In 1972, a fresh-faced young aspiring science fiction writer named Carl "C.W." Longbottom arrives in Los Angeles to work as a copy editor at Amazing Tales, a popular speculative fiction magazine, hoping to become one of the great writers of his time.
- Bittersweet Ending: By the end of the episode, we see that C.W. used the success of "Tears of the Anaren" to make a name for himself as a writer, but by then he has pushed away his former friends A.E. and Peter. Also, we know that his career later took a nosedive when he became able to publish his own sub-par material thanks to his fame. However, thanks to him getting hired to write for Mythic Quest, he did finally get a chance to work with video games, whose storytelling power he predicted long ago and which everyone else dismissed.
- Brutal Honesty: C.W., A.E. and Peter's boss, Sol Green, tells them to their faces on day one that they were hired not because of the quality of the short stories they submitted, but because they had correct grammar and punctuation.
- Call-Back: In the final scene, Ian appears wearing a Dark Quiet Death t-shirt, a major game from the studio that once leased the same building that Mythic Quest is currently occupying.
- Exact Words: In his feedback to "Tears of the Anaren", consisting of a complete, much better rewrite of the whole story, Asimov told him to keep the edits or discard them as he wanted since it was his story. So C.W. takes advantage of this, types up Asimov's story on fresh paper and submits the whole rewrite as his own work.
- Green-Eyed Monster: As C.W. fails to make a career in writing because of his inability to learn from criticism while those of A.E. and Peter start to really take off, he becomes increasingly resentful and even implies that A.E. only got published because she flirted (or more) with Sol Green.
- Historical Domain Character: C.W., A.E. and Peter see Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. Le Guin and Ray Bradbury in the Amazing Tales office on their first day. Asimov appears again later in the episode.
- It's Been Done: At one point, C.W. goes all-in for ideas like a fancy sci-fi food he thinks original.. and is told he basically described fondue.
- It Will Never Catch On: Amazingly, for all his backward thinking, the episode reveals C.W. was ahead of his time seeing the potential in video games in 1973 when his fellow sci-fi authors dismissed it as "no one cares about television."
- Not Helping Your Case: After A.E. and Peter make progress in their writing, C.W. tries to do a improved rewrite of "Tears of the Anaren", expanding it from a short story into a novella. Unfortunately, as A.E. and Peter point out, he doesn't actually fix any of his storytelling issues; he makes the same mistakes, but more of them.
- Origins Episode: For C.W.
- Pretentious Pronunciation: The title of C.W.'s original short story "Tears of the Anaren" is supposed to be "tears" as in something being torn, not tears from eyes; A.E. points out how weird that is since there actually are characters in the story who cry. Also, "Anaren" is supposed to be pronounced "ah-nah-REHN", but everyone instinctively emphasizes the second syllable as "ah-NAH-ren". He stops correcting people when Isaac Asimov makes the same mistake.
- Wham Episode: The episode is one for C.W.'s characterization: it turns out that he isn't a once-good writer whose quality of work has declined over the years, but that he was never really a good writer at all, with his Nebula-winning novella actually having been written entirely by Isaac Asimov and sent to him as a mean joke. His one genuinely good, innovative idea, namely the rich potential of storytelling in video games, was mocked at the time he thought of it.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Most of the episode takes place in the 1970s, when C.W. started his writing career.
