#the other three are in C-shape presumably to follow suit

[cuttledreams-bugs]

First pupated darkling larva- it's happening :O

[pandawritespoorly]

With Time: Littlebug & Turtle Tot

Author’s Note: I know, I know, I know. I said 'soon'. I meant for it to be soon! I really did! It just... didn't happen. Couldn't get myself to write. But now it's done! I haven't proofread it, but I'm pleased with how it turned out!

Reference slides here.

Summary: Ladybug and Tortue Verte are the first on scene of a new akuma. Things don't go as planned.

“I can’t! I can’t!”

Allan and Marinette turn at the sound. A teenage girl with a laptop and several school supplies laid before her is clutching at her hair desperately. She’s barely audible, especially in the little corner she’s tucked herself away in, but her distress is clear. Tears seem to be forming in her eyes, and she’s shaking.

“It’s too much! I’m not ready! This- this is-! I’m only 16! I don’t know anything!”

The pair frown, not quite sure what’s going on, but clearly in agreement about wanting to help. Just as they stand, they spot the dark butterfly land on her pencil.

As the girl tenses, purple butterfly shape over her face, Allan grabs Marinette’s wrist to drag her out of sight with him.

“Wayzz, Shell On!”

“Tikki, Spots On!”

The green and pink lights fade leaving Tortue Verte and Ladybug standing next to each other.

“We should probably call the oth-” Ladybug is cut off by a flash of light and sparkles. Tortue hears her yo-yo hit the ground and glances toward his teammate.

Now standing less than a meter in height, she seems to have been de-aged to around three to five years old. Her costume has changed as well. She has pigtails again, though longer than they ever were, tied in two red ribbon bows.

She has a headband on, with two little antennas sticking out of it. Her suit is entirely black now, looking like some sort of soft onesie, though around her shoulders is a red cloak with large black ladybug spots on it. If her hands are at her sides, the cloak would likely fall to her knees. Her mask is replaced with a ladybug face paint design.

As it is, her hands are raised slightly as she looks over herself, inspecting the change. She seems calm, and eventually turns to him, slightly confused, and reaching upwards.

“Up!” Even her voice has changed, and he worries that she’s been de-aged both physically and mentally, because if she hadn’t she’d probably be coming up with a plan rather than just requesting to be held.

While he’s thinking, she takes his silence as a refusal, and a heartbroken look crosses her face.

Not wanting to risk a crying Ladybug (Littlebug?), he swiftly picks her up, making her giggle.

Yep. Definitely a child.

“Alright, let’s go,” he can’t see the akuma and assumes that it’s moved on to other places. It isn’t until he hurries around a corner and feels his shell knocked off his back that he realizes how wrong he was.

The akuma giggles triumphantly, and the turtle hero is soon in the same state as the girl he’d been carrying. They stand next to each other, the same height. Tortue similarly has a onesie, though the theme is slightly different from his usual costume.

A dark green, edging on black, is the main color, with streaks of yellow and red scattered across it. The chest is entirely red, and looks like it’s a slightly thicker material than the rest, a padding of sorts. A rounded cape hangs from his back, the outer part looking dark-gray-green with thin streaks of red. The inner portion is clearly more red, though it isn’t as visible. The onesie ends at the ankle, where socks can be partially seen from the tops of the green light up tennis shoes on his feet.

As a mask, he also has face paint, the same color as the main portion of the outfit, with similarly colored streaks coming from the eyes to the edge.

Turtle Tot looks around to see Littlebug fiddling with his shell, which is still adult sized. She’s attempting to drag it away, presumably to safety so they can use it as a shield.

He also notices how the akuma is reaching for her ears. Acting quickly, he grabs her hand and runs outside.

It’s dark. He and Marinette had been up early and had been planning on going back home before the attack happened.

Everyone else is asleep. As would be expected, seeing as it’s not even six. Of course the one night he and Marinette leave so early-

Littlebug squeezes his hand, “It’s okay. We’re heroes!”

Oh my Kwami! She’s right!

He’s a superhero! This is so cool!

“Come on, we’ll get home, an’ then…” she stops, looking around as she pauses in her once confident strides, “Where are we?”

“Uhhh... “ He looks around. The street signs are really tall, and he can’t read them anyways. Turtle Tot shrugs at her helplessly.

She hums, thinking for a moment. She spots something out of the corner of her eye. A small dandelion peeking out of the sidewalk. Littlebug gasps delightedly, and hurries over to it.

“Look! A flower!” she picks it up and puts it behind his ear, where it peeks out from his hood, “We should go this way!!”

He nods excitedly, flowers are very sound reasoning.

Eventually they stop running, out of breath, but somehow still in good spirits.

“What… wha’ now?” Littlebug huffs out.

He looks around, and recognizes a building nearby. He’s not really sure what its name is, but it’s really, really tall, and they’ve defeated akumas there before. It makes sense that if they can defeat akumas there once, they can do it again… right? Turtle Tot turns to Littlebug, explaining his solid reasoning. She nods, agreeing immediately.

They find a way inside and hurry up to the silver doors of the elevator.

They can’t reach. He frowns, clearly upset at his plan being stopped.

“Tot, look! Stairs!” Littlebug tugs on his sleeve and points energetically to a nearby stairwell. The pair race over, and hurry to head up.

Littlebug begins to pass him, and gives a sly grin, “I’m gonna’ beat ya’!”

“Nuh-uh!”

The two children break out into the fastest speed their small legs can handle, turning the corners of the landings as fast as they can.

If there’s anything they won’t do, it’s lose a race.

They’re starting to slow down significantly when they finally reach the end. Huffing from the exhaustion of the race, they tumble out to the roof, sprawling onto the ground.

“I think....” Littlebug pauses to catch her breathe again, “I think that… we tied…”

“Yeah,” Turtle Tot inhales as much air as his little lungs can fit, which eventually turns into a yawn, “Tha’ sounds… right.”

The small heroes begin yawning more and more, eventually making their way to a corner to lean against each other.

“At leas’ we beat the akuma,.”

“What?”

“In th’ race,” Littlbug yawns, “...’got here first.”

“Oh, yeah…”

Her head droops slightly, eventually settling on his shoulder. He faithfully decides he’ll stay up to keep watch, because that’s how being a hero works.

He’s asleep within five minutes. 

---

Allegra wakes up third. They’d all stayed over at Adrien and Marinette’s place after a movie marathon, because none of them felt like heading home.

Felix is drinking coffee at the table, reading the newspaper, though she can’t see Allan, Mari, or Adrien.

She heads to the kitchen, “Where is everyone?”

Felix shrugs, “Allan and Marinette were absent when I awoke, and Adrien went out to run an errand. He should be back-”

The door opens, and Adrien enters.

“-soon.”

“Hey,” Allegra greets the man, he nods at her, smiling slightly before frowning.

“Do either of you know where Allan and Mari are? I can’t reach either of them, and I don’t know where they are,” he asks as he sets a small bag down on the counter. Allegra recognizes the Kwamis’ usual treats.

They both shake their heads.

Claude pops up, “Do you think there’s an attack?”

Felix nods at this, “It could make sense. Perhaps it is one of the ones that is more subtle. Some do not get an alert after all.”

“Then why aren’t they getting us for back-up?” Allegra points out.

“Maybe they can’t get away?”

“Or it isn’t that bad?”

“Claws Out.” A disgruntled yelp of protest is all the Cat Kwami can manage as he’s sucked into the ring.

“Is Marinette alright?” Felix inquires.

“Probably,” Chat sighs, opening his baton to call his friends, “She’s not like, playing dead, or hibernating or anything, but I don’t like this. Something feels off.”

The weapon rings.

And rings.

And rings.

No answer. 

He calls Torte Verte this time.

It rings.

And rings.

And rings.

No one answers.

They’re all tense now, because if neither is answering either phone, then something must be wrong.

Chat heads to the balcony, “I’m heading out!”

Claude and Allegra follow after him, speaking in unison, “I’ll come too!”

Felix throws two granola bars at the pair, “Eat first.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Claude groans.

“That would be Allan, actually,” Felix corrects. 

Claude grins, complying. Allegra does the same, then takes care of both of the wrappers.

“We’ll keep you updated, Fe’!” She calls as they swing out the window, following the tracker for their friend’s weapons.

When they show up and find both Ladybug’s yo-yo and Tortue’s shield abandoned on the ground inside a building they tense further.

Something is definitely wrong.

Chat’s tail is flicking around, and it’s clear he’s on edge.

Before any of the trio can speak, their weapons ding simultaneously with the same message.

 Distress signal trail located: Kwami: Wayzz

Continue to the next signal.

Skip to most recent signal.

Ignore.

 “Distress signal?”

“Wayzz?”

They all choose the obvious option, and their weapons provide them with an address where Wayzz’s ‘last distress signal’ came from.

“That’s pretty far from here, especially since they must have walked,” Honey Bee points out in concern.

“Not to mention Wayzz is sending the distress signal, not Al’,” Kit agrees.

Chat frowns. “I didn’t even know those were a thing.”

Despite their confusion, the three head out across the rooftops. Honey mutters something about bad parenting when she sees a couple of children outside of a building. Their parents must have told them to wait outside, how hard is it to just take them in too? 

She lands on the roof shortly after Kit and Chat, looking around. There’s no clear sign of their teammates.

“Ladybug? Tortue?”

“Either of you guys here?”

There’s no response, but they continue to call softly, not sure if there’s a threat nearby they should be wary of.

Honey spots them first, “Oh. My. Kwami.”

“What? What is it?” Chat turns to her as soon as the words leave her mouth.

“They’re so cute!” she squeals, taking a picture with her top, directing the men’s attention to the corner.

There, resting against each other, are their missing teammates. The notable issue is that they look like they can’t be more than five.

The pair is sound asleep, and Kit soon joins in taking pictures. Chat may or may not do the same.

Eventually, Ladybug begins to stir, which causes Tortue Verte to move too. They both sit up around the same time, wiping at their tired eyes with the heel of their hands.

Ladybug is the first to notice the other three heroes. She stares at them in surprise for a little bit, her tiny mouth open in shock, as she nudges her friend.

“Tot! Look!” she no-so-quietly-whispers, “They here too!!!”

The turtle boy looks up, then similarly ‘whispers’ back, “wha’ ‘bout Felix?”

Ladybug turns to him and puts a hand in front of her face as if she’s telling him a big secret, “‘member? We don’ have the peacock yet.”

He nods solemnly.

Kit is recording the whole thing, so Honey puts her top away to greet them, “Hi guys!”

They break out into grins, waving excitedly and shouting greetings at all three of them. Making their way to their feet and approaching their friends.

Ladybug notices Chat’s silence and gives a child’s version of a smirk, “What’s da matter kitten- get-” she frowns, mumbling to herself until the boy in green whispers in her ear, and she continues, “Cat got your tongue!” She declares triumphantly.

Chat Noir shakes himself out of his silence, “No, I’m just sur-purr-ised, that’s all.”

The girl frowns, crossing her arms, “That was dumb.”

Tortue shakes his head, “Littlebug! That’s mean!” “‘Littlebug’?!” Kit squeals.

“Yeah! I’m Turtle Tot, and she’s Littlebug!” Tor- Turtle Tot informs, jumping excitedly. His shoes light up.

The adults get another notification on their weapons.

 Distress signal: Kwami: Wayzz

Already at location.

 Lady- Littlebug nods in agreement to Tot’s statement, before yawning, rubbing at her eyes once more.

Tot does the same. Both children are not nearly as good at hiding their exhaustion as they seem to think.

“Oh, are you guys tired?” Honey approaches them, speaking softly.

They nod.

“Beat the ‘kuma,” Tot mumbles.

“You did?!” The adults can’t keep the surprise from their voices.

“Yeah, got t’ the top first,” Littlebug adds, “We left Ms. Kuma after we got small, then we walked, then Tot found here, and he ‘membered that we won here b’fore, so we wen’ to the top ‘cause then we could win ‘gan, and we got here b’fore the akuma so we beat her here.”

Tot nods, as the others try to follow this reasoning. The children don’t bother to try and give them time. Tot flops towards Honey who is closest, and Littlebug makes her way to Chat, leaning against his leg sleepily. Kit continues to record the whole thing.

Chat smiles softly, bending down to scoop her up. She nuzzles against him, and he marvels at how light she feels. Honey does the same, and soon both of the mini-heroes are dozing against their friends’ shoulders, hugging them tightly.

After a moment, Kit Mime stops recording, “That was absolutely precious.”

“Right?!” Honey whispers.

“We should head back to Felix. He’ll be worried,” Chat suggests. The others nod, and they carefully make their way back, doing their best to keep from waking the sleeping boy and girl.

They land on the balcony, and Felix turns to them immediately. He opens his mouth to ask about how it went when he spots the children. He shuts his mouth again, then says, “Well, I suppose that explains it.”

Kit rushes inside first, bouncing excitedly, “They were so cute, Felix! I already sent the video to myself - Let’s Rest - and I’ve got to show you, it is the most precious thing I ever witnessed…” Claude continues their rambling, pulling out their phone and handing it to Felix to show him the video.

Honey Bee and Chat Noir also enter the apartment, shutting the door behind them. Both of them attempt to put their respective passenger onto the couch, but the kids have a stronger grip than what would be expected, even in their sleep.

Chat shrugs, flopping onto the couch and propping himself up on a pillow, so that he can comfortably allow Babynette to rest on his chest. 

“Claws In.” Plagg flies out of the ring, snickering at the children before curling up to rest on Adrien’s head.

Honey looks between the boy in her arms and the man on the couch and grins.

Somehow, she manages to get the boy to let go so that he can be transferred to join Littlebug on the couch. Adrien is now a mattress for both tiny heroes, who seem to have no trouble with this arrangement.

“Buzz Off,” Allegra is quick to get her phone out and take a picture, “Oh we’re going to have so many pictures by the end of this.”

Pollen and Trixx float nearby, clearly enjoying this.

“Most certainly,” Felix agrees, having finished the video.

Claude spots the group on the couch, grinning and snapping a picture as Adrien waves softly.

“Oh boy, Sugarcube is going to be over the moon,” Plagg remarks.

The other Kwamis nod, and Pollen elaborates, “As the Kwami of Creation, she is especially fond of young creatures.”

“I’m especially fond of these young creatures!” Claude exclaims.

“Guys?” Adrien addresses the Kwamis, “How did we not know that distress signals were a thing?”

“Ooh! Ooh! I’ll answer this!” Trixx yelps, excited to contribute, “Given that Marinette and Allan’s forms changed when they were hit, Tikki and Wayzz had to edit their transformations. The akuma would have probably changed their civilian outfits, but changing the looks of the transformations is beyond her abilities. When a human transforms, some extra features are usually added based on personality, but how or if they function is up to the Kwami. For example, being a Black Cat does not mean you are going to have a bell - that comes from you. Plagg chose to make it able to ring. So Allan contributed his shoes, and Wayzz gave them the ability to light up, as well as send alerts to your devices when you went to a location it had been set off at. Likely for this very purpose, given that you may have had trouble finding them otherwise.”

“Thank goodness for Wayzz,” Allegra says.

“Transformations can also make up for any limitations of a user - for lack of a better word,” Pollen adds, “Perhaps ‘weak spots’ would be more accurate. In this case, the ‘limitation’ or ‘weak spot’ is clearly that they do not have the ability to find their own way around, and as such, needed someone to be able to find them. That’s why the shoes lighting up went beyond something as simple as just lighting up.”

---

“Kitty, nooooo,” Marinette whines, “Don’ gooooo.”

The ‘kids’ had been awake for an hour now, having detransformed shortly afterwards.

Allan’s outfit had prompted ‘aww’s from all of them. The boy, who clearly had become just as shy as he was as a child, was in a fairly standard outfit. The defining feature was a green dinosaur hoodie he was wearing. The hood had a few spikes on the back, and there were big dot eyes on either side. Little spike-shaped teeth hung from the top.

Marinette’s outfit, on the other hand, looked like something out of Pinkalicious. She was in a pink play dress, with feathery boa wrapped around her neck - the pink turning more of a hot pink towards the ends of the feathers. Her shoes had small heels, and were completely covered by sparkly pink glitter. An equally sparkly bow sat at the front, and the little pink strap had a gold buckle. An impressively large sun hat sat atop her head, also pink. On her face sat large, sparkly, pink sunglasses with heart shaped rhinestones above the eyes.

Claude took one look and collapsed to the floor, laughing hysterically.

Now, however, the still adult heroes needed to go out to look for the akuma, which had stayed oddly quiet so far.

“Sorry, Baby Bug, but don’t you think we have to do our job?” Adrien is crouched in front of her.

“Nuh-uh!” Marinette pouts, stomping her bedazzled foot. “No job!”

“I’m with the kid,” Plagg drawls, lounging on top of her hat. “Less work, more naps.”

Adrien sighs, not sure how to reason with her.

Felix comes over, gently putting a hand on her shoulder. “Marinette, don’t you want Hawkmoth to be sad?”

“I want to punch him!” she declares. Claude snorts.

Felix determinedly does his best to not smile at that. “Well, in order for that to happen, they have to find the akuma, don’t they?”

Marinette sighs. “Yeah. I guess.”

Allan, upon noticing how sad she looks, walks over to her and quietly holds out Lucas, his dinosaur plush (Claude had excitedly rushed off to grab the plush when Turtle Tot was still asleep).

Marinette pats the dino, still looking dejected. “Hi Lucas.”

Allan holds him out more. “Hug.”

The girl hugs the dino, and Allan wanders towards Allegra, wringing his hands and looking at the floor. “Ally?”

She smiles at him. “Yeah?”

“Can… can I have a star?”

She pauses, trying to figure out what he means. When she remembers, she tries not to let her slight panic show. She got rid of those sparkly hair clips ages ago.

Allan is still looking at the floor, so he doesn’t notice Claude poke her. When she turns to look at them, they’re holding two of those hair clips, a victorious grin on their face.

Allegra stares at him, mouth fallen open slightly because what the- Claude?! 

His grin only grows, and she takes them suspiciously. Allegra takes a blue one and gently pushes Allan’s hood back a little to slip it in his hair.

He straightens, touching it gently, then beams, hugging her tightly. She smiles, returning the hug.

Allan goes over to Claude, chattering excitedly about having a star.

Allegra goes over to Marinette, holding out a purple star. She gasps, then takes it, clipping it to the brim of her hat.

“We have to go now, alright?” Allegra looks between the two ‘children’.

They nod sadly, but after several hugs, the three (still adult) heroes transform and head off.

--- 

“Careful!” Allan tells Sabrina. “Hot!”

She nods as she puts the cupcake tray into the oven. “Thank you. I’ll be careful.”

He nods. “Good.”

Marinette is bouncing on her stool. “How much longer!!!”

“You’re a baker, Mininette,” Chloe reminds her. “You know this takes time.”

She pouts.

“Marinette, while the cupcakes are in the oven, we can get started on the cookies.

Allan tilts his head. “Cookies?”

Marinette nods, hopping off her stool, ignoring how Chloe hisses at her to ‘be careful’. “Yeah! We’re gonna’ make turtle cookies! For you!!”

Allan gasps, then smiles wide. “Thanks!!!”

Sabrina snaps some sneaky pictures, while Chloe just shakes her head. “They are so pure. If you hadn’t called us over, I would have rioted.”

“I could not have handled being in charge of children without back-up,” Felix admits.

The two Kwamis are enjoying the state of their holders. Tikki has been flitting around excitedly, while Wayzz watches calmly from his perch on Allan’s head.

The door to the balcony opens.

“So,” Chat Noir says, “Tiny Kagami is adorable and calm, but still 100% capable of wielding a blade.”

“Kitty!!” Marinette races toward him, and he sweeps her up in a hug.

“Also, Aurore is just as obsessed about weather as a small child,” Kit Mime informs.

Adrien has taken Chat Noir’s place. “We didn’t manage to get the akuma yet, but we decided to take a break.”

“We couldn’t miss more Mininette and smol Allan!” Claude chirps.

Honey Bee detransforms, making her way to the kitchen. “So what are you guys up to?”

Chloe kisses her cheek. “We’re baking.”

“I brought over Pinkalicious, and Marinette wanted to make the cupcakes,” Sabrina explains. “If you give a moose a muffin…”

Adrien laughs, booping Marinette’s nose. “She’ll want to one up that muffin recipe.”

“That’s not how it goes!” Marinette cries. “The moose wants jam!”

“Yeah!” Allan agrees. “So you gotta’ get the blackberry jam!!”

“Right. My bad.”

“No!!” Both children shout. “You’re not bad!!”

Allan hugs his leg, and Marinette pats his head a bunch. “You’re a good kitty-cat!”

Claude definitely isn’t recording the interaction Trixx is. “Okay,  so what do you need help with?”

“We’re makin’ turtles!!” Marinette declares.

“The cupcakes are in the oven. We are making turtle cookies now,” Felix elaborates, “It was Marinette’s idea. For Allan.”

“Aww,” Allegra coos.

“Mari is really nice!!” Allan shouts. The girl blushes, covering her face.

“Yes she is,” Claude agrees. She squeaks, hiding her face in Adrien’s shoulder.

Allegra rescues her, taking her from Adrien. “So, Miss Baker, how do we make these cookies?”

She brightens, motioning towards the counter. “Recipe!”

Sabrina grabs the recipe that they’d been planning on using. “Here.”

“Well let’s get started then!” Claude shouts.

---

After they’d finished decorating both the cookies and cupcakes, they’d turned on some Disney movies for the ‘children’.

Everyone was enjoying the calm of the day. The akuma seemed to have disappeared, and there was no reason to be worried about it at the moment.

Adrien is sitting on the couch, his arm around Marinette. The little girl is curled into his side, eyes seeming heavy. Every time they slip closed she’d force them open again, determined to stay awake.

Allan had no such qualms, dozing where he sits on Felix’s lap.

Allegra is sitting on the other side of the couch from Adrien, Chloe stretched across her lap as she scrolls through her social media. Occasionally she’ll look at the screen when prompted by her fiancé.

Sabrina and Claude are sitting on the floor, a bowl of popcorn between them as they make quiet commentary.

Later, there would be a reliable sighting of the akuma. Later, they’d have to rush out to get it, returning triumphantly with the new knowledge that butterflies can be venomed.

Later, there would be a quick transformation, and a tiny voice casting a much bigger cure.

But now, in this moment, they enjoy their peace.

---

Author’s Note: See! It's fluff! Claude is fine!

Reference slides here.

I was going to say this at the end of the last thing I posted, but since there was a good chance some people might have made the decision to skip reading that, I'm putting it here. I just want to thank you all for your patience. I haven't been writing as much, and I want to. Sometimes I just can't get myself to write, and I'm being patient with myself because, well, the world is a bit of a mess at the moment. That's why I do want to write, because we can all use a reprieve. I also haven't been responding as quickly to comments, and for that I'm sorry. I don't want that to discourage you from commenting! I've been quarantined with my family, and as both an introvert and someone with social anxiety, sometimes I've just had my fill of people. The thought of trying to talk to other people gets stresses me out, and I wouldn't be able to respond to comments in any sort of meaningful way. I assure you though, when I do find it in me to respond, you guys make my day. It makes me so happy to see that people liked my work enough to comment, and I guarantee that I will be getting around to responding to everyone eventually.

I'd also like to thank you guys for your patience. I haven't seen a single comment asking why I haven't been posting much, or anyone being upset that I'm not as active as I used to be. You guys are so sweet, and you make things so much better! I love you all so much!

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[ghostbustershq]

Ghostbusters: Afterlife - Trailer A Breakdown

“Troy, wondering what you thought about that new Ghostbusters trailer?”

Well, I’ve waited thirty years for this moment. Something tells me that my long-winded and verbose writing sensibilities won’t be able to convey my thoughts in a text message or 140 characters on Twitter. Welcome anyone that I’ve pointed in this direction. I’ve been waiting an awful long time for this. And that’s not to be dismissive of the wonderful experience and entertaining film we received just three short years ago. This is something different. But the same. Something new, but also something familiar. In one word?

Wow.

Quite a bit to unpack in a trailer revealing the first details on what has otherwise been a very tight-lipped production. Needless to say, the first real look at Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife blew me away. The direct sequel to Ghostbusters II looks to take some twists and turns, while incorporating the iconography and elements that made the original film and its sequel so popular in the 80’s. To be completely honest, it’s quite difficult to sit here and put into words my reaction to seeing a trailer for a movie I’ve been waiting 30 years to see. Excited doesn’t even begin to describe just how fun and exciting this trailer release has been. Not to mention just how special this film release will be.

But you’re not here for a review or my sentiments, you’re here for a breakdown to the trailer with a few comments and screen grabs.

Let’s do it, eh?

Hitting the Road

Right out of the gate, some stunning cinematography from Eric Steelberg on full-display here as a car full of teenage kids approach what appears to be an old mine elevator at the top of an incredible looking vista. Kids being kids, golden hour in full effect, it’s a lovely first introduction to the world in which this film will inhabit. Finn Wolfhard’s character Trevor answers a pointed question that his family has moved to Summerville because they’re completely broke. To the point that he’s getting a haircut at home by his own mother, Callie (played by Carrie Coon). We’re meeting a family on some hard times, forced to make a hard turn in their lives because of finances.

Grandpa’s “Creepy Old Farmhouse”

The family pulls up to a farmhouse and barn that looks like they’ve both seen better days. A giant barn with a collapsed roof and several silos surround a Gothic looking weather vein riddled house that may as well be out of the Addams Family. Dire circumstances have forced them to move to a family farm inherited from an, as of now, unknown grandfather. Phoebe (played by Mckenna Grace) gets out of the car with a look on her face that says it all. And those eyeglasses… well, we’ve all talked about who those look like they belong to at great length.

Something’s Amiss

Trevor’s tender moment with a new friend (Celeste O’Connor’s still as-of-yet-unrevealed character) is interrupted by the mine elevator they’re sitting on shakes violently and a green glow emanates from the mine below them. All is not picture-perfect Americana in Summerville as we’ve been led to believe. An entity explodes from the mine, escaping into the air and pushing the teenagers back in the process. That glimpse of our paranormal haunting kicks us into the studio and production company logos.

Bron Studios/Bron Media Logo

Interestingly, no Ghost Corps logo attached to the trailer. But there is a newcomer to both the trailer and the teaser poster released on Friday, Bron Studios. A Canadian company, Bron gets a logo right after Sony/Columbia possibly suggesting they’re a financial backer of the film or a large partner in some shape or form. A quick look at iMDB shows that Aaron L. Gilbert of Bron Media has been added as an Executive Producer to the film as well.

Earthquakes and Mr. Grooberson

Here’s our first real taste of how Paul Rudd’s character will factor into the film. He’s intrigued by Summerville’s seismic activities, given the fact that it doesn’t lie on a fault line, nor does it have any of the telltale signs of locations that should be moving and shaking. The protagonist family huddles under a table during a quake where we get a good taste of the film’s humor courtesy of Trevor with a quippy one-liner about the summer that they died under a table. So what is happening? Stay tuned. Also, admittedly I was too distracted by the beautiful lighting in the shot with Trevor to notice the symmetrical book stacking visual gag in the background until others pointed it out. Well played, set dec team. I’d expect there will be visual easter eggs like this throughout the entirety of the film.

Mystery Box Revealed

Following one of the quakes at their new home, Phoebe seemingly finds a loose floorboard and a sliding puzzle that has been left behind by their grandfather to hide the presence of a familiar ghost trap. Which Phoebe takes to school and shows off to her still unnamed friend, played by Logan Kim. The sight of a ghost trap tickles Mr. Grooberson, who connects it with the famed-Ghostbusters who saved New York City back in the 1980’s. The kids have no idea of the existence of ghosts, nor what occurred back in 1984 near Central Park. Grooberson is more than happy to educate them.

Jason Reitman Front and Center

After the ghost trap’s appearance, Jason Reitman (deservedly so) gets a card proclaiming the film coming from him as a writer-director hyphenate. The credit comes over an industrial space with a whole lot of Ridley Scott creep-factor going on. If I had one nit to pick with the trailer, it’s the producer in me that is concerned poor Jason’s credit never resolves with the “R” in Reitman not obstructed by the light blooming in the center of the frame.

A Free-Roaming… Something?

Right after Jason Reitman’s card, comes a panning shot across the same industrial space where a gelatinous blob is in the distance doing something. It’s tough to make out exactly what type of entity we’re looking at here, but it seems to appear (and move) like a microscopic organism or something found at the depths of the sea. Which I quite enjoy. A ghost that looks unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Also worth noting that the movements feel practical - there is weight and almost a rubbery movement to it just like the creature designs from the shop in the 80’s. Love it.

New York Was Like the Walking Dead

Mr. Grooberson shows Phoebe and Logan Kim’s character archival footage from the 1980’s where he remembers seeing the ghost trap utilized as a kid. The Ghostbusters were a phenomenon 35 years ago, but have been forgotten. As history tends to move on and generations aren’t impacted by the events of their elders, they’re learning about who the Ghostbusters were. Phoebe comments that her mother has never spoken of the events that took place in New York and that their father isn’t in the picture.

Of note, these two shots are incredible angles that I don’t believe I’ve seen before. Perhaps the result of Jason Reitman and his post production team digging into the mines and finding the original dailies and negative from the 1984 film for use in Afterlife?

PKE Readings and “Does This Pole Still Work?”

Phoebe seems to have found other Ghostbusting equipment and uses it to trace readings back to a makeshift shed. Presumably a continuation of the scene based on the editing, Phoebe slides down a fire pole (!!!) to a subterranean hidden space. She continues to follow readings on the PKE Meter, finding equipment including the orange piece of machinery taken from the original Ghostbusters at Columbia University, a Betamax recorder in the far distance, an oscilloscope, and a whole lot of fungi growing in jars. The camera pans over sample dishes of spores, molds and fungus collections, (subtly cued with Phoebe talking about picking through the rubble of her grandfather’s life) and then continues past a proton pack in progress of assembly.

Admittedly, this was the first moment in the trailer where I could feel my heart doing backflips. We’re seeing the past through Phoebe’s eyes and everything looks, feels, and sounds like Ghostbusters. I love it. This movie is about discovery, as we’ve heard over and over. To me, it feels a bit like we’re (the viewer - the broader public outside of us fans) are rediscovering our love for what made these movies so popular.

The Shoe Drops

This is where any other trailer would take the opportunity to pepper in the bass drops, kick in the soft-breathy cover version of Ray Parker Jr.’s theme song, or some other overused trope. But Ghostbusters Afterlife takes a pretty bold stance and tries something different. And to me, it really works. When Mr. Grooberson discovers that the ghost trap isn’t a replica and is, in fact a real ghost trap (and may be occupied still), he questions who Phoebe is, as there’s a cut to Phoebe’s hand grazing over a rack of flight suits revealing the name tag, “Spengler” barely having enough time to resolve before a smash to black.

In what is absolutely a stroke of genius of whomever is responsible for this wonderful trailer, Bill Murray’s line for the original movie as Venkman and Stantz share a bottle of Apricot Brandy talking about going into business for themselves takes on a whole new meaning: “Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma. I believe everything happens for a reason,” is said while - - to my ear - - a new rendition of the same Elmer Bernstein cue that plays under the scene swells.

A Certified Genius or an Authentic Wacko

After a “Next Summer” sell card, another beautiful Americana (c/o Calgary) vista of the Shandor Mining Company. Interesting, perhaps Ivo Shandor from the original film fancied himself an entrepreneur at one point before he became an architect? Or perhaps this is a result of his interest in metallurgy mentioned by Stantz? Perhaps he mined his own supplies for projects? Either way, I’m starting to think that Sumeriaville… ahem… sorry… Summerville might be following in a classic trope of some of the best horror stories. A town with an incredibly horrible secret. Warning signs don’t matter to Phoebe and Logan Kim’s character as they trudge ahead.

Hello, Beautiful

Meanwhile, in the narrative of our trailer, Trevor follows in Phoebe’s footsteps into the fields of the farm and finds something of his own: a beautiful (but a little rusty) 1959 Miller-Meteor Cadillac as the ground shakes again, something shatters through a row of school buses seemingly attacking Phoebe, and the town goes into high-alert. Amid the chaos, there’s a striking 20 frames or so of Phoebe staring into a horrifying fire pit of arms - lost souls? Something else? And immediately after that, Mr. Grooberson frantically tries to escape from a snarling beast that slams a foot on the hood of his automobile. Trevor’s Ecto-1 adventure continues as he turns the key and an homage that would make Laszlo Kovacs proud reveals the familiar license plate and front grill emerging from the garage and into the field for a joy ride. The ol’ Ecto has a whole lotta horsepower left in the tank.

Damn Right, This Thing Has a Gunner’s Seat

And that’s when the trailer hits us. What can and should be the most amazing surprise in the trailer (if not unfortunately spoiled for you by a few self-interested rotten apples with horrible cell phone photos) - this isn’t the Ecto we’re familiar with. Perhaps an explanation as to why it’s the ol’ Ecto-1, or maybe the car was always being changed throughout the duration of the Ghostbusters’ longevity, THIS Ectomobile looks to have been heavily modified for field work. Phoebe, with a thrower in her hand, swivels out into an attack position and we’re off to the races. The Ecto-1, with Phoebe in the gunner position, looks to be chasing the microscopic entity seen earlier in the industrial space - though some people have speculated that might be Slimer, I don’t think that’s the case. Either way… Dear Hasbro, take my money now. My goodness, what an awesome set-piece (and toyetic moment) that looks like it will be.

Everything about this movie speaks to me. It’s playing with my nostalgia. It’s also giving us something new and the promise of the next generation discovering the Ghostbusters both on-screen and off. The fact that a main character is named Trevor for some reason immediately made me think of my amazing former boss and now guide to the next generation of comedy Trevor Albert, who was a long-time friend and colleague of Harold Ramis. Phoebe’s an intriguing character and the friendship that we saw Mckenna Grace and Logan Kim develop via social media throughout the course of the production seems to have carried over to their on-screen performances.

Of course, noticeably absent are any of the original cast members. But, as the theme of this trailer and seemingly the movie as a whole is discovery and things slowly unfolding, I can imagine that moment will be saved until the absolute very end of the marketing campaign. If the cast isn’t kept in secret similar to Mark Hamill in The Force Awakens completely. To be completely honest, I don’t want to see another frame until opening day of the film itself. And if this is the only trailer they release, that would be a wonderful mystery box. Particularly for this Ghostbusters podcast host who would have to break another TV spot or trailer down frame by frame. I get the sense that the less we know and see about this movie before the first viewing experience, the better.

But most of all - - the iconography, the designs from Stephen Dane, Michael C. Gross, and so many other artists has carried over successfully and looks authentic. This is no replica, as the trailer blatantly tells us. This is the real deal.

[shadowsong26fic]

AU Outlines: Other Fandoms Edition

So I know that probably like zero of my followers on this blog even go here but I was watching Person of Interest lately, and I’ve also been reading occasional Supernatural spoilers, because I used to be in that fandom and I occasionally get curious. Especially this most recent season. Naturally, this woke up some old characters/situations/etc. that I used to work with, which I’ve been occasionally toying with in the back of my head when I’m bored and/or procrastinating other projects.

I’ve been going back and forth on how I feel about the one plotline that interests me this season (and by back and forth I mean I was really excited when I first read that a particular character was back; engaged by the summaries/etc. I read from his first couple episodes, the third one intrigued me until I read more detailed spoilers and then I started to side-eye it a little bit...)

And then I read up on last week’s episode. And nope, all my excitement is gone, replaced by Pissed for reasons I’m not sure I can actually articulate. (Though I kind of attempted to in the tags here on my personal blog.)

...honestly, I probably should’ve known better; making this kind of storyline really pay off/work would require a lot of attention given to a tertiary character, and given SPN’s track record with the internal worlds and motivations of characters who are not the Big Three, and the fact that they’ve been ignoring a lot of their established angel/vessel lore, the way Claire’s backstory more or less got completely forgotten...I should not have gotten my hopes up. Sigh.

ANYWAY this is now officially Spite Fic(tm). Here, have an outline of a Supernatural/Person of Interest crossover.

Starring Nick.

...uh, before I actually start, I should probably get some background out of the way.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Person of Interest is a TV show that ran for five seasons, 2011 - 2016. Without c/ping the opening narration, the basic premise of the show is that, in the wake of 9/11, genius software engineer Harold Finch built a surveillance and analysis program, in an effort to prevent similar future tragedies. Out of fear that his creation would be abused, he designed the Machine as a closed system--basically, all that’s provided is an ID number (usually an SSN, at least for US citizens; but Our Heroes get a green card number in one episode, and a student ID number in another), and the person that number indicates is key to unravelling whatever is going down. The Machine was initially designed to predict mass casualty events/terrorism and provide the (relevant) number to the designated government operatives, at which point human intelligence takes over. However, the Machine also identifies things like…gang warfare/one-on-one premeditated murder (irrelevant numbers). That’s where Our Heroes come in.

The first half of the series is basically a procedural with a twist—each episode, the main characters get an irrelevant number (or more; the record was I believe 38 in one episode). They don’t always know how that person is involved, whether they’re the victim or the killer/perpetrator. In a few memorable cases, the number was arguably both.

Then, in the second half, a rival AI (Samaritan) is brought online, and the series becomes somewhat darker in tone and shifts into a cyberpunk apocalypse story. With a few regular irrelevant numbers thrown in on occasion as well, for good measure. For the purposes of this outline, we don’t care so much about POI B, for reasons I will explain, but it bears mentioning. Especially since Greer is still hanging around and trying to bring Samaritan or something similar online.

Right. On to some memorable/notable/important characters.

Our Heroes are Finch, who, as I said, designed and built the Machine. For various reasons, he’s living off the grid (he’s a very private person). Using a backdoor built into the Machine, as of when the series starts, he receives the irrelevant numbers. But he lacks the skills/ability to intervene directly, so he recruits John Reese.

Reese, then, is Finch’s partner/employee/they are totally married; a former CIA assassin who is now presumed dead, he does most of the hands-on work with the numbers and becomes known as the Man in the Suit who is basically Batman.

Carter! Carter is freaking amazeballs; she is p. much the moral/ethical center of the show, one of their two cop friends who was actually trying to track them/Reese down and arrest him for the vigilante BS for the first half-season or so but then they became friends.

Fusco is their other cop friend; former dirty cop/member of an ring, initially recruited by Reese to work undercover in HR (as said ring is called), basically runs on a combination of Dogged Loyalty (the reason he joined HR in the first place, transfers that loyalty to Team Machine, gets his moral compass recalibrated, and becomes one of the most loveable dudes on the show) and Snark (featuring such delightful quotes as “What was I supposed to say? Sorry, boss, Agent King is really a superpowered nutball. Just ask my buddy, the urban legend.” Also at least once a season, he makes a comment to the effect of “just when I thought you guys couldn’t get any weirder…”).

(Also, he is, as my roommate puts it, Shaped Like A Dad.)

Shaw joins the team in Season 3; textbook (and canonical!) bisexual compact Persian sociopath (note: she has some sort of Axis II personality disorder that is occasionally called sociopathy in-universe, but that doesn’t quite fit); there’s…there’s really not much else one can say without just like summarizing everything she does or quoting ad nauseum.

Root! Root is introduced as a major antagonist; hacker/programmer on Finch’s level who works as a contract killer, her initial goal is to locate and free the Machine, which ends up recruiting her early in Season 3 and becoming…you know that particular kind of reformed villain that becomes the weird family member because yes they’re still kind of awful and murdery, and they did a great deal of damage to you and yours, but you’ve now been through Some Stuff together, and besides, they’re your awful and murdery, you know? So not exactly a redemption arc, but they’re one of the Heroes now and just kind of stick with it. Like Barbossa, in POTC. Or Vegeta. My roommate (referenced above) calls this the Weird Uncle trope. And she fits this trope really well and I love it. Also, she and Shaw are canonically girlfriends as of...s4 or s5, depending on how you look at things.

(Also, not necessarily relevant for this outline, but on the subject of Weird Uncles, one cannot talk about POI without mentioning Elias; our friendly neighborhood Mafia don. No, really.)

And Bear! Cannot forget Bear. Bear is Finch and Reese’s dog, acquired at the beginning of S2 and the most amazing. He also has a twitter! In Dutch!

On to some antagonists, Greer is not our friend. He works for/created a company called Decima Technologies; his goal is to bring an unrestricted AI online and let it run the world for complicated reasons relating to some of his experiences during the Cold War working for MI6. Also he has a very punchable face.

And then there’s Control, who runs the Relevant numbers program for the government. She is an awful, awful human being (fully aware of it, too; she has a great speech in the third season finale about how she’s a Necessary Evil and why) and I love her so much.

Okay, that’s the basics for the POI side of things. I can go on a lot longer if y’all want more details (I didn’t even cover my girl Zoe or Leon or…), but that should be enough foundation for the outline to make sense?

For the SPN side of things--I’m not going to summarize the canon background, due to it being the larger/primary-ish fandom. But in terms of the relevant AU stuff, I’m going more or less with the backstory I established for Nick for The Promises of Angels and Cartography!verse.

Basically, he was a high school history teacher; his wife and son were murdered by a serial killer known as the Chesapeake Ripper

(There might well have been/probably was some demonic involvement, though not in the same way as I think S14 canon established; basically either because a “talent scout” demon like that one s7 episode was already involved or because the Ripper was operating independently and a demon got involved later, he was pointed towards this particular woman and baby who fit his victim pool. Either way, Nick was targeted because he was the right bloodline and accessible, because vessel lines are a thing even if the show has forgotten that.)

(Also, Lucifer later took Nick to kill the Ripper. Signing bonus. So to speak.)

After Detroit, Nick gets picked up by Meg, who holds on to him for a while for a variety of reasons (information that might be buried in his memories from the year he spent possessed; the chance that he might be a new key to the Cage…) until the Leviathan turn up, at which point she no longer has the resources to keep him. She cuts him loose at that point, rather than killing him (mostly because she thinks Lucifer left him alive For A Reason and until she knows what that is, she can’t kill him).

So, at this point, in Promises or Cartography, Nick just sort of wanders around for a while until he runs into Claire or Jody, respectively.

For the purposes of this AU, he ends up drifting to New York instead.

And, with all that background out of the way, NOW we can get to the actual fun stuff.

…no, wait, I lied. One more note: as with p. much all my SPN projects, I am following Logical Time rather than Show Time. Which is to say, when calculating dates/figuring out where the timelines intersect/etc., I’m including the two skipped years (between S5/S6 and between S7/S8).

(That being said, I reserve the right to stop caring about the timeline later and just mashing things together as I think it would be entertaining.)

ANYWAY.

We open in the first half of POI S3, somewhere between “Mors Praematura” and “Endgame” (i.e., Root is in the library, but Carter hasn’t initiated her takedown of HR yet). If my math is right, this puts us either in S7 or during the second gap year for SPN.

It starts as most of these adventures do; Team Machine gets a new number.

“This one may be a bit of a project, I’m afraid,” Finch says. “Nick Cross has been missing for several years. He hasn’t been seen since May of 2009, and there’s been no electronic activity on his identity in that time, either.”

Of course, when they dig into his background, his wife and son getting murdered comes up.

“Any chance he killed them?” Reese asks.

“No, he was cleared at the time. They were victims of a serial killer, and Mr. Cross had solid alibis for three of the five incidents, including the one involving his wife and son.”

(Shaw, at that point, theorizes that Nick’s number came up because he somehow tracked the Chesapeake Ripper down and is planning to kill him. And, if that’s the case, doesn’t really see the point in stopping him.)

(“Start with finding him, Ms. Shaw,” Finch says. “We still don’t know if that is, in fact, what’s going on.”)

(Finch also doesn’t approve on principle, of course, but that is not an argument he wants to have with Shaw on this particular morning.)

(Plus, the Ripper seems to have stopped operating at around the same time Mr. Cross disappeared...so there’s a chance that Shaw’s theory is accurate, just out of date.)

In any case, they reason that the Machine wouldn’t have handed them his number if he weren’t alive and in range; Reese and Shaw ask Carter and Fusco to see what they can pull up, and start doing their own legwork.

Carter ends up being the first to find a lead—while on her regular patrol with Laskey, she spots a guy who matches the description, albeit with a few extra scars, and is acting a little off. Like he thinks he’s being followed/watched.

Reese goes to check it out, and this is where things get, uh, Weird.

See, here’s the thing. I love John Reese, and he is a man of Many Skills.

But, uh.

Being approachable and reassuring is Not Among Them.

Like. Don’t get me wrong. When he’s in Bodyguard Mode, it is exactly the right level of Intimidating. He just…has trouble turning it off.

Look, the dude is a semi-retired CIA spysassin and it oozes out of every pore unless he works really hard to tone it down.

(And sometimes even then.)

And since this is just, like, preliminary surveillance to see if this guy Carter spotted really is their number, and he’s not planning to make contact yet, he’s not really focusing on toning it down.

So, when Nick spots him, guess what this looks like to him.

Yep, he thinks Reese is an angel.

He runs.

Reese: “....yeah, pretty sure that’s our number. And he just made me.”

(If Carter didn’t already, Reese probably also mentions that the five-year-old DMV photo they’re working from is out of date; Nick is pretty badly scarred, they look kind of like radiation burns.)

Of course, it was hard enough to find Nick in the first place, so Reese doesn’t want to lose him again. So, made or not, he continues following. Hoping to get to a position where he can make contact and figure out what’s going on. Or just keep tabs on him until Shaw can catch up and take over.

(Not his favorite approach, but he screwed up somewhere and that’s what he’s stuck with now.)

Nick knows the angel is still on him--and this is new and terrifying; he’s had demons after him a few times since Meg ditched him, but this is the first time an angel’s found him and, frankly, angels are worse than demons in his mind.

(Also he’s supposed to be warded how did the angel even find him--)

(Yeah, Nick has gotten a couple tattoos in his post-Meg life--he’s warded, the same sigils that are etched into Sam and Dean’s ribs; he also has a standard anti-demon-possession tattoo.)

In any case, he has a knife up his sleeve, he just needs to get somewhere more or less out of sight, just for a minute, maybe not even, and then he can throw up a banishing sigil. He just needs that minute.

Reese spots Nick duck out of sight into an alley and heads that way, picking up his pace. There’s a chance he’ll lose the number in there, depending on how many exits there are--

Nick casts his sigil and then books it, not wanting to stick around and see if it worked.

Reese gets there just a hair too late.

“I lost him,” he admits, then catches sight of the bloody drawing on the wall. “...but I think I might have an idea what our number’s running from. And why he disappeared for so long.”

“Yeah?” Shaw asks.

“Looks like he might’ve joined a cult."

“....really,” she said. “Huh.”

“He drew some sort of occult symbol on the wall. Looks like blood.”

“...okay, so he joined a cult.”

“It makes a certain amount of sense,” Finch says. “He went through a horrible tragedy. He could have been vulnerable, especially if he sought but failed to find any comfort in traditional religion.”

Reese takes a picture, and sends it to Finch. “Think you can figure out what this is?”

“Well, it’s hardly my area of expertise,” he says, “but I’ll see what I can do.”

“We’ll work on picking up his trail again,” Shaw says, appearing beside Reese in the alley, as she does sometimes. “Maybe stop by and pick up Bear to help.”

...and now skimming over the next few hours...

Finch spends some time in one of the few corners of the internet he’s not super familiar with, and does identify the symbol eventually.

“It’s for protection or warding. Specifically against angels.”

At which point Shaw busts up laughing at the idea of anyone thinking Reese is an angel.

But that does support the idea that he’s running from whatever cult he got mixed up in.

ANYWAY moving on.

Reese and Shaw eventually catch up with Nick again.

Unfortunately, so have the people who are after him.

(And by people, I mean demons. Two of them.)

(Who recognized Nick, obviously, and had the same ideas as Meg, with regard to his potential Uses.)

(Only they’d rather off him so no one gets to unlock whatever secrets he might be holding.)

Shaw goes up--she’s the better sniper, after all--and Reese makes his way into the alley where Nick is cornered

Firing, naturally, at their kneecaps.

Except.....

Nothing...nothing happens...?

(Well, except now the demon is pissed and gunning for Reese instead.)

(Nick is very relieved to see that this guy is not, in fact, an angel. Angels don’t normally use guns.)

(Of course, now he’s just confused, wtf is going on.)

“What the...” Reese says.

“Maybe you missed,” Shaw smirks, from her perch.

“I didn’t miss.”

“Sure,” she says, aiming at the demon chasing him, getting a solid hit in the shoulder.

Which....also does nothing.

“...well, that was weird.”

She fires again, this time a killshot--yeah, yeah, there are Rules, but under the circumstances...

Meanwhile, Demon #2 has gotten ahold of Nick. Who has frozen a little bit.

(He tends to do this, when stressed/triggered--internalize things, and just go blank. He was more or less catatonic when Meg found him, started gradually coming out of it; when Sam got his soul back that sort of accelerated the process and by now he’s mostly functional, but there are Moments...)

Shaw keeps firing at Demon #1. It’s not killing it, but it’s keeping it pinned down so hopefully Reese can reach and extract their number.

“Finch, we’ve got a Situation here.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

(Finch has hacked into some nearby security cameras.)

“You have any idea what the hell is going on?”

“I’m afraid not, Ms. Shaw,” he says. “It’s only the two of them, I think--no one else is coming though the police will probably be responding to the shots soon--”

“Yeah, Finch, I know. Reese?”

Nick is up against the wall and Reese bodily hauls the demon off of him to engage in a fistfight.

(Did not expect a skinny kid like the demon’s host to pack this much of a punch, he’ll have some fun bruises tomorrow...)

Which snaps Nick out of it.

Demons. These are demons. Only demons. I know how demons work. I can--

He rattles off an exorcism, as fast as he can.

The demons scream and smoke out, leaving their two dead hosts behind--Host #1 may have been dead already, or Shaw may have killed them; Host #2 was already gone.

“Finch?” Shaw says. “Finch, are you getting this?”

“I’m--yes, I see it,” he says.

Reese is about to add something, but the Nick passes out--Demon #2 managed to score a solid hit before Reese got there--and he moves to catch him.

“Damn it--he’s bleeding, pretty bad.”

“Get him to the safehouse,” Finch says. “I’ll meet you there, and we’ll...we’ll figure all this out.”

“Library’s closer,” Shaw points out. “And you said no one else was around.”

Finch hesitates for a moment--more concerned about Root than about their base being compromised, at the moment--then nods. “Fine. Bring him here. I’ll clear off a space for you to patch him up.”

“Copy that,” Shaw says. “Reese, stay with him, I’m gonna get us a car.”

...okay, I’ll admit, the rest of this first New York adventure isn’t super well planned out in my brain. So, skimming through it pretty quick...

They bring Nick back to the library. Shaw patches him up, while Finch goes over the footage he found, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

Nick eventually wakes up. There’s a Talk.

“They were demons,” Nick explains. “They, uh. They can’t be killed, not with guns. There’s a couple specially-designed weapons, I think. And angel blades. Holy water will burn them, and you can use salt to keep them out. Best thing to do is probably trap them and exorcise them.”

Basically, Team Machine gets The Talk about monsters and so on Existing.

He admits to having been possessed for a year when they ask him why demons are chasing him, though he’s a little vague on further details. He does mention Meg, too, that she held on to him after he was dispossessed.

He asks how they found him--he’d thought his warding was messed up, especially when he thought Reese was an angel.

They give their characteristic vague answer, then ask, “If you’re...warded, how is it they found you in the first place?”

He figures, at this point, that his warding is fine--it doesn’t hide him from demons, necessarily, but even if it did, warding doesn’t stop the bad guys from spotting him by chance. Which is, incidentally, exactly what happened.

Nick also, of course, gets in the usual number questions; “who are you” “why are you helping me” etc., with the added weight of his possession and the fact that they took on literal demons to try and save his life.

Also, somewhere in this mess, Nick wanders off into the part of the library where Root is being held. Possibly while the rest of Team Machine is getting what they’ll need to deal with whatever Climactic Fight will end the episode/section.

(Nick was a high school history teacher, and this is a really awesome library, of course he’s going to go exploring if he’s left alone.)

(Bear is there to keep an eye on him/keep him from leaving.)

(Bear also gets many scritches and pets, as he deserves.)

Anyway, Root and Nick have a conversation; whether she and the Machine are already doing their Morse Code thing or something else is going on...or...something...anyway, Nick gets read in on the Machine’s existence.

(His reaction is more or less “...that does not even make the top ten most unbelievable/dangerous things I know exist, so...all right then.”)

Finch gets back to find them talking about history or something. Bear is next to Nick, who is a lot calmer/more willing to work with them than he was before. Root is just inside the cage wall, idly scritching Bear’s ears as they talk.

(This is actually Important.)

Anyway, eventually there is the requisite climactic fight. Possibly angels are involved--I know Shaw gets her hands on an angel blade at some point...

Point is, things get resolved, more or less. Nick ends up leaving New York.

BUT! Because Root had a Moment with him back there, and Finch saw it, he’s willing to unleash her a little earlier when the shit hits the fan a few episodes later.

In short, thanks to Root kind of sort of Bonding with one of their weirder/more fragile numbers, Team Machine is much better positioned to deal with Endgame nonsense, which means, first, that Carter gets to live (though Reese might still get hella shot, depending on how exactly Root changes what happens with Simmons; but he won’t go on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge); what follows is then that Team Machine is all working on the same page when Claypool’s number comes up aaaaaaand we avert Samaritan. Yay!

(Carter does still deduce the Machine’s existence, of course, gets upgraded to the yellow box and everything. And, remembering the late-S1 drama, strongly advocates for Fusco getting read in, too.)

(She gets her way on that, too. Eventually. Probably before too much longer, even.)

Also, Control does reveal herself, but doesn’t manage to capture Root just yet.

(Which also means Root doesn’t get her implant, at least for a while.)

But apart from that, we can leave this group to their own devices for a while, and get back to following Nick, who is now past his Origin Story, so to speak...

Hokay. So. After Nick leaves New York, he just starts sort of drifting again, and then a few days later, he gets a phone call.

Which he actually answers; in all honestly very few people would reach out to him this way, and he’s pretty sure none of the things that terrify him are on that list.

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

Nick stares at the phone for a long moment. The Machine repeats herself.

“…no.” He hangs up.

(Look, he knows damn well what that phone call was; Root told him enough when the two of them talked in the library. And he is not interested in letting another near-omnipotent entity screw with his head. Once was enough. He learned his lesson.)

The Machine backs off, deciding to try a less-invasive way of trying to get in touch with/recruit him.

Why is she doing this? Well.

The Machine’s mandate/objective is to protect humanity. When Nick came up on her radar as an irrelevant number she could offer her assets, she noticed some…let’s call them anomalies. In archival data about him, about the two people talking about murdering him…lots of things didn’t add up. Which is why he got pushed to the top of the list, so to speak.

(I mean, assuming she does put a certain level of thought/deliberation into which numbers she sends her assets? If two come up at once that are unrelated, does she need to decide, or do they get both? This isn’t 100% clear in the show, I don’t think; pretty sure all the multi-number episodes do end up being related, even if they don’t appear that way at first, apart from, like, backlogs from when the Machine has to go dark temporarily for whatever reason…anyway, if that is the case, she picked Nick because there was a lot of Weird Shit going on around him and she needed her human assets to sort through it, because she simply didn’t have the tools or parameters necessary to work it out for herself.)

So, Nick’s number comes up, and even more strange things keep happening. The Machine evaluates, and comes to the conclusion that there’s an entire class of threats to humanity that she hasn’t been monitoring correctly. The fact of the matter is, she was programmed with certain blind spots, because Finch had certain blind spots.

But the Machine is now in a position to correct that. She’s aware of the flaw in her system and, thanks to the changes she’s been making since Stanton’s virus and the other S2 arc plot stuff allowed her to start altering her code in a way she couldn’t before…

She can make up for it by adding yet another set of numbers/another protocol. Relevant numbers to the government as always, irrelevant numbers (within their reach, at least) to Finch and his team, “necessary” numbers (i.e., protecting the Machine herself/keeping tabs on other, potentially hostile, ASIs) to Root, and now…we’ll call them “hidden” numbers.

Of course, the next problem is, while there’s a lot of data available about monsters, angels, demons, etc., it’s very hard to sort through what is useful data and what is, frankly, BS. And, unfortunately, she lacks the parameters to do it herself.

Ergo, she needs a human asset to help her figure it out. Teach her/help her define this new dataset.

(And also to intervene when necessary, but that can come later. She’s got a bit of a learning curve ahead of her first, and she knows it.)

But, of course, she doesn’t want to retask any of her current assets—both because they have enough to deal with and because, again, learning curve. Better for at least one entity involved to know what they’re doing, right?

And so, she decides to recruit Nick. Nick, who has already been her window into this hidden world. Nick, who needs her as much as she needs him.

(Kind of like Root, except absolutely unlike Root. Like in that they were both drowning when she approached them, and needed her to give them a framework to cling to, to drag themselves back to the surface; unlike in that Nick is drowning in a very different ocean than Root was.)

Anyway. Eventually, she does manage to talk to him, and explain what she wants.

And he’s still not...100% sure how he feels about working with her, but...well, data entry, right? He can do that. Maybe.

“I don’t know how much help I’ll be,” he admits. “Just because I was possessed for a year doesn’t mean I know everything.”

“It’s still a place to start,” she replies. “Eventually, I’ll figure out the patterns and be able to extrapolate.”

“...okay, then.”

(As it turns out, he knows a lot more than he thinks he does, which is utterly terrifying; he has a lot of subconscious/residual information buried in his mind.)

Of course, eventually, just data entry isn’t enough.

The Machine doesn’t have all the answers/all the patterns down, but she has enough that she’s starting to identify threats/numbers she can assign out.

But Nick...well, Nick is fragile. Mentally, of course, but physically as well--burned inside and out, metaphorically and literally, by a long, incompatible possession.

At the moment, though, he’s the only asset she has in this area. Recruiting others, from among the insular, paranoid hunter community...is going to be difficult.

She spots something she thinks he can handle, especially if she grants him God Mode access and keeps him there.

He stares down at the text message she sent him.

“...I can’t do this,” he says. “I can’t...”

“Can we please try?” she says. “I’ll help you.”

“...I...”

“It’s a demon, I think.”

He thinks about it for a minute. He can handle demons, he thinks. He has before, after all. He understands demons. And...

(he thinks about the feeling of evil still living under his skin; he thinks of blood on his hands and in his heart; about all the nightmares and half-memories; about how he feels too small for his own body, how his thoughts echo inside his head...)

(he wants to do better. he wants to be better. maybe helping...people like him, people who have gone through what he went through...maybe that’s a start. to make up for what he did.)

“...is the host still alive? When I...if I manage to get there and exorcise them...are they still alive?”

“I can’t tell,” she admits. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll...try,” he says. “I’ll try.”

It ends up, fortunately, being a win for all of them--the demon is thrown enough by seeing Lucifer’s former vessel that Nick has a chance to act; the host is in fact still alive.

Nick spends hours after the exorcism, just...sitting with him, talking. Helping him cope/process things.

“...we should do that again sometime,” he finally tells the Machine, after he goes back to wherever he’s sleeping these days.

So, he starts kind of sort of hunting after that, with the help of an ASI.

Every time he directly engages something, he’s in God Mode. He has to be, because of the aforementioned damage; he wouldn’t survive on his own.

(Probably, at some point, he and the Machine put together something like the Tenebamus Infinitum forum in The Promises of Angels; online support group/community for possession survivors.)

(Sam may or may not find his way there...)

At first, they mostly focus on demons/possession cases. Sometimes ghosts. But they slowly start to branch out into other areas.

They deal with some miscellaneous monsters, faeries, maybe a vampire...good times.

Pretty much the only ones they avoid are angels and pagan gods, because Nick cannot deal.

(Angels for uh obvious reasons; pagan gods because he remembers like two things from his possession with any clarity, and one of them is Muncie, Indiana/Gabriel’s death.)

(The Machine occasionally considers trying to get him into a hospital for a while, the way Root was--she thinks it would help him--but he’s...managing for the moment, so it’s not as necessary, and she does still need him actively working....plus, he’s terrified of being sedated so...this gets put on indefinite hold.)

During this period, though, they do acquire two more Friends.

First--and I’m not 100% sure how they meet; possibly similar to how Nick and Jody meet in Cartography!verse, i.e., a grief support group of some kind.

Anyway, first he meets a young woman, a psychiatrist. Who is familiar, if peripherally, with angel and demon type stuff.

(Other monsters are gonna be a little New to her.)

Her name is Ashley Finnerman.

(Yes, as in Donnie.)

(He was her cousin.)

(After what happened to him, she started trying to figure it out, and eventually did.)

(...honestly, the forum may be her idea. She definitely joins it, not as a fellow survivor, but as a crisis counselor/trained professional who will believe them.)

(Ashley is pretty big on community building in general; yes, she’s a therapist and that’s a start, but she’s only one person. In her ideal world, they’d be able to draw in other professionals--psychiatric because this is an underserved population that desperately needs those resources; medical (as in physical medical/other MDs); legal...anyway, she’s not 100% sure how to go about doing that, but helping out on with Tenebamus is a step in the right direction, in her opinion.)

Ashley is eventually read in on the Machine as well. She has more or less an actual Life outside of it all, so she isn’t as immersed as Nick is, but she’s still definitely part of his team.

And second...somehow, they acquire Adam.

How? ...again, not 100% sure, but probably one of two ways--

One, something similar to Promises, where Nick gets too close to the Cage mouth for some reason and is offered a Bribe. He takes the bribe, with exactly zero intention of following through on his end of the bargain, so to speak.

Two, some kind of straight-up Fairy Tale Bullshit. S6 establishes that faeries can reach the Cage; Nick somewhat accidentally does a favor for a powerful faerie through his work with the Machine, and to repay the debt, the faerie (or possibly a High Up Faerie who has taken ownership of the debt because he helped someone in their court/their child/something or other) restores his Counterpart to him? IDK, something like that.

...I think I like this option. He accidentally does a favor for, IDK, Mab. And she, not wanting to be in his debt, heads down to the Cage.

This works because, a) Mab is probably one of the few entities that can go toe-to-toe with an Archangel like this; and b) Michael is actually on board with springing Adam.

(Not necessarily because he gives a shit about Adam, but he does give a shit about Justice, and keeping Adam down here, especially with Sam gone, is not Justice.)

Naturally, she doesn’t tell Nick ahead of time--he did the favor without consulting her, she shall repay him in kind. Faeries and Obligations, man.

Anyway, Adam joins them, and then Nick doesn’t have to be quite as hands-on because Adam is perfectly capable.

(Adam also, at some point, makes a comment about the three of them having ‘nearly a complete set.’)

(I have no idea how/if they’ll ever be able to find someone to fit in for Gabriel, but three out of four!)

(Nick finds this oddly hilarious, for reasons he can’t quite articulate.)

So, that is what Nick is doing while Team Machine is foiling Vigilance and Greer and Decima and dealing with their Hard Sci Fi end of things.

Let’s bring these two worlds crashing back together, shall we?

(Well, I say crashing together...this probably isn’t the first time Nick has run into the others since that first adventure.)

(If nothing else, he’s stayed in touch, off and on, with Root.)

(And I’m pretty sure the others have met Adam.)

(Maybe that was where Shaw got her angel blade...)

So, timeline for this. Uh...probably at least a year after Nick’s first encounter with Team Machine. For the SPN side of things...ehhhhh I’ll handwave/stop caring and say this is sometime in the latter half of S8. Between the first two Trials. Let’s go with that.

Nick and co are back in New York, probably dealing with something on their end of things. A ghost or something.

And then they get sucked into some Team Machine nonsense.

Control still wants the Machine--or a suitable Plan B--back under her complete, well, control.

Decima is going after some other potential ASI.

(Root is back in town to deal with them.)

Vigilance is involved too, because why not.

(Greer can’t initiate his endgame there just yet, after all, so they’re probably still operating.)

Nick, Adam, and Ashley are pitching in, because they’re here and the Machine needs all the help she can get on this one. Because Reasons.

Meg gets involved--this goes AU in that she escaped Crowley somehow. And one of the first things she does is try to check on her various assets, so she’s trying to track Nick and figure out what the hell is going on with him.

Crowley, of course, is chasing her, trying to get her back.

And, to round it all off, Sam and Dean are chasing him.

(As they approach, Sam starts noticing a weird buzzing feeling in the back of his head. Like circulation returning, or something like that. He decides not to mention it--thinks it might be a new Trials symptom, and he’s already hiding those from Dean, what’s one more secret? Besides, they need to know what Crowley finds so interesting about this place...that’s way more important, right?)

So, all these disparate parties converge on wherever the potential ASI is being held/built.

Root and Nick, of course, are both in God Mode.

(...incidentally, Nick is...nnnnnnnnnot super comfortable with calling it that? He and Adam and Ashley mostly just call it access or full-access.)

(Nick has the same tingling feeling in the back of his head, but he can’t do anything about it right now. He just focuses on the task at hand, and getting himself and his friends through this alive.)

The Machine tips Nick off to the fact that there are demons sniffing around--a couple of Crowley’s minions. Which, of course, Nick and his team can handle, but there’s several of them around and we reeeeally don’t want Crowley getting access to an ASI.

(Especially not S8!Crowley.)

So, Nick, Adam, and Ashley head off to put up wards and shoo off any demons they can, leaving the others to deal with the Decima nonsense/destroy the drives or whatever.

There’s a lot of ground to cover, so they split up.

Eventually, Nick gets pinned down by Decima mooks, trapped in a corner of the facility where he’s trying to finish getting the wards up.

“What...what do I do now?” he asks the Machine.

She runs her simulations, and it doesn’t look good.

And here is where it’s different from, say, “If-Then-Else.” Slash another way Root and Nick are very different people/assets.

Whereas Root is perfectly okay with obeying orders from her God without question, Nick needs to be told his options and make the choice himself.

At some point, he describes Access as oddly comforting. It’s almost as overwhelming, almost as much of a surrender, as consenting to possession is.

But there’s one critical difference.

He doesn’t have to listen to her.

He can say no.

He can hang up.

I mean, it’s generally speaking a bad idea to do that, but the option is still available.

So, his head doesn’t feel as empty with her in it, but a lot of it is still on his terms.

That being said, when there’s no time, or it’s a very immediate “there’s someone behind you” type of God Mode moment, of course, that’s less of an issue.

But something like this, where there’s a fork in the road?

If there’s time, she’ll lay out two or three of the least bad options and let him decide.

“If you go out the door and turn left, you will run into Control. She will figure out you’re tied to me, and she will take you prisoner. She will almost certainly torture you, to get you to give me up. Adam and Ashley will meet up with my other assets, and they will rescue you, but the chances of their success are very slim. There is a five percent chance, at best, that you will survive. It varies, depending on how quickly the others can mobilize.”

“Okay,” he says, and swallows. “And...and Adam and Ashley, will they...?”

“They have better than even odds of surviving.”

“Okay,” he says again. “What else?”

“Turn right,” she says. “You’ll run into the demon who held you captive.”

“Meg?”

“Yes.”

That’s not so bad, he thinks. Meg didn’t torture him too much, and she wanted him kept alive.

“Control will capture Root instead,” she continues. “Sameen and the others will attempt to rescue her. Adam and Ashley will pursue you.”

Control capturing Root, on the other hand, seems like a very bad thing. Still...

“Adam and Ashley?”

“About the same,” she says. “But there is another concern.”

“Okay.”

“If Meg takes you, there’s a chance she’ll find me. And if she does, it’s extremely likely that someone less friendly will, as well. There is also an approximately 17% chance that you’ll wind up in Crowley’s hands instead of Meg’s. And his chances of finding me are a lot stronger.”

Yeah, no. That cannot happen.

“Are there any other options?” he asks.

She pauses for a split second. “Turn right,” she says. “Then at the first hallway, turn left instead of going straight. I’ll have to leave you then--there are several Decima soldiers, but if you manage to get past them on your own, you’ll find Sam and Dean Winchester.”

It hits him like a punch to the gut.

“Your chances of reaching them without my help are better than your chances of surviving Control,” the Machine continues, “but not by much. If you can get there, though, they most likely won’t harm you.”

Unless I’m in full-access mode, Nick thinks, and shivers a little.

“And I can say with approximately 97% certainty that, when Adam and Ashley find you, they won’t harm them, either. I cannot say the same for the demons or Control.”

“They won’t hurt us physically,” Nick finally manages to say. “But I can’t...I-I-I don’t know how I’ll...I can’t shut down, not in here. A-and I don’t know how Sam will react to seeing me, I’ll probably seriously fuck with his head a-and I can’t...I can’t...”

(there’s this running refrain in his head, that Sam Winchester is perfect, and that Nick is the reason that everything goes wrong.)

(the Machine regrets even more not getting Nick more help.)

He takes a shaky breath. “Plus, I don’t know if Adam’s ready for that yet,” he says. “He hasn’t...uh, he hasn’t said anything about wanting to track them down.”

“That’s true.”

He’s quiet for another minute.

“Nick?”

“...I’ll take my chances with Control,” he says.

“I understand,” she says. “Thank you. And I’m sorry.”

(It’s not what she would have advised him to do, necessarily--she would have advised him to try for Sam and Dean; it balances protecting her with protecting the majority of her assets.)

“Directions?” he says.

“Open the door and turn left.”

She guides him down the hallway, advises him where to dodge, where to strike. He picks up a gun at one point--

(he’s hesitant, and she reminds him “you’re in Control’s world now, you have to play by her rules.”)

He gets to the inevitable trap, where ISA corners him and Control is there.

She recognizes, pretty quickly, that he’s in God Mode.

“...now just who the hell are you?”

On the other side of the facility, Ashley’s phone rings.

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

The Machine also advises Root that Nick has been captured.

She and Finch have finished neutralizing the potential ASI drives; Reese and Shaw are with them; Carter and Fusco are currently working on securing their exit route, after driving off a handful of Vigilance mooks.

“We need to move,” Root says. “Control has Nick. Adam and Ashley will meet us.”

Reese nods once. “Lionel, Joss, get ready. We’re headed your way.”

“Copy that,” Carter says. “Fusco--”

“On it.”

Meg has realized that Crowley is here, so she’s now in the process of finding her own exit. He’s in pursuit.

Sam and Dean got all turned around and manage to get to just the right hallway at just the right time to see Adam and Ashley piling onto an elevator.

“...Dean,” Sam says. “Dean, tell me you’re seeing what I’m seeing.”

(he doesn’t press his hand. he hasn’t hallucinated in almost two years, he doesn’t need to--)

“Adam?” Dean calls.

Adam half turns to them, hesitates for half a second, then follows Ashley into the elevator and the door slides shut.

...and I’ll admit I don’t have a whole lot planned out beyond that. Also this is getting, like, super long. So, quick wrapup, so to speak.

So, Team Machine, plus Adam and Ashley go to rescue Nick.

Sam and Dean track them down.

Adam goes to talk to them, try and get them to back off.

“I have to go rescue my friend,” he says. “But once I’m done with that, we can talk. I promise. We’ll set up a meeting and I’ll tell you...as much as I remember, I guess. But right now, I have to go rescue my friend. Kind of on a clock here.”

“We’ll help,” Sam offers.

“This isn’t really your kind of thing,” Adam says. “This isn’t monsters, this is the ISA.”

“The what now?” Dean asks.

“Like the CIA, but on steroids.”

“...how the hell did you get involved in CIA bullshit?” Dean asks.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Adam says. “Which I will tell you, once my friend is safe. So can you please just...let me do this first?”

“How did...” Sam asks. “How did you get out?”

“Also a long story,” Adam says. “But I’m the only one who came out, I swear. And...” He hesitates. “They...mostly left me alone, after you were gone. If you were worried about that.”

(Sam hadn’t been, mostly because he had been Very Firmly Not Thinking About Adam for a while now, but he’s relieved to hear it.)

Reese steps out. Possibly holding his grenade launcher. “Come on, Adam, we gotta go.”

“Coming,” Adam says, then turns back to Sam and Dean. “I will call you as soon as we’re clear. I promise. Don’t follow us, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, he follows Reese and they go to rescue Nick.

(Obviously, S&D don’t listen and do, in fact, follow Adam, but I’m not 100% sure where that would go.)

(Other than they do, in fact, manage to extract Nick alive, but it’s a near thing.)

(The fun thing here is, Control actually can’t break Nick. Well, she can’t get him to tell her anything about the Machine, anyway.)

(Yes, everyone has their breaking point so far as pain/torture goes, and Nick is no exception.)

(But he will physically break--i.e., die--before he mentally breaks.)

(And while psychological torture would be a lot more effective, she doesn’t know what buttons to push.)

(When she runs his prints/whatever, she gets the name Jacob White, which is an identity that Finch put together for him, for when he needed to interact with the real world. Since his own identity is...complicated.)

(Yes, that is a reference.)

(I couldn’t resist.)

(Also, the Machine, through Root, gets to deliver her verbal bitchslap to Control at last.)

Uh....yeah. That’s all the actual Plot I have at this point. But some other notes!

My girl Zoe is totally in the know. She may or may not have encountered Bela at some point, or found out some other way, but she does know.

(She never told Harold and John because--well, honestly, why would she? Her stock in trade is secrets, after all. And it never came up, and she wasn’t involved with Nick’s first adventure.)

Elias will turn up at some point. And basically become something like John Marcone, if any of y’all are familiar with the Dresden Files.

Bear’s Plot Armor may be some kind of magic, and I would not be surprised if he could take on a Hellhound and win.

Carter and Jody. Just...just Carter and Jody, man.

Like I said, Shaw gets her hands on an angel blade at some point. She and Dean probably bond. I feel like they would bond.

Also, I think Dean gets put into God Mode at some point. Possibly as his first real introduction to the Machine.

Like...IDK, he and Sam are with Nick for some reason, Nick, as implied above, cannot go into God Mode in front of the two of them, and honestly Sam going into God Mode in front of him would also be pretty devastating, so...Dean’s phone gets to ring!

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

“...the fuck?”

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

“Yes, I can--what the fuck is--”

“Two. O’clock.”

::turns and OHSHIT just in time::

IDK the idea just entertains me.

...yep, I think that’s it.

If you’re still here, thank you for putting up with my nonsense/checking this out.

Tune in next time, for an actual serious AU outline of some kind.

(....who am I kidding, these things are never serious XD)

[bloodpacks-archive]

Libraries and Ice Cream

Word Count: 2.3k

Summary: Peter sees a girl in the library while he’s studying, he immediately decides that he needs to talk to her.

Warnings: None? Maybe one swear word? It’s honestly kind of cute all the way. Oh and also my bad writing

Note: I’m really worried that Ned and Peter are kind of OOC and like yikes if they are I’m soooo sorry. Also, so sorry that I haven’t been active like at all these past few days, I was completely slammed with homework and volleyball, then I had a tournament yesterday. I’ll try to push out as much as I can today! This isn’t my best work but I hope you guys enjoy it! Leave feedback please! And feel free to request some stuff!

Peter and Ned had arranged to meet in the library. This was fairly normal for them before the Stark internship began, and Peter was hoping to bring back old traditions that had since been lost. Besides, Peter had a Spanish test tomorrow and was going to need help studying. Peter walked into the book-filled room, the smell of tattered pages and wood that had been wearing away filled his lungs. Libraries were a surprisingly relaxing place for Peter, he liked to be able to sit in the quiet and stuff his nose into a book without a care in the world. Today, however, he would be in possession of quite a few reasons to care. Lately, the conjugations kept getting mixed up in his head and ser vs estar was tripping him up. Only studying was going to be able to save him at this point.

Peter spotted Ned across the room, sitting at a table with a laptop in front of him, presumably writing his English paper that was due the next day. Peter slid into the chair next to him, making Ned jump.

“Man you cannot sneak up on me like that! What if I made a typo and forgot to fix it?” Ned asked, feigned panic in his voice. Peter let out a quiet chuckle before pulling out his Spanish textbook.

“I’m sure you would have figured it out, Ned.”

With that, they both returned to the silence of studying, occasionally asking for help on a paragraph or asking which conjugation was correct. Half an hour had passed before they both decided they needed a break. Peter shut his textbook and Ned followed in suit with his laptop. They sat there, discussing the latest news for the new Star Wars movie when something, or rather someone, caught Peter’s eye.

“Wait, hold up, hold up. Ned, who is that?” Peter asked, leaning to his right in order to get a better look at this mystery girl. He studied her every feature from afar. Her y/h/c hair fell perfectly around her face which was currently hunched over some textbook. Her navy blue sweater hung loosely off of her frame, and she had the sleeves pulled over her hands which were holding her head up as her eyes flitted across the pages. Ned turned to get a glance at what Peter was looking at.

“Oh that’s y/n. She’s new. I’m pretty sure I saw her walk into a few of your classes, did you seriously not notice her? She’s like, gorgeous,” Ned said, looking back to glance at her again.

“I was probably distracted or doing my work, I don't know! But I need to talk to her,” Peter decided, breaking eye contact with Ned to look at her again.

“Yeah, ok. Like that’ll ever happen,” Ned mumbled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Whatever you think it means, man.” Ned began to pack up his things, silently stuffing them into his backpack.

“Hey, hey, hey, where are you going?” Peter asked, putting his arms out to stop Ned from continuing to put stuff away.

“You seem a little preoccupied, I figured we were done,” He answered matter-of-factly. Ned packed the rest of his stuff and began to walk away. Peter called out to him softly before sighing and putting his textbook away, then grabbing his bag and following Ned. He did, however, take one last look back at the mystery girl, whom he could now call y/n.

————————

The next day, Peter sat in his Spanish class. He had finished the test early, left to sit and stare at the clock to his left. He went through his answers in his mind, cursing himself once in a while when he realized he had misspelled something or forgot an accent. He looked around the room and at the people who still had their heads down, pencils making vigorous scratching noises as they frantically raced against time to finish their tests. He glanced at the clock again, five minutes left. Peter continued scanning the room, until his eyes got caught on magnificent y/e/c ones that stared directly at him. A blush crept up Peter’s neck and he looked away, suddenly taking great interest in the markings on his desk. When Peter looked up again, y/n smiled at him before directing her gaze towards the clock. He admired the shape of her nose, the cut of her jaw as she looked to the side, the way her- the bell ringing cut him off. Peter quickly grabbed his bag and speed walked in order to catch up to y/n.

“H-hey, y/n, right?” Peter stuttered out, y/n turned her head to look at him before smiling.

“Oh? Yeah, yeah. I know Pedro’s your Spanish name, but what’s your real name, Parker?” She flirted, casually flashing a smile at him. Peter could have sworn his heart melted right there. He loved the way his last name rolled off her tongue, could listen to her voice for years on end.

“Parker?” She asked again, laughing softly when he came back to reality.

“O-oh r-right. I’m Peter. What class do you have next?” Peter asked, desperately trying to regain some of his composure.

“I’m actually heading to lunch now, and you?” She reached up to flip her hair to the other side and Peter’s heart fluttered.

“S-same actually. W-why don’t you sit with my friends and I?”

“As great as that’d be, I promised some girl’s that I’d sit with them today. Said they’d help me figure my way around the school. Thank you, though,” She reached up to Peter’s bicep and gave it a light squeeze as a thank you before walking off to talk with the group of girls he had presumed she was sitting with today. As she walked away, Peter finally became aware of his heart rate speeding up and the fact that his entire body was shaking. He exhaled and continued walking to the lunchroom. Determined to tell Ned about what he just did.

Peter stumbled into the lunchroom, his legs still shaky from talking to y/n, and the constant pushing and shoving of his fellow classmates didn’t help his situation. He practically ran over to Ned, his chest bursting with excitement.

“She’s in my Spanish,” Peter rushed out as soon as Ned was within range.

“What? Who?” Ned asked, looking uninterested as he continued to eat his food.

“The new girl! Y/n. Gosh she’s just- she’s so amazing!” Peter gushed, using wild gestures to show his excitement.

“Ok but like, did you even talk to her? Or did you just creepily stare at her from across the room?” Ned deadpanned, still seemingly more focused on his own problems, such as his english paper, rather than what Peter had to say.

“I actually talked to her! And she like, talked back! We had an actual conversation and oh my gosh she was so perfect and amazing,” Peter said, leaning back and putting his hands over his eyes. A smile had taken over all of his face, and Ned sighed at the sight of it. His best friend was entirely gone for this girl. That being said, Ned couldn’t help the grin that covered his face when he saw Peter like that.

“Just don’t ditch this one at homecoming, alright?” Ned joked. This brought Peter out of his state of daydream.

“That was one time!” Peter defended. Ned simply hummed smugly in response.

————————

It was only a few hours before Peter saw her again, this time it was in his last hour of the day, English. When he saw her, he casually took his spot next to her. He wondered to himself how the hell he didn’t notice this girl next to him yesterday, but simply reduced it down to stress.

“Hey,” Peter whispered, leaning towards the girl slightly.

“Oh! Hey Peter. I didn’t realize we had this class together,” She said, sending a beaming smile his way.

“If I’m honest, I didn’t either. I was sort of preoccupied with the Spanish test that we had today,” Peter responded, quieting down as the teacher walked in. Y/n made a groaning noise, before rolling her eyes.

“That was so hard! I thought they were going to give me some slack for it being my second day here but, apparently not,” She whispered, clear annoyance in her voice. She shook it off though, going back to smiling softly at Peter.

“Ms. Y/l/n! Mr. Parker! Could you two please quiet down? I’m trying to teach a class, in case you haven’t noticed,” Ms. Robertson said, giving the two of them a pleading look. Peter nodded before returning to sitting normally in his desk, facing towards the board and away from y/n. However, that didn’t keep him from stealing a glance at her whenever he got the chance.

It was halfway through class when a small, folded piece of paper landed on Peter’s desk. He opened it to find a phone number neatly scribbled on the inside. On top of the paper, in loopy handwriting was y/n’s name with a heart doodled next to it. Peter looked over to see her expression, only to find that she was hiding her face from him with her right hand, carefully scribbling notes into her notebook. Peter smiled and shook his head to himself before putting the note into his pocket to be used later.

It would be three hours later when she got a text from Peter.

Wanna go out for ice cream later? Maybe study for a bit?

While she wouldn’t ever admit it out loud, the blush that covered her face when she received that text was like wildfire. She had only known Peter for a day, but there was definitely more she wanted to know about him. There was something about him that just made him magnetic, like they were at least meant to know each other. When she had first seen him in Spanish yesterday, brow furrowed as the teacher spoke endless sentences that seemed to muddle together, she couldn’t help but smile.

I’d love that, Peter. What time and where?

Half and Hour? Oddfellows?

Make it an hour and we’ve got a deal

Very well. See you then

Y/n got ready as fast as she possibly could, touching up her makeup and flattening out the dress she was been wearing today. She grabbed her sweater before heading out the door, heart fluttering in her chest and stomach doing flips.

When she reached the ice cream shop, she saw Peter waiting outside, arms crossed and him bouncing up and down. She walked over, shyly smiling at him as she walked closer. Peter’s eyes lit up when he saw her, and he opened the door to allow her to walk in first. Y/n blushed and ducked in, taking in the red and white color scheme that surrounded them. Peter took in the look of wonder that painted her face, smiling at the way her eyes scanned every corner of the room, not wanting to miss a single spot.

“Come on, what do you want?” Peter asked, placing his hand on the small of her back and leading her over to the counter. Y/n pondered over her choices before eventually deciding on strawberry. Peter told her to go find them a seat while he waited for both of their orders. When Peter returned, he placed y/n’s ice cream in front of her, then took his seat across from her.

“You look absolutely beautiful, you know that right?” Peter said, smirking at y/n. She blushed, and smiled down at her ice cream.

“Where’d this sudden burst of confidence come from, Parker? When you first talked to me you could barely speak,” She teased, eating a spoonful of ice cream. Peter laughed before shrugging.

“Blame the ice cream. It has magical effects.” Y/n let out a soft laugh and looked up to see Peter beaming with pride.

The two of you talked about both everything, and nothing while eating your ice cream. When your bowls were emptied and the small shop began to contain more space than people, the two both agreed to leave. He walked her home in the warm April day, smiling as he looked at the trees beginning to bud. When the two arrived at her house, he stood at the doorstep, watching the girl walk in with a smile plastered on his face. She blushed as she looked back at him. The porch lights reflected off of her, casting a golden light everywhere she went.

“You’re glowing, darling,” He said, leaning on the pillar in front of the steps. Her blush became deeper, the golden hue of the light highlighting it. As she closed the door, she gave him a fleeting smile.

“I’ll see you later, Peter,” She said softly, just barely audible for Peter. Peter stared at the door, half hoping that she would come back out and kiss him. However, the door stood closed and unmoving. As Peter walked away, butterflies rose in his stomach and an electric smile crossed his face. It wasn’t long after the date that Spider-Man was seen swinging about the buildings of Queens, sounds of elation flowing with every swing.

Behind the closed door, y/n was leaning against it, hands on her face and a feeling of overwhelming happiness coating her entire being. She let out a soft laugh as she went up to her room. For once in her life, she couldn’t wait for school on Monday.

[multiverseforger]

Lincoln march aka owlman prime earth

BATMAN WIKI

BATMAN WIKI

Lincoln March



GENERAL INFORMATION

REAL NAME:

Unknown

FIRST APPEARANCE:

Batman #1 (September 2011)

CREATED BY:

Scott Snyder

AFFILIATIONS:

Bruce Wayne

March Ventures

Court of Owls

The Talons

Lincoln March was a mayoral candidate and the C.O.O. of March Ventures. In reality he is a rogue member of the Court of Owls who believes himself to be Bruce Wayne's presumed-dead brother, Thomas Wayne Jr..

Lincoln serves as the mainstream continuity version of the villainous alternate reality Anti-Batman, Owlman. Thomas' belief in being Thomas Wayne Jr. reflects how the most popular Owlman is his world's Thomas Wayne Jr..

History

The Court of Owls

Lincoln March is a current candidate for Gotham City Mayor and supporter of Bruce Wayne's vision of a new revitalized Gotham.

Lincoln lost his parents in his youth. He doesn't remember the face of his mother very well but he still remembers the pin she was wearing the day of the accident. He had made the pin for her at school in ceramics. It was a little heart with one side bigger than the other side. Both of his parents died in a car accident where the other driver was drunk. After that, he was hopeless. After school he went to college and "Gotham saved him".

Lincoln March is now the C.O.O. of March Ventures and he underwrote Leslie Thompkins satellite clinic on the east side of Gotham City.

After an assassination attempt at Wayne Industries (of both himself and Bruce Wayne), Bruce visits him in hospital and learns that Lincoln March has not only heard whispers about the Court of Owls existence but had also had his life threatened by them. He warns Bruce not to discount them just because he's never seen them before because the greatest danger can sometimes be under your feet and you don't realize it.

City of Owls

It is later revealed that Lincoln March was a member of the Court of Owls. However, Lincoln has betrayed the founding members by calling an emergency meeting and poisoning all the members that arrived, then siphoned off all of their money into his accounts.

When Batman finally catches up to Lincoln in Gotham's abandoned Children's Hospital, Lincoln reveals that the court rescued him from the children’s hospital, not due to his natural talents, but rather his family blood line. Lincoln reveals that in fact he is Bruce Wayne's younger brother Thomas Wayne Jr., explaining that when Bruce was three years old, a pregnant Martha Wayne was involved in a car crash. Due to the crash, Martha went into labor early. It was discovered that Lincoln had sustained substantial injuries due to the crash. As a result, the Wayne’s placed Lincoln into the best hospital money could buy. When Lincoln was 4, he made Martha the heart shaped pendant that she is wearing in the painting hanging above Bruce's fireplace. However, the very next year, Thomas and Martha were murdered. They died with the secret that Lincoln was their son. Without the Wayne fortune financing the hospital Lincoln was in, it fell into the hands of Gotham City. Once it was under new, corrupt management, Lincoln and all the other patients were subjected to abuse, malnutrition and neglect.

Lincoln has placed the blame of his parent’s death squarely on Bruce's shoulders, vowing to avenge their deaths by killing Bruce and taking his rightful place as a Wayne.  Additionally, Batman noted that without a proper DNA analysis, it is impossible to know if March's claims about his lineage are actually true.

Batman Eternal

Lincoln would become a benefactor for the C-D tier super-villain Arthur Brown AKA The Cluemaster in a scheme to destroy Batman. Lincoln used Brown as his puppet to make schemes revolving around having minor villains wreak havoc on Gotham while systematically seperating the bat-family and even framing Commissioner Gordon.

When Cluemaster finally had Batman incapacitated on the roof of the GCPD building, he was going to shoot Bruce dead before Lincoln murdered Arthur in his place. Bruce managed to take this time to use his last remaining energy to charge at Lincoln, knocking them off of the rooftop which they survived thanks to rockets in the Talon suit.

After this, the two found themselves surrounded by the entire Bat-Family which beat Lincoln down. After this, the Court of Owls would return to take March's body and place it in cryonic storage as punishment for his treachery and in-case they needed him some other day.

Joker War

The Joker would go on to awaken Lincoln from cryo-stasis following the Court's destruction at the hands of the Batman who Laughs. With no Court to serve, Lincoln would join Joker's, "army" (which is somewhat strange considering how Lincoln didn't even serve the court itself).

Powers, Skills & Equipment

Talon Serum Infusion: The Talon Serum altered his metabolism to have fierce regenerative abilities which makes him nearly-immortal. It also enhanced his natural strength, stamina & speed.

Martial Arts: He has displayed martial artistic prowess which would require rigorous training. Although he is nowhere near Batman's skills.

Political Skills: He has shown superior political skills, especially in "the very halls of power". He is also a master of manipulation, as he was also able to manipulate Batman.

Talon Exoskeleton: The Talon armor gave him superhuman strength, superhuman speed, superhuman durability, life-support systems & energy blasts. It also has retractable claws, hidden blades & other retractable blades, which enhance his combat abilities. He also has a large supply of throwing knives, grappling hooks & other bladed weaponry for combat situations

[harmonicatabs]

Introduction to Chromatic harmonicas

New Post has been published on https://harmonicatabs.net/introduction-to-chromatic-harmonicas/

Introduction to Chromatic harmonicas

The chromatic harmonica is a type of harmonica that uses a button-activated sliding bar to redirect air from the hole in the mouthpiece to the selected reed-plate desired. When the button is not pressed, an altered diatonic major scale of the key of the harmonica is available, while depressing the button accesses the same scale a semitone higher in each hole. Thus, the instrument is capable of playing the 12 notes of the Western chromatic scale. The chromatic harmonica can thus be contrasted with a standard harmonica, which can play only the notes in a given musical key.

Famously accomplished chromatic harmonica players include classical players Larry Adler, Tommy Reilly, Sigmund Groven, and Willi Burger, jazz players Toots Thielemans, Gregoire Maret, Yvonnick Prene, Hendrik Meurkens, and William Galison, and popular musicians Norton Buffalo and Stevie Wonder.

Chromatic harmonicas are usually 12, 14 or 16 holes long. The 12-hole chromatic is available in 12 keys, but because the entire chromatic scale is available by definition, most professionals stick with the key of C—which is perhaps easier to remember, since slide in will automatically be the sharps of the associated note.

Chromatic harmonicas are traditionally tuned to solo tuning, which has a similar layout to the diatonic’s Richter tuning except that it eliminates the G on the draw and doubles the Cs that are not on the ends of the instrument. In the standard 12-hole chromatic in C the lowest note is middle C, while 16-hole variants start one octave lower. For the 16-hole variant, the layout is usually as follows. Note that the “D” in the last key-in draw note is common, though by no means present in all chromatic harmonicas.

Introduction to Chromatic harmonicas

Contents

1 Advantages

2 Disadvantages

3 Slider design

4 Alternative tunings

5 Chromatic Harmonica Solo Tuning Layouts

5.1 The 12 hole Chromatic Harmonica

5.2 The 16 hole Chromatic Harmonica

5.3 The 14 hole Chromatic Harmonica

blowCEGCCEGCCEGCCEGCkey outdrawDFABDFABDFABDFAB 1 aa1′2 2′3 3′4 4′5 16 27 38 49 510 611 712 813 914 1015 1116 12blowC♯FG♯C♯C♯FG♯C♯C♯FG♯C♯C♯FG♯C♯key indrawD♯F♯A♯CD♯F♯A♯CD♯F♯A♯CD♯F♯A♯D

Advantages

Because it is a fully chromatic instrument, the chromatic harmonica is the instrument of choice in jazz and classical music.] The “solo tuning” layout repeats itself at each octave, which simplifies playing in different octaves and keys in contrast to the Richter tuning system. Also, due to the windsavers on the low and mid-range holes, it can bend notes on both blow and draw notes, giving additional tonality if needed. In traditional harmonica bands, the chromatic harmonica plays the lead part.

Stock chromatics are well suited for players who play chromatics in third position traditional Chicago Blues, and benefit from having a selection of keys.

Disadvantages

While the chromatic harmonica is capable of playing in all keys, it does have limitations. For example, while chromatic harmonicas can “bend” notes down in pitch, as a single-reed bend it sounds quite different from the typical dual-reed bend of a blues harp, and can only bend downward by a semi-tone. Furthermore, unless the windsavers are removed, chromatic harmonicas cannot “overblow” except on the upper four holes. However, dual-reed bends and overblows are possible on slideless chromatic harmonicas, as the Tombo S-50.

Perhaps more importantly, the number of chords, double-stops, and legato phrasings available is limited, unless the harmonica is retuned from standard tuning; the lack of a G on the draw makes it impossible to play the G chords available on a Richter-tuned device. Thus, while a chromatic harmonica is well-suited for playing lead or melody, diatonic harmonicas have a greater advantage when playing harmony or accompaniment.

As the chromatic harmonica is designed to play melodies in any key, many 16-hole and special version chromatic are only made in the key of C. Because of this, there are many approaches to get over the limits of the chromatic harmonica: the first and the most common approach, encouraged mainly by classical music players (such as Franz Chmel), is that a good harmonica player should try his or her best to use the chromatic in the key of C; some even discourage switching to other keys. An alternative approach is to have several keys and play them as if playing key of F on a key of C. Although it still requires being able to play over complex changes, modulating and so forth, it enables the player to focus more on the music. Another approach is using altered tunings such as Diminished, which requires learning to play three (or four) patterns and then be able to play in all keys.

Chromatic harmonicas tend to be significantly more expensive than their diatonic counterparts—with a typical chromatic harmonica selling at a price that is up to ten times higher than a simple diatonic harmonica. Chromatic harmonicas produced by reputable companies (such as Hohner, Seydel, and Suzuki) can cost hundreds of US dollars.

Slider design

Chromatic harmonicas are often described as either “straight tuned” or “cross tuned”. This refers to the way the slider is shaped to isolate the reed set being played at a given position (button “in” or button “out”). Traditionally the chromatic was “straight tuned” and the slider selected either the upper reed-plate (button out) or the lower reed-plate (button in). In the later half of the 20th century a new system came into use in which the slider played the upper and lower reed-plates at the same time, staggered by which hole (thus with the button out the player might play the upper reed-plate in hole 1, the lower reed-plate in hole 2, and then the upper again in hole 3 and so forth; pressing the button reversed this). This allows for a larger hole in the slider, and thus presumably more air gets through, allowing a louder volume. The two methods co-exist with some companies and players preferring one style and others another.

There are at least two other types of slider design as well. The first one has holes side-by-side with each other in the slider, thus opening only the left side of the chamber or the right side depending on button position. The Renaissance chromatic uses this design, which is claimed to mix the larger hole of a cross-tuned design with an even shorter movement than in straight tuned sliders. The simple way of doing this is to construct the harmonica more like a traditional Richter diatonic whereas the standard chromatic design shares more in common with the Knittlinger octave harmonicas. Note, however, the Renaissance uses a complex comb design to achieve their slider design. The second type of alternative design is found mostly in East Asia and is based more along the traditional Weiner tremolo construction. Here each reed is isolated in its own cell within the comb and the slider selects a single reed at a time rather than a cell containing both blow and draw reeds. The Tombo Ultimo is an example of this type of chromatic.

Finally, there are also several types of non-slide chromatic instruments available, particularly in Asia, such as the horn harmonica, as well as Tombo’s S-50, Tombo’s Chromatic Violin Range, and others. Tombo Chromatic Violin Range (three and a half octaves), as well as S-50 (three octaves) use the tremolo scale tuning system (but with only one-reed): in essence it is a C♯ tremolo harmonica sitting on top of a C tremolo harmonica, with blow and draw reeds each sitting in a single cell. The player switches between a top row tuned to C♯ and a bottom tuned to C by changing the angle of the harmonica.

Alternative tunings

Like diatonic harmonicas, chromatics are available in numerous tunings. However, there are three more popular versions: one is Irish tuning, whereby notes are flattened (instead of sharpened) when the slide is in. This makes playing Irish music and, to a certain extent, blues, easier, since Irish music is commonly played in either the key of D or key of G.

The use of C, with no sharps or flats, and B, with all flats, allows common Irish modes to be played while the downward-tuning slide allows ornamentation in keeping with the Irish tradition. Irish tuning can be achieved easily by reversing the slide (flipping the slide upside down) of a chromatic in the key of B major; alternatively, one can use the B major as is, but with slide-in as the home position.

blowCEGCCEGCCEGCCEGCkey outdrawDFABDFABDFABDFAB1′2′3′4′123456789101112blowBE♭G♭BBE♭G♭BBE♭G♭BBE♭G♭Bkey indrawD♭EA♭B♭D♭EA♭B♭D♭EA♭B♭D♭EA♭B♭

Another variant is bebop tuning, which is done by tuning the redundant C/C♯ in holes 4′, 4, 8, and 12 blow into a B♭/B pair. This allows playing chords in the key of F, as well as playing a C7 chord.

blowCEGB♭CEGB♭CEGB♭CEGB♭key outdrawDFABDFABDFABDFAB1′2′3′4′123456789101112blowC♯FG♯BC♯FG♯BC♯FG♯BC♯FG♯Bkey indrawD♯F♯A♯CD♯F♯A♯CD♯F♯A♯CD♯F♯A♯C

Another popular version of alternative tuning is classical tuning, which is done by switching between the blow and draw of the fourth hole of each octave:

blowCEGBCEGBCEGBCEGBkey outdrawDFACDFACDFACDFAC1′2′3′4′123456789101112blowC♯FG♯CC♯FG♯CC♯FG♯CC♯FG♯Ckey indrawD♯F♯A♯C♯D♯F♯A♯C♯D♯F♯A♯C♯D♯F♯A♯C♯

This easily allows Imaj7 and IIm7 chords, as well as many others, to be played–a benefit for various musical styles.

Another tuning is minor tuning for natural and harmonic minor Im7 and IIdim7 normal position.

blowCE♭GB♭CE♭GB♭CE♭GB♭CE♭GB♭key outdrawDFA♭BDFA♭BDFA♭BDFA♭B1′2′3′4′123456789101112blowC♯EG♯BC♯EG♯BC♯EG♯BC♯EG♯Bkey indrawD♯F♯ACD♯F♯ACD♯F♯ACD♯F♯AC

Chromatic Harmonica Solo Tuning Layouts

Some 12 hole harmonica brands are available in a range of keys:LowestTenor C, D, Eb, E, F, G, A, Bb, B, middle CHighestThe highest tuned stock chromatic harmonica is the regular C starting on middle C (similar range to a concerto flute), and the lowest stock chromatic harmonica is the Tenor C (a semitone lower in range than an Alto Eb Saxophone). Stock 16 hole Chromatic Harmonicas are only available in key of C starting on C below middle C, the same starting note as a Tenor C 12 hole chrom. Stock 14 hole Chromatic Harmonicas are only available in key of C starting on G below middle C, the same starting note as a key of G 12 hole chrom, but with the same layout as a C chromatic harmonica.

In Western music theory there are only 12 chromatic notes in an octave, so there are four enharmonics which are not shown in these tables:

Fb which is the same note as E

E# which is the same note as F

Cb which is the same note as B

B# which is the same note as C

You can read more about music theory on this website.

The 12 hole Chromatic Harmonica

Key of C and C Tenor

Hole          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112Blow, Slide In  C#F G#C#C#F G#C#C#F G#C#Blow, Slide Out C E G C C E G C C E G C Draw, Slide Out D F A B D F A B D F A B Draw, Slide In  D#F#A#C D#F#A#C D#F#A#D 

Key of D

Hole          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112Blow, Slide In  D#G A#D#D#G A#D#D#G A#D#Blow, Slide Out D F#A D D F#A D D F#A D Draw, Slide Out E G B C#E G B C#E G B C#Draw, Slide In  F G#C D F G#C D F G#C E 

Key of Eb

Hole          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112Blow, Slide In  E AbB E E AbB E E AbB E Blow, Slide Out EbG BbEbEbG BbEbEbG BbEbDraw, Slide Out F AbC D F AbC D F AbC D Draw, Slide In  GbA DbEbGbA DbEbGbA DbF 

Key of E

Hole          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112Blow, Slide In  FA C FFA C FFA C FBlow, Slide Out E G#B E E G#B E E G#B E Draw, Slide Out F#A C#D#F#A C#D#F#A C#D#Draw, Slide In  G A#D E G A#D E G A#D F#

Key of F

Hole          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112Blow, Slide In  GbBbDbGbGbBbDbGbGbBbDbGbBlow, Slide Out F AC F F AC F F AC F Draw, Slide Out G BbD E G BbD E G BbD E Draw, Slide In  AbB EbF AbB EbF AbB EbG 

Key of G

Hole          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112Blow, Slide In  G#C D#G#G#C D#G#G#C D#G#Blow, Slide Out G B D G G B D G G B D G Draw, Slide Out A C E F#A C E F#A C E F#Draw, Slide In  A#C#F G A#C#F G A#C#F A 

Key of A

Hole          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112Blow, Slide In  A#D F A#A#D F A#A#D F A#Blow, Slide Out A C#E A A C#E A A C#E A Draw, Slide Out B D F#G#B D F#G#B D F#G#Draw, Slide In  C D#G A C D#G A C D#G B 

Key of Bb

Hole          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112Blow, Slide In  B EbGbB B EbGbB B EbGbB Blow, Slide Out BbD F BbBbD F BbBbD F BbDraw, Slide Out C EbG A C EbG A C EbG A Draw, Slide In  DbE AbBbDbE AbBbDbE AbC 

Key of B

Hole          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112Blow, Slide In  C E G C C E G C C E G C Blow, Slide Out B D#F#B B D#F#B B D#F#B Draw, Slide Out C#E G#A#C#E G#A#C#E G#A#Draw, Slide In  D F A B D F A B D F A C#

The 16 hole Chromatic Harmonica

A 16 hole Chromatic Harmonica in key of C major has the following note layout

Hole           1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111213141516Alternative    °1°2°3°41 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112Blow, Slide In  C#F G#C#C#F G#C#C#F G#C#C#F G#C#Blow, Slide OutC E G C C E G C C E G C C E G C Draw, Slide OutD F A B D F A B D F A B D F A B Draw, Slide In  D#F#A#C D#F#A#C D#F#A#C D#F#A#D 

Hole one blow is C below middle C, so the next set of C’s are middle C. On some 16 hole harps the first octave holes are numbered 1 to 4 with dots above them, then the remaining holes are numbered 1 to 12. Other 16 hole chroms are numbered from 1 to 16. It depends on the make, model and production date.

The 14 hole Chromatic Harmonica

A 14 hole Chromatic Harmonica in key of C major has the following note layout

Hole           1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011121314Alternative    ° °°1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112Blow, Slide In  G#C#C#F G#C#C#F G#C#C#F G#C#Blow, Slide OutG C C E G C C E G C C E G C Draw, Slide OutA B D F A B D F A B D F A B Draw, Slide In  A#C D#F#A#C D#F#A#C D#F#A#D 

Hole one blow is G below middle C, so the first set of C’s are middle C. On some 14 hole harps the first two holes are not numbered at all, then the remaining holes are numbered 1 to 12. Other 14 hole chroms are numbered from 1 to 14. It depends on the make & model.

Source: Internet

[naivelocus]

Evolutionary dynamics of incubation periods

Essential revisions:

1) All the reviewers found the calculations extremely interesting and considered the results to be novel and important. However, there was a shared concern that the connection of these results with the biological phenomenon of the incubation period was not on firm ground. In particular, the assumption that 100% – or close to 100% – of the host cells are infected when symptomatic infection starts was not well-motivated, and the biological plausibility of this assumption was unclear.

We agree, and have addressed this point in a new paragraph added to Results, called “Testing robustness to update rule and truncation.” The relevant sentences are: “For example, suppose we allow symptoms to occur when invaders take over only a fraction f of the whole network. This is a reasonable consideration as leukemic cells need not take over all the bone marrow before leukemia becomes evident, nor does typhoid need to overwhelm all the cells in the microbiome before causing fever; indeed it is likely far fewer in both cases.” Figure 6 (D, E, F) show that the right-skewed distribution persists for Death-birth dynamics, even if only 10% takeover triggers the appearance of symptoms. (Actually, the right-skewed distribution can be proven to persist for any fixed, nonzero fraction f. We cite the relevant math literature in the text.)

On the other hand, Birth-death dynamics are sensitive to the choice of f. They produce a distribution that switches from a Gumbel when f = 100% to a normal distribution for any f less than 100%.

We explain why the two cases differ in the caption to Figure 6. “The difference in sensitivity between the two types of dynamics can be explained intuitively by when coupon collection occurs. […] In contrast, coupon collection occurs near the end of the invasion for Birth-death dynamics (when residents are scarce), and hence gets truncated when f < 1, giving rise to a normal instead of a right-skewed distribution.”

2) We would like to encourage the authors to reconsider the interpretation of their findings. Ideally they should provide a broader a list of biological phenomena (not only incubation periods) that could be described by their model.

We appreciate this helpful suggestion. In response, we have added the following paragraph at the end of the Discussion: “Aside from their possible application to incubation processes, our results also shed light on a broader theoretical question in evolutionary dynamics: when a mutant invades a structured population of residents, how does the distribution of mutant fixation times depend on the network structure of the population? […] We hope that our exact results for disparate topologies and dynamics will stimulate further investigations of these important questions in evolutionary biology.”

3) If they want to strengthen their interpretation of incubation periods, a mechanistic description how the model describes specific diseases is needed along with a discussion of possible caveats.

We have tried to connect the model more closely to specific diseases. In the section of the Results called “Mathematical model,” the relevant passage reads: “A network of N ≫ 1 nodes is used to represent an environment within a host where a pathogenic agent, such as a bacterium or cancer cell, is invading and reproducing. The network could represent several plausible biological scenarios, for example the intestinal microbiome, where harmful typhoid bacteria are competing against a benign resident population of gut flora in a mixing system (modeled as a complete graph); or it could represent mutated leukemic stem-cells vying for space against healthy hematopoietic stem cells within the well-organized three-dimensional bone marrow space (modeled as a 3D lattice); or a flat epithelial sheet with an early squamous cancer compromising and invading nearby healthy cells (modeled as a 2D lattice).”

Regarding possible caveats, we have clarified (in Results, “Mathematical model”) that the model probably does not apply to viruses:

“While Sartwell’s law has been applied to diseases as varied as measles and leukemia, the model we propose makes the most sense for asexually reproducing invaders, like cancer cells or bacteria. […] So, while the general phenomenon of network invasion seems to apply to viruses as well, this model is not well suited to describe their dynamics.”

We also draw a closer connection to cancer dynamics in the Discussion: “On the other hand, it is tempting to speculate that this regime of nearly neutral fitness may be more relevant to cancer development. […] This is also consistent with the suggestion of (Williams and Bjerknes, 1972); the shape of tumors in the model most closely resembled that of real tumors when the fitness of the invaders was only slightly above to neutral.”

4) It would also be of interest to discuss the question of time-varying N (either growing N, or declining N as a result of the pathogen killing host cells). However, following consultation, it was felt that anything more than discussion of this question is beyond the scope of the current work.

We are also interested in the effect of time-varying N, but also agree that a full investigation is outside of the scope of this paper. To give a preliminary sense of what might occur, we have added a new section in the Materials and methods, “Influence of non-static population,” as well as an additional figure (Figure 9). These show the results of an initial exploration of the effects of a non-static population on the complete graph. We specifically examine cases where the resident population has a chance at growing at every time step, shrinking at every time step, and randomly growing or shrinking at each time step.

Reviewer #1:

[…] My primary concerns surround the relatively limited connection back to the biology. The authors consider multiple different possibilities for within-host network connectivity and provide some biological justification for the different topologies (e.g., structured tissue = 3d lattice, epithelium = 2d lattice, etc.); however:

1) The analysis of the Moran model focuses on the time to fixation of the invading allele (i.e. 100% infection of the modeled network); however, immune activation does not wait until 100% of the population is infected but rather activates at a much lower threshold (admittedly again in a stochastic fashion). One of the key findings of this work is that a right-skewed distribution arises due to the "coupon collector problem" where the last few uninfected nodes in the graph can take a long time to be infected, particularly for high-dimensional topologies. However, if the incubation period were to end when, say, any 1% of cells were infected rather than 100%, then the coupon collector problem seems less (or perhaps not at all) relevant.

Please see our response to Essential revisions comment 1.

2) Infection / reproduction in a spatial situation will often happen in parallel rather than serially. The argument that high-dimensional topology may lead to a slow down of the final infections appears predicated on the idea that the rate of infection is constant due to the serial nature of the Moran model – but the overall infection rate presumably increases as a function of the surface area of the infected volume (and analogously for other topologies). Does this really not matter for the distribution of time to fixation? This area is not my specialty, but the theory surrounding Fisher's wave of advance may be relevant.

In the models presented, the overall infection rate does indeed grow with the surface area of the infected population. This has been clarified in Materials and methods, “Birth-death, other solvable networks,” with the following sentences: “For a two-dimensional square lattice, it is more difficult to produce analytical results that are both rigorous and exact. But by making an approximation based on the geometry of the lattice, and using the fact that the population growth rate is proportional to its surface area (see the Appendix, "Normally distributed fixation times for 2D lattice"), we can make a non-rigorous analytical guess about the distribution of the fixation times T.”

This is also elaborated upon in the Appendix, "Normally distributed fixation times for 2D lattice," with: “Assuming this to be true, recall the basic dynamics of infinite-r Bd with N nodes and m invaders. First, we uniformly select one node out of the population of invaders, which is always a probability of 1/m per node. Then we replace one of the invader's neighbors, uniformly at random. However, only invaders on the surface of the cluster even have a chance at replacing a healthy node!

Given sufficient regularity of the boundary of the cluster, this means that the probability of an invader replacing a healthy node is proportional to

qm=1m⋅

3) Many pathogens cause infections in a bursting fashion (e.g., lytic viruses) for which it is not obvious if the Moran model assumption of one random birth / one random death at a time is relevant.

We agree, and we have now clarified (in Results, “Mathematical model”) that the model probably does not apply to viruses: “While Sartwell's law has been applied to diseases as varied as measles and leukemia, the model we propose makes the most sense for asexually reproducing invaders, like cancer cells or bacteria. […] So, while the general phenomenon of network invasion seems to apply to viruses as well, this model is not well suited to describe their dynamics.”

Reviewer #2:

Ottino-Loeffler et al. propose a simple and elegant solution, based on invasion dynamics in structured population, to the interesting observation that incubation periods for a variety of diseases are right-skewed. I found the idea to be very elegant, the text well-written, and overall the arguments to be compelling and easy to follow. I especially liked the interpretation for the dispersal coefficients naturally ranging between certain limits. However, I have a few concerns/questions that I would like to see addressed:

1) In order to apply the ideas of evolutionary graph theory the authors assume that the populations are finite (all graphs have only N nodes); however, this is not always true (certainly not for all the diseases that the authors mention in the abstract and introduction) and I would have liked to have seen from the authors at the very least an acknowledgement of this strong assumption and a discussion of how relaxing this assumption might affect the conclusions. It would be even better (and really interesting) if the authors could pick one example of dynamically-growing network (this should be doable at least for the complete graph) and see how that affects their predictions.

Please see our response to Essential revisions comment 4.

2) The Death-birth (DB) dynamic that the authors employ is actually different from the DB dynamic proposed by Ohtsuki et al. 2006 (unlike the BD dynamic which is the same). Ohtsuki et al. consider death to be random (all nodes have probability 1/N) and birth competition to be among the neighbors, proportional to their fitness. Of course, it's no problem proposing a new variant; I'm just curious whether the authors had a biological reason for choosing this variant of the DB update rule. Especially since they find in their Materials and methods (section on truncation) that the update rule actually matters a lot, a fact that has been observed in evolutionary graph theory more broadly. On that note, I thought this result was sufficiently important that it deserved at least a couple of sentences in the Discussion (rather than just being mentioned in the Materials and methods); I had the same reaction to all the results in that section ("Testing robustness to update rule, fitness, and truncation"), which I thought deserved some mention in the main Discussion.

To clarify this, we have added a feature box (Box 2, “Nomenclature for the Moran Model”), which includes an explanation and table describing and naming the most common Moran models. In particular, we would call the model described by the reviewer “dB,” as opposed to the Db model we used. The relevant sentences are: “To avoid confusion, we use standard abbreviations to distinguish the different models, as illustrated by the table below. […] For example, dB refers to the update rule where the first step uniformly selects a node from the entire population to die, and then one of its neighbors is selected, with probability proportional to fitness, to replace it.”

3) My final point is more a question than a concern: the authors apply this method to in-host dynamics and incubation periods; however, it seems like it could apply to epidemiological questions as well (e.g. spread of flu in a population). Have the authors considered the parallels? Are there any data analogous to incubation periods that could be employed to show the applicability of this model to epidemiological questions as well?

We find this possibility interesting, and have previously considered the parallels. However, a full investigation into the particulars of epidemic dynamics would be beyond the scope of the current paper. Nonetheless a connection can likely be made via evolutionary graph theory, which we mention in a new paragraph added to the Discussion: “Aside from their possible application to incubation processes, our results also shed light on a broader theoretical question in evolutionary dynamics: when a mutant invades a structured population of residents, how does the distribution of mutant fixation times depend on the network structure of the population? […] We hope that our exact results for disparate topologies and dynamics will stimulate further investigations of these important questions in evolutionary biology.”

Reviewer #3:

[...] I am very much in favor of publication of these findings. I do have some questions or concerns regarding the biological interpretation of the paper.

What is the relationship between the model, specifically time to fixation in a Moran process on a graph, and the biological phenomenon of an incubation period. Clarification about the biological motivation for this theoretical framework and for the different update rules could strengthen the paper. In particular, which of the several diseases mentioned in the paper does the model apply to, and why?

Please see our response to Essential revisions comment 3.

Also, clarification regarding the choice of fixation time to quantify the length of the incubation period would strengthen the paper. Lowering the threshold to below 100 percent appears to remove the skew in some instances.

Please see our response to Essential revisions comment 1.

Second, might the distribution of clock times differ from the distribution of step times in the process.

To clarify this important point, we have added a new paragraph to the Results section, “Mathematical model.” The relevant paragraph reads: “Our notion of time in this model is linked directly to the biology of invasion of a reproducing asexual pathogen that divides and replaces other cells sequentially. […] Future iterations of this model could consider deriving an exact scaling between physical time and this biological event-based updating of time.”

Third, certain model choices produce symmetric, rather than skewed, distributions of times to a threshold. I am curious if a more complete investigation of this observation could shed light on the appearance of skewness in different evolutionary scenarios.

This is a fascinating question. A universal condition to ensure the appearance of symmetric distributions is beyond the scope of this paper, but the current conditions appear to involve infinite invader fitness combined with either a low-dimensional network or a truncation condition that avoids the Coupon Collector’s effect.

A final small, technical clarification would help to understand the derivation of skewness when r = 1 at the end of the paper. How is the number of steps which do not change the number of mutants being counted?

For the sake of generality, the specific calculation mentioned here calculates the skew that arises from the random walk alone, not including the waiting times. In the Appendix section “Asymptotic skew of conditioned random walk,” the following sentences have been added to clarify and justify this choice: “We will use the wait-omitted time n in this section as a first-order approximation of the true takeover time. […] Moreover, scaling and numerical arguments based on the results here can show that the bulk of the final distribution is defined by this random-walk process.”

Further, at the end of the fourth paragraph of the subsection “Asymptotic skew of conditioned random walk”, should An(1) be Mn(1)?

Thank you, this has been corrected.

Again I wish to emphasize the great interest and novelty of this work. While some issues associated with the interpretation of the paper remain unclear, I think that the authors will be able to address them by pointing to biological scenarios, perhaps even outside of infection, in which their calculations provide valuable insight.

We have added a paragraph about the model’s wider relevance to evolutionary dynamics: “Aside from their possible application to incubation processes, our results also shed light on a broader theoretical question in evolutionary dynamics: when a mutant invades a structured population of residents, how does the distribution of mutant fixation times depend on the network structure of the population? […] We hope that our exact results for disparate topologies and dynamics will stimulate further investigations of these important questions in evolutionary biology.”

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.30212.020

— eLife recent issues

[topsolarpanels]

Inside the Online School That Could Radically Change How Kids Learn Everywhere

Emily Duggan, 16, expends most afternoons at a dance studio tucked behind a shopping plaza near her home in Exeter, New Hampshire. Blond and doe-eyed, Duggan has been dancing since she was two, everything from tap to ballet. She puts in about 12 hours a week at the studio, including class and rehearsals with the dance team for weekend competitors. Duggan also prides herself on get good grades in school. But two years ago, the stress of managing both dance and academics overwhelmed her.

She was depleted and losing weight. Some nights, Duggan faced four hours of homework after a day of school and dancing that stretched into the evening, I would just break down crying and telling, I cant do this anymore! she recalled.

Her mothers concurred. In January 2015, Duggan enrolled in New Hampshires self-paced Virtual Learning Academy Charter School, joining about 200 full-time middle and high school students and about 10,000 part-timers from brick-and-mortar schools statewide who take online VLACS courses a la carte. There is no entrance exam, screening or application required to attend VLACS, which is free for any New Hampshire student.

A week afterward, theres a follow-up bellow. Thats when I ask students why theyre taking my course, and what their goals are, told Kent. Some students simply need the course credit, of course, but others have a fitness target, struggle with obesity or are athletes who want to increase their strength or overcome an injury.

Students do the bulk of their learning independently. They make their own route through online lessons, digital texts and multimedia, and follow links to extra, explanatory resources. They upload all their work. Yet the students and mothers interviewed for this story said that they have more one-on-one interactions with teachers than they did in traditional schools.

Kent opened her laptop to show the dashboard that tracks her students. She can sort them by grade or by the last time they logged into class, submitted work or checked in with her. If a student has been inactive for more than a week, Kent will reach out to see if everythings OK.

That level of educator communication was the biggest change A. J. Rando noticed when his daughter, Olivia, a secondary school student and a black belt in karate, are participating in VLACS to accommodate training and competition.

Theyre proactive about it. If youre not attaining contact every couple weeks, the emails start, telling, hey, we should talk, told Rando. His daughter added that having teachers reach out, makes it less intimidating to talk to them. That helps a lot if you need to ask a question.

VLACS middle school student Olivia Rando, 11, stands beside some of the trophies shes won as a black belt in karate.Chris Berdik

Students are also matched with a guidance counselor and an academic adviser who help them create and follow a C3( short for college, career and citizenship) readiness scheme. The guidance counselors also spot red flag that a student is struggling and offer support during the usual teenage drama. Finally, tutoring is available through four abilities coaches.

Like all VLACS teachers, Kent has office hours most days, when students can log in to her online classroom, a Skype-like interface, for one-on-one chats about assignments or feedback on a recent test.

If students genuinely need to reach Kent outside of office hours, including evenings and weekends, shell oblige. She also responds to student emails instantly, even if her teenaged students arent always so prompt.

Being ever present is paramount to building that working relationship, she told. Students need to know youre there, insuring what they do, and that you care about and support them.

VLACS physical education and wellness teacher Lisa Kent at home in Amherst, NH, appearing over an online dashboard of her current students.Chris Berdik

Competencies

On a bright, chilly March afternoon, VLACS English teacher Bette( pronounced Betty) Bramante settled into a black leather recliner for an interview at her home overlooking Great Bay on New Hampshires seacoast.

Over the years, Ive come to appreciate the capacity of every learner to excel when you let them approach a topic through their interests at a pace and style that suits them, told Bramante, who began her career in the 1970 s as a secondary school English teacher. After all, I live with a perfect example.

She was referring to her husband, Fred, who was a poor student and graduated 206 th out of 212 in his high school class. After clawing his route through college, however, he had a distinguished career in education first as a secondary school science educator( where he and Bette gratified ), then as a long-time member and chair of New Hampshires country board of education, and now as president of the nonprofit National Center for Competency-Based Learning.

‘ When you think about virtual education, its often more about efficiency and getting more students through than it is about relationships.’VLACS founder and CEO Steve Kossakoski

In 2008, during Freds tenure with the board of trustees of the education, New Hampshire became the first country to necessitate high schools to issue course credit for mastering competencies, rather than for fulfilling the requisite number of hours, days or weeks of instruction( aka seat time ). That same year, VLACS welcomed its first students.

Competencies are learning deconstructed. A single course, such as algebra, contains several competencies, which blend some core knowledge, such as understanding linear equations, with broader abilities like applied analysis or problem-solving. Instead of a C+ in algebra, for example, a competency-based report card could show that a student has mastered four algebra competencies but hasnt yet figured out quadratic functions or basic statistical analysis.

In a competency-based school, especially a virtual one, semesters “losing ones” shape. While VLACS has guidelines for course completion time and students use an online chart to track their progression, theres no bonus for mastering competencies faster than your peers or penalty for taking extra time.

During the interview, Bramante sat beside her laptop, awaiting an upcoming discussion-based appraisal with one of her students. Shorthanded as DBAs, these discussions are held for each competency. Regurgitating facts wont cut it in a DBA, during which teachers ask follow-up questions to probe students understanding and the reasoning behind their answers and decisions. Educators also ask students how they can apply that knowledge. If a student falterings, the educator will recommend that she go back and review certain course material before taking the written exam. At VLACS, the bar for mastery is a test score of 85 percentage or better.

English teacher Bette Bramante at home in Durham, NH.Chris Berdik

Performance Pays

Another big difference with VLACS is its funding source. Most virtual schools get country funding based on enrollment numbers. More students entail more revenue, and virtually three-quarters of full-time virtual students are in schools run by for-profit education management organizations.

By contrast, VLACS, a nonprofit, earns its funding based on the number of competencies mastered by its students. Heres how that breaks down, according to Kossakoski: New Hampshire allocates charter schools about $5,600 dollars a year for each full-time student, presuming the student completes six full credits. A one-credit course is one-sixth of that total, or about $933 dollars. If a student masters just half of the competencies that make up a course, for example, then VLACS earns half of the $933.

That calculation also applies to students at brick-and-mortar schools who enroll in a VLACS course to obtain competencies they are missing due to a previous incomplete or failed course, or to access advanced courses not offered at their home school. VLACSs courses are accepted for credit by every high school and many secondary school in New Hampshire.

Some outside experts question that pay-for-performance model due to the risk that teachers may thumb the scale to speed student progression.

Not merely does VLACS funding depend on competencies, so do teacher salaries, to a degree. They are based on an expectation of how many competencies their students will master over the course of a year. However, teachers can accrue bonuses by surpassing those expectations.

Some outside experts question that pay-for-performance model, either due to the risk that teachers may thumb the scale to speed student progression, or because such a system may not fully account for differences in students and subject matter.

When youre teaching high-ability students, a lot of these free market principles will bring you success, told Michael Barbour, an education professor at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, who examines online learning. But if Im teaching algebra to at-risk students, the majority of whom have already failed it two or three times, then Im going to have big problems with pay-for-performance. What kind of educator will you get to teach those children?

But Larry Miller, dean of the school of education at Florida SouthWestern state college and a co-author of the 2015 Center for Reinventing Public Education study, pointed out that VLACS teachers get their base pay whether they reached their targets or not, and most bonuses are a marginal incentive, in the single digits as a percentage of total salary.

Nevertheless, Miller did find a different cause for concern over VLACSs funding model. Specifically, when students at traditional schools take a VLACS course, the country pays VLACS without subtracting any funding from the brick-and-mortar schools.

The double funding has minimise rivalry and greased the wheels of partnership between VLACS and the states other school systems. Eventually, however, it could be a budget buster. Thats something theyll have to wrestle with as their impact grows, Miller told.

Virtual Gets Real

Two years ago, the John-Zensky family crisscrossed the eastern United States for two weeks in their minivan, hitting up cities and sites.

It was epic, told Danielle John-Zensky, standing in the kitchen of her Pittsfield, New Hampshire, home, flanked by two of her children, DJ, 14, and Delaney, 16.

Before DJ and Delaney became full-time VLACS students last year, they were home-schooled. We do a lot of road journeys, Danielle told. We like to travel when the rest of the kids are in school.

During a typical weekday morning, Delaney spreads out on the living room lounge with her laptop and DJ uses the desktop computer in the kitchen. They check out the online chart that shows how theyre progressing in each course.

Related Video

Online Education: Expanding and Personalizing Access

If Im falling somewhat behind in one course, Ill start with that, told Delaney. Then Ill work straight through my classes.

Some days the children finish by noon; other days they keep going until virtually dinner. When the schoolwork is done, the children take off in various directions. Delaney volunteers at the library, runs as a counselor in a nearby nature camp and teaches skiing all winter. DJ runs snowboarding or practices with the local secondary school baseball and soccer squads on which he plays.

When the kids arent engrossed in these extra-curricular activities, theyre helping to scheme the familys next road journey. DJ recently booked the plane tickets for a trip out west where they plan to visit seven national parks.

As VLACSs director of guidance services, Kyle Cote, put it, Theres an assumption that virtual school students are closed off, online all day and they dont ever meet anyone. Thats absolutely no truth to the rumors .”

The school tries to keep students connected to things beyond their computers. There are a few clubs, for example, in which students talk online about shared interests, such as books and movies. Students also must do ten hours of community service each year.

‘ Students need to know youre there, insuring what they do, and that you care about and support them.’Lisa Kent, VLACS physical education and wellness teacher.

VLACS now takes these real-world connects even further by pushing the boundaries of how its students can master competencies. In addition to regular course lesson schemes and written exams, VLACS students can demonstrate competencies through a number of projects related to different topics and tied to potential career routes. For instance, students in Lisa Kents physical education and wellness course can assume the role of a fitness teacher creating a new workout class for a health club that will meet certain fitness objectives( the class itself is hypothetical, but the student must do the workout for real ); students make a presentation and craft promotional material for the class.

In another example, a student of Bette Bramantes presumed the role of a museum curator. Utilizing historical research, the student created an exhibit to show how two local households from different social strata would have lived from day to day in the early 20 th century. The project was intended to demonstrate the competency of drawing evidence from texts and applying that evidence to a persuasive argument. The student created a list of artifacts toys, books and household goods and diagrammed their placement in a museum space that would allow visitors to follow the families narratives, which she wrote out on placards with citations for her sources.

Soon, students will have even more ways to earn competencies. In the autumn of 2013, the education nonprofit EDUCAUSE awarded VLACS a $450,000 grant to help develop learning through squads and learning through experiences, which will debut by this summer.

According to VLACSs website, Teams will feature collaborative projects in which students team up to study and solve real world problems in realms such as the health of woods and alternative energy.

In Experiences, students will be able to develop a competency through, tell, interning at a tech company, starting their own business or spending a summertime in China. Students will work with teachers and academic advisers to plot out relevant projects that demonstrate their competencies, such as programming an app during the tech internship or producing an online tour in Mandarin during the summer abroad.

Ultimately, the scheme is for VLACS students to compile a digital knapsack of competencies they have developed through whatever combination of coursework, projects, squads and experiences they opt. As Andy Calkins, deputy director for EDUCAUSEs next generation learning challenges program, which awarded the grant, pointed out, these choices will be available for full-time VLACS students as well as part-time students based in traditional schools.

In the next few years, as VLACS implements this new model, there will be two million-dollar questions, according to Calkins. First, will the school continue to succeed on traditional measures, such as standardized exams? And second, will it help students gain a strong define of so-called 21 st-century abilities such as analytical thinking and creative problem-solving?

Answering the second million-dollar topic will be tricky, Calkins told, because the development of measurements and assessments in these areas is still very new.

If these new blended approaches succeed, VLACS could be a national model for genuinely personalized, experiential learning, according to Julia Freeland Fisher, director of education research at the Clayton Christensen Institute, who wrote about VLACS in a 2014 report on competency-based education in New Hampshire.

To do competency-based education at scale you need to use technology, she told. Imagine 30 students in a class genuinely moving at an individual pace and then having to test them all at different times in different ways.

Fisher said that while early online schools were all about access to courses unavailable at a students home school or for students unable to attend traditional schools, VLACS is doubling down on pedagogical invention. Thats incredibly powerful.

The real power, according to Danielle John-Zensky, is what happens when you put students in charge of their own education. Summing up what thats done for her children, she told, Theyve learned to enjoy learning.

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and invention in education. Read more about Blended Learning .

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