self promo sunday--happy ouat appreciation week!!

my submission for @dinneratgrannys OUAT appreciation week! Day 1- favorite arc

Neverland PWP (but also shameless plug to my camelot WIP because i love them there so much too and i can never pick between the two)

as always thanks for reading and lmk what you think <3

@caught-in-the-filter and @veryverynotgood are the best betas and friends i could ever ask for.

😭 Do you have anymore screenshots of what happened after Leviathan said that shit cause bro I really hope it didn't end on a cliffhanger like that😭😭 TF does he mean protect bruh Levi you have lost your mind

Not really 😭😭

[SPOILERS] So we're like, "what if I don't wanna?" and he's like, "okay, but, like, did I ask?????"

Then we get pulled into the 'Coffin of Mystery'TM <-I can't figure out the floaty TM thing

Hi! It's me again. First off, Sam and Pocket being able to just joke around and have each other's back is the sweetest thing ever. I love how she has someone in her corner during this time because, will, i can already tell things are about to get so bad with that plan of hers.

Hmm, I honestly do feel like Pocket is being too overconfident in this and it's getting me really worried. Like, drugs are no joke and they can really be so nasty and drag you back into addiction even if it's the tiniest bit. So many things could go wrong on so many levels and like I said before, she's already not in the best mental state right now so adding this on her plate will do more harm than good. I know she's saying she can handle herself, and that that girl is gone now. But I have a bad feeling that her complacency about it is going to back fire. I'm just here hoping Sam would be able to get to her on time. Also kinda hoping Buckaroo would somehow make an appearance but I also want him to wallow some more so. I can't decide haha

I only have one theory today though, about the whole, underground thing going on at the strip club. Could it be connected to Hydra? If so, could it be the missing women are taken as prisoners for them and being experimented on? That could lead Pocket to the same predicament a.k.a. her getting captured in their facility and that's where she's going to find out how Jeanine is connected to them. I could honestly be reaching too far here lmao. But I have a tiny feeling that Jennifer is connected to this somehow. But, it could also be not connected at all. And this is simply something Pocket had to face.

Anyways, I saw you say that laters update is going to end in a cliffhanger so expect me to just spew out theories left rigcht and center hahaha you're amazing btw. and I will say, don't be too hard on yourself with writing. Even just putting a few words into a doc is an achievement already. Take care of yourself!

— Jnon 🤍

Hello, Jnon!

I'm glad she has Sam, too... for now, anyway. O.o

She's definitely over-estimating her ability to Say No to Drugs (TM). And there's going to be a particular event that will push her over the edge, to where she just doesn't care what she does to herself. A self-inflicted punishment, if you will.

Bucky will show back up in Chapter 25, which is only one chapter away now, but, like, nearly two months in story-time.

You are totally right about The Wiggle Room and the trafficking being tied to Hydra, so you are not reaching too far!

With Friends Like These is coming along-- already 20k words in and it's only four chapters so far, lol!

54 and 62 please!

What’s your favorite part about the fanfiction writing process?

Oh damn, this one goes hard.

I think if I had to pick one massive overarching thing about The Fanfiction Process TM, it'd have to be........there's a moment where everything clicks. Not necessarily where you know exactly what's going to happen at every point, but....the moment where something slides into place and you get this story--you know what it's about, what the core is.

Sometimes that's something deep and profound--like when I realized what the last line of 257 Years would be, or the intertwined motifs in unkindness of ravens and how thoroughly they made that fic About the devastating isolation of Valka being a trans woman in a society that was so cruel to people like her, and the equally devastating power of Eivor's kindness, about the way their stories intertwine with this incredible platonic love and Valka being brought in from the cold.

Sometimes though it's simpler--like, for all that there is ABSOLUTELY intense emotional payoff in the honeymoon fic, the core concept behind that story was as simple as "I want to write a pure missionfic, there's not enough missionfic in the ME fandom". It's just that you can't have a true missionfic without, well, Shepard being Shepard.

Thoughts on cliffhangers?

Skill issue.

They can be used effectively, but overuse weakens a story and depending on overusing them is the mark of a weak storyteller. (Don't @ me about where we left ANOISTM, IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE A CLIFFHANGER LISTEN IT HAUNTS ME.)

The point is, sometimes it's ENTIRELY appropriate to end on a cliffhanger--to end a chapter on an "oh shit" moment to set up the next! In fact, sometimes NOT using the "cliffhanger" there would be worse writing--there are wham lines that NEED the resonance of being the last thing you hear in a chapter, or even in a whole series installment.

(I also think people mix up an actual CLIFFHANGER with the concept of a "wham line". Like, in my opinion, a chapter ending on a massive reveal or, like, the POV character coming over a rise and seeing an enemy army spread out in front of them? That's not....a cliffhanger. That's just a reveal. A cliffhanger is "you metaphorically left this character clinging to a root over a massive drop--the tension comes from "oh my god, how are they going to get out of this? I don't have any concept of what might happen next or how they might escape! I need the next installment right away to find out, the tension is killing me!")

But that's why they should be used sparingly--or, rather, used with intent. You should know what you're trying to achieve by the use of a cliffhanger and use them because the story benefits from it. If it's just a cheap stinger to "ratchet up the tension" and get people to keep reading, that's a bad call.

(For a cheekily-technically-fanfiction example: I adored Rise of Kyoshi, but the cliffhanger really did feel rushed, tacked-on, and narratively unsatisfying, and soured my appetite for the sequel and for a reread because it just felt cheap--and insulting, awkwardly stapled onto the end of what had been an excellent book. It's a really bad sign that you don't trust your story to carry itself or your audience to appreciate it, when used badly.)

I've always loved the murderbot books but something about reading this for Book Club TM is making me look at things closer and man. It only makes me enjoy it even more seeing the elements that are coming together to make it a good story.

Like, absolutely killer (haha) first paragraph, tells you SO much about the POV character so quickly. Murderbot is both hyper-competent and an awkward loser (affectionate). The first person narration is somewhat unreliable because the narrators memory is unreliable in the way anyone's would be (not remembering all the details of a very stressful event etc). And despite having read this multiple times the sort-of cliffhanger at the end of the first chapter has me all ooooooh what is it what does it mean!!!!!!

Good book. I enjoy it.

googling suggests that Brian Reed was the lead writer for Halo 4... what specifically about the story of H4 makes him the villain? It's been a year or so since I've played h4 so the details beyond the broad strokes have been forgotten.

that said i will agree he's the villain for halo 5 that story is Not Great TM

(i just like hearing your opinions on stuff and am totally not trying to mine ideas for what might be changed in a post halo-3 rewrite because i do love the covenant civil war aspects of 4. or the implications that there has to have been one because conflict drives narratives)

Thanks.

Full disclosure, I really don't know what was going on behind the scenes on Halo 4 or 5 and the most I can do is offer rampant speculation, usually based on my biases and very little evidence.

My impressions are these:

Halo has always always had trouble on story, mostly around having strong leadership and a definite idea of where everything is going. There are too many stakeholders with ideas and teams have struggled to get to unified ideas and then to have enough time to implement what they finalize. This was true during Bungie days and definitely feels like it's been true during 343. (I'm more confident on what I say about 1-3 because I actually have a book with a lot of old interview details that speaks to that.)

They'll build up a lot of interesting stuff around the games, even though my opinions on the quality of that stuff vary widely. I had problems with Halo 4, but the stuff that was coming out around 4 where you had multiple stories interweaving touching each others' threads... that was interesting! That was neat! And they got Greg Bear to write three whole novels for us!!! Fuck Karen Traviss, but like... dude!!!!

...And then the campaign was just. What we got. Don't get me wrong, there are things in Halo 4's campaign that are cool and interesting, but like... there will always remain a part of me that is still pissed that they killed Cortana.

Full stop.

I accept new Halo lore as it comes to me and try to do my best to take my lumps and integrate even things that I don't like, but I am still mad that they killed Cortana in the first place and have never really stopped being that.

....Anyway. I'm getting sidetracked.

Aside from CE, which was intended to be self-contained and thus is pretty straightforward and ends with a clear conclusion, Halo game plots have never really been necessarily good. That is just the nature of the beast. Halo 2 ends on a massive cliffhanger because they literally could not finish putting the whole story they wanted to in that game. Halo 3 is a mess because everyone was so violently burned out from Halo 2 that the leadership problem was even worse.

[Suspicious silence re: Reach goes here because I still can't motivate myself to replay Reach]

Halo 4 falls very flat for me with some things that were good and mostly other things that I had to make my peace with and come to be okay with. I will grouse about things, but we've Halo cycled our way around to a lot of people (including me) acknowledging that not everything about Halo 4 was horrible.

(I guess my big things that piss me off about it are: Cortana, as discussed, wasting the Didact, and the weird fucking pivot on Catherine Halsey's character.)

Anyway, Brian Reed. My comment there was kind of a flippant attempt to respond to something I wasn't sure how to feel about, but here's what I got:

Reed wasn't actually the lead writer on 4, that was Christopher Schlerf. I don't know much about either of these people! But after Schlerf left, Reed was the lead writer on 5 and did a lot of work on the comics (that I still haven't read because blah blah blah my usual excuses.)

It's hard for me to pick out what exactly I think his fingerprints are in different parts of Halo, because I don't know the guy or his work particularly well. I'm better at identifying what I think (no guarantees I'm right) was Staten back in early Halo because I've seen enough solo work from him to kind of know what I think he liked, and I've seen enough of Frank O'Connor talking about stuff in interviews to (rightly or wrongly) blame a couple specific Chief things I hate on him, but I don't have that with Reed.

However, I have read Reed's short story in the Fractures anthology. Opinions may vary on this, nobody's gotta agree with me, but I really had to pause with myself after reading Rossbach's World because... it was thoughtful?

So looking at Reed, who had to take over for another lead writer and try to come up with a following act for Halo 4... I still hate Halo 5. A lot. But like, I get it. Of course it feels like a weird pivot hail Mary to find something to focus on, because it was.

I think it was stupid and I hated it, but I do have some sympathy for the pressure on the person who ended up taking the fall for it. Anything where you are working for a highly opinionated nerd audience with tons of pressure is going to be very difficult.

I feel like they should've borne out the Forerunner story threads instead of pivoting to the Created, and maybe gotten to those ideas after the plate was clear. I also think Cortana deserved to live. (If you want to see what inspired some of my thoughts about that, you should look into Bungie's previous series: Marathon. But it has been too long since I personally dug around in Marathon for me to be terribly helpful about it anymore.)

...But I also think that Reed is just a dude who had a job and produced a story I really don't like. I've heard he's been pretty much harassed off the face of the internet? And like... nothing is worth that, man.

People with more insight and background details about what was going on actively might have more information than I do and better reasons to hate him, but I was really really checked out of Halo for the better part of a decade and I'm honestly pretty soft when it comes down to it.

I'm gonna need ur reaction and thoughts about the RaM finale once you've watched it

I only watched it yesterday so im not gonna have any hot and spicy new takes for yall but ya girl DID have some thoughts lets go (obviously spoiler warning)

thank you SO SO much for asking!! I’m honored that you want my takes<33

Listen I hate to say it but I KNEW IT WAS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!! GOD!!! 😭😭😭

I just need to come out here and say this but first of all I dont think Rick replacing himself was really a bad thing,,,, like at all LMAO especially knowing that it was Rick who made him I mean it was more than just a replacement he was made to be the grandpa he wants for morty but he just knows he can’t be right now.

I can fully understand how it would absolutely feel like a betrayal to Morty but looking at it as a viewer I mean Rick was fully spiraling, to me his intentions were completely pure. Also I thik im just grateful they gave us a time stamp for when the swap was made so we didnt have to wonder forever how much of Rick this season was Rick. He still did piss master, he still kept Jerry blissfully ignorant just out of good will, he STILL WILLINGLY WENT TO THERAPY. All these wouldve been out the window if theyd overlooked that detail. 

Him recognizing that he was starting to go off the deep end again and not only removing himself but having his familys best interest in mind ( “Im no good to anyone until I resolve this” ) while doing so AND literally while mad at Morty is still INSANE character growth from where we started but this way is REALISTIC character growth. It was WEIRD how black and white the difference between literally yhe last two episodes and even just the rest of the season (which has famously been Rick in his peak good grandpa career) was. At some points it felt like I was reading fanfiction.

(Why do his knees look like that oh my god) Rick is fully capable of recognizing where he can be better, he always has been, he is not stupid *however* he is CLUTCHING onto the idea of being more logical than sentimental by the fucking neck rn. Men will literally build an anatomically flawless ai to be the perfectly calculated percentage nicer to their grandson and to be the man they wish they were before just going back to therapy.

Someone else mentioned this but ill also point out how much I appreciated just seeing Rick working? Like just in his space completely focused building shit with his brain and hands that hit the fucking spot. 9/10 times we only get the finished product and idk if its just me but I love when we SEE Rick living up to the Rick Sanchez tm reputation.

And Morty... my sweet summer child. It is not at all a shiny new take to say oh he’s so done with ricks shit we all know that but I really really want to point out something that I’m not really sure what point I’m trying to make with but have we noticed almost a switch morty flips when on adventures? He cried because Christmas was ruined like not even a full 6 hours before he was fully ready to kill a man while looking him in the eyes. Maybe the two were cause and effect idk bht I think that’s definitely something present in other episodes too this sorta “just get it done” attitude.

Also how much he sounded like rick this ep? That whole “don’t be too flattered he’s been actively trying to die” sounded EXACTLY like a Rick line I literally had to play it again. And the complete apathy for robo rick wanting to die until he ACTUALLY lunged himself into the void was also just textbook rick bullshit. Like grandfather like goddamn grandson.

The ending to me was a little disappointing tbh I think I was hoping for a more,,, structured? Cliffhanger? Like we dk what’s gonna happen in this storyline instead of the introduction to a new storyline yk? MAYBEEE I’m just salty we have to wait another year for more you can’t prove anything.

Rick being borderline manic ab RP at the end was my favorite it’s nice to see him just rant ab anything really and like not make some bullshit elaborate Halloween house to take his anger out but just legit vent ab what this guys been doing to him for the past fucking 40 years. I didn’t even notice the ep was over when the credits rolled in my mind we were only like 10 minutes in and I lost my MIND when mr poopy butthole pulled up again good to see he’s thriving (kinda)

On a final note when he called him Rick prime please let me know if I’m off but is that not an internet term for him? Like the fandom came up with it? Rick and morty writers are tumblerinas confirmed question mark?

And lastly: Neurotypical. Cooties.

d. c. anon saying hello!

I’m very curious to see if the finales this season (or maybe early next season?) bring together all these little nuggets of wisdom we have been getting all season from benson or if it all was just how it was written, with no connection/complete coincidence, and we were all reading too much into what she has been saying?

Or if we will know what m meant by saying “it’s not like it seems” or something like that. I know I’m getting the quote wrong.

With that being said, im loving this arc. Oscar papa bring brought in was purely for the fans 😂😂 however Amanda? Was she always this amazing profiler? Genuinely asking bc why else would she have been brought in? Like to serve the purpose of highlighting that Amanda clocked Elliot for leaving Liv? Again for the fans?

welcome back anon!

if we were still under wet lettuce's reign of terror, I would not be able to say with any confidence that I think there would be payoff for all the threads that have been woven so far this season, and Olivia's nuggets of wisdom in particular (physician heal thyself indeed). however. the premises are under new management and that new management has so far done a much better job of telling a cohesive story across episodes, and so I am cautiously optimistic that Olivia's lightbulb moment is incoming. it feels, very much, like somebody over there knows what they're doing, and the fact that the last couple episodes of both shows were left in the same hands gives an even greater potential for a satisfying payoff, tho I continue to remind myself of how s14 ended - we may very well be left on a cliffhanger. which like, that's a solid way to insure a big audience for the premieres, whenever they may be. so we shall see.

oh, Amanda. so Amanda's thing has always been psychology - she has, in a few episodes scattered across her decade on the show, expressed a particular interest in getting inside the minds of the most deranged killers. it is her thing, tho it's always bothered me; I am thinking of the machine elves episodes now, and Amanda's interest in and defense of alternate theories of consciousness, an interest which has always seemed at odds with her intensely narrow view of the world (for example, "abuse victims deserve the abuse bc they allow it to happen" is a theory she has espoused more than once, which, lol).

so the thing is, right, is that it isn't out of left field or anything, her wanting to do these things, it sits right inside of the characteristics they have given her. the thing is, I've never seen any reason to believe she speaks with any authority on the subject. she took point on a few interrogations - the Henry Mesner fiasco comes to mind - and has attended lectures - as they all have - but like. My girlfriend has spent a lot of time learning about serial killers. no one is calling her to be a profiler. I feel like Amanda was brought back not for her skills but for the Drama(tm). Some fans like her very much, bringing back a familiar face for a finale is a good way to boost ratings, allowing us to see Olivia interact with Amanda after we have watched Liv grieving her absence is compelling from a character perspective. and that's the thing, right, is that this is entertainment, so it doesn't matter if Amanda has any skill as a profiler - just like it didn't matter that Nick's pivot into science seems super weird. it's a "willing suspension of disbelief" moment, I think, and I may fuss about it on occasion but I'm not like. mad about it lol

I did want to see Elliot and Amanda acknowledge that they have something in common in leaving Liv, so I'm glad we got that, though "I left bc I'd killed a teenager about the same age as one of my own daughters and the brass were going to make me do a number of things I personally find intolerable and even then I might not get my job back and I can't risk my pension and I have a toddler to raise and I can't talk to Liv about it bc I'm in love with her and if I see her face I'm gonna throw everything away for her" and "I took a new job and then never called her again and made my husband, who is her friend and sees her very often for work, promise not to tell her I'm pregnant for reasons as yet unspecified" are not exactly the same thing.

Misery AND The World Has Turned And Left Me Here

Well, life is insane but I intentionally let my phone die and instead found the time to write up my thoughts on Episodes 12 and 13 of The Case of The Greater Gatsby! I know Episode 14 dropped today and I was gonna do all three at once but--there's sooo much to talk about! The notes I had for just these two episodes alone were...erm...generous in number. So, uh, spoilers under the cut and my apologies for the amount of stuff I'm about to say?

First off, WOW WHAT A PAIR OF EPISODES! New reveals! Even newer questions! Quips and lies and truths! A banger of a cliffhanger! Jon Cozart followed by my man Dylan Saunders in his Shipwrecked debut! THE RETURN OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY (the noise I made when I saw he was in this episode…)!! Well played, Shipwrecked, well-freaking-played.

So let’s start out with a bang. Here’s my Wacky And Unlikely Greater Gatsby Theory of the Day(TM): Sheilah was having an affair… with Mel. Think about it: We start the year with Sheilah and Mel hitting it off. It’s about this time that the unsolicited affections start. It’s later, when Sheilah starts doing things like going to lunch with Mel, that Fitzgerald begins to believe she’s acting strange and suspect an affair. Sheilah’s the one to make Greater Gatsby a movie script and then recruit Mel to take it on (proving that Mel was lying to/obfuscating the truth from Ford during “Hook”, by the way). And then Mel callously fires Fitzgerald from Grapes of Wrath for no real professional reason and with apparent joy, almost like she has something personal, such as jealousy, against him. During his final missive, Fitzgerald tells Zelda about some great secret he’s found to put in his screenplay and that she would “laugh as I’ve been dosed some of my own medicine.” While supposedly he could have found out any secret from any of the party guests, the implication is that this final, deadly secret is about someone doing to Scott what he’d done to Zelda. Did someone steal his work? Possible, but everyone knows about Darby rewriting Grapes of Wrath, so not altogether likely. So maybe, just maybe, one of the women he was seeing was having an affair behind his back. Perhaps Fitzgerald discovered once and for all that Sheilah was having an affair, with Mel of all people, and, with alongside his previously cultivated antipathy towards Mel decides to throw that fact into the screenplay, damn the consequences. Meanwhile, we know that TD would do anything for his beloved Mel, and he’s probably also a little resentful about being kept out of the social club. So he finds out that Fitzgerald knows about the affair and intends to reveal it to the world, and, to protect Mel from scandal, kills Fitzgerald and takes the manuscript. Knowing that they both knew about the affair would explain why Fitzgerald talked the way he did to the mysterious stranger at the end. And yeah I know, this whole theory is a little wild, but never let it be said that I’m afraid of a big swing.

(A potential argument against this theory is the pre-Thanksgiving recording, when Sheilah urgently calls for Fitzy and he goes to help her, saying “Blast, not again! I thought we’d put a stop to this!” A stop to what? If I’m right about Mel, the “unsolicited affections” likely would have stopped by this point. On the other hand, the “this” could be something completely different. Is Fitzy the first victim of the threatening hate mail? Or is a third thing happening? Because it’s hard to see what he meant by “put a stop to it” if talking about letters, whether written with love or hate. Unless of course he knew who was sending them?)

On the other hand, Sheilah is not the only woman in Fitzy’s LA life. Vivian starts the second episode by making it very clear that she gets what she wants. The Greater Gatsby script tells the story of a innocent young man arriving in LA to write movies before falling under the allure of a morally dubious red-headed woman. Was Vivian inspiration for this character? Or was Fitzgerald already writing a meaty role for his red-headed mistress, a role that someone like Willie couldn’t snatch away? (Meanwhile, I should note that while coming up with this Vivian-esque character is when Fitzgerald starts to accuse Sheilah of acting strangely. Maybe he’s deflecting his own behavior onto her, excusing his own affair by accusing her of having one as well?). Vivian also returns to Fitzy’s house on the night of his murder, leaving seconds before the supposed killer arrives. It doesn’t seem likely that secret Fitzy discovered is hers—that’s just not the tone of the conversation. But tones can be misleading. And Fitzgerald uncovering her big secret and putting it in his script would fit the role the Vivian-esque character seems to play. Regardless, Fig and Ford are right—Viv did lie to them and her angle in this whole case is hard to understand. What exactly is she up to? Did she see the killer? Was it Barnaby and that’s why she’s so sure? But why not tell the police?

And speaking of Barnaby—his icy warning to Fitzgerald was chilling and completely belies his earlier statements to Fig and Ford. It seems like our girls aren’t the only ones lying through their teeth. I’m really loving how this character turned out—he’s so charmingly dorky and funny but with these moments of darkness that make you understand why Vivian’s accusing him of strangling another man to death. Also I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if his joke about the dead fellow soldier wasn’t a joke at all. Really, things aren’t looking good for either of the Nightingales.

Moving on from them for a bit, though, we learned a bit more about the Brigade and their thoughts on the Greater Gatsby. Fitzgerald gets the idea for Greater Gatsby, announcing his intention to fill in the gaps (which we know come to contain the secrets of various Hollywood insiders) right as he’s about to attend the first meeting of what will become the Brigade. We later learn that the Brigade unanimously despise the script (it’s not just Donald), so its interesting to wonder about the role they play in shaping its earlier development. Does someone spill secrets to Fitzgerald that they later regret enough to kill for?

On the subject of the murder, what about that license plate? “1ADLR1.” Something about it feels familiar but I can’t tell you what. I spent several minutes trying to remember who was called “Adler” before realizing I was thinking about the Planetarium Meredith Stepien works at in Chicago. Also, it’s funny that car expert and fussy neighbor Citizen Jasper Fox failed to mention such a loud vehicle when talking about Fitzy’s last night. Did he just respect the car too much? What is he hiding? Regardless, the murderer’s silence on the tapes indicates that they knew about their presence. By my count, the people who know for sure about them are: Sheilah, Vivian, TD, Mel, Dorothy, Darby, Ernest, and George.

Speaking of George Astrum of Astrum Appliances (Jon Cozart!), it seems pretty apparent that he and the Highwayman are one in the same. But is this a red-herring? Or is there even more to George than doorway robbery? Is it possible that he’s in fact the missing Eugene? Honestly, I could see Jon Cozart as the addition to the Brosenthal/Esther sibling double act. The Persauds also take a moment to let us know that Astrum knows about the tapes. Was Astrum actually an investigator doing recon? Could he be reporting back to the eventual murderer, letting them know to stay quiet incase Fitzgerald has his tape-deck going?

Which brings us to our final big plot thread: Rex's letter and Lex’s baffling subsequent disappearance. Why escalate with Lex Punchwhistle of all people? Were the Punchwhistle twins the original targets in all of this? Does that timeline even work out—people didn’t know they were coming until after Willie received her letter. And how does Eugene play into all of this? Is he behind the letters? Did Lex see the letter first and follow some hidden clue back to Eugene (we know she was following up on some leads), leaving Rex to assume the worst? Or did the leads she was following get her into trouble, and the threatening letter just happened to arrive at the same time?

The next episode is already out and I am SO EXCITED TO LISTEN TO IT!! Seems like it’s essentially the mid-season finale and I can’t tell if I should be excited, terrified, or both

Some stray thoughts because there was too much to pontificate about:

-Shout out to the LBD cast in these episodes! Obviously Mary Kate is amazing and Vivian is so much fun. DVG was a terrific centerpiece and guide through the last year of Fitzy’s life, and Julia Cho’s just been fucking killing it this whole time. Also DVG and Laura Spencer totally need to play love interests at some point so that he can have romanced all three Bennett sisters.

-Fitzgerald revealed that he and Zelda promised to visit each other in December. Is this just another reminder of how Fitzgerald’s life was tragically cut short too soon? Or were these plans for early December, and their failure to follow through on them, relevant to Fitzy’s demise?

-Fitzy was so real when reacting to the actual sound of his own voice. Every time I hear how I sound I die a little inside.

-That line about tape recorders being too fussy for Zelda’s “idiotic mind” is a major OOF moment. No wonder she has issues, if he talks to her like that.

-DYLAN! Didn’t talk much about his stuff cause it didn’t seem as plot relevant but it was such a joy to hear him and I really like Donald! One of Hollywood’s last good men!

-Fitzy was totally selling Greater Gatsby to Roger, right? The conversation with Ernest probably gave him the idea.

RQ stream notes

So today Rusty Quill streamed! Woo! Alex J. Newall did a creative jam to create an audio drama in... 2 hours? I think? Anyway! I took notes!

The end result was an elevator pitch, synopsis for 6 episodes, and a somewhat fully-produced pilot episode.

It features three main characters (two protagonists and an antagonist) and two entire dogs, in a Noir Western setting.

Enjoy the notes! (Warning: they are long.)

Alex' ground rules -No swearing/anything that'll get him kicked off Twitch -Only original stories -No TMP spoilers or he gets bapped -6-part series with 10min of fully produced audio drama

-Genre - usually do a genre blend (between two different genres) (ex.: romoantic-horror) to allow for more elaborate concepts Genre choice: Noir | Western -Did some brainstorming for keywords in Aesthetics -Quickly going through Wikipedia to research the genres and find points to fill the project guide. Determine how long we have VS what kinds of stories we have time to do -Get a couple characters (3 to be exact) -Elevator pitch -Character bio detail brainstorming -Quick summary of each episode, per season -Cannibalism gave title idea: Eat the Rich (lmao actual cannibal Shia LaBoeuf) -Text between brackets is to the creators' benefit rather than in the actual episode -Pilot needs a Final Complication/hook/cliffhanger in order to get the listener's attention -Alex abuses of speech-to-text (it fights back sometimes) -Writes pilot script -Writes tagline mid-pilot scripting -Once script is over, highlighted parts that are being voice-acted -Started actually voice acting the scene -Silent sound markers (snap fingers - wait a few seconds - snap fingers again. I think this is for denoising purposes) -Occasionally makes voiceacting notes/redoes lines -Moving screams in separate layers. A lot of things he's doing can be done automatically but he's doing it in Audacity manually so we see what's going on. He'll also be taking shortcuts and such that he shouldn't -Silence marker - effect - noise reduction (after getting sound profile for the silence) -(reduce memory load by doing Stereo To Mono while working; do NOT do this for a real podcast ahaha) -Normalize audio -Audacity is a destructive audio program which makes things Difficult (I think Reaper isn't which is neat) -Use fades to hide a cut -One track per scene? -Use scene cuts where a lot is left unsaid -Once dialogue is cut, finds SFX (he has soundbanks - soundbanks good) -Oh No Soundscaping (TM) -And then Music (ft. Upbeat Sax- I mean what?) -Exporting stuff is very frustrating (ft. Alex flappy hands, but angy) -Does artwork during exporting (ft. Alex goat noises) (graphic design is his passion) (he's using Paint) -EQ work! -Exporting -Alex is very good at doing the post-episode monologue

Brainstorm Template: -Key Info *Title (Eat the rich) *Logline (It's dog eat dog in the belly of the new world beast) *Elevator pitch (Grim the gritty outsider with nothing to lose stumbles upon the railway being built none other than Princeton with dangerous labour practices and there's a secret conspiracy that can only be unearther with the help of Elisa Thorne. Mining equipment, illegal land grab at the outskirts of OldNew Manchester *Genre (Western | Noir) *Series format (6x10 episodes)

-Aesthetics *Tone (introspective | outside the law | Death of the wilderness | Gritty | Vigilante | Brooding | Corruption) *FX (Wind, tumbleweed, Narrator/VO, guns, whip snap, gravel, vultures, door hinges, whistling, campfire, horses, wood, saxophone, sound of smoke, train heist) *Music (Slow n low, sax, jazz, saloon piano, blues/harmonica, banjo, cello) *Visuals (dust bowl, urban, smokey, wilderness, night, American, chiaroscuro, trenchcoats, hats)

Project guide -World guide *Noir (No happy endings promised) *Sandbox (calamity james retelling,

-Characters CHARACTER | ROLE | AGE | PRONOUNS performance guide Bio

Elisa Thorne | LAW LADY | 37 | She/her No nonsense brusqye, played by April Bio: Has wife, has cool dog, loves flowers, run away from money,

Grim | GRITTY OUTSIDER | 55 | They/them Mr badger from Wind in the Willows meets An no country for old men Bio: Never sleeps, sharpshooter, Also Has A Bigger Dog, caffeine addiction

Elon Princeton | CAPITALIST | AGE | HE/HIM Just everything that's wrong with the world right now condensed into a person Bio: Menacing knitting, Illegally obtained Emerald mine, father of Elisa's wife, allergic to dogs

Season synposes

S1 - 1 (pilot) (Grim rolls into town as Elon is announcing that they can finally finish the final phase of the railway connecting city with a remote outpost, Eliza attempts arrest due to dog attacking Elon, Grim driven out of town as he is too dangerous to be captured, Grim sneaks back into city because they cannot leave without their coffee. Discover Elon's conspiracy - they are hgiding bodies beneath railway [Elon is a cannibal] [Elon is an actual accountable cannibal accountant lmao] [Picked up in the Emerald Mine Disaster, continued bc he likes it & hates the poor]. Grim gets a pardon if they help take Elon down. Eliza discovers her wife has disappeared) 2 - (Eliza investigates missing wife with poor results, Grim gets involved despite themself and starts using off the book methods to squeeze info from contacts including some ranches from outside of town & implied secrets about Elon, Grim gets results - gunfight - Elisa forced to rescue Grim - forced to get along - respect each other) 3 - (staged train robbery to cover up final shipment of bodies, Grim injured) 4 - reversal (Eliza's wife revealed to have been covering for Elon, Elon takes control of town and Eliza is framed for robbery. Eliza forced out of town.) 5 - knot (Elon covers up recent scandal (illicit affair with newly arrived rancher) w disappearance of [???] Discover bodies) 6 - conclusion/finale (Discover Elon cannibal, Elon eaten by dogs, Eliza's wife Irene chooses Dad over Eliza bc NOIR, Grim leaves, there is no justice)

Pilot script *Scene 1 Grim rolls into town as Elon is announcing that they can finally finish the final phase of the railway connecting city with a remote outpost, -Grim is unimpressed and picks a fight -Eliza attempts to descalate situation despite hating Elon and fails bc Grim is unhelpful & dog is worrying Elon -Grim hears automobile backfiring, assumes they are under fire, gunfighting ensues (gunfighting shoes???) -Grim flees town (Grim driven out of town as he is too dangerous to be captured)

*Scene 2 Grim sneaks back into city because they cannot leave without their coffee. -Via railway into city -Witnesses bodies being laid amongst the sleepers (Discover Elon's conspiracy - they are hgiding bodies beneath railway)

*Scene 3 -Despite Grim's instincts, they decide to warn sheriff Eliza about bodies (Twist because Noir -Alex) -Eliza arrests Grimm (assuming they are lying) until hearing name Elon -Dogs like each other :D -Irene enters with late night surprise dinner for Eliza - immediately hides suspicions and lies to wife about Grim. Grim is shocked but plays along. (This thing writes ITSELF!! -Alex)

[Elon is a cannibal] [Elon is an actual accountable cannibal accountant lmao] [Picked up in the Emerald Mine Disaster, continued bc he likes it & hates the poor].

*Scene 4 (written after scene 5 - lull in action -Grim sitting on Eliza's porch and mulling things over - plays harmonica

Scene 5 -Eliza discovers wife has disappeared and demands Grim's help bc they are an oustsider & closest thing to friend that Eliza has in this messed up city Grim gets a pardon if they help take Elon down. Eliza discovers her wife has disappeared

[HERE, Alex takes more detailed notes and doesn't really pause so I didn't note the dialogue and such. Also Alex's accent is glorious.] [He talked about digging a pit and now everyone in chat is spamming DIG] [The speech to text keeps writing Gunfight Ensues as Gunfighting Shoes.] ["I like Grim. Grim's a fun character." Same, Alex, same.] [Shoutout to Alex doing beatboxing with a weird dog noise while trimming sounds] [plays thunder sound "Ohohoho! I don't care if it's Gothic! My wife has dissapeared KPHHHHHW"] [Alex' frustrated sounds are something to behold. Gremlin noises fr.] [Chat has started singing Hellfire by the Mechanisms] ["I warn everyone, this isn't going to be a thing that is pleasant to listen to"] ["NARRATION!"] [File is huge. There is now a vote in chat, called Chonk? with three options, Chonk, Chonk, and Chonk. The first Chonk won!] [Notetaker's note: I still miss Winston Princeton]

TMP news: "Jonny has pitched to me the most horrific thing ever" [about s3 of TMP?] etc etc (can't share it. WHAT A TEASE >:| /lh)

It seems to have been a while since I posted an update on how the writing for the next part of Wishing on Space Hardware has been going (well, I complained three weeks ago that it wasn't, but that barely counts).

So, let's refer to the Super Accurate and 100% Serious Plan (TM). Bold represents chapters that currently have complete drafts.

Prologue: Hi, it's me, I am coming for your emotions.

Chapter 1: “Fuck my life, why am I the sensible one?”

Chapter 2: Discovering through adversity that you are in fact a spiteful arsehole.

Chapter 3: When you're well-adjusted and people won't shut up about their issues.

Chapter 4: How to turn grief and aimlessness into an international incident.

Interlude 1: More manga propaganda.

Chapter 5: Relatively normal person discovers sympathy for absolute lunatics.

Chapter 6: Manipulative bastard has meltdown; nukes career and/or starts war.

Chapter 7: Who wouldn't want to be head of state in the middle of all this?

Chapter 8: The world's most violent identity crisis.

Interlude 2: Accidentally featuring no canon characters whatsoever.

Chapter 9: When even your subconscious thinks you're a loser.

Chapter 10: Anger is not a stage, it is a permanent address.

Chapter 11: “Nobody is dying on my watch!” [Actionable threat]

Chapter 12: "Terrorism *is* a valid expression of my trauma, actually."

Interlude 3: Oh look – plot threads.

Chapter 13: Waking up to discover you work for the bad guys and deciding to fix that.

Chapter 14: Keeping going through the hardship, chaos, and narrative contrivance.

Chapter 15: Waking up to discover you work for the bad guys and failing to fix that.

Chapter 16: Ancillary character makes good, still doesn't get the boy.

Interlude 4: No, seriously, I mean it about putting literally everyone in this thing.

Chapter 17: Normal housewife deals well with additional lunatics.

Chapter 18: I swear I only invented this OC for exposition, now she's a key player.

Chapter 19: While valid, terrorism might not make everything better.

Chapter 20: Actual sensible one solves plot with quiet chat.

Epilogue 1: Pain and other assorted feelings.

Epilogue 2: The author reminds you he is, at heart, a total sap.

Epilogue 3: Hey, look, if you hit characters hard enough, they actually develop.

Epilogue 4: Take your victories where you can get them, folks.

Epilogue 5: What *do* you call the literary equivalent of a panning shot?

I just this morning finished Chapter 15 and I thought this was worth noting because it means the fic has officially passed the 100,000 word mark. In case you were wondering why it is taking me so long to complete, that's why. Chapters on this one are averaging 6000 words because SOMEONE made the daft decision to try and make each one a summation of a particular character and their role in the story so far.

We're probably looking at the whole thing coming in around 150,000 words total (bear in mind the interludes and epilogues will all be about half the chapter length). So while I am still hopeful I can finish it by the end of the year, I am increasingly unsure if I will start posting before then on account of editing and such.

My current plan is to spend the rest of this week polishing off Interlude 2 while I let the images for Chapter 16 percolate into an actual scene breakdown. After that chapter's done, I'll be in the home stretch as far as the main plot is concerned.

I must admit to not being especially happy to have slipped so far past my initial deadlines, despite knowing they were only loosely self-imposed to begin with. I really was trying to avoid leaving things on a cliffhanger for so many months. But such is life.

Anyhoo, that's where we are at the moment and hopefully things will continue to progress at the current fairly acceptable rate!

more frontier ep thoughts below

05 - Thunder Power that Shakes the Ground - Blitzmon! -OH MY GOD KOKUWAMON IS SO CUTE I know it existed but I've never really seen it outside of static art and stuff and OMG THEY'RE SO CUTE I LOVE THEM (I actually went on Wikimon once and click "random page" until I got a Child/Rookie Digimon and figured I would consider that one my partner if I ever made a selfinsert/tamersona/whatever and it ended up being Kokuwamon now I'm thinking I should have KOKUWAMOOOOOON aaaaaaaah sorry random ToyAgumon I dreamed about a few weeks back, you've been replaced lol) -"They enslave us because our bodies produce something they need but can't produce and they exploit us constantly by keeping us afraid." holy fucking SHIT I love when kids anime just throws in something SO FUCKING HARD like that like jesus christ lol -it's nice seeing Snimon represented as like a sapient enemy rather than just a wild monster like it usually seems to be (same with Kuwagamon… doomed to forever be the mindess mook 'mon) -love that Junpei's response to evolving is to skip around and fist pump the air "YEAH I FINALLY DID IT! I EVOLVED!" haha -all the kids now have evolutions and some mysterious voice seems intrigued by this OOOOOOOOOOH

06 - The Five Legendary Warriors Vs. A New Warrior -Koji has travelled to the mountains train in the art of Hamon--I mean uh anyway nice to see he immediately tries to help the KaratsukiNumemon. I appreciate that he's not being presented as cold or uncaring just because he's working alone. I would like to get to see more of him now though. -ALSO KARATSUKINUMEMON. (Which I only knew as ShellNumemon before this) Honestly one of the best parts of watching Frontier so far is seeing all the Digimon I know exist but have never seen in the anime (or even games for the most part) before. -Bokomon literally has a pocket dimension in his little waistband thing but DOESN'T carry any cash lol -Love the idea of the vertical village for the Numemon, that's clever -So it's GROTTOMON. He has a pretty nice design, it's really distinctive and quite unusual for a Digimon. -Koji saying Takuya is in his way when he's trying to aim at Grottomon was nice. He's been working alone so far and Takuya's only been with the group so they're not used to one another's tactics or fighting styles. Like, it's not even Takuya being RECKLESS here, they're literally just not familiar enough with one another to work well. It felt organic. -SLIDE evolution, you say?? Then the episode ends with… the villain victorious and the kids split up! Definitely a nice hook and cliffhanger combo after the standard intro and "everybody getting their first spirits" episodes. Gotta say I am INTO this so far. It's shaping up to be real good.

07 - The Floating City! ToyAgumon's Toy Country -Open the episode with Takuya, Tomoki and Koji landing in… a giant ball pit. Which is on a floating island, being propped up on an airship, Inside are ToyAgumon who want to… go to the human world to get revenge on kids. That's certainly one way to open an episode. -Bruh Monzaemon just straight up CHARGING Takuya then tossing him to the ground had me laughing so hard -Aww the ToyAgumon are sad that kids won't play with them anymore :( that definitely doesn't make my comment above feel even more shameful lol -Pandamon is cute. It feels so redundant to say (every other Digimon is cute…) but again I've never seen a lot of these Digimon actually moving and stuff before. it fun -The ToyAgumon becoming a tank and robots was pretty apt and fun, especially given they're based on Non-Branded Connecting Toy Blocks(TM) -Oh hey the boys are learning cooperation -omg the ending, the punching noises as Takuya and Koji run up the tower for Tomoki but he's just playing a game once again that gave me a chuckle hahah I am enjoying the humour in this series by and large

OK, since I finally finished reading the entirety of Tales from The Pizzaplex #4, I'm gonna give y'all my thoughts all in one post. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Story #1: "Submechanophobia"

I really liked this story because of the setting, and because the main protagonist, Caden, didn't die! Hooray! I would honestly love to see a FNAF game that takes place in Freddy's Fantasy Water Park. I wonder what Freddy, Chica, Bonnie, and Foxy would look like design-wise in that setting. I'm also crazy about the animatronics in the mechaquarium! I just wish when they put the mermaid on the front cover, they'd gotten her hair color right. Delilah isn't blonde; her hair is red, probably like Ariel's. Another thing I liked about the story is that the animatronics recognized that Caden was a good person and didn't try to hurt him. I also loved the way Caden stood up to Darryl. He handled it maturely and with dignity. Good on you, Caden. Also, I thought the ending was pretty funny.

Story #2: "Animatronic Apocalypse"

Hoo-boy. This story actually made me go "WHAT THE FUCK!?" more than once. Why? Because... Mr. Renner. Just... all the shit he does to torture the Fazbear Fan Club. The way his influence spreads. And then that one plot twist left me wondering about Mr. Renner's origins. And then... the ending with Robbie. It honestly reminded me of how Goosebumps books tended to end... everything seeming to be finally okay, except suddenly, out of left field, it's not! I usually don't like it when things happen in horror without explanation (it's a weird preference of mine), but I gave it a pass because of how nostalgic it made me feel. A weird story overall, but I love how horrified it made me with Mr. Renner. I have so many goddamn questions about him though... I wonder if a future story will answer them. Or not. Who knows?

P.S. I kinda wish Animatronic Apocalypse was a real tabletop RPG. I don't normally play games like those because the social aspect of such games intimidates me, but... the story actually made it sound interesting.

Story #3: "Bobbiedots, Part 1"

I loved this one enough that I can forgive the fact we won't see this story's conclusion until the next book. The Bobbiedots are unsettling yet strangely cute. And honestly? It's really funny how thirsty they are for Abe, and yet Abe doesn't seem to care. I don't know if it's because they're holograms, or if Abe is gay, or if he's aro/ace. I wonder if I missed a detail... at any rate, this story's first part ends on a cliffhanger, and I am very excited to find out what happens in Part 2. Also, I really wanna draw Rose, Olive, and Gemini. So far, I've seen one piece of fan art of them on Twitter, and I really loved it... I hope my art skills are enough to capture them well, too.

BONUS STORY:

Plenty of teenage drama happening despite the fact Lucia and her companions are dropping like flies. I don't hate it, but it is kind of funny to see. I was devastated to see Wade die, because MAN, he didn't deserve it at all. Joel was such a fucking prick! Honestly, I was satisfied to see him die, selfish as he was. Also, now that Kelly's confidence is increasing, I wonder how long she'll survive. I'm pretty sure Lucia is gonna be the Final Girl (TM), but Kelly just might surprise us all. We'll see, I guess...

Would you ever try your hand at self publishing m/m romance/erotica as, like, a career on the side? Your stories are amazing and the self published mm authors I've found are doing pretty well on amazon even though they don't write as well as you.

Would you ever consider self publishing an original series in ebook form? I've read (and loved) the perth shifter series but they could sorta be read as standalones. I'm thinking of a story that ends on a cliffhanger until the next book comes out 😆

Hi anon!

I'm thinking of a story that ends on a cliffhanger until the next book comes out

Unfortunately, this is one of the most hated things you can do in publishing romance, lol. Even worse than first person perspective (which I don't hate, but a lot of readers do). And it breaks with the most fundamental rule of romance which is ending stories with a HFN (hopefully for now) or HEA (happily ever after).

And while I write fantasy romance, and dystopian romance, and science fiction romance, it's all still romance. I don't mind cliffhangers on individual chapters, but cliffhangers in a series in the romance genre is very very bad etiquette and it's Not Done (TM). It's more appropriate in horror/thriller/science fiction series etc. that don't have a strong romance basis to them (and a lot of readers still hate them and refuse to read them!), where you're not primarily rooting for two characters to get together in a relationship and that's what I write!

Even romance series that only focus on two characters across multiple books, will give each book a HFN (hopeful for now / happy for now) ending, instead of a cliffhanger. Each book is still resolved, and the idea is you can read them on their own, that's kind of the point!

My published books already do very badly financially compared to my serials, so I'm not about to like... break one of the most fundamental rules of all romance publishing just to end a book on a cliffhanger, I have my serials for that. :D (And even they have happy/hopeful endings).

And like you said - I have published m/m romance/erotica on the side. It won't ever be a career for me, because it doesn't pay as much as the original serials do. My work is too niche, people don't want to read m/m romance with as much trauma recovery as I write, or asexual characters etc (I make more from a single month of Patreon - even during a bad Patreon month - than I have from the entire 2 years that The Gentle Wolf has been out). And I like noncon BDSM and that's straight up against Apple's and Amazon's TOS, so things like Fae Tales are against the rules there anyway. But my published works earn me about $200 USD a year, which is not nothing, but it's also...not great. I don't think the answer is breaking even more romance rules though x.x

I'm glad you enjoy my writing anon! But a lot of folks who read published m/m actually don't love my (published) writing, so it's serials for me, because that seems to do a lot better. :D Besides, people can download all my original serials as ebooks for their ereaders whenever they want, so they can read my stuff like an ebook whenever they feel like.

Hello! Thank you for all your Tsurune posts and opinions, it's been very fun to look through them. I don't know if this has been asked before but would it be possible to give a very quick summary of volume 3? Or if that's too much is it alright to ask how the prefectural tournament ends? I want to know what the chances of a 4th novel are lol 😂 Thank you again!

Hi! Sorry that it took me so long to reply to your first ask! I usually leave the answered ones in the queue so that I don’t flood people’s dashes too often with them. 😅 But I see that you added an extra to your previous ask, so I’d like to reply to this one too! The last tournament is something I hadn’t talked about yet.

This took me a while to write down because I'd been looking all over the Japanese side of the fandom during my free time to see how much people think a fourth volume is likely. Apparently, from the results I've found, everyone is completely sure that volume 4 will happen. All volumes of Tsurune leave room for a continuation, but this one ends with sort of a cliffhanger rather than an open conclusion like the first two. Everybody seems convinced that this can't be the last they'll see of this story. There's more coming, and personally, I think so as well.

Now for how the last tournament ends. Gotta put this under a cut for obvious reasons. Read at your own discretion!

This time around, the prefectural tournament ends the same way as in volume 1: Kazemai wins, Kirisaki loses. Except this time it was Takumi’s fault, not Manji’s. Ayano loves the Karma Thing TM so you can bet this little bitch failed big time. RIP to Kirisaki but the motherfucker deserved it.

In the previous year, Kirisaki managed to score a second chance to go to the nationals, but looks like they won't have the same luck in this one. Shuu is certain that they won't advance and basically tells Minato to go on without him. Tsujimine immediately finds out that Kirisaki lost and Eisuke was elated, as you might imagine.

The last scene of the volume is MasaMina, as per usual. Except this time it's hints of MasaMina thrown into a group scene.

Unpopular opinion but due to the current format of tv shows (streaming, seasons dropping all at once, people expected to binge-watch) you NEED the shows to be slower.

Any tv show that does action over action over action without taking a breath is doing it wrong. Netflix’s insistence of cutting and removing intros is doing it wrong.

In the Olden Days (tm) of cable tv, the real-world constraints put on your format (ad breaks and episodes once a week) were actually FACTORED IN when it came to the pacing of the shows’ storytelling (if the writers were in any way competent.) You can afford to have a lot of drama happen to your characters back to back because you know that the story arc will be stretched out over several weeks from the pov of the audience, which means that the big reveal will naturally come at the end of WEEKS of wondering and anticipation.

Watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a binge, for exemple, cheapens a lot of the plot twists. Because some mysteries that felt, at the time, like season-long questions that we had to sit on and ponder and get excited about…. They get solved in three episodes. That’s like. Slightly longer than two hours. The horror and mystery just doesn’t grip you as well when neither you NOR the characters have the time to sit with it before it’s solved and you move on to something else.

Just think of it like this: if you meet a stranger at a party and you get introduced two hours later, getting to learn their name is not THAT much of a big deal. But crossing path with a stranger several times over MONTHS and never quite catching their name until one day you FINALLY get to know who they are, now THAT feels exciting.

And ad breaks! Not only did they naturally provide structure for the story beats of an episode, but they allowed you to have mini cliffhangers, KNOW that your audience is gonna have to vibrate in the delight of it, and then you can solve it immediately after. Or you can have the big drama, trust that the ad break is going to be long enough for the viewers to react, have emotions about it, and decompress. Then you can get moving with the rest of the episode!

But without those ad breaks. Without the week-long downtime between two episodes. Then you have to INCLUDE the downtime INTO your episode ON PURPOSE. You have to! Downtime in a narrative is non-negociable! Your audience can’t feel the emotional highs of the story properly unless you allow them to come down in between the highs, otherwise it’s just one whole mess and the Holy Shit Moments just all run into each other and become indistinguishable. They stop becoming independently memorable!!

But show writers, I think, by and large do not know HOW to insert those downtime moments into their narratives. Because they never had to!! Real life and the constraints of their medium always did it for them without them having to think about it!!

Anyway tl;dr: if two very dramatic things happen one after the other in your tv show you need to leave AT least the length of a traditional ad break in between the two where your story is allowed to just breathe. It will make your pacing better and your show more memorable, just trust me.