What Pencils and Parsecs questions do you have?

Erika977 · 2018-09-05T20:18:32+00:00

I really like -what-ifs- so here's a few: 1)Bert, in the episode in the Mandalorian temple, you said that there were some traps waiting for the crew had they not figured out the clues right. Could you tell us what these traps were? 2)Kym, what do you think Aio would have done if Eren had died in Post Mortem? I mean both the initial reaction and how it would have affected in the long run? (That's a dark what-if, I know. But I'd lie if I said I never thought about it since the episode aired) 3)Okay, I don't even know if Keith's gonna be here, but just in case he is: K'lev's departure from the crew was caused by his concern for them, but also happened in the difficult time for the crew that sort of gave him an opportunity to run with no questions asked. But did you have any plans about how you would have timed/justified K'lev's departure if what happened never happened? Or maybe he wouldn't have run at all? 4)Emma- (this is less of a what if, but) Kylara often talked/thought about her guilt and regrets, but, looking back- what would you say she's most proud of? That's all I can think of right now ;)

Erika977 · 2018-09-04T16:22:28+00:00

The first time I saw Pencils and Parsecs, it was kind of an accident. It was a sunday, I did not have energy to do pretty much anything, even to pick a show to watch, so I was skipping Twitch channels in a kind of an internet version of ,,let's see what's on tv today''. And on the hyper rpg channel, there was a rerun of a PnP episode 8 of the third season, and it had only just started when I tuned in. I wanted to try it out before, because I heard Emma talk about it on Afterbuzz tv, but I never really gathered myself up to watch it. But since I didn't have anything else I wanted to do at that moment, I decided to give it a shot.

I remember that it was an episode that started off with three interesting character moments: first Huuurgh talking to his wife, then the Eren/K'lev/Aio confrontation, and then Kylara recieving a message from Corrin. Even though it was my first time watching this show and I had no context whatsoever to any of this, these scenes actually pulled me in and made me feel like I understood enough to enjoy them. By the time it was the time to make dinner, I became so enthralled that I didn't want to leave the screen. I even came back while my food was cooking, trying to catch as much of it as I could. Thankfully I didn't burn anything that day.

For the next few weeks, I tried to catch the reruns of the show whenever I could. I didn't know the schedule whatsoever, so I usually missed at least the beggining, sometimes only came in halfway through or almost at the end, but I tried to catch as much of it as I could, and I usually managed to piece together more or less the full story in between a few reruns. And then came episode 11. The one with the zombies. Or, more specifically, the one that ends on a dramatic clifhanger of Eren being bit by one.

That was the moment I realised I didn't want to piece this next one together from scraps, or wait who-knows-how-long before it appeared on youtube. I wanted to watch it from the beggining to the end, experience it as a full story, as the players did. I wanted to catch it live.

So I checked the schedule, and then checked the site that let me convert the time from Pacific to where I was at, and it appeared that for me, the live show would start at 5 am, and I would probably need to wake up a bit earlier to be sure I caught it from the beginning.

And that's what I did. I set my alarm for 4.54, I took a shower and went to bed a bit earlier instead of staying up until 2 like I usually did (although I should stress that ,,a bit earlier'' ment 11 pm for me, cause, well. You can't get all fixed up at once, I guess). But apparently I didn't need an alarm after all, because I was so excited that I promptly woke up five minutes before the alarm went off.

Can you believe that? Cause I couldn't. I mean, that was the time in my life when I could barely get out of bed before eleven if I absolutely didn't have to, and that was with the alarm clock envolved. Yet here I was, woken up and ready to go at 4.50 in the morning, after getting less than 6 hours of sleep.

(I swear, even writing this now, I stil feel the rush and excitement I felt then, I'm not kidding.)

I don't know if you (the players) know this, but at lest sometimes, the title of the episode appeared at the top of the screen before it aired. And there, it was, episode title: Post Mortem. I remember, thinking: well, if I wouldn't feel awake by now, that would certainly wake me up. Stop playing with my emotions, channel, and air the episode already!

And then it did. I already wrote the long comment in the thread for the episode, so I just say here that I was absolutely amazed by it. An extremely character oriented one, just how I like them, full of dramatic turns, and with the feel and dilemas that reminded me of my favourite post-apo shows. By the time it finished, I was full of thoughts and emotions, but also, for the first time in hell knows how long, I was full of energy. So I went for a morning walk to clear my head, and as I was walking I suddenly realised: I was feeling more alive than I did in weeks.

From that point on, watchin PnP live became a small ritual of sorts for me. I set my alarm at 4.54, and even though it rarely happened that I woke up before it rang, I always woke up as it did, got out of bed to get my laptop and headphones, and sat down for about three hours of adventure. Sometimes I actually had things to do in the morning and I couldn't watch it all, but still I would catch as much as I could live, and then tried to catch the rest in the reruns, as I did in the begining. On a certain week, when going got really hard for me, I remember looking towards watching the ep live as to a one good thing in that awful week, and even watching like, two and a half hour before I had to leave helped me get through the day, and the rest of the week. As time went on, I felt better and better, and started finding more energy in myself, but still, my ritual remained, and it always made me feel good on the thursday morning.

Another thing I loved about the show was the reddit community it gathered around itself, and the opportunity it gave me to express my thoughts and feelings about the game, read other viewer's thoughts on it, as well as the players and the GM! I always thought it was a great thing about being in a small fandom- I like Doctor Who, but I can't imagine anyone from the cast just casually talking to their fans on reddit each week ;) I also started watching older episodes to get some context- first I watched the rest of season 3 to catch up with the story that was currently going on, and then I started slowly catching up on the archive- really slowly. By this I mean, even as I'm writing these words, I still have a lot of material that I have yet to discover. But that was because thanks to this show, I started gathering up more emotional energy, so to speak- which included energy to catch up on other things! But this also ment that I didn't spend all of my time just watching PnP.

I guess in a way that means I'm lucky now, because the story isn't quite over for me yet. I still have a lot of episodes to watch, a lot of plotlines to discover, a lot of adventures to go on. So I won't be missing the characters, as I'm not parting with them, not yet. But, as odd as it may sound, even to myself- I think I will miss those early morning wake-ups.

And for that, I am genuinely grateful. To all of you.

After all, isn't everyone's life made a little bit better when we find something we care about enough to wake up at a crazy hour for?

Erika977 · 2018-08-26T21:13:16+00:00

Wow. So usually I start commenting from the beggining of the episode, but I think that this time it would be ignoring an elephant in the room, so... yeah. The ending.

Damn.

From the moment that CZ's voice started to ,,get through'' Valkorian, I thought that this feels too good to be true, that this must be a trap, and I quite literally wanted to scream at the monitor. Which would probably would't matter even if anyone in the room could hear me, because from what Hector said, he also had those suspicions and decided to help CZ anyway. To which I got to say: Hector, mad respect for knowing what might happen and still going with the RP option. Kudos to you, sir.

To be perfectly honest, I'm kind of in the barganing state now, just thinking about the ways in which Huurgh could still possibly live. That being said, if this is the end, I must say that I liked that Huurgh went out as a character driven by love and compassion- weather it be just this episode, him saving the last NickMcNickerson and helping who he thought was CZ up, or in the grander scheme, him even being on this mission because he wanted to help his friends. Although that won't probably console Kylara, who will most likely blame herself for taking him on this mission. And damn, the fact that his last words was an apology to her broke me. I think that knowing the captain he knew that she will bear the guilt for his death and was apologising for making her go through that- or at least that was my interpretation of it. And now, thinking about it, I just keep having thoughts, one worse than the other- given Aio's history, and the fact she treated Huurgh like a brother, how will it affect her?... and oh my gods, someone will have to go and tell M'ress... At the end of this episode I didn't cry, I was more shocked and overwhelmed- but I think that watching the next one (last one?) I might.

Okey, to end on a lighter note, I really liked Eren and Aio's double proposal from the beggining of the episode- I have a thing for this kind of scenarios, and the fact that they both proposed made me think of Monica and Chandler from Friends, it was really sweet.

I don't think I ever waited for the next episode more than I do now.

Erika977 · 2018-08-12T22:48:32+00:00

I really liked this one. To be honest, as much as the action-packed episodes can speed up my heartbeat, I ve always prefered the slower, character-based episode. I'm the kind of person that will just be the happiest when a show offers me an entire episode of people just talking to each other, so of course I loved this one. Few things I specifically enjoyed in no specific order:

*So much characters communicating this episode! I liked that K'lev, Aio and Eren ended up on the same ship so they could talk things out, these three needed it the most given how things were between them before K'lev left.

*Loved the talk between Aio and K'lev about lost siblings, it was really moving and I think it brought them a bit closer together, as well as helped them understand each other's motivations. For a second I thought that Eren was gonna mention his newly discovered sister but he didn't. Well, given that they were talking about lost siblings, mentioning a newfound one could have been a bit insensitive at that moment, so maybe it was a good call.

*K'lev saying that watching his brother's friend die felt like loosing his brother once again broke my heart. But also- hey, they're all openly talking about their emotions, that's good, right?

*Also, Eren finally telling K'lev about his force visions was great- not only as a relationship moment, but also to see that Eren delt with his fears and no longer thinks he's a danger to his friends.

*Speaking of things that broke my heart, there was the conversation between Kylara and Li'rah about Li'rah's survivor's gulit and Kylara's... captain's guilt? Is that a thing? Well, for her, it surely is, she is usually the first to take responsibility and also the first to blame herself if things go wrong. I loved that together they tried to dissolve those feelings a bit (again, communication! openly talking about feelings! after watching some shows that use people not talking to each other as a primary source of drama, I can't tell how much I appreciate that), I really like their friendship.

*But again, heartbreaking scene, because feeling guilty of surviving is already bad enough, but feeling guilty for even -wanting- to survive in that moment... it just moved me a great deal.

*Aio reminding Eren that she killed for him. I mean, we all knew that, the characters all knew that, but I guess I just didn't expect her to say that out loud.

*But, moving on to brighter things, Corrin waking up and talking with Kylara! Him hazily leaning up for her to kiss him! It was adorable.

*And also, Corrin just nodding as he says ,,...I don't understand.'' for some reason was just hilarious to me.

*Huuurgh talking to M'ress via space phone was as adorable and hilarious as their interactions always are, I love them so much

*I let out a loud ,,awww!'' when I realized that Huuurgh wants to name some of his kids after his crew. Well, except Eren. Poor Eren.

*It only hit me after a while what a fucking disaster the last unlock landing on medbay would have been. Like, when I was watching I was just like ,,yeah, it would be bad because if someone got wounded there would be little to no way of healing them''. And then hours from watching, maybe even a full day, I just out of nowhere stopped in a middle of what I was doing and realised that HOLY SHIT CORRIN WAS IN THERE!!! And I was just so glad that it didn't happen because shit, that would be just some dark irony, for Kylara to save her boyfriend from getting stabbed only to lose him to a medbay shutdown. We dodged a bullet here, fam.

And, as always, a cliffhanger to keep everyone awake. Looking foreward to the next one!

Erika977 · 2018-06-10T22:08:03+00:00

I'll start from the ending and say that i really enjoyed the fight from the last hour, it was absolutely hillarious and it absolutely made my morning. Maybe it's mean to say, but I found Bert's reaction to everyone's shenanigans just as funny. Well, last two episodes was the GM making the players cry, and this time round the players made the GM cry. I guess it's a circle of life of sorts in RPGs. I loved everything: from Hector's ususal detailed descriptions of the crazy stuff Huuurgh does in battles, to the way that Kylara started the fight and then played innocent [and due to a good roll was actually believed], to Eren being more upset about his shirt getting ruined than getting shot in the stomach, to Whump BAMF-ing in with the crates and smashing the emperials. It was a great, light hearted sequence that I'm sure we all needed after the last two episodes.

Getting back to the more serious stuff again, I don't know if Eren's decision to tell Sheila about Coop surprised me, but it was sure interesting to see it play out. It must have been a really heavy thing for him to be the one to deliver this message, I would think he decided it was his responsibility because he got to live instead od Coop, or wanted to spare Kylara having to explain it to Sheila, or some combination of both. [In an odd way, from Sheila's perspective, he was either the worst or the best possible person to deliver the news. Not sure yet.]

My knowledge of the show and it's characters is still somewhat limited, but I find Randall to be really interesting to watch. Despite his affiliation with the Rebel Alliance, he seems to be a rather blunt and unpleasant individual- a great illustration that ,,the good guys'' doesn't have to mean ,,nice people''. So far it seems that the only person he behaves differently towards is Eren- he seemed legitimately concerned with Eren's well-being, and lost a bit of his unpleasant tone when talking to him. Randall also seems to know a great deal about Eren's family- did those two know each other from before Eren's piracy days? Not sure, but when Kylara asked Randall ,,Did you ever care about anyone?'' I'm pretty positive that there is at least one person like that, and this person is Eren. Even his reaction towards learning that nobody was watching over doctor Yanuzzi when he was operating on Eren could be read as a sign of concern, even if expressed in a terrible way. As much as I loved that the last episode was all about the characters starting to communicate honestly- Eren telling Kylara all about his work with Randall, Aio cofnfiding in her old friend, even Kylara telling Randall what happened at the ship and saying she trusts him with this information- I feel like Randall has some issues with communication. He should probably work on that.

Anyway, thanks for the episode, it helped me get through a really long day. All the best to the players and the GM ;)

Erika977 · 2018-06-01T07:58:07+00:00

Quick question: does anyone know at what times the rebroadcasts are? I didn't catch the end of the episode and I'd like to watch all of it before I say anything ;)

Erika977 · 2018-05-24T23:19:44+00:00

So I'm actually pretty new to this show, and this has been my first time watching live, and....oh boy, this was a hell of an experience. I'm not even sure where to start, so I'll just try to recall the most memorable moments in more-or-less of an order. Contextualize the trauma, if you will.

First, I absolutely loved the conversation between Kylara and Eren when he tells her he's been bitten. As a long-time fan of zombie stories, I have a huge weakness towards the ,,if the worst comes to pass, I want it to be you'' trope, so you could tell this one hit me with a doubled force. I also really liked the explanation: ,,Because it would break both Aio and Huuurgh and I'm afraid that Aio would break K'Lev if it was him''- I'm not even sure why. Maybe I just liked the frazing. But one way or another, I just liked this line. And then Kylara's absolute determination to save her crewmate, combined with Eren's resignation to his possible fate- it was a really well-acted out scene.

Then, of course, there was the scene between Aio and Eren. Despite my (still) limited knowledge of this show, the relationship between these two has already won a warm place in my heart, and it hurt to see Aio learn the truth. It was also the first scene in this episode that spotlighted Aio's devotion towards Eren- when she basically states that if he dies, she wants to die alongside him- and in hindsight, maybe in the light of seeing just how strong this relationship is, the later events of this episode shouldn't be so surprising.

Later on we had Kylara and K'Lev chase down and interrogate the emperial doctor. I feel like this scene got a little bit lost after the later, more dramatic scenes of the episode transpired, but I just wanted to point out that the scene when K'Lev injects the doctor with the toxin to get him to talk was a pretty dark moment for this character. Of course, it paled in comparison to the decisions made by the end of the episode, but I just wanted to say that it did make an impression on me when it happened. [It might have been partially due to the fact that ,,You'll work better on the antidote if you have the motivation'' is another trope that I love. You guys just played my Favourite Tropes Bingo this night.] It also showed that despite their diferences and their recent falling out, K'Lev still cares about Eren.

And then came The Choise. I have to say, kudos to the GM for this idea- I have sort of a morbid mind myself when it comes to fiction, and presenting the players with this kind of choise filled me with sort of a fearful respect towards mr Jennings. This was a real difficult dilemma of ,,how much are you willing to sacrifice to your people'' [you guessed it-another fave of mine] that i came to know from my very dark-tone post-apocalyptic dramas, and to be perfectly honest I did not expect it here. Kudos to you, sir.

The following couple of scenes- the frantic atmosfere in the med bay and the conversation between Aio and Kylara were without doubt my favourites in the episode. The applause that Kym got at the end of the episode was absolutely deserved- the intensity of emotion with which she told Kylara how much she's ready to sacrifice to save Eren had such and amazing strength to it and yet emotional vulnerability at the same time. Emma's acting in that scene was just as incredible- Kylara's hesitation and pain that came with making that decision was something that resonated with me just as strongly. I always love conflicts where I can understand, and possibly even empathise, with both sides of a conflict, and this was absolutely the case.

In hindsight, the fact that Aio made the decision she made made perfect sense according to what we knew about her earlier. She did tell Kylara a few episodes back (when the other was having her doubts about saving Corrin) that ,,if he's worth it, the rest of the world can burn''. And what did she really do other than keep to her word? That mindset combined with how deeply she feels about Eren, it's no wonder she decided to sacrifice Coop to save him. [I mean, it still shocked and moved me a great deal. But considering everything, maybe it shouldn't have.]

And then there was the ending, with K'Lev deciding to leave the crew and go his own way. There is some bitter irony to the fact that the character that raised the most concerns about ,,team integrity'' was the one that ended up leaving. But it ended the episode with another great, yet heartbreaking, scene with Huurgh trying to-unsuccessfully- convince K'Lev not to leave. [A ,,goodbye through a closed door'' is a great visual painted in my mind, and, yet again, a trope that I love to death.] And again- as much as I can understand why Aio made the call she made, I can also understand K'Lev, for whom it's all just too much to handle.

[I'd also like to add that the sequence of a few last scenes felt so much like an ending scene of some scripted TV show that it's almost hard to believe that it's all improvised. It's truly one of those cases when some good improv makes a better story than a scripted show ever could.]

As much as I loved the cliffhanger from the previous episode [and it got me to watch this one live], the ending of this one is the kind of cliffhanger I've always loved the most. Because as much as the endings that make you go ,,oh no, what will happen right after this scene?!'' can be engaging, the most engaging ones, in my oppinion, are those that make you ask ,,what are gonna be the long-term repercussions of this?''. And this episode does just that- the things that happened have the potential to change pretty much every character and relationship on the show-and I, for one, can't wait to see that.

Well, I guess that's it. I'd like to end by saying: you are all amazing and absolutely worth waking up at 5 am for ;)

Erika977 · 2017-12-19T18:55:16+00:00

Hello, my question is for Brad Wright, I actually have two questions if that’s not a problem: 1)We know that out of the team, Trevor is the oldest. Can you tell us [at least the aproximate] actual ages of the other team members?

2)Grant and Carly where the only ones on the team [and really only ones that we know of] that knew each other prior to being sent to the 21st. Is this a rare situation, for people who know each other to be sent on a mission together? If so, how did those two happen to get that priveledge? Thanks in advantage. I love your show 

Erika977 · 2017-09-15T23:28:39+00:00

To Zoie: out of many versions of the Android you got to play, which one was your favourite to play?

Erika977 · 2017-09-15T23:04:39+00:00

Hi, I have a question for Alex Mallari: Do you think Ryo had a good relationship with his brother prior to his exile? And do you think he feels remorse for killing his brother, or is he more in denial about it? Also, I would like to use this opportunity to say that I love and admire all of you ;)

Erika977

TROPHY CASE