#lolololol this gonna be a lotta fun

[wherestoriescomefrom]

Excerpt from a long overdue birthday present for @whyimmathere . THREE GUESSES FOR WHICH TRASHY MOLLIARTY AU I AM DOING NEXT. 

The story, of course, is the oldest in history.

The stone steps of the manor – had they ever been present, had disappeared entirely under a sheet of snow. There was nothing for Molly to do but knock persistently and find herself without anyone responding. She opened the door softly, noticing the unkempt appearance of the manor – and decided the occupants may not be there to receive her.

The door opened, of course. It opened like music. Like water through a small stream. Like snow flakes. Like a whisper.

“Is anyone home?” called Molly.

And that, perhaps, is where the story changes.

[yooleestruck]

LET’S SOLVE A CRYPTOGRAM TOGETHER. Or, apologies to the social media team for being impatient, but lee had a weird, weird childhood that included competitive family cryptogram solving and Nonna was RUTHLESS so I had to be fast.

ANYWAY.

Baseline assumption - most cryptograms are simple substitutions (one character = a different character) because who tf has time to be more complicated than that. Since I’m too lazy to draw runes, going to swap them for letters that are more easily recognizable to me. SOLUTION UNDER THE CUT (“solution” it could be a red herring)

Okay, so, now. Easy assumption: any repeated three letter sequence? Probably “the” this tells us A=T, L=H, E=E. (If it isn’t “the” it’s likely “and” but I always start with “the”)

Sidenote your girl is an overconfident heathen and did this in sharpie, but it should really be done in pencil because we’re gonna make a lotta assumptions and they may not pan out (name of the game is speed not precision). Speaking of assumptions! We can see there’s a two letter word that starts with t. Going to assume it is “to” which tells us I=O

Another quick one, there is a two letter word that begins with O. It’s either OF or OR. R is pretty common, and this character only appears once, so going to assume it’s F. (EDIT, like an HOUR LATER I realize ON was also a possibility at this point, but whatever, it got solved even missing that)

Now what?? At this point, I start looking for patterns. In particular, double letters because words with them are slightly more rare. 

Two words have double letters. We have more information on the one that starts with H (namely, that it also has an ‘e’). So I literally just started running through words in my head that have repeated letters and begin with H (sort of embarrassed that my first thought was ‘wholly’ don’t judge) - hallow, hollow, hoosier, hugger/hugged (possibility!) hitter (can’t be, already used t), hidden (possibility!) that’s literally three right off the bat. Since this is a cipher and all about being mysterious, I opted for hidden as a reasonable answer. IF hidden is correct, then P=I K=D J=N. Let’s try it!

That was a big assumption. So now we spot check to see if we created anything completely ridiculous. I’m side-eyeing the d word because it’s a weird letter to begin a word with, but the OND is actually pretty promising - fairly common word ending. Think we’re on the right track. 

Going on to the next double letter word, we have an even more interesting pattern of ABBA within it (or CFFC as it were). I went through a quick mental list (tallow, tugged, tunnel, toggle, terrible, turret, teller - I paused on teller, but it doesn’t work because E=E not C). Got stuck, so we move on. (SPEED)

What else do we know? 

We have a PHRASE NOW. “To the hidden _o__d”

The word ending in D has to be a destination because we are going TO it. Hidden destination? Doesn’t take a lot of effort to come up with ‘world’ (land came first but doesn’t fit). N=W, B=R, F=L - all new letters we haven’t used before, so it works. Let’s try it.

This makes it pretty obvious that the first word is Travel (because we’re going to a hidden world. What else is a transportation verb beginning with T!) Checks out - C & D are new, as are A and V. C=A, D=V 

Also HOW MANY WORDS do you know with nown that begin with a lesser known letter (Z only appears once). One. I know ONE. I just used it. ZJINJ has GOT to be ‘known’. Z=K

Now, Tallav is suspicious because it’s not a real word (or at least one I know), but given the context of the sentence, it works. We’re down to two words EOND and DOAIN. 

“travel eond the known” - say it out loud and ‘travel BeYond the known’ makes sense. G=B, H=Y

Now we’re left with one word that has two letters we haven’t used before and is probably geography or transport related, given the remaining context. Not that many D words that fit that bill, so Domains it is. O=M Q=S (side note I was shocked S only got used once.)

TA-DA.

Now. The only message I have in regards to this is that speed puzzle-solving is DEFINITELY MORE “SLOPPY GUESSES” than it is “science and systems” 😂 someone else may have done it ‘better’ but, this helped me solve it while waiting for folks to join a meeting, so, yes! ~6-8 min. (I share this not to brag but to prove I didn’t whittle away too much time of my life on this I swear) but it was fun! I enjoy these kinds of challenges, and hope you did too.

Happy (de)ciphering. Now watch me be completely wrong lolololol 

But I did see we reached 400 notes, so, time to see what @lovestruckvoltage​ says!

[sonatanotwo]

Gonna jot down couple quick some thoughts for todays ep. =D

(Yeah, I wrote WAY more than I thought I would. Oops, this ep gave me a lotta thoughts somehow. lol)

Looking forward to rewatching this cause uh... >.> the uh stream I had to use today... for some reason they had described video turned on. x.x Visual surprises were spoiled. 😂 And made a busy ep kinda feel even busier, I think.

SO my instinct says this was still a jam filled ep that struggled a bit with pacing, but I’m not gonna take too many points away... we’ll see how I feel after a second viewing though. XDDD But also I mean... even if didn’t entirely WORK they still we’re trying to keep moving a plot along, so they can have a you tried star if nothing else. lol

The writer here was Dan Berlinka... he’s written 3 other eps for the series... Tunnels of Time, Fight or Flight and Long Haul.

BUT yeah, it did feel like they were trying to move plot, BUT still have some nice character moments... but felt like tried to squish in a bit TOO much to point felt a bit unnatural. BUT. Again, need a rewatch cause had constantly an extra outside voice. XDDD

Was very fun to see Kayo and Scott interact for longer than a few mins or without the other boys around. If I recall right, Kayo is actually meant to be around Virgil’s age, so that does kinda explain why there’s a bit more teasing happening here from Scott (and Virgil having a fair laugh at the end.) She’s usually the one teasing with Gordon and Alan... and course her and John are pretty all the serious when interacting. lol SO yeah. There’s a bit more of a even playing field I imagine here... much like Scott and Virgil. Very interesting~

And man... Scott at the start... That is just so... Scott. (AND SUCH AN ARIES, GOOD LORD.) I think I got it pretty right... we’re kinda seeing some of that same kinda mess of feelings we saw in a lot of S1!Scott show up again here. He’s frustrated and anxious, and having trouble dealing with those feelings. And GOSH... most often Brains does defer to Scott, but nice to see him kinda show he really is older than Scott here. (I think it’s often forgotten... Brains built the TV-21... when Scott called himself ‘just a kid’ when it met it’s end. Even if Scott considered that 12-15ish... Brains is likely at the very, VERY LEAST 5 years older than Scott... but I’d honestly suspect 10-15 years even.)

Seeing him just deflate under Brains there guiding him off. 

I get the feeling Scott does realize there he’s not acting very rational. =(a

But man. Scott. Buddy. “I can’t handle waiting around, not able to do anything...” I feel ya. :( I don’t handle that well either. 😂 

(Poor Scott though... he looks like he needs a hug. lol Scott you need some time with Virgil, clearly.)

Too bad don’t get to see who was co-piloting. lol

And DAMMIT. I was excited when they said ‘Medical Bay’ ...but it was just inside the module.  😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 I guess was where the writer was hoping it was a thing, but budget didn’t allow for another TB2 interior design at this point. lolol SIGH. XD But did get a bit of Virgil medicing! HOHO. +o+

Penelope was a bit odd briefly... maybe all those mystery dinner parties have gotten to her.  😂 But second Higgins appears, she snaps to her usual self so. lol

...Poor Peter Davison. He... didn’t have a whole lot of lines did he? lol Proving there was a lot they wanted to get to in this ep and it didn’t work as maybe they’d hoped.

ALSO there was that call back to Avalanche. ‘I’ve been through this before... we won’t get near it.’ LOLOLOLOL

BUT ALSO. LIKE. Virgil, were you really in danger? If a SPIDER can puncture your suit... why are you wearing it into SPACE???  😂 (Shoulda had it on his shoulder or something. lol)

AND G’OL VIRGIL showing up RIGHT when he’s needed.  XDDD

And... I. Really love Scott’s first thought after omg butterflies is... I have to tell Virgil. 🤣 And then them LAUGHING together like that. OMG. 😭 THEY ARE SUCH BEST FRIENDS. 😭😭😭😭😭 Kayo’s gonna make them regret it so much, isn’t she?

...Yeah, the pacing was weird, but certainly some enjoyable bits in here. XDa