#you missed my ‘tom’s growth will accelerate when he decides to grow as a person without star being an interest to that’ huh

[ghostgetter]

I mean... You stay Tmstar is stagnated but that ending scene with Tom shows that he is in fact still trying to grow and isn't done yet. It could have easily been Marco in that scene yet they chose Tom comfort her for a reason (well other than apologizing).

…y’all really that desperate for me to shove t,omstar up my ass and validate it as if it isn’t doing the same shit for the show as j,arco was, huh.

[agwitow]

Alpha Wolves

content warning: swearing, mild violence

Marcus yawned, his jaw cracking, and shook out his pants. It had been a long night, helping two pups with their first change. They were already packed into their parents’ SUVs, fast asleep, and on the way to their homes. In a few months they would be good to join a pack. It wasn’t always as simple with new shifters, but those two each had a parent who was one as well. Even at eight and ten, they knew a fair amount of what it meant to be a lycanthrope.

Dressed in sweats and a light cotton long-sleeved shirt, he ran a hand over his jaw and sighed. Full moon changes always made his hair grow. Even though he’d been clean-shaven before the change, he had what felt like two-days of growth now. Shaggy hair didn’t bother him nearly as much as a beard did, though by the end of the three days he’d need to get that trimmed as well.

He padded barefoot into the little cabin that served as his base of operations while helping new shifters and started a pot of coffee brewing. He hated the stuff, but it would be at least a couple hours before he could head home to sleep, so he needed something to keep him awake.

While it percolated, he checked his phone. Three emails from work, two from the pack, and some spam. He’d just opened the first email when the phone rang.

“Porter Consulting.”

“Mr. Porter, it’s Deputy Palerma from the EKSD,” a male with a pleasant tenor said.

East Keddol was a small town several miles from Hapburgh, the city Marcus lived and worked in. It was in the interesting position of being almost perfectly between Hapburgh pack territory and Redview pack territory. Surprisingly few places fell into the odd in-between spaces between packs, and, as far as he knew, no one had developed any specific protocols for dealing with them.

“How can I help you today, Deputy?”

“We have a shifter—twenty-three-year-old male—who attacked his friends when he shifted for the first time. Miss Davidson recommended I call you.”

Kaelyn Davidson did for the Redview pack what Marcus did for the Hapburgh one. She was, if he remembered correctly, also a month or two out from giving birth. Handling an adult shifter who’d already hurt people was probably not high on her list of ways to spend her time.

“I see. Is your new shifter awake?”

“No. We had to hit him with a tranq to be able to bring him in. He’s changed back, but hasn’t woken up yet.”

Marcus snorted. Safety Departments were, mostly, better than the old police system, but sometimes they were still a little too trigger happy. At least it was a tranquilizer dart instead of a clip of bullets. “I’ll send someone to pick him up. He’s going to wake up before they get there, and he’s going to be cranky and hungry.”

“I’ve taken the class on shifters, Mr. Porter,” Deputy Palerma said, sounding offended. “There is a post-shift recovery kit in the fridge.”

He stifled a sighed. “If that’s all you have, that’s fine, but it would be better if the new shifter could get freshly made food. Eggs, nuts, oats, cottage cheese or Greek yogurt, and pumpkin seeds are best. Avoid meat, if possible, especially red meat.”

“I thought shifters need protein the morning after?”

“We do, and the foods I listed are all high protein items. New shifters can find meats to be… an issue at first. As I’m not able to speak with your young man at present, it’s better to be cautious.”

There was a moment of silence on the line before Palerma said, “Alright. Who will be coming, and when should we expect them?”

“It’ll depend on who is free.”

“Can’t you just tell someone to do it? You’re the alpha, aren’t you?”

Marcus had to grit his teeth to keep from groaning. That damn study from the 40s. “That’s not quite how things work. All pack members have proper ID.”

“Fine,” he said, the word ending with an annoyed click of his tongue.

“Thank you. Someone will be there between 10:30 and noon.”

Once they’d said their farewells, Marcus sent out a quick message through the pack’s group chat.

New shifter, East Keddol holding, possible alpha complex. Any takers?

He set the phone down and poured himself a cup of coffee, adding enough cream and sugar to make it mostly palatable, before settling on a stool at the tiny kitchen’s bar-height table. He’d drunk half the cup before a chime indicated he’d gotten a response. Two more chimes rang out before he’d picked the phone back up.

Eddie: I’m free but never handled an alpha complex b4 wdin2k?

Ksenia: lol take a muzzle

Julianne: y can’t the Reds take em?

Marcus rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighed, and replied: Kaelyn’s 8 mo. Pregnant. Take the green SUV, put him in the back, and keep the divider up.

Eddie: is it that dangerous?

Thomas: alpha-complexers are just assholes

Julianne: TOM! There are CHILDREN in this chat

Thomas: no regrets!

Marcus temporarily turned notifications off for the group chat, replied to the most important of the work emails, set up reminders for the other two, then headed for the cabin’s futon. By the time he’d make it to his apartment in the city, he’d barely have any time to sleep before he’d need to head back out to meet the new shifter. So he’d nap on the futon and feel stiff for most of the afternoon.

#

A little after 2pm, the rumbling and crunch of a vehicle coming up the gravel drive to the cabin announced the arrival of Eddie and the new shifter. Marcus set aside his laptop and headed out to the porch to greet them. He was still barefoot and wearing sweats and the long-sleeved shirt, but he’d run a trimmer through the beard so he felt less like a back-woods mountain man.

The car had barely come to a complete stop before the back door opened and a young man stepped out with a glower. He was around average height, with enough muscle mass to indicate he worked out at least somewhat regularly. Dark blond hair hung to his shoulders and a thick beard wrapped his jaw—though whether that was a stylistic choice or the moon driven change accelerating his hair growth even more than it did for Marcus was unclear.

“You Marcus?” the young man demanded.

He raised an eyebrow, crossed his arms, and leaned against one of the porch supports. “I am. And you are?”

“Joseph.”

He nodded and shifted his gaze to Eddie, who’d stepped around to the front of the SUV. “How was the drive?”

Eddie shrugged, his gaze darting to Joseph and then away. “S’okay. Wouldn’t want to do it again, though.”

“Don’t blame you. Thanks for doing it, though. See you next week for a run, okay?”

His shoulders relaxed and he smiled. “Of course. Later, Marcus.”

Joseph scoffed. “Like he would be any good.”

Marcus shook his head and stepped down off the porch. He was a little shorter than the new shifter, though broader in the shoulders and with more muscle mass. “You will respect each and every member of our pack, or you’ll be sent to Palstead Institution. It is not a pleasant introduction to being a shifter.”

“Whatever, man. Just give me whatever stupid speech you’ve got so I can challenge you.”

“There will be no ‘challenging’ here.”

“Fuck that. I ain’t no submissive bitch.”

“What you do or don’t do in the bedroom has no relevance to this situation.”

Red flooded Joseph’s face a moment before he took a swing at Marcus. He’d obviously had a little bit of training, but the movement was still too big to be truly effective.

Marcus side-stepped and twisted a little so that he had more leverage as he placed a palm against Joseph’s arm and pushed. It wasn’t a big push, but the kid had overextended himself and it knocked him off balance enough to make him stumble. He took a step back and waited for the next attack he knew would be coming.

Joseph didn’t disappoint. He came up swinging wildly, rushing toward him as if he couldn’t decide whether to beat his face in or tackle him to the ground.

Marcus calmly deflected each blow, leading Joseph in a circle as he side-stepped and backed away from the attacks. Less than a minute later, Jospeh was panting and struggling to even come close to landing any blows.

“Have you finished with your temper tantrum, yet?” Marcus asked.

Joseph glared at him but stopped, bending over with hands on knees as he panted.

“You seem to be under the misunderstanding that pack members fight each other. Different packs rarely even fight each other.”

“How…how do you know who’s alpha, then?”

“There is no ‘alpha.’ Not the way you’re thinking, anyway.”

“What?”

Marcus sighed and took a seat on the ground. The grass was soft and, thanks to a sunny morning, contained no hint of dampness. After a moment’s hesitation, Joseph slumped down as well. “Pack is family. Would you pick a fight with your dad to try and take over the family?”

“No…”

He shrugged. “Picking a fight with a pack member makes about as much sense. We each have a role to play, and that role is based on our skills and personality and knowledge. Not on who we’re able to beat up.”

“Aren’t we wolves? At least partly?”

“Yes. And that’s how wolves behave.”

Joseph stared at him blankly.

He sighed again. “Come inside. I’ll make you a tuna sandwich and you can read one of the brochures.”

Joseph followed him inside, silent, but with a simmering edge of anger beneath his exhaustion. Once the full moon was over and the forced changes weren’t sapping his energy, he would be a real pain in the ass if Marcus couldn’t nip the problem in the bud.

“Here,” he said, picking up a glossy tri-fold and handing it over. “Have a seat. Read. I’ll make the sandwiches.”

He settled onto a stool, shoulders hunched and brows drawn. “Why Alpha-Dog Theory is BS,” he read. “Seriously?”

“Mhm,” Marcus replied. “Some of the pack wanted to title it It’s Not Your Inner Wolf, You’re Just an Asshole, but that seemed a bit confrontational.”

“… Oh.”

“Mhm.”

(Moon-Bound - part 2)

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[klcthebookworm]

Reproduction in the GFFA

This post was inspired by a comment thread on @jedimordsith's The Gift Chapter Eighteen. I hope to spur a discussion or provide some meta and head-canons to help other creators in the fandom. Because I can't remember anyone discussing baby making before. Canon for this post are the original trilogy, prequels trilogy, and sequel trilogy. Clone Wars and Rebels television series are part of the canon, but I haven't watched either shows, so someone else will have to provide examples from them. EU Legends and Disney EU supplement the canon and will be cited so others can use those tidbits or set them aside according to their personal preferences. Everybody ready?

I'm writing this before the Last Jedi opens, so we are working with seven saga films and one anthology film. Out of those eight, only one character is shown pregnant and giving birth, Padmé Amidala. The only other character to talk about giving birth is Shmi Skywalker when talking about Anakin to Qui Gon Jinn. So the experiences of these two characters gives us natural reproduction according to their species. For the purposes of this discussion, natural reproduction means without the assistance of technology; sexual reproduction for humans and possibly many more alien species in the GFFA and potentially asexual reproduction as well though I don't have any examples in my memory. The Hutts were hermaphrodites in EU Legends, but according to Wookieepedia Disney EU has decided to divide that population along male and female now.

Even with the pregnancy examples, we the viewers aren't taken along on any medical check-ups to see what kind of assisted reproductive technology the GFFA has. In fact the fandom has wondered if it was lack of prenatal care that actually killed Padmé if her keeping her pregnancy secret extended to never seeing a medical droid or practitioner. But we shouldn't overlook the fourth parent shown in the prequels and how he got his child: Jango Fett and his clone son Boba.

As part of his compensation for being the genetic template for the clone army the Kaminoans created, Jango requested a clone who did not have the same genetic modifications such as behavioral conditioning and growth acceleration. We meet Boba as a ten-year-old child in Attack of the Clones, and presumably Jango has been raising Boba since he left the cloning tank as viable infant. My respect for Jango has gone up a notch; it's not easy to be a single parent no matter what galaxy you're in. And with this information, cloning tanks have to be added to a list of assisted reproductive technology the GFFA has.

But just because the technology exists doesn't mean it is available for the masses. Figures weren't quoted in the Attack of the Clones, but the Grand Army of the Republic was not cheap and the Kaminoans took ten years to grow and develop their clones for this purpose. Cost prohibitions can be inferred further by how the Imperial military moved into enlistment and conscription models to maintain stormtrooper numbers. I think we can safely say that the normal population of the GFFA couldn't afford to clone a baby even if the Empire did not restrict access to the technology. EU Legends developed a separate technology for cloning with the Spaarti cloning cylinders (invented by Timothy Zahn before George Lucas figured out what the Clone Wars were all about) that worked faster--a fully grown and trained clone in a year rather than ten--and could work even faster if the Force didn't interfere with the speed by making the clones mentally unstable. This technology was locked down by the Empire, and was thought destroyed since the Clone Wars by the rest of the population.

While we don't know how Jango Fett donated his genetics to the Kaminoans, all the adult clones were a physical copy of him on screen. But a plot point in EU Legends had a clone of Luke grown from his preserved severed hand. So how ever cloning works in the GFFA, it's not limited to gametes (sperm and ovum or whatever alien equivalents are).

So what about real assisted reproductive technologies? Are they present in the GFFA? We have no canon evidence of ultrasounds, artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, or gestational surrogate pregnancy but it's hard to think that if we have all these things, they must have them too. After all they can replace limbs with fully-articulated prosthetic parts that can be permanently attached to the body.

Research time! While I didn't go much deeper than Wikipedia and Google searches (go deeper for sources if you're writing for a grade), I was surprised to learn that most of these things that are now ubiquitous with pregnancy are developments younger than I and A New Hope. Artificial insemination in humans turned out to be the oldest, first successfully done in 1884. Sperm banks started in Iowa in the 1920s, making donated sperm available for couples with fertility problems as well as women without male partners.

Medical ultrasounds developments started in 1940s in several countries. Professor Ian Donald, Tom Brown, and Dr. John MacVicar published their findings as "Investigation of Abdominal Masses by Pulsed Ultrasound" on June 7, 1958. Afterwards, they continued to refine their techniques to obstertic applications to measure the growth of the fetus at the Glasglow Royal Maternity Hospital and in the new Queen Mother's Hospital in Yorkhill. But it was only in the 1970s that the technology became widely used in American hospitals and further refinement has led to our ease of determining the sex of fetues. (https://www.livescience.com/32071-history-of-fetal-ultrasound.html). Before ultrasounds, detecting multiple fetal heartbeats was the only way to determine if there was more than one child but it is a more inaccurate process.

The first successful birth of a child from in vitro fertilization was in 1978. A woman carried the first successful gestational surrogate pregnancy in 1985. Surrogacy is a method or agreement whereby a woman agrees to carry a pregnancy for another person or persons, who will become the newborn child's parent(s) after birth. The next step is artificial wombs, which moved forward in 2017 with animal trials. It's aimed for helping a premature fetus develop normally rather than taking over the whole process. That is still in the realm of fiction.

Lois McMaster Bujold created uterine replicators for her Hugo-award-winning Vorkosigan Saga series. Star Wars fans you will like these books: space opera, exotic worlds and cultures, political intrigues, family dramas, strong women characters, and the main protagonist is disabled and keeps fighting to show his worth to his culture. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorkosigan_Saga) Genetic manipulation is commonplace, though of varying degrees of acceptance depending on the culture. The uterine replicators are essential to this process because it allows complete in vitro human reproduction. The embryo and fetus can be genetically modified as benign as just removing a genetic disease so it is finally eradicated to controlling the sex and appearance of the fetus, which led to the creation of the Quaddies. The freedom and safety this technology provides is also a plot point in the series since Miles' disabilities are the result of poisoning his mother went through while pregnant. His cousin Ivan--while born naturally perfectly healthy--was nearly murdered in the womb when his parents were caught by a rebelling faction during a civil war. The other nifty factor is they can use any cell from the parents to create the embryo, though gametes are the easiest to work with, and donated oocyte if there is no ovum from the mother. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_(sheep) for how that works.)

I came to the Vorkosigan Saga after Star Wars, so my light bulb was phrased "uterine replicators are just like Star Wars cloning tanks!" The technology is virtually identical, the only difference being parents' blended DNA instead of creating a copy of the donor. I'm head-canoning that this exists in the Star Wars universe as assisted reproductive technology, probably with a different name to keep it separate from cloning and probably priced out of financial reach for most of the population in GFFA. I haven't coined a Star Wars-ish name for it, so suggest away please.

Besides allowing for reproduction for infertile, same-sex, or extremely-unable-to-accommodate-pregnancy couples, this technology allows for hybrid babies between two species that are unable to reproduce naturally. I can't think of any examples of this in pro-fic (Wedge had a non-human girlfriend for a bit but she got shunted off-stage pretty quickly), but this is a situation that we fanfic-writers love to exploit and fill-in-the-gaps. It's an option along with the ones we covered that we can use right now in real life.

Thank you for sticking with me to the end of this long look at reproduction in the GFFA and our own galaxy. I've gained a new point of view considering this topic and the films. Lucas not putting in what turned out to be cutting edge technology in the original trilogy of his space opera, I can give him a pass on. It wasn't necessary for the story he was telling Padmé skipping prenatal check-ups to keep her pregnancy a secret from the Jedi Order can explain the lack of knowledge that she's carrying twins but only to a certain point. How come all the Force users around Padmé missed it? The only good explanation I've got is the twins kept hiding each other in the Force from all the other Force users, and Obi-Wan and Yoda were too polite to scan her. Did Stover come up with a reason in the novelization? I still need to read it. Share your thoughts please. :D

[hub-pub-bub]

‘A Game-Changing Model for Text Entertainment’

Many in the Western book publishing industry still are trying to wrap their minds around the size of “online writing” serials in Asia. In China and Korea, millions of fans make micropayments to writers for incremental updates in their serialized stories.

One such platform, however, is taking its success in a different direction that could turn book-to-screen mapmakers on their heads.

Korean entrepreneur Seung-yoon Lee, Radish’s founding CEO, launched the service on Valentine’s Day 2016 and has spent three years building up to the advent of what he calls “Radish Originals,” which he says have been part of the plan all along.

The New York City-based company’s materials point out that Lee has raised some US$5 million in seed funding from backers including Greylock, Lowercase Partners, Softbank Next Media Innovation Fund, and one company publishing knows well: Bertelsmann Digital Media.

Having watched the Radish service grow to some 700,000 users and top author income reaching a reported $43,000 monthly, Lee tells Publishing Perspectives, “I’ve always been inspired by how Netflix innovated the video entertainment industry with its integration of production and distribution, and [I] wanted to build such a game-changing model for text entertainment as well.”

His response to the Netflix model, these Originals, is closer to television than you might expect: Lee has hired a former executive at ABC Daytime Television, Sue Johnson, to create a “writers’ room” with veteran soap-opera screenwriters to develop seasons of cliffhanging serials as premium, professionally produced content. Closely associated with All My Children, Johnson now talks of such productions as Fraternity Madam, Paging Prince Charming, Blood Brothel, Heart of Dragons, Lies I Tell My Sister, and Vampire Prep.

“We originally debuted 20 pilots of five episodes each” last fall, she says. “Of those 20, we went forward with a full season—20 episodes each—of the six top-performing stories.”

Of those six stories, three are currently in their second seasons, Fraternity Madam and Heart of Dragons with Vampire Prep having just opened its second season on February 11. A second round of 10 five-episode pilots is going to the platform now through March. “Once we see the results of these pilots,” Johnson says, “we’ll determine which of those 10 will get a full season order. We’ll continue this piloting process going forward,” with Fraternity Madam going to a daily release schedule soon, she says.

‘Tremendous Traction in China and Korea’

How is Johnson getting the sheer volume of material she’s talking about so quickly?

For one thing, these “episodes” are 10 minutes long in reading time. Radish readers are accustomed to short bursts of story on their smartphones.

And the real secret, of course, is veteran writers, six of them, direct from the soaps. Her starter team includes Jean Passanante, Addie Walsh, Leah Laiman, Tom Casiello, Marlene McPherson and Lisa Connor.  Between them, they reportedly have 11 Emmy wins, 50 Emmy nominations, 15 Writers Guild Awards, and 42 Writers Guild nominations. Someone in that writers’ room has worked on each of the major afternoon weepies, from As the World Turns and Days of Our Lives to Search for Tomorrow and The Young and the Restless.

And if the titles of Johnson’s Radish Originals sound more lurid than the The Edge of Night or One Life To Live, we can point to the readers. The company is using A/B testing, not unlike that used by gaming studios, to gather data on reader responses. Apparently with enough blood and sex, they’ll follow you anywhere.

Both Johnson and Radish’s head of content strategy Taylor Carlson spent time at Pocket Gems. They’re joined by more of Lee’s new hires—Filippo De Rose (CMO), Johghun Shin (CTO) and Seyoon Kyle (engineering lead)—each with proven track records in scaling up audiences for apps in storytelling, comics, and games.

Things are moving fast. “Online serial fiction platforms with tremendous traction as I’ve seen in China and Korea like China Reading,’ Lee tells us, “had several initial years of slow growth. Wattpad also went through a similar phase. It does take time for these content platforms to get a hit and they go through lots of iterations to get the stellar growth they seek.

“We were lucky in that we were able to get more than 700,000 users and a writer with nearly US$800,000 in cumulative gross revenue without much marketing spend. With Sue’s leadership, I’m even more confident about our growth ahead with accelerating production of premium original content.”

‘The Leanest Data-Driven Producer’

And here comes the boomerang potential. In publishing today, a lot of book folks are being told to go west, young men and women, because book-to-film is the yellow brick road to success in a world of “streamers” like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, iflix, and other content-hungry platforms.

What Lee and Johnson are doing is laying the ground for a round trip: TV writers ankle their daytime soap offices to write Radish Originals, which, in turn, Lee says, could well be some day headed for development as screen properties. Johnson and her writers, in other words, could be making a round trip as far as their careers go, from screen to text to screen.

“I think the greatest potential of an original mobile serial fiction platform like us,” Lee says, “is in the intellectual property. While the development of TV and/or film is not a short-term strategy, that’s the direction that we ultimately want to move into.”

And while on the move, Johnson says she’s not missing those on-cam gasps and sighs from traditional soaps, either.

“Working without the visual element of television,” she tells us, “is incredibly freeing while also having a maximum impact. When creating stories, we aren’t hampered by budget. For example in the television world, an explosion at a formal event with 250 people can cost millions in production. For a Radish story, we can produce that same event in minutes with a few words and minimal financial and time expenditure. And we can change any element of that story (plot, character, cliffhanger, etc.) with a few keystrokes and nominal risk.

“In addition, when a person reads content versus watching content they have to employ their imagination. With well-written content, that consumer’s imagination will always be stronger than any visual provided. Bringing their own imagery will increase their focus, and the investment in the story will consequently be deeper.”

On the business track, Carlson says, “We see two big benefits to developing Originals internally at Radish.

“First, because we have a lot of insight into the types of stories readers enjoy, as well as insight into how readers engage with those stories, we’re able to focus our efforts on creating the best possible stories made specifically for our platform. Because we make Originals in-house and can quickly test and iterate on the stories, we can gain an even deeper understanding about what does and doesn’t work. The speed of testing and iterating is important and we can execute more efficiently with a small internal team. Through Originals we hope to raise the bar for engaging, high-quality serialized fiction and pass our learnings and best practices onto Radish writers, which will benefit readers, writers and the platform alike.

“Second, we’re really excited about creating stories that this generation of readers can enjoy outside of Radish and across different mediums. Hollywood is starting to recognize the power and tastes of this demographic as evidenced by a number of recent major productions. We love creating stories for our audience and we’re excited about the potential of having a catalog of great exclusive IP that we know our audience loves and would enjoy on film, television or any one of the many emerging entertainment platforms of the future.”

‘Quickly Test and Iterate on the Stories’

That theme you’re hearing through all these comments? Speed. The executives at Radish are all impressed with how much more quickly they can move in storytelling development than traditional elements of publishing and story generation.

Lee sums it up: “First, we put out 20 pilots in November and A/B tested these stories to our existing and new users. After seeing their retention and paying conversion rate, we greenlighted six stories for a full season. Then, the most successful batch of three stories were commissioned second seasons.

“Less than a month ago, we decided to daily serialize one of these stories [Fraternity Madam] because of its outstanding performance.

“This transition from a pilot to full season, second season, and ultimately daily serial only happened in the span of four months.  In contrast with Hollywood studios that have to put in an astronomical amount of production cost and time into creating a hit, we aim to be the leanest data-driven producer of entertaining stories.”

More from Publishing Perspectives on serialization is here, and on books-to-film development is here.