. Some of the combat themes have some nice kick to em, and Lalah’s theme is pretty memorable. Large part though the soundtrack isn’t that memorable. Nothing outside of action scenes really stuck with me. There were a few times the soundtrack sounded confused, cutting from piece to piece uncomfortably and on a few rare moments it felt like they were using the wrong track for certain scenes. Nothing particularly noticeable unless you’re trying to pay attention to the OST though. The OP’s pretty good, definitely grew on me over time, by the late 20s I found myself singing along to it on occasion (and once in public). The ED’s pretty nice and quiet and pretty alright, didn’t do much for me personally.

Overall 6/10, it’s decent but not much more. Few really good moments, few missteps.

FINAL SCORE: 7/10

While the show is by no means perfect, it was still a damn good time that even made me cry once. It has aged but many things have aged worse than it. It shines a lot in it’s ideas and characters, but has noticeable hickups along the way. Not only is it important in the history of mecha and the Japanese media industry, it’s also just a genuinely good show with a lot of heart. I’d still give it a recommendation to fans of mecha and classic anime, though the movie trilogy or Origin manga might be a better telling of the story (I’ll go through both eventually). It’s a good show on is own, but as the first step into a mega-series I’m excited to see where we go from here. All in all, Doan Cucruz didn’t deserve to be cute from the dub and DVD, his episode was good, Tomino.

[true-halloween-tales]

2018: #7-MONSTERS ON THE LOOSE 8: MONSTERS NEVER ON THE LOOSE

Monsters on the Loose has previously examined unexplained sightings of cryptids, possible animals that have escaped classification. Sometimes there are real sightings of unknown beasties. The rational explanation for those sightings, such as often with chupacabra sightings, is that known animals were spotted who may appear different due to mutation or disease, often having mange. However, many sightings are clearly – if not blatantly – faked. Recovered remains of cryptids have historically been often a creative combination of dead animal parts. That was the fossil game in the early 1900’s. Piece together bones incorrectly and create a monster, then charge admission to see it! As a Boy Scout, it was common for there to be Snipe Hunts (see 2016: #13-SUMMER CAMP). New Boy Scouts, especially first time campers, would be led out to search for those dangerous snipes, completely non-existent creatures. This time the cryptids that shall be focused upon are those that we know never existed, monsters that have never been on the loose. What is simply amazing is that people really believed they existed.

There sure are a lot of fakes, including for dragons (see 2018: #3-DRAGONS). In 1696, Cornelius Meyer claimed to have found the skeleton of a dragon responsible for flooding Rome. An analysis of a sketch of this skeleton indicates that the skull belonged to a dog, the mandible from a second dog, the ribs from a fat fish, the vertebrae from a beaver, and the limbs from a bear. The wings, tail, beak, and horn were handmade. No kitchen sink was apparently included. But there were remnants of “dragon skin,” a tarp-like material used to hide the false connections of the various animal parts. In 1845, Dr. Albert Koch went on tour across the U.S with his huge, one-hundred and fourteen foot long dragon skeleton... and it was really a curious conglomeration of five whale skeletons. Not surprisingly, to this day there are still claims of people finding dragon skeletons – mostly in China. These dragon remains turn out to be fossils or fakes. But there are many non-dragon fossil fakes too…

The Fiji mermaid was first put on display in 1842 by P.T. Barnum in his museum in New York. Shortly later, a merman was found in Banff, Alberta, and was displayed at the Indian Trading Post. There are still locations, such as museums, across the world today with supposed dead merman and mermaids on display. Their bodies are invariably carved out of wood and may be combined with fishy and monkey bodily bits. The Booth Museum in Brighton, England has one such display. Another famous fossil fake was 1912’s Piltdown Man. Charles Dawson claimed the Piltdown Man he found was the Missing Link. The fossil turned out to be an ape’s jawbone that Dawson bleached and weathered before “discovering” it. In 1868 New York, George Hull charged people to see the Cardiff Giant he claimed he found (see image below and see 2016: #5-GIANTS). It was ten feet tall, and Hull had it carved out of gypsum before “discovering” it. The checklist of counterfeit cryptids just keeps on going! But there were some honest mistakes made...

Lack of knowledge is a valid reason why some monsters were incorrectly identified. The 1100’s Latin Book of Beasts is bursting with booboos! Creatures that really existed were rather misunderstood. Ibis – birds – were believed to consume corpses when they were not busily occupied cleaning out their bowels with their beaks. Jaculus were flying snakes who somehow turned into javelins and tossed themselves as weapons at those below them. Syrens were white winged snakes from Arabia that flew faster than horses; their venom killed so fast that their victims never felt their bite. The Seps was a snake that had acid poison which completely dissolved your body and bones. The Salamandar was immune to fire and was highly poisonous. The Cocoddryllus from the River Nile are basically crocodiles except they are thirty feet long and have skin as strong as stone.

Several nonexistent beasts were thought to exist. Griffins were widely believed to exist, quadruped eagle beasts. The Bonnacon from Asia reportedly had the head of a bull and the body of a horse. The Monoceros had a four foot horn, a horrible howl, a horse-like body, but the feet of an elephant and the tail of a stag… and later became known as the unicorn. The Leucrotta is from India and is the fastest animal, the size of a donkey, with stag legs, lion body, and a horse head. The Cerastes were snakes with horns of rams. And the list goes on and on. Therefore, the top three need to be identified, of monsters that were never on the loose.

Sirens were thought to be dangerous creatures that lured sailors to their deaths. They were believed to be a combination of birds and women, with feathers, scaly bird legs and feet. They may or may not have wings. They often play instruments such as harps or lyres. They used their enchanting voices and music to shipwreck passing vessels on the rocks. Then they tear apart the sailors and devour their bloody flesh. Greek mythology traced their lineage to either the primordial sea god, Phorcys, or the river god Achelous (see 2013: #2-MEDUSAS). Roman poets located the sirens on the small Sirenum Scopuli island chain. Sirens sang their songs on Odysseus who tied himself to the mast of his ship to resist their power in The Odyssey. Sirens are related to mermaids of the sea and harpies of the air. In fact, sirenia is a classification of aquatic, mammals that live in rivers and various waters. Over the centuries the image of the siren became less beastly and more beauty. Even Leonardo da Vinci believed in sirens and wrote, "The siren sings so sweetly that she lulls the mariners to sleep; then she climbs upon the ships and kills the sleeping mariners."

The phoenix dates back to Ancient Greece or Egypt. They were reported to have a five-hundred year lifespan. They symbolize renewal and the possibility of an afterlife. When the phoenix’s five-hundred year alarm clock goes off, it self-immolates and is regenerated, born again. Phoenix’s therefore have an association with fire and the sun. They are often depicted with clouds or seven rays of light beaming from them. Those rays of light are consistent with imagery for Helios, Greek mythology’s titan of the sun. However, the phoenix may have originated in Egypt from the long-legged bennu bird. Bennu was also believed to be a deity who had connections to the sun and rebirth. But there are versions of the phoenix all over the world in many countries, under so many names like the phoenix is an international spy (see 2017: #4-SPIES). In India the phoenix is known as garuda or gandaberunda, in Russia as the firebird, in Iran as simorgh, in Georgia as paskunji, in Saudi Arabia as anka, in Turkey as zümrüdü anka, in Japan as hō-ō, in China as fenghuang and zhu que, and in Tibet as me byi karmo. It is not surprising that in some ways the symbolism of the phoenix was absorbed into Christianity (see 2011: #6-HALLOWEEN AND RELIGION). The myth of the phoenix really has influenced many cultures and civilizations.

The manticore was reported to have the body of a lion, the tail and stinger of a scorpion, and a nasty head of a man with blazing red eyes and multiple rows of teeth. Manticores are similar to sphinxes but they are monstrous man-eaters known to eat people – bones and all. They were thought to originate from mantygers. Mantygers had the body of a tiger, the head of an old man – also rather nasty, with tusks like a boar and long spiral horns. Some exceedingly wise experts, who were most definitely nasty themselves, thought that the mantyger’s horns were similar to ox horns – and they had monkey feet. Other experts, the nastiest, realized that the mantyger was totally unrelated to the manticore. Manticores were thought to live in Iran and were called mardykhor or merthykhuwar. There are variations of manticores’ tail. It either appears as a large scorpion sting or as having shootable poisonous spines similar to porcupine quills. In Dante’s Inferno, Geryon is depicted as a manticore. Nowadays manticores are a popular monster in fantasy games.

Fantasy films are pretty much your best option for seeing anything close to sirines, the phoenix, or manticores: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, both Clash of the Titans films, Wrath of the Titans, etc. 1963’s Jason and the Argonauts featured harpies taunting a blind Patrick Troughton, Doctor Who #2 (see 2018: #2-GUIDE TO DOCTOR WHO). The Dark Shadows tv series included a human phoenix villainess in its first season, before Barnabus the vampire made his appearance (see 2016: #7-GUIDE TO DARK SHADOWS). There is even a 2005 film named, Manticore, about an eternal manticore waking up for big fun.

These creatures have never been on this Earth. They are fakes and mistakes. But who knows, maybe they will appear in the far future. Millions of years in the future, what strange creatures could walk across the surface of this planet? Maybe they are not monsters on the loose now, but they may be monsters on the loose one day (on Friday see 2018: #8-THE DYING EARTH)…

[juniortjenkins]

The Story I Have To Tell

After I graduated from the Academy, I was assigned to the USS Excalibur. She was an Ambassador-Class, beautiful ship, handled like a dream, and we had a great crew. I had just passed my sixth year of service when Dr. Conner, our CMO, approached me. He was planning to speak at a conference on Risa and needed someone to take him there. I jumped at the chance to pilot his shuttle and get a few days off in the process.

About two days out, a little less than halfway there, we ran headfirst into an ion storm. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before, came virtually out of nowhere and was all around us. All I could do was re-direct power to the forward shields and push through. Roughly an hour later, we made it to calm space. Barely. We had a hull breach in the aft compartment so large we could see the stars. Our communications systems were down, propulsion was gone and our shields were losing integrity.

We had to bail.

The escape pods that come equipped on a Type-7 shuttle are nothing like what we have on Voyager. In fact, Voyager’s lifeboats seem like cruise ships in comparison. The Type-7’s pods are singles, not much bigger than a torpedo. There’s no room to move around inside and no propulsion systems to maneuver the vessel. If you’re getting inside one of those, you’re completely at the mercy of whoever might be around to get your distress call.

I helped Dr. Conner into his pod and ejected him. Once he was safely away, I climbed into mine, but when it came time to detach, I got stuck. The shuttle was collapsing around my pod, holding it in place. I just… waited. I knew that when the shuttle broke apart, I would either die or be released.

Obviously, my pod and I were released. It felt like being shot out of a rifled canon. I was spun and tossed end over end. Shrapnel hit me, bounced me around really good and knocked out my computer systems. It was only through some kind of miracle that life-support remained intact.

So there I was, in a pitch-black coffin, floating in space with no viewscreen, no viewport, no lights of any kind. I couldn’t activate my distress beacon or comm Dr. Conner. Worst of all, I had no way to tell how much time was passing. I just waited in dead silence.

The escape pods don’t have artificial gravity, so you kind of float in them but there’s a restraint around your waist, like a belt that keeps you from knocking your head and knees against the shell. It also keeps you from being able to reach down, not that there would have been room enough. Didn’t take long before it started to feel like I’d lost my lower half. If still had feet, I wasn’t able to feel them and I certainly couldn’t see them. I kept my hands braced on the wall in front of me just to give myself some idea of where I was.

Directly in front of your face, next to where there should be a working computer console, is this little compartment with eight ration bags, to be consumed one each day. They’re this gel-shit, they taste awful and have the consistency of slugs but I remembered my instructors saying it would keep us alive until we were rescued or until air ran out. “That eighth bag is your last meal,” he’d said.

At first, I tried to keep track of the passage of time but that became impossible pretty quickly. I lost my grip on the length of a minute, say nothing of an hour. I slept and didn’t have any idea how long. I ate very little, just enough to keep from getting lightheaded. Some stupid voice inside my head told me that if I didn’t make it to that last ration bag then I couldn’t run out of air, which was ridiculous. I’d just suffocate with leftovers.  

I tried a bunch of things to keep from going crazy. I sang. I recited poetry and passages from books that I’d memorized. A few days in, I couldn’t deal with being alone anymore so I pretended there were other people nearby. I had conversations with them. After a while I really lost my grip and started to hallucinate; I believed those imaginary people were with me. I dreamed of being rescued. I nightmared about the search being abandoned, or worse, that no one even came looking. I panicked, but only once because if I couldn’t stay calm I’d use more air and… well. Right.

At the bottom of the fifth gel-bag, a really shitty thought occurred to me. I realized I had probably been rationing incorrectly and likely didn’t have three days left. It hit me that I could run out of oxygen at any minute. I knew there would be no alarms, no warning lights, but I remembered hearing that at the bottom of the tanks is a sedative. So kind of Starfleet to add that in and make death by asphyxiation less painful, isn’t it? Unfortunately, they didn’t consider the psychological repercussions. Every time I started feeling like I was going to sleep again, I thought, “This is it. This is the sedative. This is why I’m tired.”

Then I’d wake up and still be inside that coffin.

I started speaking goodbye letters to my family and friends. It gave me comfort, even though I knew they’d never hear my words. I started to really wonder what it would be like to be dead and pontificated about that for a while. Then I cried and just wished my air would run out already.

I stopped consuming rations after I finished the sixth pouch. I don’t remember much of my time after that.

When they found me, I was unconscious and severely dehydrated. I woke up in sickbay, convinced I was still hallucinating. A few days later, once I’d been released, they told me the tanks had about eight more hours’ worth of air.

Doctor Conner was fine. His comm terminal was working and he knew pretty early on that someone was coming. He apparently just laid back and waited. He said there were card games programmed on the computer and he won at solitaire more times than he could count. They found him after just three days. I, on the other hand, was running silent, shot off in the opposite direction and with the charged particles of an ion storm distorting all readings. I’m lucky they recovered me at all.

I was in that pod for 181 hours, 11 minutes, 37 seconds.  

For a while, I was okay. I felt strong, like a survivor. Everyone was happy to see me alive. I got well wishes and smiles, people brought me food. I think I actually earned respect. I was good. I was going to be fine.

I went back on duty after a week. A few days later the panic attacks started. I had a couple bad ones in my quarters late at night. It was too dark so I slept with the lights on. That didn’t help, I still had to close my eyes. I tried to stay busy instead but then the walls of my living space started to close in. I lived like that for too long, trying to believe that the next day would be the day I’d feel okay again. My biggest mistake was in not talking to anyone about what I was going through.

At the two-week mark, I was completely exhausted when I took my post on the bridge. I looked up at the viewscreen and all of the sudden the stars disappeared. Everything went black. My ears rang, I got hot, I couldn’t breathe. I had to run, I had to get out of there. And that’s exactly what I did. I ran straight to the nearest airlock, convinced it was the only way off the ship. I was trying to force it open when someone grabbed me and dragged me to sickbay.

Dr. Conner diagnosed me with anxiety induced by claustrophobia. He relieved me of duty, drugged me up and sent me on the next transport to Earth. For all the aspirations I’d had of being a Starfleet pilot, all of my friends and the life I had made onboard, I didn’t care that I was leaving. All I knew was that I had to get off of that ship.

I spent months with a counselor. Her name was Marjorie. She stood with me in wide-open fields and taught me to breathe so that I could function again. For a while, I slept during the day with all of the blinds open, in bright sunshine. At night I paced across my apartment or I’d go out to clubs and bars full of people. Eventually I got a dog so I didn’t have to be alone.

Every time we met, and we met a lot, Marjorie asked me if I thought I’d ever be able to go back to space. I kept saying ‘no’ until one day something clicked. My answer was a definitive, ‘yes’.  I wasn’t going to give up on my dream of Starfleet or my passion for piloting because of a damned ion storm.  We decided that my next step would be to go on duty as a simulator operator at the Academy. It was perfect really. I could use my skills, contribute to Starfleet’s mission, experience space without the danger, and if I started to feel anxious I could just walk outside. It worked like a charm.

Nine months of training cadets and I felt fine. The panic attacks were gone, but more importantly, I believed that I had the skills to deal with them if they returned. Life was normal again and I was itching to go back on duty, back to the stars. Marjorie agreed it was time, signed off on my paperwork, and before I knew it, I was assigned to Voyager.

I haven’t had a problem with claustrophobia or anxiety since then. But Marjorie warned me that this would stay with me for my entire life. I guess she was right.

[sycriptouk]

Shiba Inu: The Big Explosion, The Drop & The Future Impacts https://bitcoinist.com/shiba-inu-the-big-explosion-the-drop-the-future-impacts/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=shiba-inu-the-big-explosion-the-drop-the-future-impacts

Shiba Inu, the mysterious meme coin, has gained serious attention this past weekend after a 45% surge. Created by anonymous dogecoin-ally Ryshoi Shiba, Shiba has slowly gained momentum since the beginning of the summer.

What’s Next For Shiba Inu?

With Robinhood approving more then 250,000 applications for Shiba Inu access, it will definitely serve as a point of potential for the token. Shiba gained strong upside momentum after it managed to get above the key resistance level at $0.000040 – during which it almost hit the $0.000041 mark, before dropping back down to 0.000038. This is the highest peak the coin has seen in its short, but graceful climb, until it’s continued surge over the past several days. For early holders, this is a great sign of the future for Shiba, as it close the market cap gap on rival dogecoin. According to CoinMarketCap, Dogecoin’s current market cap is $33.6 billion, while Shiba Inu’s market cap has now surpassed the $15 billion level. Doge, meanwhile, also saw some gains this past weekend with a mild jump.

Related Reading | Elon Musk Reveals How Much He Owns Of Dogecoin Rival, Shiba Inu

SHIB: Shiba Inu has currently hit a high and continues to be on a rapid tear. | SHIB-USD on TradingView.com

The aforementioned onboarding of potential Shiba Inu holders onto Robinhood will likely add new crypto consumers into the ecosystem. Robinhood aims to allow everyday people to invest monies big and small into Wall Street stocks, and now crypto. Rumors have been surfacing about the team and increased support across platforms and exchanges, all while Shiba Inu is already support across digital wallets offered by the likes of Coinbase and Voyager – both top dogs in mainstream crypto investment apps.

The Attention-Grabber

Shiba Inu even gained attention of Telsa CEO and Dogecoin godfather Elon Musk recently, when he tweeted a response about not owning any of the coin himself. People would say Musk is often a troll online when it comes to talking about certain topics and tokens, and how the value of these coins can fluctuate after his tweets. Others may suggest that the implications of his tweets are temporary when it comes to the long-term price movements of these tokens. 

Can Shiba Inu break out and have an end of the quarter rally like the bulls hope, or will it peak and stay steady as the year caps out? This token will be one to keep an eye out for if you are watching to see what will catch on next. With substantial media attention and spotlight, Shiba looks to take advantage and find a listing on Robinhood and other platforms. Rumors have been bubbling that updates regarding Robinhood’s status with Shiba Inu could come as early as the end of this week. 

Related Reading | Why Citi Is “Slowly” Building A Crypto Infrastructure, CEO Says

[aion-rsa]

Jimmy Stewart and the WW2 Mission That Almost Broke Him

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The sound of the impact is deafening. More than 18,000 feet above the German city of Fürth, the World War II B-24 bomber they call Dixie Flyer has just delivered its full payload onto a German manufacturer, devastating its ability to build military aircrafts and turning the airfield into a scrap heap. But even before making the full turn out of Bavaria, Dixie Flyer’s copilot and the leader of this bombing group, Maj. James Stewart (Jimmy Stewart to his fans), is nearly lifted out of his chair.

That’s because a German shell (or flak) has pierced directly through the center of his B-24 Liberator. The whiplash is so intense that only harnesses keep him in his seat. Still, Stewart rises in the air; pilot Capt. Neil Johnson’s hands are briefly shaken from the controls; and for a moment, the entire plane is consumed with smoke as it violently ascends. When Stewart finally gets his bearings, he’s able to look down and see the hole in the aircraft—the edge of it is inches from his boot. Almost two feet in width, the gap offers a clear view through the plane’s fuselage and straight on to the German landscape below.

There is little time to worry though. The German ground defenses and their .88 shells are rattling the sky with more flak, and out of the corner of his eye, Stewart can see one of his planes, and his crews, also get hit. They’re not so lucky as a wing comes off and the craft falls to the earth. Meanwhile, German Focke-Wulf 190 fighters are beginning to swarm.

Stewart’s 445th Bombing Group only have each other and the tightness of their formation for protection—the Eighth Air Force and RAF fighters that accompanied the mission are spread too thin across the rest of Operation Argument’s ambitious list of targets to help—and they’re a long way from home.

It was the fifth day of the Eighth Air Force’s Big Week in February 1944, and Stewart was on his 10th combat mission in the air as either a group, wing, or squadron leader. This is what he left Hollywood for, circumvented Louis B. Mayer to participate in, and felt a lifetime of obligation to fulfill. It would be his finest moment in the air. It also would be the one that almost broke him.

The Mission of a Lifetime

Long before he entertained the idea of movie stardom, James Maitland Stewart felt the call of military service. In many ways, it was viewed as his birthright. His father’s father, the original James Maitland Stewart, served in the Union Army during the Civil War, participating in the valley campaigns of Shenandoah and serving under Gen. Philip Sheridan and a young officer named George Armstrong Custer. His maternal grandfather was at Gettysburg and Fredericksburg (he would die before “Jimmy” was born). And as a boy in the 1910s, the younger James Stewart would sit on his namesake’s knee, hearing eyewitness accounts about the war that preserved the United States.

Around the same time, young Jim was also receiving German helmets and paraphernalia shipped home by his father Alexander Stewart, who was off in Europe serving in World War I. Jim would use these real mementos of war in the makeshift plays he’d put on at his home in Indiana, Pennsylvania.

Biographer Robert Matzen, who authored the definitive account of Stewart’s World War II years, Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe, tells us this background had a formative influence on the rest of Stewart’s life and his sense of duty, which he carried with him on the train to Hollywood and then, eventually, on the plane ride out of it.

“All of these things added up into this sort of nexus of ‘I will serve, I have to serve, it’s my duty, it’s my time,’” Matzen says during a Zoom conversation. “And when the time came, he answered the bell. He was so fast out of the gate in the sweepstakes for World War II that he was in the first draft class. He willingly went. It’s not that he enlisted, he was drafted, but he was happy to be drafted. He called it winning the lottery.”

Indeed, Stewart’s then-recent status as a movie star of the 1930s was practically an accident, at least as far as MGM, the studio which held his contract, was concerned. The studio’s top brass viewed Stewart as a possible character actor or background comic talent. But then Frank Capra saw the everyman appeal in Jim’s thin frame and irrepressible earnestness, and cast him in You Can’t Take It with You (1938) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)—on loan at Columbia Pictures.

Stewart of course positioned himself to have that career, just as he positioned himself to be ready to serve if his country ever needed him. Hence alongside his sense of service and sacrifice, he also carried a passion for flying. And as soon as his movie star bona fides were cemented, he celebrated by flying his personal aircraft, a military trainer, learning his way around the skies.

“There’s so many things to think about up there that you forget things down below,” Stewart told an interviewer in the late 1930s. “Flying is something altogether different from the way I’m earning my living. That’s what I like about it… Flying is sort of a guarantee that life will continue to have variety.”

According to biographer Matzen, it also was a guarantee he’d be ready to serve when the time came.

“Step by step, he set himself up to end up in England in a bomb group,” Matzen says. “One of those steps was taken years before he was drafted, and that was when he became a star in Hollywood and bought a plane that was an army trainer and proceeded to learn to fly and train, and log hours on that plane so that he could be a pilot when the war came. And war seemed inevitable by 1938.”

Stewart even used his off-time to prepare for it. Says Matzen, “He took out a trip to Europe toward the end of ’39 to get the lay of the land because he thought he was going to end up fighting there.”

James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in the 1930s about to fly in his Stinson Voyager plane. Courtesy of Robert Matzen and the Jay Rubin Collection.

The ‘I’m a Movie Star’ Card

That preparation served Jim well. While he was initially rejected from service in 1940—more than a year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—his capability as a flyer, and ability to find a doctor to explain that this 32-year-old man’s unusually thin frame was due to genetics and not ill-health, kept him in line to not only be drafted early but excel in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

“He was deferred in October of 1940 and his father was furious,” says Matzen. “He thought that Jim was in on the deferment for some reason. And Alex called him and chewed him out, and it made the papers that his father chewed him out. But it wasn’t anything. That’s what I think sent Jim back to talk to that doctor and get this letter written that was his carte blanche to get into the military.” That same letter was also the first record Matzen found at the top of Stewart’s military file more than 70 years later. It was the piece of paper which got him into the service and, along with his capability as a flyer, helped him rise all the way to the rank of brigadier general while serving in the Air Force Reserve in the 1950s.

That talent is also how Stewart circumvented the wishes of commanding officers and Louis B. Mayer, who likely applied pressure on the government to keep Stewart stateside during the war, essentially to make propaganda films for the First Motion Picture Unit.

“Jim was furious when that happened, because that was not his intention,” Matzen says. “He was a movie star of the first order who walked away from Hollywood. He took his fame with him and it did allow him to speak to officers that otherwise would not talk to a private and then a corporal, and then a second lieutenant. He got his way by playing the ‘I’m a movie star’ card. But it wasn’t, ‘I’m a movie star, don’t send me in harm’s way.’ It was just the opposite.”

In November 1943, Stewart would get his wish when he was sent to England as part of the 445th Bombardment Group in the Eighth Air Force.

Maj. Stewart circa 1944 waiting for his group to return at the Station 124 control tower in East Anglia. Courtesy of Robert Matzen and the Film Stills Collection, L Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

Squadron Leader 

Stewart almost never spoke about his experiences during the war. Just as he would refuse to ever star in a World War II picture, he abjectly refused to give an interview to the press after arriving in Tibenham, a remote and perpetually damp village in East Anglia. His reticence is even the reason Matzen was first wary of writing a book about Stewart’s war experiences. Yet, for whatever personal recalcitrance the actor had toward talking, the story left by his military file, records of his bombing runs, and even the testimonials, diary entries, and occasional published memoirs of the men under his command paint a strong picture.

As the oldest man on the plane and in the air—with his pilots frequently being between ages 19 and 23—Stewart offered a precise and measured authority that made him a natural leader who was too good to keep stateside.

Air Corps officer Beirne Lay Jr. recalled, “Things seemed to go all right when Stewart was up front. He made free use of the radio, like an aerial quarterback, to advise and encourage the other boys during a mission, and here his experience in films gave him a novel advantage. Because of his precise enunciation, people could understand him. It sounds like a little thing, but clear, quick communication between formations was of extraordinary importance.”

The talent made Stewart a natural choice to become a commanding officer in the 445th. Always from the copilot seat of a B-24 Liberator bomber, Stewart would command anywhere between 25 to 150 aircrafts, depending on if he was lead, wing, or squadron commander. But even on the days he didn’t fly with the men he trained, he would brief his boys about the day’s missions. Then came the long wait in the cold mud of Tibenham, below the radio tower of Station 124. Those hours of seeing if all his crews would return felt interminably longer than actually flying the missions.

“He had very few of what they call milk runs,” Matzen says, “which were the easy ones where you hopped over the North Sea to the Netherlands or you hopped over the Channel to the coast of France, and you bombed something easy: a submarine pen here or a gun emplacement there. His very first mission was to Kiel in the very Northern tip of Germany, near Denmark, to bomb submarine pens. It was this long mission east over the North Sea.” It was a clean one on a bright December day, despite encountering countless rounds of flak.

A few weeks later, they would not be so easygoing. On Jan. 7, 1944, Capt. Stewart was wing lead of the 445th when the 389th, the lead bombing group that day, took a wrong turn over the Rhine. The formations had successfully carried out a bombing raid of the German city of Ludwigshafen, but the 389th turned at a mistaken angle that put their return flight on a path over Nazi occupied Paris instead of Tibenham.

Despite the 389th ignoring Stewart’s radio communication, the 35-year-old officer made the even-headed choice to follow the 389th and keep formation tight (as opposed to creating chaos and isolation in the sky), which came in handy after the 389th inevitably became a target of the German Luftwaffe air force outside of Paris.

American Thunderbolts and British Spitfires ended up saving the 389th that day, which still lost several planes and even more lives, but the tight flying of the 445th led the Luftwaffe to not even tangle with Stewart’s group.

It was the mission that earned Jim the rank of major. His confidence grew, yet day by day, and mission by mission, the stress likewise increased as he saw fewer faces he trained return home. For instance, on one mission, Stewart’s aircraft suffered engine troubles while crossing the English Channel and had to return home. The plane that took their place in the formation as group leader, the Liberty Belle, was shot down in their place. Only three parachutes were spotted getting out in time.

Similarly, Jim was at the barracks in December 1943 when they celebrated the 22nd birthday of his pilot Dave Skjeje. In February, he was writing to Billie, Dave’s widow of the same age, about how her newlywed husband died.

“He was told don’t get personally involved,” Matzen says. “There is a hierarchy here and he stuck to that pretty well, but he also was the one to write the letters to families, to wives, to mothers and fathers when somebody was lost, and it really weighed on him.”

It would soon reach a tipping point.

Jim Stewart and the crew of the B-24 Liberator called Lady Shamrock. Courtesy of Robert Matzen and the Eckelberry family.

“The Roughest 10 or 15 Minutes”

Operation Argument (aka “Big Week”) was the campaign the Eighth Air Force spent the winter of 1943/44 waiting on. In the span of six days, the U.S. military would drastically ramp up its daytime precision bombing campaign and cripple the Luftwaffe ahead of what would become the D-Day invasion.

Says Matzen, “The Eighth Air Force was determined to knock out the German aircraft manufacturing capabilities, so they looked for one week where they could have clear weather to have a series of campaigns, bombing missions to hit strategic targets related to aircraft manufacturing. Those missions were extremely dangerous.”

Jim flew the first day of Big Week over the Netherlands. It was considered a major success even though three planes in the 445th went down. One of his pilots called it “the roughest 10 or 15 minutes I ever spent.” But it was about to get much worse for the 445th.

On Feb. 24, Stewart was standing below Station 124’s tower when the remnants of the day’s planes limped home, some of them still smoking and on fire. Twenty-eight planes had taken off that morning, headed for the German city of Gotha, but three needed to return due to technical troubles while over the English Channel. Of the remaining 25 bombers in the air, only 12 returned to East Anglia. More than half had been shot down.

The next day, Jim would lead the 445th again in the skies for his second Big Week mission… over Fürth, an area just northwest of Nuremberg. The mission was part of an ambitious push that would send 754 B-17s and B-24s, with an escort of 20 groups of Eighth Air Force fighters and 12 squadrons of RAF Spitfires and Mustangs, into southern Germany to attack three Messerschmitt aircraft production centers and a ball-bearing plant.

With the bomb bay doors open at 18,500 feet, the air was already 40 degrees below zero in a Bavarian February. After a .88 shell nearly blew a hole between Stewart and pilot Neil Johnson’s feet, the temperature was dropping around their oxygen masks so quickly that ice began forming inside of the plane and on their gear.

Immediately after Dixie Flyer was hit, the first of several planes in the 445th went down in the hail of flak. Stewart could see as the wings of one B-24 under his command came off and the aircraft disintegrated midair. Only one parachute made it out as the rest of the crew plummeted. Perhaps it was in this moment that Stewart noted his crew’s parachutes were already sucked out of the vacuum in Dixie Flyer when the shell hit.

“How he didn’t die that instant is amazing,” Matzen says. “He looked over to his left and another plane [Nine Yanks and a Jerk] had a shell go directly through the cockpit on one side and out the other, and he thought that the pilot and co-pilot certainly must’ve been killed, and that plane was going to go down. But they lived, they made it back too. It was crazy.”

Relief from Allied fighter planes never came, but most of the 445th somehow made it back to the English Channel that day, with Dixie Flyer and Nine Yanks and a Jerk limping home. Indeed, with its fuselage in tatters, Dixie even lost two of its engines before it saw the English coastline. While running on fumes, Johnson and Stewart had to use every muscle in their fiber to brake the collapsing plane when it finally landed at Tibenham. The pair were unaware at that moment that their plane was literally breaking apart as it touched down, with a crack ripping from the bulkhead to the cockpit.

The plane’s bombardier Jim Myers recalled, “[Stewart] was blue from the cold whistling through the holes in the plane, but he hadn’t received a scratch.” At least not physically.

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As Matzen says now, “It was very interesting. The plane cracked and Jim cracked.” No one officially ever said Maj. Stewart became “flak happy” (the Air Force nickname for PTSD at the time) after the mission over Fürth, but Matzen contends no one needed to. In the first instance since December, more than two weeks passed before his CO allowed Stewart to go back in the air.

“This was the first time that he had to miss turns in the rotation, the leadership rotation leading missions,” Matzen says. “And that’s a huge deal to him. That’s him letting himself down in his crazy dedicated mind, in his perfectionist mind. All of a sudden, he’s not up to commanding in the air because he had been flying steady, steady, steady, then all of a sudden you look after February 25th, and he didn’t fly again till March 15th, and that’s a long time for him, and then he flew again on March 25th, then he didn’t fly again at all for a while.”

The pressure of leading, and perhaps more acutely the pressure caused by seeing so many of the men he trained go down, at last got to him.

Says Matzen “He had to just do what a lot of them did, which is go off into the country, take sodium amytal, and just chill and get reprogrammed. They’d sit and they’d talk to you, and they would give you perspective and they’d calm you down. Then they sent you back online.”

Left: 2nd Lt. James Stewart before combat missions in 1942. Right: Maj. Stewart in early 1944 after first two months of combat. Courtesy of Robert Matzen, the Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS, and the Film Stills Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham University.

After the War

Jim would fly two more missions as group leader of the 445th, including a bombing run over Berlin. However, the gaps between the final two of his dozen missions in the 445th belied that he was essentially becoming grounded. Shortly after his run over Berlin, he reluctantly accepted a transfer to the 453rd in Old Buckenham. He effectively became a chief of staff there, briefing the crews of his new group, including on the bombing runs in June 1944 that paved the way for D-Day. To his regret, Stewart did not fly on any of those tactical missions.

He eventually would make it back into the air, leading a total of 20 combat missions, although by his final mission in 1945, the Luftwaffe was all but destroyed and a near collision course between bombing groups under his command convinced Stewart and his commanding officers that his time in the air was done—Stewart even vowed never to fly again (he did not keep that oath).

When he finally returned to the States in the fall of ’45, the gawkish and youthful leading Mr. Smith had vanished. Graying and gaunt—features which came from spending the end of the war so stressed he could only keep peanut butter and ice cream down for weeks at a time—Stewart was nearly unrecognizable to his proud parents when he disembarked off the Queen Elizabeth in New York. He was also unsure if he’d ever work in Hollywood again.

“He was ever thinner with skin hanging from him” says Matzen, “He lost his hair and the rest of it went gray. That’s what dragged himself back from Europe and arrived in Hollywood. He thought he was only fit for character parts now.”

Like the first time he arrived in Hollywood, the only person waiting for him at the Pasadena train station in 1945 was his old acting buddy Henry Fonda. While Hank had maintained his movie star status during the early part of America’s WWII years, he ended up following Jim into military service by joining the Navy. But he also had taken a shorter break from the silver screen. When Stewart arrived back, the only place he had to move was Hank’s “play house,” a small home he built in his mansion’s backyard for his children Peter and Jane Fonda. But Hank assured Jim, it had a fully functional kitchen and bar. Priorities were covered.

“They just decompressed together,” Matzen says, “and I think Hank saw what the toll had been on Jim and just helped him. Neither of them was a big talker. So they came back together and they started building model airplanes, which is what they had done before the war. They flew model airplanes, they flew kites, Fonda had access to these war surplus military grade kites that they would take out and fly together and do their thing: not talk much, listen to records, make airplanes, and re-assimilate in the peacetime world.”

Hank also helped Jim get a new agent to adjust to the postwar Hollywood where actors could truly be free agents. Which came in handy since MGM terminated Jim’s contract after he refused Mayer’s idea of capitalizing off Jim’s wartime service with an adventure movie about him as an ace pilot called The James Stewart Story. According to Stewart, after he flatly refused to do the movie, LB called him a son of a bitch and said “you’ll never work in this town again.”

Best friends Jim Stewart and Hank Fonda in their ladies men era in 1930s Hollywood. Courtesy of Robert Matzen and the Jay Rubin Collection.

It’s a Wonderful Life

Of course Stewart did work again, making his comeback in the film he is still probably best remembered for: Frank Capra’s seminal holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Like Stewart, Capra had enthusiastically joined the military and war effort back at the beginning, running the Army’s Motion Picture Film Unit. The phone didn’t ring for either man after they came home. And while It’s a Wonderful Life received an initially muted box office reception (it only became a classic after it started airing on television), it gave Stewart the confidence to rebuild himself as a leading man who carried long shadows.

“It’s a Wonderful Life has become synonymous with the holidays and with spiritual rebirth and perseverance, all those things that really embodied Jim were infused into this picture and captured for all time,” says Matzen. Nonetheless, even as Stewart was able to recapture the youthful energy that made him a star in the movie’s early scenes (wearing a hair piece as he plays twentysomething George Bailey), there was something harder there as the character aged throughout the picture.

Says Matzen, “When he comes back and he’s so much older, he has a dark streak from the war. He has rages, he can’t sleep, he’s got shakes, and he learned to channel it early on in a couple of places in It’s Wonderful Life when he flies off the handle [on the school teacher over the phone] and when he destroys the model he’s got in the living room, and he throws things and he terrorizes his family. I was never comfortable with that scene long before I wanted to write a book about Jim and the war. I was very uncomfortable with just whatever this menace was inside of him.”

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It would become a hallmark of some of Stewart’s most popular postwar roles. Director Alfred Hitchocck particularly enjoyed taking Capra’s all-American everyman and casting him against type, leaning into the menace. It’s there, faintly, when he becomes an obsessive voyeur in Rear Window (1954), or a snobby misanthrope in Rope (1948), and it’s all-consuming when Stewart channels Hitch’s own obsessions about molding blonde women into his fantasy idealizations in Vertigo (1958).

“Strategically, he was brilliant in recrafting his career,” says Matzen. “The same brain that had taken all those steps to get him to Europe, he ultimately applied that brain and took steps to get his career back in order and relaunch himself.”

Capt. Stewart newly arrived at East Anglia’s Tibenham in 1943. Courtesy of Robert Matzen.

Haunted by the “Happiest Times”

Until the end of his days, James Stewart refused to speak candidly about the war. Once in a while, however, he would hint at the importance of those memories. He even volunteered, “I was, in many ways, far happier in the service than I was at any time in my life. Closeness and camaraderie with all those wonderful guys. Feeling I was part of a whole, part of a divine scheme, with an obligation to do my best. It wasn’t playacting then. I was living it.”

Perhaps this is why he revisited Tibenham twice in his old age, making the long muddy journey from London to East Anglia, allowing his companions a few photos as he walked with his ghosts along the same ramparts of Station 124 where he used to wait for his men to return. What he thought during these reunions, however, remains a mystery. He kept his own counsel about those days. He even kept that part of himself closed off from the men he remembered so fondly.

“He did not keep in touch with [men he commanded],” Matzen says, “but he would be polite if they tried to get in touch with him. He did not seem to be a sentimental soul. He was too closed off for that…. They wanted him to come to their weddings or their kids’ weddings. ‘Oh wouldn’t it be great if Stewart would come?’ But nope.”

Like so much else, Stewart kept the happiest times of his life locked away with the scars they left.

Says Matzen, “His wife talked about the nightmares. His daughter talked to me about the nightmares and about how she would find her dad sitting alone in his study just staring. So yes, it was the time he felt was the most rewarding in his life because he did get to serve his country and he called them this family, this group of people dedicated to a cause all pursuing this common goal. And that really made him feel good, being part of this brotherhood. But he remained an introvert and a closed off person throughout his life… I think his wife understood him and Hank understood him, and boy, I don’t know beyond that. That’s a small group.”

Nevertheless, during the war this introvert was a part of a larger bombing group whole; it carried him through his darkest days in the air—and those that came long after.

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[obisgirl]

WHOOK WEEK DAY 5: KNIGHTROOK DAY (fanfic, ‘Story Time’)

Title: story time AUTHOR: obisgirl Rating: pg-13 Characters: Wish Hook, Alice Summary: A young Alice asks her papa about their family, which leads him to explain their complicated family tree and then must explain what happened to her mother? Author’s Note: Alice is 9. As far as the timeline of Killian’s family goes, Wish Hook does not know that his father started this other family with his second wife and that he has another brother. Wish Hook also does not the true circumstances of what made it possible for him and Liam to become free. Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time characters are the property of Disney and Adam Horowitz, Edward Kitsis. This fanfic is for pure entertainment.

Alice, for the most part, has a normal and happy childhood growing up and Hook does the best he can to keep her entertained and most of all, know every day that she is loved and she is safe.  Early on, he learns very quickly that it isn’t easy being a single parent.  There are some things he is not quite equipped to handle but he looks at every day raising Alice as a challenge and she is quite the challenge.  

She is a spunky, wild, happy and carefree little girl with a spirit all her own. Things start to get easier for Hook as Alice matures and less lonely once she learns how to talk.  Time seems to move faster too once Alice starts talking and able to form sentences.  She is a sponge, wanting to soak up everything that she can.  

Then one day as Hook is almost ready to take an afternoon nap, Alice asks him to tell her about his family, or rather their family.

In all the time Hook has spent raising his daughter, he has never talked about his family.  

That’s not entirely true.

She asked one time why her name is Alice and he explained to her about her grandmother and it felt like the only name appropriate to pass onto his sweet daughter, as well as a little about the woman herself.  Other than that, he hasn’t talked much about the rest of his family. There’s just too much pain there to rehash. Pain over losing his mother, his father leaving him and Liam, losing Liam…

“Who were they, papa?” Alice asks, lying down on the floor and propping her elbows up to support her chin.

He sighs. “Our family is complicated, love,” he says, “And it’s nap time now Alice,”

Alice raises an eyebrow, a signature look she’s inherited from him. “Come on papa, please. I want to know,” she pleads, “I know about grandmum but what about everyone else?”

Hook reluctantly sits up from his makeshift hammock and comes to sit beside her on the floor.  There isn’t a lot he can deny his daughter. “I guess the next person to start with would be your grandfather,” he says, “Brennan Jones,”

“What was he like? Did he look like you?” she queries.

Killian scratches his head.  “From what I can remember of my father, he was no hero and never a real father to me, or your uncle Liam,” he recalls, “You see Alice after my mum died he took Liam and me on a voyage. It was our first trip traveling on the high seas. One night, your papa became afraid because we were in the middle of a terrible storm and then your grandpapa came into the cabin to comfort me. Him being there gave me the courage to be brave…”

Alice smiles at him slightly. “Then what happened?”

“I was able to sleep and eventually, the storm calmed but when I awoke, your grandpapa was gone.  The ship's captain came to tell me he escaped during the storm, bought a rowboat and used your uncle and me as currency. He sold us into slavery. We became bound to that ship and whoever became its captain,”

Alice scowls.  “I’m sorry, papa about grandpapa,” she says.

“That night on the ship was the last time I ever saw him. He mine as well have died in that storm, the karma for leaving his sons’ behind and forcing them into a situation like that,” he muses, “Now, your uncle Liam, he is a totally different story and to this day, I still consider him to be the best man I will ever know,”

“What was Uncle Liam like?”

It had been a long time since Killian reflected on what his brother Liam was like. “He looked out for me. We were stuck with each other after grandpapa left us behind, and Liam, he could have left too but he stayed because he knew it was important that we stay together.  He was my compass. He kept me from destroying myself and giving into my darkest fears,” he recalls, “Your uncle Liam was a good man but he could be stubborn and narrow-minded sometimes,”

“Narrow-minded?”

“Maybe naive is a better word. What does naive mean?”

Alice squints and tries to think. “A person who shows a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment,” she says after a moment.

“Very good,” he applauds her, “After another terrible storm, your uncle and I became the sole survivors of a wrecked ship and Liam also recovered a mythical jewel that ensured us a spot in the royal navy.  We were free men for the first time in our lives, allowed to follow our own destiny and make something good of ourselves.  Your uncle Liam eventually became Captain and I was his first lieutenant, the Jones Brothers, manning the fastest ship in the royal fleet,”

“The Jolly Roger!!”

“That wasn’t her name yet,” he corrects, “Before she was The Jolly Roger, she was The Jewel of the Realm and Liam was her Captain. We sailed to many places, encountered different peoples and helped bring peace and prosperity to the kingdom and we served, we believed that we served, a good and noble king,”

“The king was not good?”

“He sent Liam and me on a top secret mission to retrieve a plant from a faraway land. He claimed that the plant was medicine to help fallen soldiers but the plant was not medicine, it was a poison. Our king lied to us about its purpose and that lie cost Liam his life.  I lost him twice on that voyage, first in Neverland and then a second time once we returned home,”

Alice sits up and puts her hand in Hook’s hand. Hook looks down at his daughter’s hand and he smiles at her. “If you don’t to continue the story, you don’t have too,” she says.

“I appreciate that love but talking about it, is oddly cathartic for me,” he confesses, “What does cathartic mean?”

She looks down at her papa’s hand and then looks at him, “Soothing,” she says.

“Aye,” he confirms, “The day I had to bury my brother at sea was one of the saddest days of my life. As painful as it was to lose Liam, his death also served a purpose. His death showed me our king’s true colors, that he was not a good and righteous man and I could not, in good conscious continue serving a man who was dishonorable and used lies to get people to follow him,”

“So you rebranded The Jewel of the Realm as The Jolly Roger and you became it’s pirate Captain,” she says.

“That I did lass, and I found a new freedom; a freedom to live on my own terms and travel where we please whenever we wanted to,”

Alice glances towards the window briefly. Killian sighs and asks that she look at him. “And one day Alice, you will be able to do the same thing too,” he promises.

“I do already,” she beams, “I travel through the stories you tell me. That’s why I like hearing them so much,”

“Would you like to hear more?”

“Yes,” she cries, her eyes shining with excitement.

“Seeing the world is a big adventure but it can get lonely without someone to share those travels with. Liam had been my constant companion since grandpapa left us and as much as the crew had become family too, I didn’t have close confidants among them...until Milah,”

“Milah was...everything to me. She was beautiful, witty, a curious and adventurous spirit and the love of my life. She was my pirate queen and we loved each other very much. But there was always a bit of sadness because she left her family to be with me. She had a young son that she always regretted leaving but she hated his father and the person that he had become. I ended up hating him too because he took her from me and he left me with this,” he says, holding up his hook, “The Dark One destroyed my life and I became consumed with revenge,”

“Your life became a dark place,” she observes, “What changed that?”

Hook tilts his head and fixes his daughter’s hair.  “You did puppet,” he says, “You changed everything for me, for the better,”

“I made your heart better?”

“You did,” he confirms, “I gave up my ship and my revenge to give you a better life because that’s what you deserved. I still have so many hopes and dreams for you, Alice,”

She smiles at him. “I do too papa,” she cries, “Papa, one more question and if you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to---”

“What is it, love?”

“What happened to mama?” she asks.

Hook sighs. “Your mother is a complicated woman,” he manages.

“Complicated?”

“It’s difficult to explain but she was not the woman I thought she was when I met her,” he continues, “She used magic and lies to deceive me, and I know it might seem impossible but magic was a part of your conception,”

“Magic was a part of my conception? Does that mean I have magic?!” she asks excitedly.

Hook shakes his head, looking at her. “I don't know if you do but you're certainly magic to me Alice,” he says.

Alice sees how he tries to change the subject before she got her excited about the possibility of magic and then she remembers the lies and deceit.

“How did mama lie to you, papa?” she asks.

“The first time I met her..I was quite taken with her beauty. I never saw what was beneath until it was too late,” he recalls, “And when I met the real her and realized why she did what she did, I couldn't go with her in good faith..”

“And leave me?” Alice finishes.

“Mothers are supposed to be there for their children, to love and nurture them but your mother Alice is no mother. I’m sorry to say that she barely gave you a second thought after you were born,” he says.

Alice looks down sadly, glancing again at the window. “I’m stuck here because of her, aren't I?”

“Aye,” he says, “But all curses can be broken love; you need only to believe,”

“Mama is not a good person,”

“She definitely is not, she’s a witch and that is not a metaphor. She is a witch, truly,” he says.

“I know what she did to was awful but do you think there is a part of her that is good? Even a small bit?” she ventures, “Aren’t most people made up of good and bad parts?”

Hook sighs. “Some but not everyone,” he asserts, “Your mother, from what I have seen, does not appear to have any good in her,”

“Do you think bad is in me? Maybe I inherited some of her wickedness?” she wonders.

“Why the bloody hell would you think that?”

She shrugs. “Sometimes I do bad things and you scold me for doing them,” she reasons.

“And you immediately realize your mistake and apologize for it because you know it was wrong. That’s not bad Alice. That’s being good,” he says, “You are good, through and through. Your mother is not and trust me, you have inherited nothing from her. You are my sweet Alice, and have nothing to worry about,”

“I must have blond hair like her,”

“Blonde hair, pale skin, and blue eyes but your heart Alice, that beautiful, kind and loving heart, that is all you and part of your papa,” he reminds her, “Remember that love,”

“Aye,” she promises, smiling at him and then yawns.

“Alright, I think story time is over and it’s nap time for both of us,” he says and scoops her up, carrying her over to her bed and tucks her in, “Goodnight Alice,”

“Goodnight,” she yawns, “I’m sorry if I caused you pain papa,”

“What are you talking about now love?”

“Making you remember some bad memories,” she says.

Hook gently touches her head and runs his fingers through her curls. “Some of my memories are painful Alice but there are also happy ones too. My happiest memories are the ones I have raising you here in this tower, our little home. It's like what we were talking about earlier; good and bad. They are extremes but they can also coexist. What does that coexist mean, love?”

“Last word?” she asks.

“Pirate’s promise,”

“Live peacefully at the same time,”

“Aye,” he confirms, “This world has good and bad in it because that's how we all are. Your heart determines the kind of person you want to be. Your mother is a bad person who made bad decisions for her own personal reasons but her actions do not define who you are or who you will become. That is all up to you. Do you understand that, love?”

“Yes, papa,”

“Good lass,” he says and kisses her forehead, “Night my little pirate,”

Alice smiles at him and closes her eyes.

Hook fixes her blanket and then goes over to his hammock, taking one last peek at the tower window before shutting his eyes.

Gothel is never coming back, not for him and certainly not for Alice.  She is long gone and Hook hopes that Alice will never meet her mother; but if she must one day, he will be there to protect her from whatever foul plan she has in mind for her.

The End

[ericvick]

'Oh, The Hunger That A lot of Suffered'

Many thanks in brief supply for the Puritans in Nov. 1630

On Thursday, the aroma of roast turkey and all the trimmings will drift from Dorchester’s kitchens as Covid-wary family members get close to eating area tables piled with all the fixings of the holiday. 3 hundred and ninety a long time in the past, having said that, Dorchester’s first English settlers sat at impolite wood tables not to feast and say many thanks, but to stay hardly alive.

The colonist Roger Clap wrote of the Mary and John passengers struggling with their initially brutal New England winter season in 1630-31: “In our beginning, a lot of ended up in wonderful Straits for want of Provision for by themselves and their small Ones.” There would be no Thanksgiving for that beleaguered band of settlers clinging to their footholds close to “Rocky Hill” (latter-day Savin Hill).

Atlantic gusts lashing the rough wooden cabins, “lean-to’s,” and shelters of Dorchester’s early colonists, and dipping temperatures all together the bay heralded a severe winter season. Acquiring arrived also late to plant adequate crops, the settlers confronted wintertime with meager stocks of “salt junk [meat] and tough-tack [rock-hard biscuit] left around from the voyage.”

With scarcely more than enough meals for their very own families, “Dorchester’s Freemen” had to “turn unfastened [their indentured servants] to fend for on their own.”

The colonists were much more than prepared to hunt in the dense nearby forests and to fish the waters teeming with cod and other fish, but had been hampered by a variety of difficulties in any attempt to level a musket at a wild animal or to forged a line into the ocean.

In a letter to his father back again in England, a local gentleman lamented: “Here [in Dorchester and Boston] is great shop of fish if we experienced boats to go 8 or 10 leagues to sea to [go] fishing. Listed here are excellent retail outlet of wild fowl, but they are tough to occur by. It is harder to get a shot than it is in Previous England …Therefore, loving father, I entreat you that you would send out me a firkin [measure] of butter & a hogshead of malt…for we drink very little but water….We do not know how extended we might subsist, for we are unable to reside below with out provisions from Old England.”

The renowned historian Samuel Eliot Morison notes that the drastic adjustments in the customary diet plan of the band from the Mary and John and the other Puritans who had debarked from vessels alongside Massachusetts’ shore was pronounced, weakening them by November and leaving them in very poor condition to endure the coming wintertime.

“But the Englishman of that interval deemed himself starving devoid of beef, bread and beer,” Morison writes. “And even currently, if you will try a constant diet regime of shellfish and spring water for a 7 days, you might feel some sympathy for these Puritan colonists bereft of their stout British fare.”

For many of the Mary and John settlers, a single of the accessible foodstuffs — “Indian corn” — wreaked havoc with their digestive tracts. “There is a person and a different allusion to the reality that these men and women, bred to the use of English wheat, rye and barley,” records Chronicles of the First Planters, “disliked the bread manufactured of Indian corn. They most likely experienced not but acquired the artwork, which is not an uncomplicated art to this working day, of appropriately subduing that grain by the course of action of cookery.” Cramps and worse bedeviled lots of settlers compelled to count on the severe regional corn as a staple.

A web page of illustrations in the June 26, 1880 edition of Harper’s Weekly imagined and drawn by Charles Graham depicted “Previous and New Dorchester,” such as the “Landing of the Dorchester Settlers” aboard the Mary and John at Savin Hill in 1630. By late November 1630, quite a few of the colonists foraging from the Neponset to “The Neck” for meals had been getting on a gaunt, weakened collective visage. Thoughts of any day of Thanksgiving have been distant to guys, women of all ages, and children alike. Feelings of scraping adequate foodstuff for the every day larder eaten the hrs. And, as Chronicles of the Planters asserts, “as the winter arrived on, provisions began to be pretty scarce….and men and women had been necessitated to live on clams and mussels and ground-nuts and acorns, and these bought with a great deal difficulty in the winter time. Upon which folks ended up very significantly drained and discouraged.” With hunger arrived two dread companions – scurvy and “a contagious fever, in all probability typhus.”

On Christmas Eve, temperatures plummeted under freezing, with icy winds roaring in from the ocean. Relentless snowfall shortly piled on Dorchester and the nearby settlements. As John Winthrop and other locals described, “many of the men and women had been still inadequately housed, living and dying in bark wigwams or sail-fabric tents, ‘soe [sic.] that practically in each individual family, lamentation, mourning and woe was read, and no fresh food items to be had to cherish them.”

Roger Clap’s text captured the incessant distress and deprivation that the Mary and John settlers battled working day by frigid day: “Oh, the Hunger that many endured, and saw no hope in an Eye of Cause to be supplyed [sic.] only by Clams, and Muscles [sic.], and Fish….Bread was so incredibly scarce that from time to time I tho’ht the quite Crusts of my Father’s Desk would have been extremely sweet unto me. And when I could have Food and Water and Salt boiled jointly, it was so superior who could want superior?…It was accounted a peculiar detail in all those Times to consume H2o, and to consume Samp [mush] or Hominie without the need of Butter or Milk. Indeed, it would have been a strange matter to see a piece of Roast Beef, Mutton, or Veal.”

The hardships notwithstanding, Clap battled his travails with stoicism and bedrock Puritan religious beliefs, as did lots of of the Mary and John contingent practically hanging on for dear existence as the seemingly limitless winter season dragged on. “I took detect of it,” he wrote in his journal, “as a Favour of God unto me, not only to protect my Lifetime, but to give me Contentment in all these Straits insomuch that I do not keep in mind that I at any time did desire in my Coronary heart that I had not occur unto this Nation, or want myself back again yet again to my Father’s House.”

That tough-minded technique would have Clap and lots of of his fellow Dorchester companions as a result of the winter, making certain that the fledgling settlement would survive.

In February 1631, Clap and firm wanted every past supply of interior toughness on which they could attract, for their situation achieved its desperate worst. Foodstuff retailers had dwindled to nearly absolutely nothing, and profiteering was rampant — the princely sum of 5 lbs . for a single pig and 3 kilos for a virtually starved goat the going amount.

Finally, in that grim February, a aid ship materialized in the waters along with the Puritan settlements. The Lion, out of Bristol, England, was laden with supplies procured by a person of Dorchester’s “guiding lights,” John White, and other supporters of the colonists. Between the most crucial goods off-loaded from the vessel was lemon juice, “which healed the scurvy.” To the delight of the haggard colonists craving a little bit of bread and meat, sailors rolled and lugged sacks of grain and “barrelled beef” ashore, as perfectly as peas. Dorchester was one particular of “the a number of towns” obtaining a share of the materials. As John Winthrop noted, the Lion’s arrival was “the occasion for a February thanksgiving day.”

That Thanksgiving day for the settlers of Dorchester and the location was not a “Pilgrimesque” feast, but a working day of prayer and reflection.

Roger Clap also available thanks to an additional source of assist to the Dorchester Corporation: “Yet this I can say to the Praise of God’s Glory, that He sent weak raven-nous Indians, who came with their Baskets of corn on their Backs to Trade with us, which was a great provide unto a lot of.”

This Thanksgiving, as family members obtain in Dorchester for turkey dinners, they may pause for a minute to ponder how blessed they are. 3 hundred and eighty-two several years ago, the town’s very first colonists definitely grasped how precious family and a comprehensive table ended up.

Peter F. Stevens is the author of a lot more than a dozen publications, such as The Voyage of the Catalpa and Infamous and Noteworthy New Englanders. He is a frequent contributor to the Reporter Newspapers. A variation of this post to start with appeared in the Reporter in 2001.

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[un-enfant-immature]

Driverless vehicles in the age of the novel coronavirus

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to different outcomes for different businesses. While some have stood to benefit (think Zoom, Facebook and bidet startup Tushy), others have been hit hard and laid off employees in order to survive. But there are some that fall somewhere in the middle. Autonomous driving startup Voyage believes it is not explicitly benefiting, but it’s not at risk of going under either, says CEO Oliver Cameron.

Cameron’s response to the pandemic centers around three areas: passenger operations, technology and company-building. While operations have halted, Voyage is moving forward with its technology and has shifted the company to a 100% remote-work environment. With a post-pandemic world in mind, Cameron envisions more demand for autonomous vehicles.

Before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Voyage had already paused its consumer operations, which primarily serve seniors in retirement communities.

“We did that because, obviously, seniors are disproportionately impacted by this and it would be horrific for Voyage to be patient zero in the retirement community and this is something we were operating out of an abundance of caution,” says Cameron. “So we paused our operations from a consumer service perspective very early and we won’t open those up for quite some time. It’s tough to say at what particular point because it seems like the consensus is it will be a progressive opening up of the economy, meaning some populations will be fine to go back to work and there will be some that are significantly impacted, like seniors, that are effectively locked down for an extended period of time. So we’re not in a rush to get that back up and running until we hear from the community itself that it’s OK to do that.”

Despite the hiatus in operations, Voyage is still running simulations and using a variety of automated testing tools to determine if it is making progress. For example, Voyage uses automation to test for regressions in perception. A challenge in perception is false positives and false negatives — that is, seeing something that isn’t there or not seeing something that is there, Cameron explains.

“And we have this pretty cool tool that enables us to monitor with each perception release if we are seeing regressions based on perception performance in the past,” he says. “We don’t need to be there in the real world to see that. We can just tell instantaneously if that is the case.”

Voyage also has a way of testing different permutations of environments to see how its planning and prediction software can handle different scenarios. Then, of course, it uses more traditional simulation tools provided by Applied Intuition.

“But we don’t fool ourselves into thinking that simulation or automated testing makes up for all that real-world testing brought to the table,” Cameron says. “It doesn’t, and there’s definitely going to be some time that we have to spend once we do get back on the road, fixing issues that we just couldn’t find as a result of not being on the road.”

From a company and personnel standpoint, Voyage has also transitioned into a remote-working company. It hasn’t been a distraction, according to Cameron, since Voyage embraced remote work some time ago.

“We’re lucky that we are able to weather the storm,” Cameron says. “We’ve got a good chunk of cash in the bank and, luckily, we raised at a reasonable time — at the end of last year — so we’re going to be fine.”

Many companies in the tech ecosystem have been forced to lay off employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Voyage, however, will seemingly not be one of them. As Cameron noted, Voyage raised a $31 million round in September.

“There’s been a lot of discussion about great companies will weather this and the companies that were going to die anyway will die. I’m sure there is some truth to that, but some of it is just luck. Some of it is that you raised at a time you didn’t know was important, but turned out to be quite important. And, you know, our burn has always been low compared to others in the space. For us, we’ve always been frugal, and it turns out that’s quite important in a pandemic.”

Despite Voyage’s use of simulation, its automated testing and healthy bank account, the pandemic is still a major complication.

“I think it’s got to set everyone back,” Cameron says. “I think there is a spectrum and there are companies that stand to benefit from this. We’ve seen with Zoom they stand to benefit from this. Remote working tools, they stand to benefit from this. And then you go all the other way to the end of the spectrum — those that are actively impacted like airlines, ridesharing, scooters and I believe we’re somewhere in the middle. The reason we’re in the middle is because in a post-virus world, I’m pretty sure behaviors change. It’s TBD on how long those behaviors last, but it’s clear that behaviors are going to change.”

In that world where behaviors change, Cameron bets that driverless cars will add more value than traditional ride-hailing services. In a world where people may still be hesitant to get into a car with strangers, a driverless car would mitigate those fears, he says.

“In the short term, everyone’s impacted,” he says. “There’s a slowdown in everything. In the medium and long term, we’ll be fine because I believe the demand is still there for driverless vehicles and even more so for those disproportionately impacted.”

[magzoso-tech]

Driverless vehicles in the age of the novel coronavirus

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/driverless-vehicles-in-the-age-of-the-novel-coronavirus/

Driverless vehicles in the age of the novel coronavirus

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to different outcomes for different businesses. While some have stood to benefit (think Zoom, Facebook and bidet startup Tushy), others have been hit hard and laid off employees in order to survive. But there are some that fall somewhere in the middle. Autonomous driving startup Voyage believes is not explicitly benefiting, but it’s not at risk of going under either, says CEO Oliver Cameron.

Cameron’s response to the pandemic centers around three areas: passenger operations, technology and company-building. While operations have halted, Voyage is moving forward with its technology and has shifted the company to a 100% remote work environment. With a post-pandemic world in mind, Cameron envisions more demand for autonomous vehicles.

Before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Voyage had already paused its consumer operations, which primarily serve seniors in retirement communities.

“We did that because, obviously, seniors are disproportionately impacted by this and it would be horrific for Voyage to be patient zero in the retirement community and this is something we were operating out of an abundance of caution,” says Cameron. “So we paused our operations from a consumer service perspective very early and we won’t open those up for quite some time. It’s tough to say at what particular point because it seems like the consensus is it will be a progressive opening up of the economy, meaning some populations will be fine to go back to work and there will be some that are significantly impacted, like seniors, that are effectively locked down for an extended period of time. So we’re not in a rush to get that back up and running until we hear from the community itself that it’s ok to do that.”

Despite the hiatus in operations, Voyage is still running simulations and using a variety of automated testing tools to determine if it is making progress. For example, Voyage uses automation to test for regressions in perception. A challenge in perception is false positives and false negatives — that is, seeing something that isn’t there or not seeing something that is there, Cameron explains.

“And we have this pretty cool tool that enables us to monitor with each perception release if we are seeing regressions based on perception performance in the past,” he says. “We don’t need to be there in the real world to see that. We can just tell instantaneously if that is the case.”

Voyage also has a way of testing different permutations of environments to see how its planning and prediction software can handle different scenarios. Then, of course, it uses more traditional simulation tools provided by Applied Intuition.

“But we don’t fool ourselves into thinking that simulation or automated testing makes up for all that real-world testing brought to the table,” Cameron says. “It doesn’t, and there’s definitely going to be some time that we have to spend once we do get back on the road, fixing issues that we just couldn’t find as a result of not being on the road.”

From a company and personnel standpoint, Voyage has also transitioned into a remote-working company. It hasn’t been a distraction, according to Cameron, since Voyage embraced remote work some time ago.

“We’re lucky that we are able to weather the storm,” Cameron says. “We’ve got a good chunk of cash in the bank and, luckily, we raised at a reasonable time — at the end of last year — so we’re going to be fine.”

Many companies in the tech ecosystem have been forced to lay off employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Voyage, however, will seemingly not be one of them. As Cameron noted, Voyage raised a $31 million round in September.

“There’s been a lot of discussion about great companies will weather this and the companies that were going to die anyway will die. I’m sure there is some truth to that but some of it is just luck. Some of it is that you raised at a time you didn’t know was important, but turned out to be quite important. And, you know, our burn has always been low compared to others in the space. For us, we’ve always been frugal and it turns out that’s quite important in a pandemic.”

Despite Voyage’s use of simulation, its automated testing and healthy bank account, the pandemic is still a major complication.

“I think it’s got to set everyone back,” Cameron says. “I think there is a spectrum and there are companies that stand to benefit from this. We’ve seen with Zoom they stand to benefit from this. Remote working tools, they stand to benefit from this. And then you go all the other way to the end of the spectrum — those that are actively impacted like airlines, ride-sharing, scooters and I believe we’re somewhere in the middle. The reason we’re in the middle is because in a post-virus world, I’m pretty sure behaviors change. It’s TBD on how long those behaviors last, but it’s clear that behaviors are going to change.”

In that world where behaviors change, Cameron bets that driverless cars will add more value than traditional ride-hailing services. In a world where people may still be hesitant to get into a car with strangers, a driverless car would mitigate those fears, he says.

“In the short term, everyone’s impacted,” he says. “There’s a slowdown in everything. in the medium and long term, we’ll be fine because I believe the demand is still there for driverless vehicles and even more so for those disproportionately impacted.”