#audio performance critiques
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FL CAP Colors Competition Critique MP3s
It was a beautiful morning at Patrick Space Force Base! Click on the links below to download each DrillMaster Audio Performance Critique file.
Brandon
Homestead
Lake
Pines
Tamiami
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thinking ....
#preface: I am Not sober <3#what if I started doing art and voice commissions again.........#my audio editing has gotten Much better and my CV grew quite a bit last semester#literally should have gotten an award but my profs never submitted my work!!!!!!!!!!!!!#I’ve been robbed tbh like actually#past two years I’ve done some really good work and both years I was not submitted !!!!!#these guys did not make me write and record three different podcasts to not get an award !!!#this is just my little ramble post now lol hiiiii if you made it this far down#also my cleaning playlist is Incredibly ABBA heavy as it should be#also fuck ppl who say LED wall lights are lame my room is purble rn can you say the same? that’s what I thought. it’s a party for ME!!#anyways I think I’m a Really good narrator wtf everyone says they like my talking voice#y’know I don’t think I’ve ever gotten any Real critique on my voiceover performance ???#how do I know if I’m actually good at it?? everyone just passively says it’s good what if I’m enunciating weird ??#where are the ppl who critique voice actors ?? I’m trying to get good !#... me literally forgetting my godfather is a professional voice actor for work and has been for decades. duh#anyways if u read this far I love you I’m in a good mood for once!! let’s celebrate that!!#thanks for hanging out 💖💖💖💖
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Hiii, hope you're doing well. This last episode has been... a lot for armand stans😭 what are your thoughts on assad zaman's performance as armand so far?
omg thank u <3 I’m doing great, hope ur doing great too! And yeah lol, a lot is one way to put it 😭
I don’t know much about acting so I can’t claim to have any expertise on like critiquing a performance, but I think my Armand expertise will cancel it out lol. I love Assad as Armand so much!! Armand I imagine would be a rlly difficult character to pull off and he is doing so beautifully! it’s so impressive. There r so many nuances that make his performance so exact and layered, it’s amazing. U can feel the layers of performances, there r little moments were he is being charming and composed and u see the mask lapse and this wide eyed empty stare slips out, it’s sooo Armand. Assad’s Armand definitely gives me the impression of an actor putting on a performance to mask how he is a shaken, scared, gaping void of a person. Like ughhh. There r so many things. His accent and how it changes subtly depending on the time period! His dream-like delicate vocal inflection!! The way that he speaks reminds me so much of Frank Muller’s voice for Armand in the vampire chronicles audio books, which is ideal cuz that is always how I hear Armand when I read. He has a tone to his voice that sounds kind of ghostly and vulnerable in an ominous, powerful way. If that makes sense 😭. Assad is so good at balancing domineering and frightening with vulnerable and childlike, it’s rlly mf good. And he can pack soooo much varied emotion in a silent stare, which is ideal considering how much I associate Armand with silent staring🙏 lmfao. So yeah! He’s perfect I love him. A brillant casting choice, based on both his performance and what he’s said in interviews u can tell he has a super strong grasp on the character. Not to mention he’s pretty 🥰
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Since I still see people complaining about the sex scenes in Playboyy:
The stark contrast between artistically crafted shots of non-sexual scenes (some of those truly look like they could be art installations) and sex scenes that seem unaesthetic, hasty, somewhat badly performed and sometimes even comical, highlights the conflict between what we expect and dream of versus the true nature of interpersonal relationships.
Dream versus reality is one of the big themes in this series. We can see it in the way the characters expect certain things from their relationships, only to be repeatedly confronted with the fact that they won't get what they want. Teena dreams of sleeping with a virgin, but both his feelings and Zouey's hesitation get in the way of it. Zouey wants to conform to society's expectations about sex, he really does try. But in the end sex repulses him for some reason. First dreams of running away from home to have a steamy affair with some hot guy, but he learns that Soong isn't really into the idea. Soong seems to like First, but he is hit with the reality that affection won't be able to buy you dinner and it won't pay your rent. And then we have Nont who tells himself that his brother is still alive, while deep down he already knows that something bad must've happend to Nant (I'm delulu about that too, so I feel you Nont!)
Likewise the viewer is also forced back into reality. The dreamlike sequences end abruptly and instead quick humping and bad audio (the Japanese!) is thrown at us. Did you expect something kinky and hot? Did you expect romantic kisses in the rain? Well, you won't get any of that! In Playboyy sex scenes are used as a tool to make the viewer look beyond the dream. Sometimes sex is used for educational purposes or it tells us more about a character and sometimes it makes us think about our own relationship with kink and sex.
In addition, I believe it is also a direct critique towards the majority of BL series that are out on the market right now. Because those shows usually try to ascend sex between two men onto a higher plane. They only highlight the dreamlike romantic aspects of gay relationships and ignore real life issues, even the really small things (how many sex scenes have we all seen where they don't even use the lube and simply go straight at it...). Sex is not soft background music, slow motion shots, perfect hair and pretty make up, the right pose at the right time... Instead it can be messy, funny, weird, with sweat pouring down your face and smeared mascara.
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I’m a big Hamlet fan and I am curious as to what your favorite movie/for screen rendition is? I’ve been working my way through a lot of them, gone through about 7, so far Hamlet at Elsinore with Christopher Plummer is my favorite. I was just curious what yours is !
What a great question!!
Hamlet at Elsinore is definitely my favorite filmed version of the play. I feel that Christopher Plummer does a fantastic - and frankly critically underappreciated - job of portraying the more nuanced and complicated aspects of Hamlet's character while still giving a straightforward performance that's highly accessible to any audience. Notably, he doesn't treat the performance as his ~*~epic, defining role of a lifetime~*~ or ~high artistic theater~ (*cough* Branagh and Jacobi), but instead focuses on telling a deeply compelling, very moving story about the complex nature of grief and revenge. I also like that this version embraces the more "postmodern" elements that exist in the written text of Hamlet: the complicity of the audience, the inevitability of the outcome, Hamlet's genre-awareness and genre-defiance, etc.
[Not to keep hating on Branagh, but in contrast: Branagh's Hamlet in particular seems to go out of its way to avoid including the more interesting proto-postmodern thematic elements of the play - at times not seeming to recognize that they're even there. He instead focuses his time and energy on inserting new cinematography-based visual themes that go nowhere and at times stand in OPPOSITION to the actual tone and themes of the original text. Because apparently Hamlet the play is too boring and instead of lame elements like "themes" and "compelling characterization," we need a swinging chandelier sword fight scenes and Freudian weirdness. Truly the Joel Schumacher Phantom of the Opera adaptation of Shakespeare films. But I DIGRESS-)
Plus it doesn't hurt that everybody aside from Plummer in Hamlet at Elsinore is also fabulous. Obviously, Michael Caine's Horatio is the single best and most definitive version of the character in film, but I also love Robert Shaw's Claudius and Muller's Ophelia.
If we're talking favorite filmed versions of the STORY of Hamlet though, that's Asta Nielsen's silent film from 1921. It's so beautifully filmed and wonderfully told. She's what I picture when I picture Hamlet.
Other than that....I like Tennant and Stewarts' RSC filmed version well enough. It has a number of very strange choices and I don't love the re-ordering of the scenes, but Tennant does a great job with the character and I think it's a very approachable performance. A few other filmed stage versions are also excellent, though with a few similarly weird elements - I'd put Maxine Peake's version on the same tier as the RSC version. I do NOT like Branagh's version at all (if you couldn't already tell...). Jacobi's and Gibson's are slightly better, but they're still too focused on the prestige of the performance rather than the actual story being told imo. I think they fall under the same criticism as Holden Caulfield's scathing review of Laurence Olivier: "more like a general than a sad, screwed-up type guy." (Yes I know this line is an in-text authorial critique of Holden himself but also: he's right and he should say it.)
If you haven't already, I do highly recommend listening to the BBC Radio 4 audiodrama version of Hamlet, starring Jamie Parker. Despite being a audio version of a stage play, it somehow blows every filmed version of Hamlet (except maybe HAE) out of the water. I listen to it at least once a year.
Finally, my actual favorite versions of Hamlet have ALWAYS been those I've seen live (or seen bootleg filmed stage performances of lmao). If it's ever playing live near you, definitely go and see it. The play was meant to be seen on a live stage in front of you, and many of the jokes and themes only make sense in that context. In my opinion, the medium of live theater elevates the play so far beyond what a movie could ever achieve.
...sorry this answer is so long 😅 Really, it doesn't matter what my opinions on Hamlet films are. If any version of the play really speaks to you - even if it's the accursed Branagh version - that is so awesome and makes me really happy people are engaging with the play in that way! (But since you're saying that HAE is your favorite so far, I will add that you have excellent, discerning taste ;))
#hamlet#willy shakes#'not to keep hating on Branagh-' I say like it's not been the leitmotif of my blog for over a decade#I cannot help myself. any opportunity I am throwing down.#shut up e#shakespeare after dark#should we bring that tag back? I feel like we should bring that tag back
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these aren't in the subtitles, so they're probably not in the Japanese dub, and there's other noise at those moments in the English dub, so I'm not sure a lot of people have noticed these bits at all:
Victor's line in the English audio is, "You did well tonight, but I think your step sequence could use a bit more finesse." (Also worth noting that the previous line of subtitles gives the Japanese-dub rest of Victor's sentence as "About your free performance," without the praise leading into the specific critique.)
I've no way to know if this is in the Japanese audio and simply omitted from the subtitles, and I'm not 100% certain I'm hearing the English audio right, but I'm certain of the important parts: someone, most likely a photographer or reporter either behind or right next to the camera Victor is about to smile and wink at here, says, "Hey, Victor! Give us a smile!"
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Hello my fellow Phantom Thief! :)
May I please request headcanons for Joker, Akechi, and Ann having a female S/O who's a famous singer and sitting in on one of her sessions?
Singer S/o Jam Session HCs (Akira Kurusu, Goro Akechi, Ann Takamaki)
𝗔/𝗡: 𝗯𝗿𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 "𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗶𝘁" 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗽 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗛𝗔𝗛𝗔𝗛𝗔𝗛. 𝗺𝘆 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗲 "𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗮 𝗺𝗮𝗲" 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝗺𝗻 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗛𝗔𝗛𝗔𝗛. 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵, 𝗳𝘂𝗰𝗸 𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗶𝗽 𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿. 𝗼𝗸𝗮𝘆 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗻𝗼 𝗶 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗮 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝘆𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗽. 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗲𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆 :]
𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗶 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗻𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗮𝘀𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗶 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗕𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝘆 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗵𝗲𝗲
𝙒𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚? ⇒ 𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩
𝙟𝙤𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧?
Akira Kurusu
He came with you to soundcheck for a show you were putting on later that day
You were performing at a small club- nothing too fancy but you had sold out in 12 hours soo…
He had known about you being famous for a while
And he had known about your beautiful voice for much longer than that
But it’s completely different seeing you in your natural element
He just can’t stop staring as you work with the tech and audio crew to adjust things
You look so calm and smart and just so pretty as you’re tweaking things to your liking
Watching you talk so confidently when you need something changed and listening to you sing the most complicated parts from the songs off of your setlist
He’s seriously just in awe of the fact that it looks like you were born for this
And he’s extremely ready to give a hug and a kiss and a compliment or two as soon as you get off stage to take a break before you show <3
Goro Akechi
You’re both so busy that you guys barely have time to visit each other
And you figured that he would use his rare day off from work to rest at home but nope!
He wanted to watch you record the vocals for your newest song today :}
Goro feels extremely out of place when as he watches you work with producers and other musicians while they spit out music terms and critique your technique
But he can’t help but feel this odd sense of calmness and amazement as he hears the song’s vocals slowly come together
The experience is calm because your voice always had that type of effect on him
No matter what you were singing, he just knew it was going to be beautiful
But watching as you worked shopped each part with and experimented to find what was right made him realize just how complicated the process of making music truly is
When you finally get out of the recording booth for a quick break, he’s there to wrap his arms around you and to praise you to heaven and back
Seriously he just feels so lucky to be with someone so dedicated and talented and hardworking(real recognizes real)
Ann Takamaki
This was one of Ann’s first times at one of your songwriting sessions
You’re both relatively busy but you always wanted Ann to sit in one of these sessions because you valued her input and she’s 10000% your biggest supporter
Also, she’s bilingual and you’re going to take advantage of her smarts to make a banger song
But for Ann, it’s just such a cool experience to be a part of
Watching you work with your songwriters as you guys start laying the foundations of a new song is unforgettable for her
As a model, there are moments where poses and technique become like second nature to Ann and she and her photographer feel like they’re working as one
It’s the exact same feeling as watching you work
It’s just so inspiring to see you turn her one-word suggestion into a catchy hook as someone else starts playing chords on the piano to get a feel for what you guys want
Plus it helps that you’re giving Ann as much praise as possible for sparking ideas when it’s really you who Ann thinks deserves all the praise
But don’t worry!! Ann will make sure you know how proud she is of you as soon as you both get home and she can hug you for hours and hours and hours on end <3
#persona 5#persona 5 x reader#persona 5 royal#persona 5 fanfiction#persona 5 fanfic#persona 5 royal fanfiction#persona 5 royal fanfic#ann takamaki#ann takamaki persona 5#ann takamaki p5#ann takamaki persona#ann takamaki x reader#akechi#akechi goro#akechi goro x reader#goro akechi#goro akechi x reader#p5r goro akechi#p5 goro akechi#p5 ann takamaki#akira kurusu x reader#akira kurusu#p5 akira#ren amiyama x reader#ren amiyama#p5 joker#joker x reader#p5 fanfiction#p5 fanfic#p5 x reader
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Digimon Adventure Drama CD 3 (Character Song + Mini Drama 3)
The final part in this drama CD trilogy! There are other Digimon Adventure CDs for me to go through, but this is the end of the character song + mini drama collection. So great that these are easily accessible online. I've had a lot of fun going through them.
Download link
Translation
The Stolen First Dreams of the Year - Parts 1 & 2
The gang realizes that none of them had a New Year's dream (it's a Japanese tradition to analyze your first dream of the year). Yamato and Takeru go to investigate and Bakumon reveals he ate everyone's dreams! Dun dun dunnnn
Gotta love the totally realistic conversations of people being like "you didn't have a dream either, so weird!" I feel like I don't remember my dreams most nights lol.
I've always known that tapir were associated with dream-eating in Japan (due to anime and video games), but I've never looked up the origins of this. According to Wikipedia the nightmare eating, supernatural "baku" and the tapir are both called "baku," but they're different...but also baku look just like tapir lol. Not confusing at all!
In part 2 of this drama Yamato and Takeru are trapped in Takeru's dream. Takeru is a cat, Patamon's a kite, and Gabumon's a shishimai. I thought it was funny that Takeru had a profound reason for Patamon to be a kite, but Gabumon was a shishimai because...he just kinda looks like one lol
Takeru uses the power of lucid dreaming to defeat Bakumon and escape his dream...that's a pretty obvious weakness
Image Song 1 - Walk on the Edge (Yamato Ishida)
Translation
A very "cool" song for Yamato, very fitting. A lot of it is directed at Taichi, telling him to stop being so hot-headed and just be cool, like Yamato.
I feel like there's some conflicting vibes here because at one point in the lyrics he's like "we're the chosen children, we can do anything!" but then he's like "I'm fine on my own." Kinda jarring that both ends of his arc would be put into one song like that. Like...pick a personality.
I liked that they incorporated his harmonica in the song's intro. Smart.
Image Song 2 - Be All Right (Takeru Takaishi)
Translation
This had a similar vibe to Hikari's song, kinda abstract and hopeful about the future. (Makes sense since Hikari and Takeru become a duo).
I feel like Takeru's voice actress didn't even try to do her character's voice when singing this. It just sounds like some lady lol. In my opinion, when it comes to image songs, I prefer the song to sound more authentic to the character than to sound "good."
The Digimon’s New Year Performance
This was definitely the best gag drama yet! They threw a lot of dumb jokes in there that made me laugh/roll my eyes. Best bits were probably: Gabumon finally taking his fur off (in the AUDIO drama), Tentomon speaking without his accent (cursed), Sora and Joe praising Piyomon and Gomamon for their lame tricks and Hikari judging Tailmon for acting cutesy.
I felt bad for Agumon for being booed, glad he got his revenge at the end lol.
Image Song 3 - Shinka de Guts! (Partner digimon, minus Tailmon)
Translation
This one snuck up on me. It's so cute!! I feel like this is one of those anime songs that make you feel like you can do anything and everything's gonna be alright ;w;
Love hearing the digimon sing. This is what I was talking about in my critique of Takeru's song. I love in-character songs that aren't worried about sounding kinda goofy.
The digimon sing about their power together and their love for their human partners, very wholesome. There were also some lyrics thrown in there about taking it easy and stopping to smell the flowers. Cozy.
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Blossom
This is for the @inklings-challenge. I didn't have the benefit of running this through my writing group for critique and editing, so it is exceptionally rough. It's done, but it needs work. Something to do when I graduate in May. :) If you have suggestions or criticism to make, I would greatly appreciate it.
>/-u:bl0$$0m
>/-p:***************
User authenticated.
Welcome, bl0$$0m.
TaurOS 7.2.9 rev.2 update available. See UPDATE -README for details.
bl0$$0m>/-jack a2.82.71.89.82.fe -in/quiet
Initializing peripherals.
VineTech Helm Visor XG51 detected.
VineTech Glide Gloves XG51 detected.
VineTech Chest Mount Expansion XG51 detected.
Please wait......
9.8 PB allocated.
Entering TaurNet......
Welcome, user bl0$$0m.
Visuals initializing.
A small room appears in her sight. It is covered in vines and foliage. A square fountain in the middle, covered in lily pads, provides water to this lush little garden.
Audio initializing.
The sound of trickling water gently pelts her ears. A breeze whooshes above, rustling the plants and calling attention to the windchimes above.
Sensories initializing.
She feels the cool breath of the wind caress her skin. The sun filtering in from above counters with its warmth. The dichotomy is pleasing. The scent of the plants fills her nostrils. She almost sneezes; she is thankful she doesn’t. The mess would have been a pain to clean up.
Controls initialized. Happy exploring.
She moves her body around the garden. Walking around is almost like walking around the dark room she is really seated in. It’s close enough to be disconcerting. No matter how many times she’s done this, she has to take a few minutes to reorient herself to the virtual environment. She performs a few stretches and exercises while she’s at it. There will be a lot of activity today.
“Hey, get your bearings yet?” Spencer’s disembodied voice crackled slightly.
“Almost. You’re breaking up a little,” Blossom replied.
“Can’t help it. There’s a massive storm outside. Let me know when you’re ready. Red is on standby,” Spencer said.
“Yo,” Redjack said. “I see you’re in one of the VineTech gardens.”
“It came with the gear,” she said.
“Did you get the XG51 set? Nice!” Spencer said.
“That’s right, boys. Only quality goods for this girl,” she said.
“That pocket garden is nice. If we weren’t already linked, I’d never know it was there. Is it true? Can you link that room anywhere?” Redjack said. Blossom smiled a little. Even she enjoyed the new car smell.
“I tried putting it just outside the library subbasement. I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” Blossom said.
“Which door?”
“A-51.”
“Ok, I’m watching. On your mark, Blossom.”
“Security is light down there, but be on your guard,” Spencer said.
“Got it,” she replied. “3…2…1…”
She opened the door out into a large, dusty lobby. Dust kicked up from the floor in a visible wave emanating from the opening portal.
“Oh, wow. I think you’re the first to disturb the air here in a long time,” Redjack commented.
“You said light security, Spence. Do you think it’s still around?” Blossom asked.
“Sensors don’t need to physically patrol an area to scan it. Some gremlins can remain inert for decades before being activated,” Spencer replied.
“Don’t let my guard down,” she said.
“Exactly. People have died from less,” Spencer said.
Blossom carefully stepped into the lobby. To her left was a large set of stairs leading up to the ground floor. A couple of dim rays from the cyberworld above pierced through, illuminating parts of a utilitarian directory in front of a big desk. Circulation, Preservation, and Housekeeping were to the right.
“This desk looks like a reception area for the basement offices,” Blossom said. “I can see some of the directory. Preservation is to my right. Is that where the archives are?”
“Not necessarily, but it’s a good place to start,” Spencer said.
“Not to alarm, but going off of Spence’s point earlier, there are a couple of inert gremlins under the desk. I’m prepping some weapon data just in case. What would you like?” Redjack said.
“The usual,” she said.
“On it,” he replied.
“Any sentries close by?” Spencer said.
“Three blocks down,” Redjack said.
“I’ll look. You’re clear to walk to that point,” Spencer said.
“Got it,” Blossom said. She advanced down the dark hallway with short, purposeful steps. She looked side-to-side with as much caution. Though the hallways were mostly bare, that did not mean they were empty. More than once, she was ambushed by cleverly camouflaged data gremlins, dangerous anomalies residing in the depths of cyberspace. They are pockets of corrupted data left down here for months, decades, or even centuries. Having been overlooked for so long and thus no programs to handle garbage collection, the corruptions evolved into some sort of animalistic state with a monstrous appearance. The depths of cyberspace are home to dangers such as this. It takes professional hackers like Blossom and her crew to brave and survive those depths to retrieve lost data. Hacker is one of the most respected professions on Taurus Rho.
Blossom crept to the end of the hall, where a pair of steel doors painted the same cream as the walls blocked her path. If Spencer was right, the sentries would be on the other side of the doors, so she relaxed a bit and took in her surroundings. She had seen the upper floors of this library before with rows of heavy wooden shelves with numerous imaginative posters begging patrons to read, read, read. There was colorful carpet to complement the colorful walls and numerous streamers hanging from the ceiling. It felt open, lively, and inviting. It was hard to believe that these lower levels were part of the same building. The offices, technical processing, and archives lived down here, so the design was far more utilitarian. Perhaps if she had a chance, she would peek into an office. Surely the librarians who worked here had lively desks.
“Hard to believe that this was a lively place twenty years ago, huh?” Redjack said.
“The first digital library,” she said.
“It had a good run, but now there are five bigger ones above and plans for even more. It didn’t take long for people to forget it,” he said.
“Red, how deep do you think cyberspace is?”
“Well, Nighthawk claimed to have been ten kilometers below, and that was when this library was in its final days. That makes that now, what, twelve?”
“How deep was that depot? The deepest we made?”
“Five.”
“I remember the cliffside there. I could see down a long ways.”
“I imagine it could be twenty, thirty, or more deep. Humanity has been on Taurus Rho for several centuries, and technology keeps expanding.”
“We can make it deeper, I bet. Deeper than even the great Nighthawk.”
“Yeah. One step at a time, anyway. What’s the word, Spencer? You’ve been quiet for a while.”
“Yeah, sorry, I’m confused. These scanners are VineTech,” Spencer said.
“VineTech? But, they’re a startup. They haven’t been around for even five years,” Blossom said.
“Weapon inbound,” Redjack interrupted.
A somewhat ornate spear materialized in front of Blossom, who took it, twirled around, and struck at a pair of gremlins in one fluid motion. The spearhead connected to the skull of the vaguely humanoid anomaly. It hissed and quivered violently before collapsing to the ground. Its buddy lunged at Blossom. She sidestepped the attack and jabbed the spear into its side, where it collapsed in a strange pile.
“Executing garbage collection,” Spencer said.
A dim light briefly engulfed the gremlin corpses. The corrupted data dispersed, leaving behind a couple of scraps of paper. Blossom picked them up and looked at them.
“This scrap is part of an old newspaper,” she said, crumpling it and tossing it behind her. “But this one, it appears to be an encrypted note. I’m uploading it to you, Spence.”
The other scrap disappeared from her hand in a small shower of white sparkles.
“Got it. So, those sentries are recent products from VineTech. Stealth Series 1 Beta. They’re supposed to be hard to detect.”
“Someone doesn’t want us down here,” Blossom said.
“It’s a good bet that someone knows we’re here. Should we abort?” Spencer said.
“Can you move that room?” Redjack asked.
“Yes, I can,” Blossom said. “Tried it the other day around my space.”
“The client gave us a detailed description of the record they want from the archives. If she hurried, she can get to it and then hop through a side door back into her safe space,” Redjack said.
“That’s risky,” Spencer said.
“I get the feeling there won’t be another chance,” Blossom said.
“If someone laid that trap for us, then there’s little use for stealth. I’ll scan the area for the target. You should see it on your HUD soon, Blossom,” Spencer said.
“Activating systems. Let’s make some noise,” Redjacked yelled.
The dark hallways lit up almost brighter than day. Blossom grunted as she brought her arm over her eyes. As her eyes adjusted, she saw a red targeting reticle appear down behind the doors.
“Archives are next to preservation, as you guessed. Run!” Spencer said.
Menus darted across Blossom’s vision as she selected a slew of commands to augment her abilities. Her destination was only a couple hundred meters down; she would be fine expending a large amount of data to get there quickly, especially if she had to run for her life. As if to confirm that, the sounds of machinery and crashing echoed from above the lobby stairs.
Blossom cursed as her spear glowed an eerie green color. With a practiced slash, she cut down the doors in front of her. She jumped past them and sprinted down the hall. Within seconds, she reached a set of doors leading into Preservation. She kicked the doors in to see a large room with shelves of boxes, chemicals, and plastic sleeving. Down the hall where she came from, she could see an Enforcer, a humanoid-shaped program designed by the military to help police the public areas of cyberspace.
“Blossom…” Spencer started.
“I know!” Weaving her spear around, she burst through Preservation, cutting through the tables and shelves before slicing down another set of doors. This led to a small warehouse with mostly empty shelves. There were several gremlins, all of whom were agitated by the sudden change in environment. In the middle of that was the target record. Hearing the crashing behind her, Blossom leaped forward, over the gremlins and shelves, and landed two aisles away from the record. The Enforcer exploded through what was left of those doors and charged forward, but the gremlins found it more interesting than Blossom.
“Precious seconds bought. There’s a door down the aisle where the record is found. Grab it and go!” Spencer said.
More menu options floated in front of Blossom as she ran to the correct aisle and rushed to the record. It appeared to be an old journal of some kind. She pocketed it and ran for the door. Light flickered behind it, and it opened to her private garden. The sound of struggle between the Enforcer and the gremlins quieted down. She was out of time. With a final burst of speed, she leaped for the door and slammed it behind her. The door bulged with a fist-like shape. Furiously, she entered commands. Soon, the bulge returned to normal as her garden transported her to somewhere safe. She pulled the journal out.
“The memoirs of Jackson A. Miller is ours,” she said.
Both men exhaled.
“Good job, Blossom,” Redjack said.
“Another narrow escape, thanks to your upgrades,” Spencer said. “Guess I should do the same, yeah? I’ll meet you at the normal place.”
“Sure thing.”
A pair of wired, sleek gloves pulled a similarly styled helmet off. The young woman gasped for fresh air and then sat there while her pulse and breathing slowly returned to normal. Every close call unnerved her. If the Enforcer had gotten a hold of her like it did those gremlins…well, this room would have been quite the mess for someone to clean up.
She stood up, slid the chest mount off, and hung the pieces of the XG51 into their sanitation station. She ambled to the bathroom and looked at the mirror. Her undershirt was drenched with sweat, and her black hair was also drenched and matted. She ran her fingers down her dried face and stared at her brown eyes for a few moments. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose.
“This is going to be the death of you, Laura,” she told her reflection.
A shower and some fresh clothes later, Laura stepped out of her apartment into the city streets. As much as she didn’t care for the inner parts of Prime City, she was glad for the opportunity to get out and distance herself from the virtual reality suit. The storm Spencer complained about had just passed over this part of the city, so there was a little freshness in the air. Her dark grey beanie, scarf, coat, slacks, and boots blended with the overcast sky, the city buildings, and many of her fellow pedestrians. She trotted to keep pace with the crowd, warily watching while keeping her face down. A pair of earbuds quietly played music from children’s show Duck the Rabbit; they were also a type of hearing aid. They saved her more than a few times from nosy reporters and angry strangers.
A quarter-hour stroll through the city streets brought her to a little cafe, La Fleur Petit. An eccentric old lady crazy about fungus ran the place, which was enough to scare off most people who weren’t regulars. It was a cozy spot that served a delicious cup of coffee and a large, warm waffle. Laura could smell the waffles the entire walk down. She opened the door and stepped in.
A wrinkled raisin of a woman sat at the register hunched over in a somewhat comatose pose. It wasn’t clear if she was contemplating the mysteries of the universe or was asleep. An eye peeked to see who it was, and then she burst into life.
“Oh, you can’t hide from me, sweetie! I know which blossom those eyes belong to,” she said.
“Good evening, Madame Sophie,” Laura said. Sophie grabbed Laura’s cool hand and stared seriously into her eyes.
“Still so formal after all these years. One day, young lady. One day, you will call me Grandma or Toots or something.” She cackled. Laura couldn’t help but smile as the old lady dragged her to her normal table. There was a guest waiting for her, as expected.
“Waffle and coffee?” Sophie asked.
“Yes, please.”
“I’ll return shortly.”
Laura sat at the table and faced her guest, who was dressed similarly. They sat in silence until Sophie returned with fresh coffee in mushroom-shaped mugs. She sat a mug in front of Laura and another in front of the guest.
“Your orders will be ready in a few. Relax and enjoy!” She bowed and walked back to the counter, singing an old tune using mushroom names as lyrics. Laura’s guest lifted his mug.
“The fields are white unto harvest,” he said.
“But the laborers are few,” she said, lifting her mug. They loosened their scarves and savored a sip.
“Sophie makes good coffee. I wonder where she sources it,” the man said.
“See? Like that, dearie!” Sophie called from the counter. Laura laughed.
“I don’t know, but she’s earned a few secrets,” she said.
“Do you have the journal?” he said.
“Here.” Laura produced a small drive and handed it over. He looked it over and placed it in a pouch.
“That was a close call. Did that punch get in your garden?”
“About two feet, I think. It…I…do you know something, Spence? I think we were targeted.” Spencer nodded.
“Here’s a copy of that note.” He pulled out a folded scrap of paper. “Decrypted,” he added.
Laura took and unfolded it.
Flowers wither. -M
She looked up.
“I don’t know who we angered, but somehow we did,” Spencer said.
“Any ideas? Past clients? Jobs?” she asked.
“I think it might actually have been this job. Jackson A. Miller was an old general, someone the deposed General Blackheart looked up to. Our client was really good at hiding his information, but I still managed to dig up some info. A librarian who was personal friends with the same Mason Blackheart, Apollo DeGreen. Seems he might be doing a favor for his old buddy.”
“General Blackheart was deposed seven years ago and disappeared soon after. Wouldn’t this be someone acting on an old grudge?”
“Maybe, but then they seemed to know who you are. That they sent an Enforcer after you meant they were someone high up. Very few people get to command those. I just don’t know who M is.”
He stared intently at her. She stared back. Sophie arrived with plates of waffles and sausage.
“Oh, Sophie, I could eat this every day,” Spencer said.
“How nice of you to say, but you already get my best discount,” Sophie replied as she placed the food down for her guests. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
Laura stared for a bit longer, and then she looked at the scrap again. Something caught her eye. There was a tiny bit of writing underneath the note.
“Hey, there’s an address here,” she said, handing the note back.
“You’re right,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “You know something.”
“Yeah, but I can’t crack. Not yet. Trust me a little longer,” she said, taking in a bite of waffle. If only she could hold that warm, fluffy moment forever.
“You were almost killed,” he said, holding his first bite in.
“I…yeah. That unnerved me, but I have to face the danger. We need to go to that address.”
“This is clearly a trap.”
“I know.”
“But you want to go?”
“I have to. It’s…important.”
“The ever-nebulous quest of yours?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think I could take it if you were silenced.”
“You say that every time.”
“And I mean it every time. You’re a person, too. Red and I care about you. We’re a great team. We could keep this going for years to come.”
“Spence…”
“I know better than to try to talk you out of this, but if this goes south, we’re gonna have to lay low for a while.” Laura sighed.
“Thank you, Spence. Just trust me a little longer, and then you’ll learn all you want.”
“You’re a hard nut to crack, Blossom.”
“I have to be. Look, she made these look like shiitake.”
They ate and chatted for a while longer before leaving.
The door to Laura’s apartment opened quietly. She stepped in and closed the door just as carefully. She stepped into the kitchen and stripped the gear off of her head, placing them on the table. She inhaled sharply and brought her fist down on the table, jolting everything on it. She screamed in frustration.
She knew who M was. M was the Matriarch, the name her aunt used in cyberspace. Her real name was Anastasia Plumer. She was the governing regent of Sector Prime, one of the most populous sectors on the planet. She obtained the position by exposing the corruption of the previous regent and that of his advisors. Evidence of that corruption extended to her father, General Mason Blackheart. The general embezzled funds for his family and used his position to cover for a number of Laura’s missteps, including a failed attempt to sexually assault her own cousin, Lance Plumer. In an act of goodwill, Anastasia pardoned their crimes when General Blackheart stepped down in the face of his charges.
Charges that Laura knew were completely fabricated. Anastasia and Lance had powerful and skilled friends. All it took was a little sample of Laura’s DNA that she unwittingly provided. From that, they could recreate nearly every detail about her, including her voice and mannerisms. It was groundbreaking technology, the kind that Taurus Rho was known for. The people behind this brought that technology to market under the name VineTech.
Anastasia was calling Laura out, and Laura had no choice but to follow along. It was the only way she could get close enough to find something, anything, to exonerate herself and her father. She was right: this might really be the death of her.
“Let me get this straight: we’re infiltrating an address left behind by someone who tried to kill you?” Redjack asked.
“Yes,” Spencer and Blossom answered.
“You know, I need to find my way to Prime City so I can smack you both upside the head,” Redjack said.
“It’s been a while since the last time,” Blossom said.
“It has, and if this mission goes to pot, it won’t be happening ever again,” Redjack said.
“Don’t be all glum, Red. If this mission goes well, Blossom said she would spill the beans,” Spencer said.
“Wait, really? Like, we can finally know your name and all that?” Redjack said.
“Yeah. I have a feeling we’ll find something big here,” Blossom said.
“If you make it. I mean, given what we know, they could be going after me and Spence when this is over.”
“If this is our end, then let it be something noteworthy. I mean, we are trying to be greater than Nighthawk, right?” Spencer said.
“Now or never,” Blossom said.
“Right,” Redjack said. “I see you attached your garden to that address. I can have a weapon placed right outside for you. You’ll need it: the place is crawling with gremlins.”
“The place looks like an abandoned vacation home that sunk into the depths. Records of who it once belonged to seem to have been corrupted. Maybe one of those gremlins has them,” Spencer said.
“I can block some doors and funnel the gremlins down a corridor. That should help you dispatch them,” Redjack said.
“Alright. Reserve some data for a hasty retreat,” Blossom said. “I’d rather this not be the end if I can help it.”
“Already on it,” Redjack said.
“Okay, on my mark,” Blossom said. “3…2…1…”
Blossom burst through the door, grabbing the spear dropped next to it. One thrust, two, and then three inflicted fatal wounds on as many gremlins.
“Starting garbage collection,” Spencer said.
“Funneling enemies. They should be coming out of the door to the left,” Redjack said.
“How many?” Blossom asked.
“About thirty.”
Blossom sighed, inhaled deeply, and slammed the butt of the spear on the ground.
“Bring it!” she said, readying the spear for the first to come out.
Come out they did. As the door burst open, two gremlins popped out. Meanwhile, the doorway appeared to shrink down to a third of its size, forcing further gremlins to have to squeeze through.
“That should hold for a while. Take them out,” Redjack said.
Blossom stabbed the two in front of her, and then she charged at the doorway, running through another. She stood in front of it, stabbing at each one trying to get through to her. With Spencer clearing the corrupted data, there was plenty of room for the remaining gremlins to make their way to Blossom. By the time the last fell, she yawned with boredom.
“I expected more,” she said.
“Don’t let your guard down, lady,” Spencer said. He grunted. “Nothing useful. They were all made of bits and bobs. I think they were all made recently.”
“What are we looking for, anyway?” Redjack asked.
“I don’t know, exactly. Evidence of some kind,” Blossom said.
“You’re risking your life for something vague?”
“This time, yes. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’ll know what it is when I find it.”
“Okaaay…” Redjack said. “Well, you are in the den of a mansion. Your garden is attached to a door that goes outside. The door to the left of that, where you just killed gremlins, leads further into the mansion. On the opposite side, you should see some double doors that lead out into a courtyard. There is a bridge that goes over a pond to an island that houses a small tower. I don’t know about you, but I think I would have fun at this place. You, aside from the monster infestation.”
Blossom gasped. She knew this place.
“The tower. It’s got to be in the tower.”
“How do you know?” Spencer said.
“I just…I just do. Are there any enemies out there?”
“None that I see,” Redjack said. There just seem to be a couple of spotlights. How odd.”
“Huh…yeah, they’re just spotlights. Nothing out of the ordinary there,” Spencer said.
The ground shook. A guttural scream echoed through the mansion.
“That…oh, that one is huge. And he’s above you,” Redjack said.
“I don’t like this, Blossom. You’re being pushed there. You know there is trap of some kind somewhere,” Spencer said.
“I’ll deal,” she said, approaching the courtyard doors. They were large enough to allow a small vehicle in. A plank of wood resting on metal braces barred the door from opening. Blossom lifted the plank and set it aside. She then twisted the second brace from the right, revealing a small hole inside the door. She retrieved a key, which she inserted into the keyhole. There was a loud click, and then the doors swung open.
“Huh…” Spencer said.
“I couldn’t see that. Where exactly are we?” Redjack said.
“It’s–” Blossom started. Another heavy scream cut her off.
“Tell us later. Go!” Redjack said.
Blossom ran out into the courtyard. It was a simple grassy yard with a large pond in the middle. In the middle of the pond stood a small tower rising about three stories. A rough path of large stones connected the door to a wooden bridge that crossed the pond. The stone path continued on the island to the tower.
Blossom made it halfway to the bridge when a large, dark mass poured itself out of the courtyard door like a thick oil. Once out, it wriggled violently until it could form a pair of arms, a pair of eyes, and a pair of eyes. The gremlin was easily the size of an elephant, and its core was darker than any night sky Blossom had ever seen.
Blossom bolted to the bridge just as the gremlin chased after her. The ground under the gremlin suddenly gave way as if it was as viscous as the creature.
“Thanks, Red,” Blossom said as she stepped on the bridge. Just a few more steps, and she would be on the island, and then the tower, and then whatever was held in it.
Then the spotlights lit up.
Blossom cried out as she did her best to shield her eyes from their glare.
“Don’t tell me…” Spencer said.
“Oh. Oh, no!” Redjack said. “There’s no way!”
Blossom was not the only one who cried out. The gremlin screeched in pain. It scrambled like a panicked bug back to the mansion.
“We’re too high up to see any of these,” Spencer said. “How is this possible?”
There were four spotlights, each attached to the fence around the courtyard. Their intense light focused on Blossom. Wherever she blindly stumbled, they followed her. The large beams grew brighter and more focused. A thin beam of the whitest light shot from each spotlight and hit Blossom’s head. She seized up, held up only by her twitching muscles and the lights which bore into her.
“I’m going in,” Spencer said.
“Are you nuts?! We’ve never dealt with the Lights of Truth!” Redjack said.
“If I know my lore, they’ll only be focused on her. If I don’t, well, it was worth a shot. We can’t jack her out until she’s free of them, which means one of us has to pull her out.”
Redjack cursed.
“I knew you’d understand,” Spencer said.
The lights intensified, drilling into Blossom’s mind. Her body contorted in awful angles, and her cries sounded inhuman. Streams of silver poured out of her head. There were hundreds of them, and they threatened to corrupt the space around them and form gremlins. However, in the light, they instead stabilized and turned into windows showing pictures, objects, scenes, and even ideas and feelings.
“There’s a ton of data coming through. You’ll have to jack in on my mark,” Redjack said.
“Got it,” Spencer replied. “What’s going on?”
“It’s…her. Everything about her. Everything.”
“What? That’s it?”
“I don’t think you understand, Spence. You should see this.”
“Okay.”
“Opportunity’s coming. 3…2…1…”
A shower of light by the courtyard door heralded Spencer’s entrance. The lights around him were nearly too much to take in, but they were not nearly as intense as they were on the bridge. Silver streams continued to wrest themselves out of Blossom’s mind, turning in to data streams. Scenes of school, trips, military parades, family, especially…
“General Mason Blackheart?” Spencer said. The deposed general factored into several memories.
“Blossom is…Laura Blackheart? Have we been working with the general’s daughter this whole time?” Redjack said.
“This was the regent’s vacation home! Red, where is all this data going?”
Redjack gasped and cursed. “It’s going somewhere in downtown Prime. I can’t contain any of this! Get her out!”
Spencer approached the bridge. The heat of the lights was unbearable, but that was nothing compared to Laura’s writhing body. It contorted just the right way for him to reach his arms in and hook them around her shoulders. He pulled her as close as her body and the attached lights would allow.
“Got a boost for me?” Spencer said.
“I’ll try, buddy,” Redjack said. “Here goes…”
Spencer yanked. Redjack’s boost was more than he expected, for he flew back into the mansion with Laura in tow. It was enough to disconnect her from the lights, which immediately powered down. She quivered in exhaustion and gasped for breath.
“Throw her in the garden. I'll jack her out,” Redjack said.
Spencer dragged Laura to the door hosting her private garden. He was unable to enter it, so he gathered her into his arms like he was carrying a large sack.
“I’m sorry, but I hope this will be less painful than what you just went through,” he said.
He swung her twice before letting go a third time. She flew a few feet into the garden, landing hard on the ivy-covered ground. Spencer winced.
“I’m so sorry, Blossom,” he said, closing the door.
Laura screamed as she yanked the XG51 off. She clawed at her head, which felt like it had been drilled into hundreds of times. She stumbled out of her chair, choking out sobs, clutching her chest, and using the wall to hold herself up. Eventually, she made it to the bathroom, where she allowed herself to trip down to the toilet. She vomited into it. When nothing more could come out, she collapsed on the floor. She tried to wrap the rug around her. She pulled the towels off the drying rack to wrap around her, and then she tried to reach for the clean ones shelved above the rack. Eventually, she stopped reaching and cried herself to sleep.
“Welcome! Oh! Oh…” Sophie hurried around the counter and grabbed Laura’s hands. It had been two days since her mind was invaded. She existed on the bathroom floor for most of that, but something within willed her to get up, clean up, and take the stroll to La Fleur Petit. She wore two layers of clothing under her coat and wrapped her scarf extra tight. The wet, red rings around her eyes made her look threatening. She tried to say something to Sophie.
“Shh, hush now. Come, your friends are waiting. I will make something special for you.”
Waiting? She didn’t tell anyone she would be there. Yet, there were two men dressed like her. Of course. Who else could it have been? They were already enjoying their coffee in mushroom-shaped mugs. A fresh mug was waiting for her. Sophie helped her sit, and she was off into the kitchen.
“The fields are ripe to harvest,” Spencer said.
“But…the laborers…” Laura answered, choking up. She breathed in slowly and collected herself.
“Are few,” she finished. She loosened her scarf a little, trying to have just enough room to drink her coffee and nothing more. The two men removed their scarves completely, loosened their coats, took off their caps, and relaxed. Spencer leaned forward.
“So, we, uh, saw everything,” he said. Laura nodded cautiously.
“To be honest, I thought all this effort to be secretive and hidden was a novel schtick, You know, an edgy kind of roleplay that was sort of our trademark thing. I mean, why do we need to hide? We’re hackers. We do the dangerous work of finding things in the deep so that nobody else has to, right? But, now I understand. I know why we needed to be secretive. Why you were always so hidden. You had to be,” Spencer said.
“The regent was after you,” Redjack continued. “She tried to mine, well, you. She learned about Spence and I.”
‘I put you danger. We have to lay low. I shouldn’t have…” Laura said.
“Yeah, we’re in danger. Or would have been,” Redjack said. He pushed a folded piece of paper to her. Laura took and unfolded it. She looked up. On the note was an image of a hawk’s head.
“Apparently Nighthawk is still in business, and he took enough shine to us to divert most of the data heading to the lady regent,” Spencer said.
Tears fell as a great weight lifted from Laura’s shoulders.
“I…I’m so grateful!” she blurted. Spencer stood up.
“For better or for worse, the time for secrets is behind us. My name is James Smith. My grandfather, Spencer O’Toole, was a hacker and someone I admired greatly.” He held out his hand. Redjack stood and offered his hand, as well.
“I, well, there’s nothing meaningful to Redjack. My name is Jack Redman. I just thought it sounded cool. Computers are sort of my dig, you know?”
Laura stood and took her scarf off.
“Laura Blackheart. I’m pleased to meet you both.” She shook each of their hands, and they sat back down.
“Oh, finally! You’re practically family now!” Sophie snuck up to the table with three steaming bowls, placing them before each person.
“Sophie, we didn’t order any soup,” Spencer said.
“Don’t worry! Today’s meal is on the house. The soup is my special recipe: a broth made from several different mushrooms! It’s the perfect remedy for cold, troubling days. I’ll be back later with your meals.” Sophie scooted off.
“That was generous of her,” Redjack said, lifting the bowl to his face. Spencer and Laura did the same.
“Cheers,” they said, and drank. The soup filled Laura with an otherworldly warmth, a feeling of calm in the midst of a raging storm. The earthy, peppery mushrooms felt oddly of home. There was joy, and longing, and peace.
Laura opened her eyes, suddenly aware she had almost drifted asleep. Spencer and Redjack, by the look on their faces, had similar reactions.
“What a masterpiece,” Spencer finally said. Silently, they sipped their soups until their bowls were empty. As if on cue, Sophie returned to collect their bowls and place out their entrees: a massive feast of eggs, bacon, and sausage piled on top of her mushroom-shaped waffles.
“I don’t know what you’ve suffered, but I’ll be dead before I let anyone walk over my children like that. Next time it happens, you point ol’ Sophie at ‘em. I’ll tan their hides so hard, they’ll wish I actually knocked them into next month.” Sophie walked back to the kitchen muttering other unsavory things she wanted to do. The three sat there for a moment, and then they erupted in laughter before digging in.
“We need to go back,” Laura said.
“I know you just got drilled in the head, but seriously?” Spencer said.
“Yes. Seriously. Aunt Anastasia baited a trap, but I never found the bait,” Laura said.
“The Lights of Truth are ancient traps. I can see how a rich and powerful person like the regent managed to get some moved to her old vacation home without destroying half of cyberspace, but there isn’t much known about them. I don’t know any way to disable them,” Redjack said.
“But Nighthawk does,” Laura said.
“Oh, right. He did claim to have a way to get through them. But we have no way to contact him,” Spencer said.
“If we caught his attention before, maybe we can catch it again,” Laura said.
“What if we don’t?” Redjack asked.
“Then we look for a way around. They activated when I got part way across the bridge. What if we went under it, or over the island, or through the ground? The tower, it’s important. She had that built for her kids and us cousins. It’s a big playhouse,” she answered.
“Well, those are possibilities,” Redjack conceded.
“What if the bait turns out to be a ruse?” Spencer asked.
“Well, I guess we lay low and learn from our mistakes,” Laura said.
“I think I heard something about Omega Phi looking for something like us hackers. Ever thought about moving off-world?” Redjack said.
“Let’s consider that after we deal with the task at hand,” Spencer said.
Laura stared at an empty mug.
“Grandma, can I have some more coffee?” she called out.
Sophie burst through the kitchen door with a full carafe of coffee and the widest grin.
“You make this old woman so happy, dear!”
A few days had passed before Blossom stepped back into the mansion’s den. It seemed whatever damage occurred during his last visit was repaired.
“Auntie is pretty diligent at maintaining her abandoned property,” she observed.
“That’s a bad sign,” Spencer said.
“Let’s go through with it, anyway. We may get lucky,” she said.
“Just in case, I have a program ready to jack you out in case the lights target you again. It’s going to hurt, but not like what you endured,” Redjack said.
“Okay. Let’s do this,” she said, stepping towards the courtyard doors. She immediately stopped and drew a sharp breath.
“Whoa! Who is that?” Redjack said. Although difficult to see in the dim lighting, there was a man standing in front of the courtyard doors. His dark raiment melded well with the shadows, but the helmet on his head was shaped like a hawk.
“Is that…?” Spencer started.
“Laura,” the man said sternly. Her knees gave out, and she fell on them. Her lips quivered and tears formed.
“That was reckless, the other day. I taught you better,” the man continued.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…I had to…”
“How can you possibly surpass the great Nighthawk with such rookie mistakes?” he demanded.
“I never thought I would get to meet Nighthawk, and now he’s scolding us. I don’t think anything can surprise me anymore,” Redjack said.
“Anastasia isn’t satisfied. She wants us gone. I didn’t think I would have another opportunity!” Blossom pleaded to Nighthawk.
“Sometimes patience requires decades. You can’t expose anything if you lose control and get yourself killed for it,” Nighthawk countered. “And your teammates! Did you not think of them? Didn’t you ignore their warnings?”
Blossom punched the ground in frustration. Nighthawk walked to her.
“Get up,” he said. “Get up. Eyes up and forward. Face me.”
Blossom obeyed, standing to her feet and facing Nighthawk with eyes filled with defiance. Nighthawk grabbed her chin and chuckled softly.
“You’re as stubborn as ever. I’ve missed you, daughter.”
“Nighthawk is…” Spencer said. The sound of his headset hitting a wall replaced the rest of his statement.
“Tell me this is the last surprise we have to deal with. We can’t handle anymore,” Redjack said. Blossom could almost hear his facepalm.
“Where have you been?” Laura said.
“I’m sorry. I had to disappear, like you,” Nighthawk said. He cupped his hands around her head, and then he pulled her into an embrace.
“I missed you,” she said, hugging him back.
She could feel him pull his mask off. There was a shake, and then she felt something like a warm, fuzzy blanket cover her. She pulled back to see a cloak covering her. Her father fastened the clasp at her neck and pulled the hood over her head. He waved a hand, revealing a mirror. In the reflection stood an older version of the father she knew. He leaned on a cane, and his hair and beard were grayer, but age could not erase the pride and intention in which he carried himself. Laura then noticed the ears on the hood and the little duck bill. She laughed, facepalmed, and sang.
“Duck, Duck the Bunny is his name
Helping the children is his game!”
General Blackheart walked around his daughter and tidied the wrinkles and debris off of the cloak. He joined in the song with his gruff, baritone voice.
“When evil rears its ugly head,
Duck will fly in and make it dead.
He saves the world as you can see
Duck is right here for you and me!”
“That was an awful show,” General Blackheart said.
“Yeah, but it kind of stuck,” Laura said.
General Blackheart looked Laura over once more, and then he sighed.
“I’m old and harsh. You suffered greatly from those lights. I hope you can forgive an old man for fearing for his little girl,” he said.
“I’m twenty-seven, Dad.”
“I’m almost 70. You will always be little to me. Now, we have some business to take care of, don’t we?”
Ruffled noises come from Spencer’s headset, followed by a long breath.
“General, do you plan on funding a long vacation for all of us when this is done?” he asked.
“I’ll do that and more if you succeed. How would you folks like to work with the great Nighthawk? I’ll teach you things you never thought possible,” General Blackheart replied.
“I’m ears,” Redjack said.
“You’re really helping us?” Laura said.
“Of course. I can’t have Anastasia harming my little blossom again,”
“What’s the plan?” Spencer said.
“Blossom is going to walk across the bridge and take whatever artifact is in the tower,” Nighthawk said as he pulled on a new hood.
“We tried that last time, and it didn’t work,” Redjack said.
“True, but last time you didn’t have all the necessary tools,” Nighthawk said.
“This cloak,” Blossom said.
“Right. I devised cloaks like this specifically to get past the Lights of Truth. They were a government experiment designed to mine the thoughts of the populace. As you’ve seen, they have painful results, and they were the refined, production versions,” Nighthawk said.
“So, you learned about them while you were actually General,” Spencer said.
“Right. That sort of clearance turned around and made me a legend, though you are the only ones outside my team to know this. Having the archived schematics of old, powerful weapons helped us to devise countermeasures,” Nighthawk said.
“Not to alarm anyone, but that giant gremlin is still there. How has he not seen us yet?” Redjack said.
“Let’s just say I know a few ways to obtain control of my space. I will upload some of those to you,” Nighthawk said. “The rest I cannot give you without causing you trouble.”
“What will the cloak do?” Spencer asked.
“It will reflect the light back to the source, causing it to mine itself. It won’t be destroyed, but it will be kept busy in a recursive loop for several minutes. Unfortunately, they will not be available to keep our friend upstairs at bay. That’s where I come in. I need you gentlemen to back me up while I keep him busy. With a little luck, we can take it out and recover a bit of treasure for ourselves,” Nighthawk said.
“What’s in the tower?” Blossom asked.
“I don’t know, but it will be on you to recover whatever is up there. I imagine Anastasia will have something else planned for you,” Nighthawk said. He placed a hand on her shoulder.
“I saw some of the memories drilled out of you. There was one in particular that caught my attention,” he said. A window appeared, showing a garden in Prime City.
“Wait a minute. Isn’t this where Laura supposedly assaults the regent’s son?” Spencer said.
“Look,” Nighthawk said.
A younger Laura walked down the starlit garden path. She wore a simple dress with golden feathers adorning her shoulders. Walking next to her was her cousin, Lance Plumer, who wore the ceremonial uniform of a colonel of the Prime Sector army. Earlier that day, new officers graduated from officer school, and Lance was one of the top graduates. The party that night was in their honor. Laura naturally attended the party, being the daughter of General Mason. It had been years since she and Lance saw each other, so this party was an excellent opportunity to catch up.
They ambled through the spacious garden for what seemed like hours before they stopped in a secluded corner. The journey was well-remembered. The words and sounds, however, were muffled. Laura barely remembered them. That is, until a certain point. Lance brought his hand up to Laura’s face.
“You really blossomed into a beautiful woman, Laura,” he said.
“Oh, stop it,” she laughed. “I’m still the same kid you ran around with.”
“Maybe we can do something more,” he said. His hand lowered, but before he got anywhere, she grabbed a hold of it. He thrust his other arm at her face, which she dodged and then bit. He yanked that arm back while she held on to the other, spinning under it and using the momentum to flip him onto the ground. She spat in his face and stormed off.
Nighthawk brought up a different window. “This is footage from the security camera,” he said.
The same scene played out, but from a perspective about ten feet away. When Laura stormed off, Lance produced a couple of vials from his coat and collected Laura’s spittle.
“That was much easier than I thought,” he said as he got up. He dusted himself off, looked around, and walked away.
“That…that…” Blossom started.
“It’s hard to know what was and wasn’t fabricated,” Nighthawk said. “So, I just wanted you to know, if this doesn’t work out, and we get separated again, know that I know the truth and have always believed it to be, even when we were being played.”
“If I hadn’t spat on him!” Blossom stormed to the courtyard door.
“Operation start, boys,” Nighthawk said.
Soon, the door swung open, and Blossom stomped her way to the bridge and over it. The spotlights lit up, again blinding her. However, she hid under her cloak while her sight recovered. The cloak lit up, producing a reflective barrier in the shape of Duck the Bunny. With a loud quack, the lights were reflected back to the spotlights. The spotlights shook violently and flickered as they tried to mine the minds that weren’t there.
“You know, she’s going to kill you for that,” Spencer said.
“Won’t be the first time. It’s a father’s job to embarrass his children,” Nighthawk said.
“Bogey is active. Look alive!” Redjack said.
Blossom huddled under her cloak while the sting dissipated from her eyes. When her vision recovered, she resumed her tirade to the island, and then up the path. She planted her foot squarely on the tower door, knocking it over. She climbed the steps as Nighthawk evaded the gremlin outside. The second floor contained four beds. Beside each was a bedstand equipped with a lamp, a few books, and a small shelf of toys. She crossed the room and ascended the next set of stairs. At the top of the stairs was a final door. She stopped for a moment, took a few deep breaths, and composed herself. And then, she knocked.
“Come in,” Anastasia answered.
Blossom stepped in. The room inside was much larger than it should have been. There was a fire roaring in the fireplace across from the door. A tea kettle sat over it. A rug lay in front of the fireplace. To either side of the rug were a pair of comfy chairs. A table with teacups and cookies sat in between them. Anastasia Plumer sat in the one on the right.
“Have a seat,” the regent said.
Blossom sat in the other chair. Anastasia pulled the teapot from the fire, filled the teacups, and placed the pot back on the fire. Blossom took her cup and sipped on it. Chamomile.
“Snickerdoodles?” she asked.
“Yes,” her aunt replied. Blossom took one and nibbled on it silently for a few moments.
“Why haven’t you killed me?”
“I still can.”
“But you haven’t.”
“I can’t.”
The fire crackled loudly.
“Regent DeSpain was a crooked man. I don’t regret exposing him. Removing him from power, and those who profited with him, was necessary for the health of the sector,” Anastasia said.
“What did that have to do with me and father?”
“As his daughter, you should understand how much he values loyalty and duty. If his leader was in danger, no matter how much he actually despised the man, Mason would still take bullets for him.”
“This all was a form of protection?”
“Would you prefer prison and execution?”
“Why did you have Lance…do…argh!”
“Laura, I could never apologize enough for what he did. I instructed him to recover some form of DNA from you. He chose how to do it. The smear campaign was badly handled.”
“You don’t say!” Blossom shot up, ready to throw a punch.
“The Lance on TV is also fabricated. Did you know that?”
“What?”
“The real Lance is doing time in Barghest. That is the penalty for sexual assault, isn’t it?”
“I…didn’t…” She deflated back into her chair. They sat in silence for a while longer.
“You have to expose my crimes,” Anastasia finally said.
“I don’t understand,” Blossom said.
“Mason is fully discredited, but he can live on as Nighthawk. In fact, I think in some ways he prefers it.” At that moment, the large gremlin crawled passed their windows. Shortly after, Nighthawk flew past with some kind of energy weapon in hand, cackling like madman.
“Point.”
“You also have an interest in bringing me down, and it is easy to disprove the false evidence implicating your ‘crimes.’ I brought down Regent DeSpain in the name of justice, and I still believe in that enough to know that I need to step down and leave the regency to someone capable of ruling with clean hands.”
Laura sighed.
“I just wanted my life back,” she said.
“I’m sorry. The old flower has long since withered, but you have already blossomed into a new one. Do this, and you can at least be free to pursue it with your team.”
“What will happen to you?” Laura asked.
“I will probably end up in a cell next to Lance. Either that or I can make my escape to Omega Phi. I hear they need hackers.”
An ear-piercing squeal came from outside.
“Ha ha! We have vanquished the beast!” Nightwing cried out.
“Well, there’s the key to unlock the evidence. Here’s the rest,” Anastasia said. She produced a small lockbox and handed it to Blossom.
“You are not merely the daughter of Mason Blackheart. You are Laura Blackheart, the Blossom of the Depths. My traps have harmed you, but you have lived and learned from them. Now, let us finish staining our family name so that we can reconcile and find peace.”
Anastasia got up, curtsied, and exited in a shower of sparkles. The room phased out and was replaced with a smaller, empty room covered in dust.
“Blossom! Blossom! Are you there?” Spencer called out. Redjack and Nightwing were busy chanting cheers and victory fanfares.
“I’m here. I have it. I have what we came for,” she said.
Over the next few years, the Prime Sector underwent several rounds of political upheaval until the government reformed around a new regent. Careful checks and balances were installed to ensure the validity of the government. Although Laura Blackheart was exonerated of her crimes in the public eye, she remained below the radar. Some believe they can see her entering a hole-in-the-wall cafe, but they are never sure if it’s actually her. Even her clients are not quite sure. The Blossom of the Depths guards her secrets well.
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For the ship ask game: Sisko/Garak, Kira/Dax, O'Brien/Bashir
Sisko/Garak: ship it!
What made you ship it? I Do Not Remember. It may have been @ectogeo-rebubbles ITPM fic and it gradually grew on me but I don't know what to do with I now.
What are your favorite things about the ship? 1. Potential analysis for a very different way of being intimate with Garak, for one. With Julian he's always performing a bit, and his intimacy with Julian is cloaked in layers of complications and subterfuge- they're both very used to performing, performance is how that communicate. I find their dialogue often very easy to write because they're both very witty and vaudevillian (it's a dynamic some of the guys from my attempt at an audio drama have lol). But with Sisko I've noticed that Garak has points where he drops the jovial attitude and is very straightforward with him, kind of like he's dropping a ruse. It's not that Sisko doesn't enjoy those mannerisms of Garak's- as I think @wanderingwriter87 pointed out, Sisko appreciates Garak's bits- or that that's false behavior from Garak, but it's a kind of unmasking Garak is not prone to allow. 2. There's a very different power dynamic between them- perhaps controversial but during the run of the show I think Garak is put in a weak position, powerwise, compared to the vast majority of other characters as an exile who does not seem to have his citizenship sorted out. Socially, however, there are ways he wields power with Julian or even like, Quark where he's clearly got an upper hand that he doesn't with Sisko, who is of the same generation as Garak. Like, Garak does very notably manipulate him, but not the way he does with other people. And 3. Comparing and contrasting the social contexts they come from. Obviously Hebitians are like, my blorbo culture, but they're both middle aged men who adore children, and are pretty family oriented! However Sisko has a pretty healthy relationship to his family and Garak's family is an... on fire dumpster. Garak is very loyal to his father and craves his love and needs his approval for survival, while also calling him a monster and wishing him dead. Sisko seems to have trouble understanding that other people have severely negative relationships to their parents that may not be able to get resolved (it happens at least twice) because his father has been a good man to him. And to top all that off, Sisko has a son who's coming into adulthood! Children are their own whole people! Family is not a physically distant concept for him!
Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? I don't think there are popular opinions... maybe that I don't think Garak actually caught Sisko as off guard as people act like he did during IPTM. Like, Sisko’s anger is less about what Garak did and more about the fact that he knows what he did. Sisko knows who garak is, what he's capable of, and if not specifics of what he used to do, the kind of things he used to do. Hell, this is after Garak went to jail for trying to do mass murder. Sisko was planet side during that!
Kira/Dax: I have no hard feelings on it, but I think saying I ship it is lesbian-pair the spares type cheating. I find Kira interesting and have been trying to read more stuff about Jadzia to understand more about her, but I don't rotate them in my head as much separately or together to feel like it counts. I think I've written more like- character analysis? On Kai Winn than on Kira through my perspective of her as a martyr-that-wasn't and how I think DS9 fails to accurately understand and critique the religious context Bajor exists within. Which is funny, because I like Kira and think Winn is a super shitty person- I've mostly ended up thinking about her more because people have such bad takes about her.
O'Brien/Bashir- I don't ship it
Why don't you ship it? Honestly I genuinely think Miles is straight, I don't think his and Julian's relationship has that kind of intimacy and I struggle to understand the intimacy they do have as friends (Miles being an "everyman" means he's a bit of a "shittyman" and we'd be fine co-workers- he's a lot better than some of the people I worked with in welding, which is like winning and award for tallest dwarf- but I would not voluntarily talk to him on off hours). And frankly any openness I've had to it has been killed by the shitty and annoying behavior I've seen from Jiles fans towards their "competition". I'm sure some of it isn't like- sincere? But it's a style of humor and behavior I find rude and off-putting. Also like- I don't like how most people talking about it regard Keiko.
What would have made you like it? You could maybe analyze how Julian thinks he knows what's best for people and that makes him more inclined towards decisions in intrapersonal relationships that really are bad for everyone, I did read a ficlet like that once with it that I found compelling
Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? I do think it can be an interesting analysis of repression on Miles's part and I hope people have fun with it
#cipher talk#ds9#Plus the ringleader of the bad behavior for Jiles stuff made fun of the scene where Julian gets SAed by fake Jadzia in IWWH that I find#Really fucking disgusting as a 'male' SA survivor who is aware of the ways in which its socially acceptable to mock us and play off#Our suffering like it's nothing#Sure it's a joke but do you have any idea how many fucking jokes I hear??? Most of you people aren't funny#Plus there's a type of 'jokes' around how miles interacts with Julian founded on making fun of Julian for being British I find a little uh#Fucked up? I don't think joking about a white person calling a non white person slurs funny and I find a lack of understanding of race in#Their relationship very offputting#Like it's straight up canon that Miles is racist and his wife calls him out on it#And I don't buy that racism doesn't exist in human culture towards other humans. That's what happens when white people try to write that#For me I can't separate 'miles is racist' from him getting fixated on beating Julian at racquet ball and projecting that Julian must be#Being smug towards him about it onto him when he infodumps. Like thats a thing white men constantly do towards men of color#re: athletic ability. It comes off kind of subtly disturbing for me#Plus the Jem'hadar oh my fucking g-d there's such a blatant racial subtext to Miles thinking they need to be kept enslaved for the safety o#The quadrant and Julian thinking that's bad actually
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I watched V's w korea live performance of his song & I have just one critique. Even though his voice is heavenly & so good , I hope he polishes his English diction more especially in this live setting. I was not able to understand some of his words which he was singing as compared to the actual audio . I hope he works some more on his pronunciation like Jungkook does .
I am not comparing both of them , we now Jk is a perfectionist & I just think Tae should also get inspired to perfect the pronunciation because I only want to see him succeed even more & don't give others chance to give him bad comments about his live performances 💜
I am conflicted by this ask, I'll be honest. Because I am an optimist, I hope you really do just mean you want him to succeed. 💜
But I think there's a fair few Western artists for whom English is a first language with terrible diction and it's cool or stylistic when they do it.
Is Western success what Tae aspires to? Is Western success the only success worth striving for?
I'm not going to pretend every word is perfectly pronounced but what is perfect? He got accused of auto tune in the actual song. I like to hear his voice as it is.
I sense he would rather be authentic in his performance and release music that reflects him. I don't think Layover is the creative choice of a guy who only seeks worldwide success. The music is so niche. JK does work hard, and I admire it, but his ambitions are maybe different.
I don't think Tae cares about hate comments though. I bet he's got a hundred shady retorts ready 😂
Thanks anon. I love that colour on you!
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hey adam what did you think of the metamorph concert? oh funny you should ask! here :3
hi guys. i’ll pretend i know staging directing and anything more about music than “i like sounds” here 👍
first, critique:
the concert felt and was rather short. i understand why, but it was still sad to had it end so soon lol
my personal opinion here: i wish we got more older songs other than the iconic ones, but again, this is the guilty album concert, so i understand
he really did not do well on “not over you” and i’m glad he acknowledged it too, not just moving past a subpar performance
“want” also wasn’t the nicest imo? he sang that weirdly low, or at least that’s what i heard
maybe again, just my audio, but it really didn’t sound as if he actually Sung “advice” lol
this one i’ve said before but honestly, even taemin can’t do “move” now - the dance i mean. maybe it was the clothing here though bc on the show with akmu it was great. but yeah the red cloth outfit didn’t pair well with “move” imo and made the key hip movement look messy
this is not about taemin; the beyond live style of concert kind of deprived us of actual cinematography of it :/ like tell me why strings and black rose looked so much better on random fancams from 7 rows behind than… on the actual screen lol
general commentary:
he was so nervous. really. like i get why, again, i understand it all, and even that didn’t stop him from delivering some absolutely delicious stages, but ohhh brother he was nervous
why was the audience so. dead. like why did you hype up my man when he did good huh. i have to do everything in this house myself next time i’ll be the hype man nr 1
this is my lukewarm take: i didn’t enjoy the “criminal” rock version that much. it was very boring? the chord progression of the guitar sounded too much like a sample without much twist, and there were better ways to incorporate rock into that song imo
i think overall the ratio of lip sync to backing track to no backing track was reasonable and i do like that he didn’t try to lip sync much, just letting everyone see “yeah this is playback”
and now <3 praise and what i enjoyed <3
even though i really don’t like “the rizzness”, that opening was fucking insane. imagine starting a concert while hanging upside down. and singing while it. wow!
all the ment segments were so precious. it was clear he missed the audience for his solo stuff too. i know he’s been touring with shinee for half a year now and all but i imagine it’s different to know that these people came here only for you, you know? the interactions were cute and it was just… well it’s good to see the both sides of lee taemin :)
as i mentioned, the ratio of supported vocals to raw vocals was reasonable, but when he did actually sing… oh lee taemin. this is obviously a biased opinion because i genuinely love his voice, it was what made me fall in love with him as an artist in the first place. notable mentions of vocals imo:
“heaven” was perfectly delivered and a feast as always. the bridge in “heaven” is probably my top 5 taemin bridges, so it’s not surprising, but the energy on the stage while he performs that is So Good. MWAH
“light” was fun! i was dancing along, the playing with the dancers choreo is entertaining to watch and it’s a good time over all
after the flop of “not over you” he payed back with both “night away” and “blue” to me. “night away” especially, it felt so warm and so… just lovely. he nailed that
even though i don’t particularly enjoy “black rose” i can’t deny, it was so good. the choreo is always captivating and he sung it well
“door” … where do i even start. “door” is one of my favourite taemin songs of all time, and to see it executed in such a bold way was absolutely incredible and so enthralling, i felt enchanted listening to each new note and line. genuinely an amazing experience
some miscellaneous thoughts that i don’t know where to place:
i loved “impressionable,” the energy was so right for it, especially, well the D2 unzipped pants :)
the “strings” choreo is so sensual and sexy and yet in this classic taemin style of subtlety about it, it’s so nice to watch, to see him get lost in the pain/pleasure the song talks about. and there is almost, a grown aspect to it now, the aspect of like fully owning his body and what he does with it. very nice
“she loves me she loves me not” was cute, the choreography was very simple but still nice to look at, and i loved the energy on stage of it. the girl gang TM smiling and all :) good time!
rearrangements/special concert versions of songs:
as i mentioned above, i have lukewarm feelings about “criminal,” i didn’t dislike it, but it could have been better
LOVED the whole “danger” stage so much as well as “famous,” to me they’re like two sides of the same coin tbh. and something about both of them being in the same section as want mmm…
i wish i didn’t have to talk about “guilty” but i think i have to mention “guilty” too. the staging was absolutely gorgeous, the orchestral pieces at the beginning and before the bridge, the change in choreo of the dancers as if ensnaring him… it was delicious! such a good stage!
a separate section for the encore because i feel like it deserves it:
i don’t think it’s too untoward to think of jonghyun’s passing when it came to the date of the concert. i saw a few other mentions of it too, so i know i’m not alone in this belief. and this is not to suggest it was somehow planned this way with this date in mind, but rather, soemthing to just keep in the back of your head, i guess?
the whole encore was magical. opening the concert back up with “idea”, the orchestral version nonetheless, and staging that mixed both the hell and heaven aspects of the concept (light blue iridescent suit + dark stage lighting and fire) was delicious to witness and a great way to get the energy in the audience back up again
i don’t think i can talk much about what “pansy” means to me as a song without crying. maybe it’s stupid, because that’s exactly what the song was meant to do, but the fact that taemin co-wrote it too just… makes it so special :( and to know what… the sentiment of the song is probably even doubled now, to know that he came back from the enlistment, because so many fans kept loving him and his music and we stayed by his side even when he wasn’t there. this is just me being sappy i know but to hear “pansy” again made my heart sing
“i think it’s love” is a beautiful song and he sung it beautifully. it was a great encore choice, just an overall masterpiece
finishing the concert with “identity” of all his songs, on a concert named metamorph after the idea of metamorphosis, the imagery of cocoons and blooming and growth seen throughout the concert, with, once again, the significance of the date… it meant so much. it means so much. it was genuinely a moving performance, one that hooks you in and keeps you there, not letting you go. the emotion the execution the meaning behind it all… it just felt right, for that song to close the concert
CLOSING THOUGHTS
i’ve seen every taemin concert, save for the beyond live one in 2021, and this one fits into the theme beautifully. it’s a comeback, it’s a reminder that he’s still here, that he is Back, and he is back for good! as he said in one fan sign, this will go on for as long as he wants to and he will be the one to put the stop to it. i’m grateful for everything taemin did musically this year and i can’t wait to see him grow even more, as an artist and as a person. love you! if anyone read this whole thing leave me an 🍎 emoji in the replies hah <3
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Angel Bat Dawid - Requiem for Jazz - the audio document of her sweeping performance piece inspired by, and expounding on, the 1959 film The Cry of Jazz by Edward O. Bland (embedded below)
Composer, clarinetist, singer and educator Angel Bat Dawid announces the release of a new work, Requiem For Jazz. A 12-movement suite composed, arranged, and inspired in part by dialogue from Edward O. Bland’s 1959 film The Cry of Jazz, the album is a wide-ranging treatise on the African American story from one of its most astute narrators.
Itself an incisive critique of racial politics in the USA, The Cry of Jazz draws formal comparisons between the structure of jazz music and the African American experience - as one of freedom and restraint, of joy and suffering - that manifests in the triumph of spirit over the crushing prejudice of daily life.
Cutting together archive reels from Black neighborhoods in Chicago with live performance footage from Sun Ra and his Arkestra among others, the film remains a radical and prescient evocation of Black pride and its roots in the history of jazz, from spirituals to blues and beyond.
As South African writer Nombuso Mathibela captures in the album’s liner notes:
[Music is our weapon of struggle]
that radiantly holds our positive aspiration, group pride and determination as Black people. Sonics! our beautiful fire that gave light to the world.
And a world that gave us blues. The blues that gave us Black in jazz
Drawing a through line to today’s vibrant avant-garde, Angel Bat Dawid’s Requiem For Jazz picks up the liberation work laid out by Bland’s film, taking the message of joy and suffering within the Black classical tradition into a contemporary setting.
Music from the project was originally premiered at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in Chicago in 2019, where Angel conducted a multigenerational fifteen-piece instrumental ensemble of Black musicians from across Chicago’s creative community, alongside a four-person choir (featuring singers from Black Monument Ensemble) as well as dancers and visual artists.
Recordings from the performance were then mixed and post-produced by Angel, who added interludes, vocals and additional sounds. As well as transcribing a piece from the film, Requiem For Jazz also alludes to The Cry of Jazz through contributions from the Sun Ra Arkestra’s Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott on the album’s final movement, which were recorded remotely at the historic Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra in Philadelphia in late 2020.
“I want us to have this very wonderful conversation that Ed Bland started over 50 years ago and I want to continue the conversation; because this is a loving conversation that we need to have with each other” - Angel Bat Dawid, Feb 2023 creditsreleased March 24, 2023
Requiem for Jazz Composed, Arranged, Conducted & Mixed by Angel Bat Dawid
except “My Rhapsody,” from the 1959 Ed Bland film “The Cry of Jazz,” composed by Paul Severson & Norman Leist (Glenayre Publishing Co. BMI), arranged by Angel Bat Dawid.
Lyrics include extracts from “The Cry of Jazz” and the Roman Catholic Liturgical Requiem Missal.
Requiem for Jazz Intros/Interludes Composed, Produced, Mixed & Performed by Angel Bat Dawid
Requiem for Jazz premiered Sept, 30th 2019 at the Reva & David Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago, IL. Commissioned for the 2019 Annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival.
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queer short film: "coming of agency [sofia zadar]"
queer short cuts is a biweekly newsletter where i share queer & trans short film recommendations. i'm featuring some of my favorite films on tumblr because why not
this film was screened at the 2021 queer cinema for palestine film festival, where filmmakers pledged to boycott the israeli-government sponsored lgbt festival TLVfest. the next queer cinema for palestine, which is a global festival with screenings in many cities and some online, is from november 29-december 10, 2023, and you can sign up for updates here.
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romania | 4 minutes | 2021 | music video
audio in english; no closed captions, but song lyrics are listed in the film description
coming of agency, directed by bogdan balla, is music video for sofia zadar (they/them), an experimental pop musician and performer. the film matches the dreamy, nonlinear, queer nature of the song itself, playing around with gender fuckery, anger, and celebration all together. the film is explicitly political as well: a character reads marco mieli’s 1977 towards a gay communism: elements of a homosexual critique, complementing lyrics like, “I will not be impregnated with your seeds of conformity / I will not pray to the holy rails of progress”.
visual trigger warning: bright flashing lights from 3:10 to 3:18.
- deepa's full review, including content notes at the end
watch on youtube, and find both sofia zadar and director bogdan balla on instagram
#queer short cuts#queer film#film recommendations#music video#romanian queer film#bogdan balla#sofia zadar#undescribed#short film
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The Magnus Archives is just Gossip Girl but Spooky (A Raccoon Court Case)
I wrote this essay as my argument for my podcast (which you can listen to here!), but I feel like the TMA tumblr community will get a kick out of it. Enjoy!
OPENING ARGUMENT
Hi, my name is Mel, and today I will be defending myself against the claim that “I believe The Magnus Archives is just Gossip Girl but horror.”
Hey Upper East Siders - Today, I would like to open with an honest admittance - I simply do not know what our audience is into. Usually, I just get put on trial for things I enjoy and hope that someone out there can relate. I’m not sure if the trash collectors are fans of both Gossip Girl and The Magnus Archives, but I am and so is Jess, and thats enough for me. If you are familiar with both of these franchises, I imagine that you are yelling into the void right now, screaming and crying and throwing up over how I could make such a controversial yet brave statement. That’s exactly how I felt when my best friend and co-historian of Gay Britain, Jessica Harkness, posited, “isn’t Gossip Girl just the Eye?” over zoom one night in January of 2022. This revelation truly rocked my world, and after further consideration, I have decided to explore all of the ways in which The Magnus Archives is just Spooky Gossip Girl.
In this case, I will identify the similarities between the omnipresent life ruining forces that are Gossip Girl and The Eye, the ways in which money and prestige are powerful enough to destroy anyone’s life, and the impulse of general public to snitch on everyone at all times.
Is London just a spooky version of Manhattan? Are rich white people the root of most evils? Did anyone actually have control over their future or was it all decided for them by forces unknown? These questions and more will all be answered in my analysis so stay tuned.
Defense case-in-chief
Members of the jury, I believe that The Magnus Archives is just Spooky Gossip Girl for a variety of reasons, but before we begin, I will provide a summary of both Gossip Girl and The Magnus Archives in case any members of the jury are unfamiliar.
Running from 2007 to 2012 on the CW, Gossip Girl was a targeted critique and celebration of the exorbitant wealth guarded by the upper east side elite of New York City. In the show, we follow a group of teenagers who go to private school together, some wealthy and some on scholarship, as they navigate the intense pressures of NYC high society. This would be a normal rich teen drama if not for the existence of Gossip Girl, a blog/messaging service that collects and distributes tea about the students. The messages are basically just 2007’s version of getting twitter notifications for a gossip account. Over time, Gossip Girl bullies teens, causes infighting, endorses taking advantage of others, and exposes a number of social and literal crimes. Over the course of 6 seasons, we explore the impact that gossip, money, constant surveillance, and the internet has on the livelihoods of the Upper East Siders, from the snotty teenagers to their prestigious families.
Now, The Magnus Archives is a podcast distributed by rusty quill, licensed under a creative commons non-attribution sharealike 4.0 international license, written and performed by Jonathan Sims, and directed by Alexander J Newall. This short form audio drama, produced from 2015 to 2021, follows Jonathan Sims, the newly appointed head archivist of The Magnus Institute in London. Jon’s primary task is to organize and digitize the statements given to the institute with the help of three assistants, most of which which we hear throughout the podcast. While the statements are originally written off as the ramblings of lunatics, it soon becomes clear that the paranormal stories given in the statements hold some truth to them. Eventually, the paranormal aspects of the statements are revealed to be the manifestation of the world’s worst fears. In an unfortunate turn of events, Jon becomes an avatar of The Eye, which is the fear of being watched and surveilled and known, and unwillingly brings about the end of the world. The show focuses mainly on the ways in which we are shaped and guided by our fears as well as the issues of predetermination and fate when it comes to our decisions. While Jon and his coworkers/lover try to save the world, we get to explore guilt, responsibility, and determining the fate of others without their consent.
Both of these shows obviously rely on group efforts to source information and power for the entity that rules (Gossip Girl and the Eye respectively), but neither Gossip Girl nor the Eye actually does the heavy lifting in their operations. Through a variety of tactics, these two entities collect information constantly without doing much work themselves. This is the key to their success as harmful information spreading powers. In this section, I will catalog how these powers surveilled their targets before we dive into how that information was used against others.
Gossip Girl starts out small, with Lonely Boy Dan Humphrey at the helm. In the first season, Dan reports on drama happening at the small private school that the main cast attends. Members of the school are encouraged to report on any suspicious behavior that they see their classmates partaking in. Their reward is not monetary - instead, they ride the high of being credited as an informant in a Gossip Girl post. Teenagers are cruel and short-sited, so it makes sense that they would chase the high of this notoriety without considering the impacts that the drama had on their fellow classmates. This demographic of informants was insatiable - they demanded to know everything that was going on in the lives of their classmates and they were going to help expose them in any way possible. However, while the early Gossip Girl posts merely reported on what students saw other students getting up to, it wasn’t long before Gossip Girl began weaponizing the drama (real or otherwise) to ruin lives. Throughout the show, we watch Dan and Georgina collect any information from the now sycophantic following that Gossip Girl had amassed. This information was not fact checked or considered. Anything went. Something as innocent as spotting Serena Van Der Woodsen outside of an apartment building could be spun to insinuate that she’s back into drugs. Regardless of whether it is true or not, Gossip Girl specialized in character assassination, and even when they didn't have proof, it didn’t matter. The damage done by Gossip Girl in some cases was irreparable - Jenny has to pack her bags and move away to escape constant harassment, Nate nearly goes to jail for drug possession instead of his dad, and Chuck and Blair get in a car accident that causes Blair to lose her baby. Real people were getting hurt, and in the end that was the high that Dan was chasing. He wanted to ruin lives, and his following was willing to help him do so even if it could hurt them just as easily. Dan never needed to rely on hacking security cameras or following people himself - the members of the Upper East Side community and those adjacent to them observed and reported back without any real incentive. It’s fun to speculate about people’s lives, especially when you can distance yourself from the fact that those people are real people, not just social objects for us to gawk over and pick apart. Gossip Girl shows us just how eager even the nice, good people are to publicly scrutinize others without turning that scrutiny on themselves.
Dan finds people to run surveillance for him, but he still partakes in the evil of celebrity shaming. The important part to remember about wielding power gained through surveillance is detaching yourself from those you hold power over, and Dan succeeds at doing so. Gossip Girl becomes a money making venture for Dan, one where he no longer cares about whether his only friends are hurt in the process of his successes. He truly becomes Gossip Girl rather than a real human being. Not only that, but Dan fully commits his life to Gossip Girl’s cause, which is the celebrity gossip economy. While Dan may believe that he is doing something revolutionary by exposing the Upper East Side, he is really just feeding into the mass market we have created for celebrity monitoring and surveilance. It doesn’t matter if it is paparazzi, TMZ, or Gossip Girl, they all serve this bigger purpose. In this way, the show Gossip Girl is identical in framework to The Magnus Archives. In the world of The Magnus Archives, The Eye acts as spooky Gossip Girl, collecting as much information as it can on the fears and secrets of everyone. In The Magnus Archives, one of the 14 majors fears is manifested as The Eye or the fear of being watched and known, the fear of having no secrets. The more information and secrets that The Eye knows, the more fear it sees and the more power it can wield over the general population. It can specialize the way it attacks it's victims the more it knows about them, so the major goal of The Eye is to know as much as possible. Like Gossip Girl, The Eye can’t do this on it’s own, and instead relies on a variety of mechanisms to gain it’s information. Primarily (as far as is discussed in the podcast), The Eye is fed through statements given to The Magnus Institute by people who have been touched by other fears. People who have been haunted by their fears come into the institute, desperate for someone to listen to them, to validate their insane experience, and to make it stop. While the Gossip Girl informants also just wanted to be heard and to be a part of something, those informants weren’t all being tormented by the thing they were reporting back to. The Eye also collects information through the physical eyes of it’s avatars and employees (and maybe any eyes in paintings too?). At the Magnus Institute, once employees are hired to the archive, they are forever tied to The Eye. While all of them work for The Eye, it is the Archivist that becomes the most important worker and acts as the avatar of this fear. Whether knowingly or not, the archival employees purpose in life quickly becomes to collect information and report back. Their service can only be ended through blinding themselves or dying or maybe killing the Archivist, inherently ruining all of their lives in the name of knowledge. The avatars that serve The Eye vary in their willingness to serve. Throughout the series, we see the ways in which Elias Bouchard (DILF)/Jonah Magnus (Not a DILF) have no boundaries when it comes to collecting information for their master. They don’t care if any of their employees die in the greater search for knowledge and actually they will actively put them in harms way if it means getting closer to completing the Watcher’s Crown. That is contrasted by employees like Melanie King, who gouges her eyes out in order to break her terms of service. Here is a key aspect in which TMA ratchets up the horror aspect of the Gossip Girl playbook. While Gossip Girl gains information through willing participants snitching on unwilling participants, The Eye commands unwilling participants to snitch on unwilling participants. The added layer of nonconsensual abuse that The Eye relies on makes it much spookier. Both shows expose our desire to be heard, whether it is airing our worst nightmares or talking about someone you saw cheating on their boyfriend - we need to share these thoughts with others regardless of the impacts, and both Gossip Girl and The Eye relied on this human need to ruin lives.
Now, let’s look at how surveillance and the congregation of information by one all seeing party is used to manipulate others in both of these shows in a way that is vital to the plot and messaging of the show.
I’m not going to belabor the obvious point here - both of these shows are about white men using information to control everyone in their community to everyone’s detriment, and before you say “but mel! Elias Bouchard/Jonah Magnus isn’t ever physically described. How do you know he is a white man?” Guys, he is the literal physical embodiment of capitalism and constrictive, all knowing governments. Of course, he is a white guy. Anyway, this is the basis of these shows, and they would have no story if not for this unifying theme. What ties these two shows is the need to surveil and report back to a greater power, who then uses information to ruin lives and inform fear. Gossip Girl fails to exist without the inclusion of constant surveillance. If we didn’t have the omniscient internet god that was weasel faced Dan Humphreys, Gossip Girl would’ve just been a show about vapid rich kids complaining - I have no interest in that show. Instead, we get to see how people lose their agency and their minds when other people have the ability to scrutinize their actions out of context. Throughout the show, we watch Gossip Girl utilize surveillance to ruin lives - not only the lives of those targeted by the texts and posts, but also the lives of the informants. These young teens (and sometimes adults) became completely obsessed with getting whatever information they could to send to Gossip Girl. They became addicted and were willing to endanger themselves to get the scoop for literally no reward. Even though no one was safe from Gossip Girl’s targeted shots, no one, not even the adults, could resist the rush that came from submitting a tip that Gossip Girl used. In the end, they couldn’t even help themselves by destroying the entity that ran their life. Our addiction to knowing and judging is our downfall, and that’s the message of Gossip Girl. The happy and bizarre endings we see for the main cast in Gossip Girl only occur when Gossip Girl is exposed and shut down. Dan comes clean and gives a pretty shitty apology/explanation for his actions and the group can move one with the master manipulator Gossip Girl finally retired.
The Magnus Archives is also a show that ceases to exist if you remove the powers of surveillance. If The Eye didn’t collect information, it would have no need for the archival staff and we would have literally no show. Easy as that. Instead, we get to delve into humanity’s darkest fears and the ways in which fear motivates us and ruins our lives. The difference between Gossip Girl and The Eye however comes when we discuss the motivations for collecting and using the information. The Eye’s sole purpose is to sow fear and feed off of the destruction of lives. Gossip Girl aims to destroy lives and manipulate/profit off of the Upper East Side, and the fear of being watched is a nice by product.
There is a similarity in message between these two shows that goes beyond just cautionary tales about surveillance. The message may be partially to fear everyone having access to everything about you, and I believe that is a wise moral. However, these shows deal with more than just the fear of being watched - they dive into the ethics of using that information to change the lives of others. Dan originally is trying to gain justice for the unfair ways in which his peers were acting - putting others down, cheating on their partners, and beliving that poor people were useless. However, the power corrupted him, as it usually does, and Dan became obsessed with controlling people through blackmail and their fear of being exposed from his safety in the Brooklyn Poverty Loft (TM Mike’s Mic). Years go by in this dystopian hell where Gossip Girl is in complete control over the lives of the Upper East Side. Now, in the end, Gossip Girl doesn’t win. Dan realizes how fucked up everything he did was (way too late in my opinion, but thats besides the point). In the last episode of Gossip Girl, Dan sacrifices his social life and reputation to start making up for his mistakes. He allows his best friend to break the story that he is Gossip Girl, and he personally apologizes to the main cast, knowing that he likely will be shunned for all the shit he did. This desire to fall on your sword and sacrifice yourself to save others from a future of survielence hell actually is the main message - if you fuck up this bad by abusing the excess of information at your fingertips, you can prevent it from happening in the future, or at least stop the issues you have created yourself. Obviously, Gossip Girl could come back (and she does in the new series of Gossip Girl), but Dan realized that he didn’t need to keep it going. If he quit and exposed himself, at least he could stop the madness for a little while.
Surprisingly, a nearly identical ending occurs in The Magnus Archives. Despite his best efforts, Jon (now the avatar - the Archivist) acts as an unwilling participant in the bringing of the end of the world. Not just a metaphorical end of the world - the literal end of the world. The fears take over the planet and divide it’s inhabitants into those who watch and those who are watched. The latter of the two is doomed to live through their worst nightmares for the rest of eternity. Now, you can make the argument that Dan chose to be shitty while Jon did not - and I agree. If that’s really gonna make or break this argument for you, we can use Jonah Magnus, who did make the choice to bring about the apocalypse. Jon, however, at fault or not, knows that his actions in the past ruined lives and he has a chance to potentially fix it. Over the last season of the podcast, Jon and his boyfriend Martin make their way back to London through the fear domains. Once in London, they realize that Jonah has become The Eye - he is no longer human and is just a fear. The boyfriends are informed that there are a couple of theories as to how they can reverse the end of the world - Jon can kill Jonah and become the eye himself, trying to fix the world from the highest point of power OR they can destroy the eye and banish the fears to another world. There is a ton of super interesting discourse about these options in the last few episodes, but the group agrees to banish the fears.
Jon, the love of my life, then makes a decision for the group. As a believer that it is his mistake that caused the fears and his desire not to doom another world for the sake of his own, Jon decides to become the eye and destroy the entire world - fears and people involved. He is in his Eren Jager in S4 of Attack on Titan era. This decision and commitment to Jon’s selfish line of thinking best lines up to Dan at peak Gossip Girl / Famous Author times when he goes behind the back of his team to chose his plan - becoming the fear and trying to fix it himself. This is a mistake, and in the end, Jon convinces Martin to kill him in order to banish the fears. The team knows that the fears will likely do this to another world, in the same way that someone was likely to pick up the Gossip Girl mantel - BUT they did what they would to stop the immediate suffering. Obviously, this is Spooky Gossip Girl, so Jon and Martin sacrifice themselves literally and not metaphorically like Dan does. However, it reinforces the message that when you have the power to influence and control people, you always have the opportunity to change their lives for the better and fix your mistakes. Just because you have all of the information doesn’t mean that you can’t give it all up to protect others.
These two shows are inherently examinations on agency and our ability to chose what happens to us. In both The Magnus Archives and Gossip Girl, the fate and life plan of the main characters is relatively set in stone and chosen for them from an early age. In many ways, their actions and the hell that they must live through are predetermined by the bigger powers.
In Gossip Girl, as with many shows dealing with rich and powerful families, one of the main non-Gossip Girl caused conflicts revolves around predetermined fate. The rich families set out the life plan of their children from birth - where they will go to school, where they will go to college, what they will study, what families they will marry into. The children are expected to follow this plan and join their parents in upholding the family business and the family legacy. Some of the children chose to follow these plans, like Chuck Bass who follows his father’s footsteps by purchasing and managing high scale hotels (but then does end up murdering his father so ¯\(ツ)/¯ ). Some of the children fail to follow the steps but execute the plan, like Blaire Waldorf who doesn’t get into Yale but does end up running a successful fashion line just like her mom. And then, there are the kids who just don’t follow the plan at all, like Nate Archebald who ends up running a newspaper and puts his dad in jail. This variety in how parents deciding on fate actually plays out is not a new story.
In the show, we also see some levels of fate come into play when we look at Gossip Girl himself. Dan originally uses his power as Gossip Girl to try and hold the elite accountable for their shitty behavior. He tries to break into the upper levels of society, but is told that even if he were to enter the Upper East Side, he would never really be a part of it. This ends up becoming true. As Dan recognizes his ability to manipulate public opinion in his favor, he collects information from the public with the explicit goal of character assassination. He can’t even help himself. He believes that he is in control, when in reality he is a victim to our obsession with celebrity. He becomes well known but he never becomes one of the Upper East Side because he ruined their lives. He isn't in control. In Gossip Girl, Dan acts as the collector and abuser of knowledge, organizing the statements that his followers bring him and weaponizing them, but in the end, his work serves the insane economy of celebrity judgement that ruins lives daily.
Now, in TMA, we deal much more concretely in the ideas of predestination and fate as not expectations that parents and friends put on us but as actual forces in the world. Employees of the archive collect information to serve the Eye. While they believe that they are in control of their lives and their motivations, all along the Eye is compelling them to seek knowledge. Even when anyone in the archive thinks about quitting, they just can’t bring themselves to do it.
Throughout the podcast, we see this predestination of “service to the Eye” observed in a variety of ways. Jon, the Archivist, becomes an avatar of the Eye just as was planned for him (we will discuss this more later). Martin fails to follow the steps but executes the plan nonetheless. Rather than staying as a sole employee of The Eye, he is also working for the Lonely but refuses to help the Lonely hurt the Eye. In the end, he completes his work as an avatar by giving Elias/Jonah valuable information on Peter Lucas and his attempt at completing a Lonely ritual. Then, we have employees that refused their fate, like Tim who dies stopping one of the other fears or Melanie who gouges her eyes out. Even when fate is undeniable, we see it take different forms in two it controls the lives of the characters.
Let’s get back to Jon. Jon, the love of my life, is partially predestined for his future and partially responsible for it. As a kid, Jon was marked by The Web, one of the other 14 fears, when he read the Lietner “A Guest for Mr. Spider” and then watched his bully get pulled into a magical door and is never seen again. Jonah Magnus, when looking for an Archivist to make into an Avatar, knew that they would only be powerful enough to work if they were marked by all of the fears. Now, Jon wasn’t special because he was marked by one fear - plenty of people were marked by a fear. However, the show does bring up the fact that he was picked for this job even when there were other, way more qualified people who applied, like Sasha who also worked at the Institute. This implies that Jon was always going to be picked, none of the other applicants ever had a chance because he was picked despite not having any relevant experience. Throughout the show, the Eye continues to force Jon into being marked by all of the fears so he can complete The Watcher’s Crown.
TMA 160 → https://snarp.github.io/magnus_archives_transcripts/episode/160.html
Once he is the archivist, we see him fight to decipher what is him and what is the eye. We actually see this to a degree with all of the staff, because once they realize who they are working for, they realize that they have no power to leave. While Jon (the Archivist) realizes that The Eye is evil, he cannot bring himself to stop working for it. Jon tells his boss that he never chose to be an avatar, to serve a fear, to which his boss says this -
Whether Jon ever had a chance to leave and to not chose this life, we have no idea. This could just be Elias being a shithead and deflecting. However, we see Jon become unable to leave when he realizes that you can become freed by blinding yourself. Melanie was strong enough to do so, but Jon was not.
And because of this, he inadvertently ended the world. Depending on where you are in the show, you will see very different versions of Jon. Sometimes, he feels no guilt for his actions because he knows they are controlled by the eye. Other times, like when he doomed the world or Tim and Sasha die, he decides to accept those actions as his own even when they were not. It’s a very interesting look into choice and blame that I think both of these shows look into.
Obviously, this example is way too spooky for Gossip Girl, but the sentiment applies all the same. Various times throughout the show, a main character brings up how Gossip Girl is only given power by people giving her material - so, if they stopped giving her material, they could stop her power. However, not one bitch actually stops snitching to Gossip Girl, the detached entity. In ways, both shows follow characters that have issues with taking responsibility with their actions and the ways in which they themselves are ruining lives. Dan essentially says that Gossip Girl would’ve been nothing if people hadn't been obsessed with tea, so its really not his fault that lives were ruined. After all, if people hadn’t done things they were ashamed of, he would’ve had no gossip to spread. Similarly, Jon causes many people incredible pain by reading their minds and mind controlling them and haunting their dreams, writing it off as “feeding the eye.” It doesn’t matter because it wasn’t really his choice. The difference between Dan and Jon in this case is that Jon eventually realizes that it doesn’t matter what is truly his choice - he enjoyed causing fear and knowing these people without their consent and that’s wrong. This discussion of individual fault and responsibility ties nicely into my next point of comparison. In addition, regardless of morality and the desires of the main cast, those with the most money or prestige have the power to determine any aspect of the life of their community. The parents and the rich kids have the most power in Gossip Girl until Dan manages to increase his following and prestige enough that Gossip Girl is in power. In the Magnus Archives, power and prestige are linked in the institute already. The Institute seems to have endless resources and because of that they have endless power. Hiring staff to manipulate and murder is no issue when you have no limits on funds. The police are essentially ignoring all of Elias’s crimes until season 3/4. There was no chance for any opposing forces to silence Gossip Girl or The Eye - they were the ones in ultimate power.
Finally, I would like to touch on a few character comparisons that I feel exemplify how not only the messaging but also the story itself is similar in these two shows.
Let’s start by making a clear distinction between the two people portrayed by Pen Bagley in the series. Originally, we meet “Lonely Boy,” the “poor” kid from Brooklyn going to the private school on a scholarship. He is painted as a total outsider who feels deeply unloved outside of his family. His main goal, whether he admits it or not, is to break into the group of friends that run his school, so he can feel connected and normal. However, Lonely Boy dies as soon as he is accepted into this friend group. In season three, we truly start to meet Dickhead Dan, as I like to refer to him. Rather than the sweet older brother character, Dan becomes selfish, big headed, and self important as soon as he goes to college. For the rest of the show, we watch Dan take out his vendetta against his so-called friends, the only people who really tolerate him in NYC. He weaponizes Gossip Girl to manipulate the lives of his friends until he can finally profit off of it by publishing a tell all novel. Even though Dan had been Gossip Girl the whole time, his intentions originally were just to teach his classmates a lesson on gossip and how harmful it can be. As soon as Dan gained enough social power, he changed his motives and deliberately used surveillance to control every aspect of his friend’s lives before defaming them publicly. Dan sucks. Anyway, I think that this duality can be represented by a few characters in TMA. First off, “Lonely Boy” begins as a guy who has a crush on Serena Van Der Woodsen, a mysterious girl outside of his friend group. Most of Dan’s original motivations are to get Serena to notice him, and eventually, continuous pining worked. I will say that in early seasons of TMA we see this same pattern with Martin and Jon. In the first season, Jon refuses to discuss his personal life or beliefs with his coworkers, remaining a dark academia enigma until a literal worm woman enters their workplace. Martin pines after this man he knows nothing about and stays at his job that sucks in part because this cute mystery boy is there, even when the cure mystery boy accuses him of being a ghost. While I see aspects of Martin in Lonely Boy, mainly the aspect that they are fundamentally lonely despite their best efforts, Dickhead Dan is a total different beast. The secondary, power hungry, selfish version of Dan Humphrey is nearly identical to the character of Jonah Magnus, if Dan could hop between bodies and control people’s minds. I will argue that Dan’s use of information and decision to knowing spread misinformation is a form of manipulation that on the scale of Gossip Girl is a form of brainwashing, so maybe these boys aren't so different after all. Anyway, Jonah Magnus is a servant of The Eye. His whole life’s purpose is to provide the eye with as much information it can about others that it can use to become more powerful. Now, Jonah employs people unknowingly to assist in his work, but he has no care for whether they live or die, much in the same way Dan does. I mean, Dan’s work as Gossip Girl causes his sister to get into drug dealing and exposes how she lost her virginity, which forces her to move to upstate NY just to escape the drama. If you don’t care about what happens to your sister, you probably wouldn’t care if other people were hurt in the same awful ways. In this way, Omnipresent Dan and Jonah are in their basic form the same man. The way that TMA makes it is a little spookier is the fact that Jonah forces people to give him information and the only way to escape is to scoop your own eyes out.
Finally, I want to quickly talk about love interests. Gossip Girl wouldn’t be Gossip Girl if the teens didn’t all have complicated emotional and sexual relationships that breached usual friendship bro code rules. We obviously have pairings that are considered “end game” in Gossip Girl like Chuck and Blair and Dan and Serena. We also have the pairings that overlapped - Jennie and Chuck, Dan and Blair. This intermixing was purely for spectacle in Gossip Girl - most of these pairings were just to shock the audience and keep us interested. In The Magnus Archives, we see this same overlap in relationships and interesting boundaries being broken (i.e. office relationships). Daisy and Basira in my mind are lovers who also happen to be Police Officer partners. It is revealed that in college, Jon and Georgie dated. Later in the seasons, Georgie dates Melanie, who is an employee of Jon’s, and Jon dates Martin. Now, I do not want to make our jury think that I am saying the Jon/Georgie/Melanie/Martin story line is like the Chuck/Blair/Dan/Serena stories except in that there is gay overlap as the seasons go on. How are these honest, beautiful portrayals of different forms of love somehow spookier than the raunchy, debaucherous relationships of Gossip Girl? The relationships of TMA are honest and vulnerable and fragile - and isn’t that the scariest thing a relationship could be?
Closing Argument
Members of the court, today I truly put myself out there by being not only controversial but also brave. I ask that you carefully consider my argument and see that Gossip Girl and The Magnus Archives are basically the same story. The Magnus Archives just adds a little bit of horror through being in London, introducing mind control, and actually manifesting the end of the world. I urge you to see the similarities between Dan and Jonah Magnus, Gossip Girl and the Eye, and the conclusions of both stories. I think it only makes sense that I love both of these pieces of art so much given their near identical structure. Honorable Jury members, do not find me guilty of having a bad opinion today. If you do, I’ll snitch to Gossip Girl AND ask the ceaseless watcher to turn his gaze on you, and that is a threat.
#tma#tma spoilers#tma podcast#jonathan sims#gossip girl#dan humphrey#i would die for martin kartin blackwood#essay#raccoon court#the magnus universe
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god there could simply never be a tour opener as iconic as ready for it. the critiques and comments, the layering of the audios, the slow fade in of her voice saying “reputation” mimicking the comments on her reputation, the beat getting stronger, starting the show with “baby let the games begin” and the whole show being set up as a deep dive into that reputation and then stripping it all away to show her in her vulnerability (delicate, guitar performances, piano), ending it all with “and in the death of her reputation, she felt truly alive.” i have never seen a better tour opener than ready for it because not only is it extremely powerful, it also sets the story of the show so well. SHIVERS!
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