#See you in 2022 when we start talking about the 80s.

[nalyra-dreaming]

Found an old interview, with a few juicy bits

(and a lot we knew already)

The blood tasted like "Sour Patch Kid" (lol):

The three of them had dancing lessons.... 👀

And Jacob wants to see Louis in the 80s!!! (And we know Sam got his wish^^)

Also kinda sad that Bailey won't be able to explore those hairstyles, but... anyways it's long , so the rest under the cut:

Interview with Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid and Bailey Bass

Posted on October 2, 2022 by TvMegasite Admin

TV Interview!

Interview with Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid and Bailey Bass of “Interview with The Vampire” on AMC and AMC+ by Suzanne 9/29/22

This was a fun roundtable with the three stars of this great new vampire show. If you love vampire shows, or the Anne Rice novels, you should love this show. It’s very well done, and these actors are great in it. Jacob plays Louie, and we see the story through his eyes as told to ailing reporter Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian, who’s outstanding as always). Sam Reid plays LeStat, the seductive vamp that turns Louie and becomes his friend, lover, mentor, etc. Bailey plays Claudia, the young woman that joins them. They were very kind and fun to interview.

Suzanne:   Hi, I’m Suzanne Lanoue from TVMEG.com, and I’ve watched the first episode. I didn’t get screeners till this morning, so I only got to watch the first one so far, but I’m really enjoying it. It just grabs you and drags you in. So, congratulations on being renewed for season two already, which is great. Do you know when you’ll be starting to film season two, or have you already started filming it?

JACOB ANDERSON:   We haven’t started. We haven’t started shooting, no.

SAM REID:   Probably, I don’t know if we can say anything. [Laughs]

Suzanne:   Have they told you yet?

JACOB ANDERSON:   They haven’t not told us anything.

Suzanne:  [Chuckles} OK, well, thank you!

Jamie from SCIFI VISION:  Hi, I’m Jamie Ruby from SciFi Vision. Thanks for talking to us today, I really enjoyed the first five episodes that we’ve seen. So, for the three of you, can you kind of talk about how you balanced what you pulled from the book versus what you added with your own spin on it?

SAM REID:   Hello, Jamie, I’ll answer that. No. But I would say that anything for myself and my character, my own spin probably came from my own interpretation of the books and Rolins’ work. So, I wasn’t really trying to put any of my own spin on it. It’s just how I imagined it to be, really.

JACOB ANDERSON:   Yeah. I second that. It’s like, you will always view a character through your own lens to an extent and then it’s just kind of, I mean, I guess with anything, it’s like, do other do the other creative people like that, and do they want to discuss it? But you don’t want to mess with this. Like the combination of Anne Rice’s writing and Rolins’ writing, you don’t really want to touch it, you don’t want to just sort of throw your own stuff in just for the sake of it.

SAM REID:   They’re so dense already the characters that it sort of would be a shame to try and deviate too much of thing.

JACOB ANDERSON:   What could you possibly add?

SAM REID:   Yeah.

BAILEY BASS:   I feel the exact same way. It’s really, yes, we were cast because there’s something special in us that Rolin and the entire team really enjoyed when we were doing our auditions. But other than that, it’s really just doing the research and the book, reading the scripts, doing our own technique, and then just coming and creating in this world.

Jamie:  Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Jamie from STARRY MAG:  This is Jamie Steinberg, with Starry Constellation Magazine. Jacob, this is another deeply tortured soul for you to portray. Is there something about these kinds of characters that really draw you to them? Or is this them finding their way to you? Or is it something you see in them that really resonates with you and makes you want to portray them?

JACOB ANDERSON:   I think it’s a combination of both. We find each other. I think I’m slightly less like Grey Worm than I am like Louis. But yeah, I mean, I think you normally want to be like very boundaried when you talk about things and be like, “Oh, well, I’m so removed from the character, and I’m brilliant at acting and blah blah blah blah blah”. But to be honest, yeah, I feel very, very connected to Louis. It’s the thing that bothered me about how Anne Rice wrote him, and also how Rolin wrote him as well. Yeah, I’m drawn to characters who are searching. And I’d ask him questions, not just about the world, but about their place in it and what they contribute or don’t contribute to it. But yeah, I also I felt like it would be like, narcissistic of me to be like, “I am the only person who can play Louis.” But namely, because there is somebody else that’s done it, as well. Many people.

Jamie:  Well, I think you brings such a unique take on it, though, because of the artistry you have. Both of these characters that you mentioned, have just been wonderfully nuanced, I think through your portrayal. So it might be just a little bit time for you to pat yourself on the back for what you’ve brought to the role on your own.

JACOB ANDERSON:   This one’s for you, Bailey.

QUESTION:   Question for Jacob and Sam, one of the really interesting things about this particular adaptation is the romance that we kind of finally get to see between Louis and Lestat. Can you speak to that a little bit? What does it mean to you to be able to portray that relationship in that way?

SAM REID:   Well, I think AMC has the rights to the entire Vampire Chronicles, and so it’s very important to make sure that relationship is established early on. Particularly as the books progress, it becomes much more clear that they are in a very intense romantic relationship. So, I think it’s it’s great to make sure that we’re serving the story correctly. And it wouldn’t be Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire if it wasn’t there. So, yeah.

QUESTION:   I was wondering, and this is kind of specifically for Bailey and Sam, the show doesn’t shy away from race or that being a factor at all for their very long life experience. Was that important to you? And were you afraid of any ignorant backlash, because previously, the characters were paid by white actors?

BAILEY BASS:   I was really excited to play Claudia. It’s really a dream to play such a complex character that’s very loud and unapologetic. I honestly didn’t think twice about anything else. I just knew that Rolin was very intentional about the actors that he wanted to cast in the show, and I’m very fortunate that I was one of them. I just dove into all the research. I read the book. I would cross reference the book and the script and see the quotes that Rolin took from the book and was very intentional about adding them into the script. After doing all the research, I mean, I became Claudia and it was fun to play her.

JACOB ANDERSON:   Yeah, I think something that Rolin’s done, which is – I’m almost loath to call it important, but like it creates a richness is that this isn’t a colorblind casting situation. Louis’ central question is about his humanity and his place in humanity. I think that if you were to cast a black actor or black actors for Louis and Claudia, and to not address that, you’d take a lot away from that question of their humanity. I’m glad that we don’t shy away from it. And in terms of backlash, I just don’t want to give it energy anymore. Like I just – people are going to – I think people need to be seen. Sometimes they’ll say anything to be seen or recognized, and it’s sad, but it’s the internet.

QUESTION:   I would love for you to talk a little bit about what it’s like just being vampires, being able to play vampires when biting people and having these kinds of scenes. What goes into that and how much fun is that to play? How difficult is that to play?

SAM REID:  

It’s very fun. It’s very fun. Yeah, you know, because we’ve got a lot of elements that come into every scene. So, they’re very beautiful, sort of rich dialogue-heavy scenes, but we also have this whole element of the vampire, you know, he kills, so we’ll be pausing for the blood to be put in. We had all these different types of blood that we’d been drinking and tasting, and they made us hibicus flavored blood when we had to drink large amounts of it.

JACOB ANDERSON:  

It did not taste like hibiscus. It tasted like it was like a Sour Patch Kid.

SAM REID:   Yeah.

JACOB ANDERSON:   But in liquid form.

SAM REID:   But there’s a lot of thought and consideration [that had] gone into this. But yeah, it’s so much fun, really. Vampires are, I think, the best type of monster, because they have so much humanity. They’re so articulate. They experience a huge amount. Anne Rice is responsible for our shift in vampires, because she puts the perspective into the eyes of the monster, and you have empathy for them. So, it’s very fun to do these really extreme, horrific things, but also with a level of understanding and empathy and bringing that into the character. So, it’s a fun thing to do.

JACOB ANDERSON:   It’s the best! It’s the best. The best monsters.

Jamie from SCIFI VISION:  So, obviously, you guys do go to some really dark places, though, with your characters. Can you sort of talk about getting into that headspace, and how you sort of, I guess, get back out of it? Is it hard to sort of go there? For all three of you.

BAILEY BASS:   Yeah, it’s hard. We had such long days that it kind of, for me personally, it was hard for me to differ[entiate], like, who’s Claudia and who’s Bailey. So, I kind of had to, like really sit with myself and reflect, but it’s hard. But then also, this is what I love to do, and playing such an extreme character, that’s what makes it fun is that I get to relive and be in these spaces that I would never normally be in if I didn’t get to play Claudia. But the dark, even though it’s dark and everything, I definitely enjoyed it. And I had Sam and Jacob, which they were incredible scene partners, and we all had each other. We made sure that throughout the whole process, our mental health, even though we’re like hysterically crying sometimes that afterwards, our mental health was still good,

SAM REID:   I think to Bailey’s point, like, sometimes the darkest jobs or the darkest sets where the material is the most bleak are the most fun, because, we instinctively know how to just kind of like, help ourselves through that. So, we’ll be making a lot of jokes. You know, it is ridiculous, sometimes what we’re doing, and you have to step back and think [laughs] You know, we’re suspended in the air, covered in blood, so we just kept it light. It was a fun thing to do.

JACOB ANDERSON:   Yeah, I agree. I mean, it’s dense. It’s dense, so you need to focus on the language as well. Like, aside from, yeah, we had a lot of fun, but when you’re doing the scene, you focus on what you’re doing. And I think if you let yourself get dragged into it too much, then hard to to do your job, I think.

Jamie from STARRY MAG:  Bailey, this is such a beautiful costume you have. Talk about when you first saw what you’d be wearing for the series, and if you had any input, and if it takes really putting on that costume to embody your character.

BAILEY BASS:   Costume is one of my favorite things in my job, being able to speak with the costume designer and be able to talk about what she saw when she read the script, because it’s not just me, it’s a big collaboration of an incredible crew that helps make us look good, basically. And to be able to talk to hair, makeup, and costume and get to know what their first ideas were when they read the script, and then being able to collaborate with them and say what I thought, was really, really fun. And the costume designer for this show, Carol, was just so collaborative. I came in and we were talking about posture. That’s a very big thing for Claudia, because in the beginning, she’s like fourteen years old, and she’s excited being a vampire. She would shrug a lot and just walked like, however and had terrible posture. So, the costume designer would think about that when she was making the costumes. And then also I have to look like a little girl. So, she created these beautiful bows along with making sure that the shape of my costumes hid any curves possible. So, when I put them on, I really felt like a little girl. So, when I was doing the scenes where Claudia is struggling, she wants to be a woman, and I’m sitting in this pink dress that it’s not flattering to anything that’s me as Bailey, it was really easy to feel what Claudia would be feeling at that moment.

Suzanne:   I really enjoyed the wedding scene and your dancing, Jacob; that was great. Was that actually you dancing? And did you have to train for that, or did you already know how, and will there be any more singing or dancing in the show?

JACOB ANDERSON:   That was me and Steven Norfleet, who plays Paul, and we had about a month to train, to practice. I don’t know if you’ve ever done tap dancing, but it’s like learning how to walk again, like how to walk for the first time, like to get your brain to coordinate in that way and to like shift the weight of your body is really confusing. And to add to that we did a lot of our lessons on Sikkim (???). And it’s all like, it’s all sound. You like making music with your feet, but with the lag of, of like, you know, doing it online. But you just drill; you just drill it every day. You drill it every day, and just you have to listen. It’s less about like being mechanical about your body and just like listening to the sound. But there is there is more dancing in the show.

Suzanne:   Oh, good.

JACOB ANDERSON:   Yeah. It was in the trailer, right?

SAM REID:   Yeah, the three of us did dancing lessons.

JACOB ANDERSON:   Yeah, we did.

QUESTION:   I’m curious to just have any of you or all of you talk a little bit about what you love most about the dynamic between all three of your characters, either once Claudia comes in, or kind of as that progresses.

JACOB ANDERSON:   I find it, I think from Louis’ point of view, he’s trying to recreate a kind of family dynamic that he is grieving for in his human life. I think it’s probably the thing that he misses most in some ways. It’s like a grounding thing, is his brother and his sister and his mom, maybe to a lesser extent, but maybe not. So, I find the way that it kind of goes for them, and for him, it’s kind of unexpected. I think he wanted, he was hoping that in bringing somebody else into their family, I think he thought that Claudia might be like him. [laughs] So, it’s interesting. I feel like an outcast, but to also be a part of – I mean, I’ll let Bailey talk more about about that part of it, but really, Claudia ends up being sort of forgotten about a little bit, and their dynamic, which is sad.

BAILEY BASS:   I think what’s wonderful though, is that there’s really no protagonist or antagonist. It changes through every scene in every episode, because these characters are so specific and complex, and Rolin Jones, the writer of the show, did an incredible job of explaining in depth why we do what we do. There’s a reason why we kill the people that we do, why we hurt each other. And because of that, the viewer kind of feels bad for the person hurting the other, but then also feels bad for the person being hurt.

QUESTION:   So, obviously, as vampires, your characters live very long lives. Which era would you like to see, be able to play your character in?

JACOB ANDERSON:   80s 80s 80s. I want the pastels. I want the hair. Let’s go, 80s.

SAM REID:   I’d probably do the 1700s. I think Lestat really that is where he’s from, and that’s the era in which he was born into, so I’d quite like to see him in that in that era.

BAILEY BASS:   I just want to get to the 50s. Like, I just want Claudia to get to the 50s so I can wear all those skirts and just explore more hairstyles, because we evolved. Doing the prep work, there wasn’t a lot of hairstyles – we had a horrible of time looking for photos of black girls in that time period with very versatile hair, which we know they existed, just no one took pictures of them. So, to be able to expand that more and show women who have curly hair, that this is what they look like in that time. I’d love to expand that and go into the 40s and 50s.

Transcribed by Jamie Ruby of ScifiVision

#interview #tvmeg #jacob anderson #sam reid #bailey bass #iwtv cast #amc iwtv #iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire amc #iwtv amc #iwtv 2022 #interview with the vampire

[myemuisemo]

Suddenly, Letters from Watson dumps us in the middle of the Great American Desert (part 1 of "On the Great Alkali Plain," 2/7/24). This is not anywhere I expected to be transported from London, and the contrast makes the Mountain West feel exotic for a minute.

The Great American Desert -- stretching from about Grand Island, Nebraska to the Sierras and pretty much the entire north-south length of the U.S. -- had become a thing of legend since explorers' accounts in the 1820s. When Dad and I drove across it in 2022, we talked about how incredibly daunting it must have been for emigrants seeking their land of milk and honey on the Pacific coast.

The way we went, out I-80, Nebraska shifts from green to gray as it rises toward the Rockies. After a while, the wind picks up as you go uphill into Wyoming. There's a lot of Wyoming, and after Cheyenne and Laramie (both of which would be small towns in most states), it's very, very empty. When we finally started the descent toward Salt Lake City, and the little valleys beside the road turned green with running water, it was truly like entering paradise.

Of course, in 1847, Salt Lake City was just barely being settled, as Brigham Young led his Latter Day Saints west from Council Bluffs, and its location wasn't part of the U.S. yet.

The Mexican-American war had started the prior year, 1846, and was still going. Spring-summer of 1846 saw the Bear Flag Revolt in California, followed by the U.S. just annexing the state. Gold wouldn't be discovered at Sutter's Mill until 1849, so while emigration to California happened -- the Donner Party made their ill-fated trip in 1846-47 -- it wasn't anything like the scope of movement along the Oregon Trail.

As far as I can tell, "Sierra Blanco" is not a real place. There's a Sierra Blanca in New Mexico -- which would fit with all the specific landscape, plus White Sands National Park in New Mexico specifically has alkali flats. Last time I drove through New Mexico on I-40, in late 2018, it was delightfully desolate, so I can buy that in 1847, it seemed completely empty, with even the native peoples avoiding some stretches.

Why anyone would be crossing New Mexico is a mystery, since neither Arizona nor southern California were much settled by Americans. There was some sort of wagon route across New Mexico used by U.S. soldiers during the Mexican-American War, so if I'd expect anyone to be about, it'd be the U.S. Army.

Utah, now, is downright famous for its salt flat, but that's west of the site of Salt Lake City.

Regardless, parties screwing up their trip to the west by taking an imprudent shortcut or mistaking the route was definitely both a thing that happened and, thanks to the Donner Party, a trope. Our haggard and starving traveler sounds about right.

Then he reveals a Plucky Innocent Victorian Child.

That "pretty little girl of about five years of age" is the absolute ideal of Victorian childhood, being perfectly behaved, utterly imperturbable, determined to see the best in all things, sweet, trusting, and looking forward to being reunited with her mother in heaven.

This kind of child is why Louisa May Alcott was seen as innovative for writing Little Woman about girls who worked on their character flaws. (This is also the ideal the March girls were being aimed at. Polly in An Old-Fashioned Girl comes closer, but even Polly would have been upset about being hopelessly lost in the desert with no water.) Contrast this with the street urchins that Holmes employs in his investigation, who are good enough sorts but scrappy, resourceful, and street smart.

Ordinarily, a Victorian child who was utterly sweet and pious would be a cinnamon roll, literally too good, too pure for this world, and thus would die beautifully but tragically before long. Being lost in the desert seems ideal for this, but --

She turns to prayer, and since someone must survive in order for this scene to be relevant,

Yes, darn it, I am on the edge of my seat to know what happens. I'm also grateful that crossing the Great American Desert in 2022 was a quicker process. I've been reading Carey Williams' old-but-interesting California: The Great Exception, which has a lot to say about how 19th century isolation shaped California's economy and power structure, not always for good. But that's neither here nor there -- I don't think we're headed to California.

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes

[rogersandclarke]

What is the band that’s a combination of mcr and Grateful Dead. I must know

what? there isn’t one, that i know of. but if you’re talking about my header image, that’s referring to an outfit photo i sent my friend, really enjoyed their response to it :)

but let’s talk about this for a minute, cause i’ve been noticing some connections! the dead are potentially one of the most documented, catalogued, obsessively followed bands in history. because of their tendency to improvise, every performance of a song would be different. so fans would covertly tape shows (until the 80s, when the band made a tapers section, since it brought in way more fans for them than it did hurt record sales). & so people would pass around these tapes, sharing them with friends who knew everything and nothing about the band. people could listen to a hundred tapes and decide their favorite performance of sugaree was 5/28/77, & while the jack straw that followed during that show was good, it had nothing on the classic version from eugene, oregon in ‘72.

by the 80s, this manifested itself in a very loyal & recognizable group of people, the deadheads, following the band around on tour, however they could manage it. if you went to one show, or a few shows, you’d regret not going to the next one, because your friend would phone you up and tell you about JUST HOW GROUNDBREAKING AND NEW AND DIFFERENT jerry’s althea solo was tonight—even when it’s been done a hundred times, it’s never been done before.

and so, because of this, you would see so many deadheads at shows selling homemade merchandise, jewelry, anything they could in order to afford to drive that van to the next magical show. inside the concerts, there was a real, supportive community feeling (at least until ‘87, when things got a little too big to control, but that’s really not the story here). the wharf rats held AA/NA meetings for deadheads in recovery during intermission, there were families there, and everyone had common ground in their mutual devotion to this band. people would go and choose to set up camp in front of bobby, jerry, phil, whoever they liked best, knowing where their spot on stage would be each night.

both reflecting on this myself, and talking to some friends who enjoy both bands, the behavior of mcr fans in 2022 is starting to feel like that of 80s deadheads. while the band is now slightly older, performing outside the time period they're stereotypically associated with, the community around them is stronger than ever, and more devoted. the obsession with capturing and watching livestreams of every single show feels VERY reminiscent of the deadheads' goal to tape every single dead show. because, with mcr, it feels like every night on stage really is different, and you don't know what could happen. while they don't really improvise like the dead, there are still so many nightly changes that people who are deeply invested in the band are tuned into, and get excited about. every outfit choice, stage story, lyric difference, intonation difference, highlighted harmony, inspired solo, and setlist choice are torn apart by fans. it's exciting!!

then we do have the people who are following the band! while people always did this, there seems to be more desire, more desperation to go to as many shows as you possibly can, now that the shows are all being recorded and you can see in real-time what you're missing out on. @spiderbasil was someone i talked to about this, about selling homemade merch and doing odd jobs to get the chance to see more shows. and there are many more people who have done just that, or used other money-saving/making methods to see this band wherever they possibly can.

and it does feel like a community, when you're there! not just an online event. if you're in the pit (or whatever it is when you're at a festival. giant giant pit.) then you can choose to be on the ray side, or the frank side, or get as close to the middle as you can manage for gerard. i had a wonderful time with my fellow ray enthusiasts at riot fest, we became friends, traded instagrams, and looked out for each other in the insanity of it all, holding onto each other & making sure no one got lost.

basically i just feel like the attitude towards these bands and the relationship that the fans have between each other is getting more similar! mcr is kind of becoming a scene of its own... in the way that the dead were kind of their own scene... even though they did have a lot of connections to other musicians around them and in the scene its like a world is being built up just for them. and its kind of cool! good and bad comes with that, but i see a lot of good, because we all enjoy the music together :)

#grateful dead #mcr #ask #my writing #< i suppose

[allelitewrestlings]

allelitewrestlings’ gifmaking tutorial #1

hey there! this is a brief tutorial with technical tips for making wrestling/aew gifs. i won’t go through the basics of gifmaking, so some photoshop knowledge is expected. i hope this will help any new gifmakers in the wrestling fandom, or anyone who is interested 😊 

tutorial content:

choosing the footage

gif dimensions

duplicated frames

sharpening and timing

colouring*

the full tutorial is under the cut! enjoy!

intro. as i mentioned, this is a very basic, very simple tutorial that goes through issues i have encountered since i first started giffing wrestling stuff. keep in mind that i am by no means an expert, and there must be better/easier ways of doing the things i do, but these are my methods. 

*note: i will not be talking in-detail about how to colour aew gifs because it’d take most of the tutorial. but if anyone’s interested about a veeery basic colouring tutorial that focuses on aew, let me know 😊

1. choosing the footage

when it comes to making gifs, the rule of thumb is to always choose 1080p footage or higher. this makes your gifs look more hd. when it comes to wrestling/aew (in my personal experience) even 1080p can look pretty terrible sometimes. 

this is a screencap from a young bucks entrance. you can see how even when the video “is 1080p”, the image looks super pixelated and blurry. to me that’s a no can do, sorry young bucks. i often try to go for clear frames, but it’s a challenge when it comes to aew 😅 (unless it’s close-ups or backstage segments).

once you have your footage and once you’re exporting your video to frames on photoshop, remember not to limit the frames (unless you’re working with 1080p60, in which it’s totally fine to limit 2 frames if you don’t want your gif to look too “smooth”).

for the purpose of this tutorial, i will be working with backstage segments.

2. gif dimensions

now that you have your footage, you have to decide what kind of layout you’ll be working with. most set layouts consist of one, two, or three columns. depending on the layout you choose, the width of your gif will be different (the height can be whatever you want, just remember to keep the proportions). as of 2022 the tumblr width dimensions are as follow:

i usually crop my gifs using the crop tool (but there are other methods for sizing your gifs). this time i’ll be making a 540x450 one column gif

personally, i never fully select the bottom 3-4 pixels because (for some reason?) you’ll find a black line at the bottom of aew footage like 80% of the time. but feel free to crop the gif as you please! there are other ways of cropping and sizing your gif, this is just one :) 

3. sharpening and timing

once you have your gif cropped, it’s time for sharpening. it’s important not to skip this step! i’d say that sharpening is as important as selecting the correct width/colouring your gif. there are many ways to sharpen your gif and it all depends on whether you work with timeline/smart object or you choose to sharpen each frame individually. both of these can be achieved through actions or manually. personally, i prefer actions. there are many great action packs available here on tumblr for free! they’ll make your life easier. one of my favourite action packs is @anyataylorjoy​’s action pack #1. this action pack has two different sharpening actions and they’re both quite useful (and look good on my dated photoshop), but what i love the most is the save action.

this is when we need to talk about timing. i’ve been making gifs for a while, and it took me a long time to realise that 95% of the time, the correct timing for gifs is 0.05. the issue here is that when you save your gif and you’re still working with it as timeline/smart object, 0.05 is converted to 0.07, so it slows the gif down. sometimes it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but fixing the timing makes a huuuuge difference in what your gif will end up looking like. by using the save action, your work will automatically be converted back into frames and the timing will be fixed.

let’s look at examples.

this is what happens if you change the speed to 0.05 before converting the frames to timeline/smart object to sharpen it. (when you save it, the gif will automatically be 0.07. we don’t want this).

what we want is to convert the timeline back into frames and change the speed to 0.05 (so you can use the save option for this and save yourself some time!). after that, your gif will move way smoother/better:

4. duplicate frames

i didn’t know whether to talk about duplicates or sharpening first, but i decided to leave this for last. something that no one told me/i didn’t really notice when i started making gifs is that there can be a lot of duplicates in the footage you’re working with. if duplicate frames don’t bother you, you can just ignore this bit! it’s mostly a preference.

so, with aew/wrestling footage, you’ll mostly encounter duplicate frames in two occasions:

- backstage segments: this is the most common way of finding duplicate frames, and 98% of the time it’s a 1 in 5 duplicate frame. i usually fix this manually, but i know that avisynth has a very fast, very effective way of removing these duplicate frames. (i found this avisynth tutorial if anyone’s interested!). so, these kind of duplicates will show once every 5 frames. i’ve...memorised? by now that if the 1 and 2 frames are duplicated, then the 6 and 7 will be. so i manually delete every frame that ends with 1 and 6 (or 2-7, 3-8, 4-9, 0-5). it’s... complicated to explain haha. 

most of the backstage segments and slow-motion videos found in, for example, all the roads to and countdowns to are likely to have 1-in-5 duplicates. “hey ew”, and those kinds of videos also have duplicates. as an example, let’s take a look at these:

this is a gif with 1-in-5 duplicates (which has been sharpened, and its speed is 0.05).

and now this is what the same gif looks like once you fix the issue with the duplicates.

- screen recording:

now when it comes to screen recording, it’s very likely that you’ll have duplicate frames. in my experience, unless you’ve just turned your computer on and you don’t have too many tabs/apps open, you’ll find random duplicates throughout the footage you’re working with. sometimes screen recording can also lead to skipping frames, so keep that in mind. to know whether or not your screen recorded footage has duplicates, it’ll look something like this even after you’ve sharpened it and fixed the timing:

the only way (that i’m aware of?) that you can deal with this if you’re using screen recordings is to manually delete the frames. that is, go one by one trying to spot duplicates and delete them. (yeah i’ve done it and yeah it’s a nightmare). so... my advice here is to try to download your footage whenever you can or try to screen record without having too many tabs/apps open 😅

5. colouring

the last step for me when i make gifs is deal with the colouring. some people prefer to do colouring before converting timeline to frames, but it’s just a preference (unless you’re making a gif that requires you to use timeline, etc). what’s important to know if you’re going to add your colouring when working with frames is that you have to always edit the layers on the first frame (so that the changes apply to the rest of the frames).

in-ring action is definitely a nightmare to colour because every shot will look different and aew does a very bad job when it comes to offering contrasted/colour balanced footage. as i mentioned earlier, i’m not gonna spend too much talking about colouring this time. if you struggle with your own colouring, we have shared a couple of psds in the past, which you can use as bases if you’re just getting started or if you find them useful! but there are a lot of good photoshop resources blogs where you can find brightening/base psds as well.

these are the two gifs i have been working with, now with a very basic colouring: 

****

now the only thing you need to remember when saving is that your gifs need to be under 10mb! most of the time my saving settings are adaptive - pattern - bicubic sharper. 

and... i think that’s all! 😊 hope this can help someone. and feel free to message us (or me @jonmoxleys​) if there’s anything you’d like to ask. 

#gif tutorial #resources #completeresources #wrestlingedit #aewedit #aew #ours: resources #ours: tutorials #*

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 63: Clip show to set up two-part finale 

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon! Well it’s taken me a long time to get here - I first started this series back in December of 2022! But we’re almost at the end of our investigation at long last.

Episode 63: Clip show to set up two-part finale 

This is a trope you see in media from time to time - they’ll make the second-to-last story of the series a clip show, recapping what happened earlier in the season. This serves two purposes - to catch viewers up on what’s happened so far, and also to save the crew time and budget that they can put towards making a spectacular finale instead. That said, the first purpose is probably a little rarer these days as almost all shows that have a serialised story will have a “Previously on…” segment at the beginning of each episode, and a longer one that recaps the entire season for the finale. Some shows really lean hard into this - take Supernatural for example, which set all 15 of its season finales to the music of, “Carry on My Wayward Son,” by Kansas.

In my opinion, the best ever pre-series finale clip show was done by Avatar: The Last Airbender. Instead of doing a typical clip show that re-used footage from previous episodes, Team Avatar attended a play that retold the story of their adventures up until this point. This episode leaned heavily into a lot of the show’s memes, such as the play acknowledging that it would be best to skip over The Great Divide, what most fanss feel is the worst episode of the series. Aang and friends were upset with the way the actors on stage were portraying them, with Aang being outraged he was being played by a bald woman, Sokka annoyed that his actor’s jokes weren’t funny, and Zuko and Katara insisting that they don’t spend all day long talking about honour and hope, respectively.

The only exception was Toph, who was delighted to be portrayed by a gigantic buff dude who overcame his blindness by using echo-location screaming.

But what about in ArchieSonic? Sure, we had clip shows. And we had a number of different stories one could count as series finales. But we didn’t really get a pre-finale clip show episode. So what did we get instead?

While it wasn’t in the final ever-published issue of Sonic the Hedgehog, the story “Panic in the Sky,” which ran in issues 284 - 287, more or less serves as a finale to the series. I’ll go into that more when I get to it. Today I want to talk about the issue that came before those, Sonic #283. Taking place right before the climax of the Sonic Unleashed adaptation, at this point of the story the Freedom Fighters had managed to get their hands on all the Chaos Emeralds and Gaia Temple keys, and were preparing to launch their plan to restore the planet. Rather than visiting each of the Gaia Temples across the world one at a time like in the game, the Freedom Fighters planned to take advantage of the Gaia Gate to access all the temples at once from a central location. The idea was that they could quickly slip inside via the gate, avoiding Eggman’s armies that were guarding the temples and restoring the planet before Eggman even realised what was happening. But to do this they needed help, so Sonic and Sally did a Discord call with their friends and allies around the world. 

This had the benefit of also acting as an almost-clipshow for the readers, catching them up with what had been happening and preparing them for the climax. 

Everyone in the call agreed to help and the Freedom Fighters signed off in good spirits, confident that they had managed to pull one over on Eggman. However…

Tails Doll was able to spy on the broadcast without the Freedom Fighters realising it, and so Eggman quickly found out about their secret plan.

While initially furious that the Freedom Fighters had tried to trick him, Eggman quickly realised he could turn their plans against them and got to work hosting his own secret Zoom call.

How did this turn out for everyone? I’ll get into that next episode!

There was of course another story that was originally intended to be the grand finale for ArchieSonic, and that was the Endgame arc that took place in Sonic #47 - 50. While the series obviously didn’t end there, I feel like we should have a look at that one too. So did we get a clip show in the previous issue, Sonic #46? Well… not really. 

The closest we got was Uncle Chuck presenting video evidence to the Freedom Fighters that Robotnik had sabotaged his original roboticiser design. Notably this included footage of Sonic’s own father being roboticised, which bizarrely Sonic didn’t seem to notice or comment on.

That seems like quite an oversight. Who wrote this anyway? Three guesses it’s-

…oh. Well, I was partially right at least. 😛

While this issue wasn’t really a clip show, it did have a lot of set up for the Endgame arc.

This included the resolution of Knuckles’ quest to find King Acorn’s missing sword that could supposedly restore his health…

…the introduction of the Wolfpack Freedom Fighters (who had previously only been seen in SatAM and were making their first appearance in the comics)...

…and the revelation that there might be a spy among us.

Sorry, I had to. 😛 Seriously though, the suggestion that someone among the various Freedom Fighter groups might be a traitor was a pretty serious allegation, especially right before the big Endgame event the readers knew was coming. And there were numerous candidates for who the traitor could be.

Geoffrey pointed the finger at Uncle Chuck, whose spy network had failed to notice the coming of the Death Egg and had already had one confirmed traitor working for them.

Antoine accused Geoffrey, who he claimed had stolen the D’Coolette family’s legacy of the Rebel Underground.

Also, the way he attempted to execute Sonic just for punching him in the face certainly didn’t make him look any less suspicious.

And then there was Drago, a new character who had been introduced in that same issue, who wasn’t even part of the SatAM Wolfpack, and who apparently had a habit of wandering off unsupervised. Hmmmm…

HMMMMMMMM.

But wait! The following issue hit us with the possibility that Sonic himself might possibly be the traitor! …more on that later though. For now, let's finish our discussion of #46 with my very favourite moment:

Leave it to the dragon to have the sick burn! :D

One other clipshow that I wanted to address - and haven’t previously in either of the other two episodes I dedicated to this topic - comes from Sonic #72.

I think I did bring this one up at some point in a different topic, but not in the context of a clipshow episode. This story was about King Max making a broadcast to his people only for the airwaves to be hacked to instead show a pirated broadcast telling the life story of the late Dr. Robotnik.

This clipshow wasn’t set prior to a finale, but rather just before the beginning of a new era in the comic - the rise of Robo-Robotnik (or as he would later be called, Dr. Eggman). This was very cleverly done if you ask me.

It not only reminded the readers of Robotnik’s backstory but also of his encounter with Robo-Robotnik back in Sonic #22, hinting at who the new villain’s real identity so that the big reveal in #75 didn’t feel like it came out of nowhere. On top of that the clipshow also foreshadowed things to come in the next year or two in the comic, such as the return of Overlanders to the planet, and specifically, Robotnik’s brother.

Well played, Karl Bollers!

Are there any other clip shows that I missed, in this episode or any of the previous ones? Let me know in the comments! Next time I’m going to start wrapping things up, because it’s finally time to talk about the two-part four-part finale! See you then!

#archiesonic syndicated

[magentagalaxies]

hi @liliana-von-k, thanks for the follow! i have answered this question before but i love talking about kids in the hall and my "origin story" with them so i'm happy to tell it again (jsyk it will be a long post bc i always have to tell the full story bc i love it so much)

basically my parents have both been kith fans since the 90s, so even before i had seen any of the show itself there were certain kith quotes that were just part of my family's vocabulary. the first sketch i watched was "these are the daves i know" when i was like 8 years old and i became obsessed with that song. i watched a few other sketches/the first few episodes from season one but i didn't truly get into kith until after their documentary "comedy punks" was released

see, my mom is a big documentary person so she was like "oh hey there's a new kids in the hall documentary! do you want to watch it?" and i just kind of shrugged and was like sure i'll be in the room while it's on, probably working on my own stuff or scrolling on my phone. but like not even five minutes in i was hooked. while i'd always enjoyed kids in the hall's comedy, something about hearing the very personal histories of how the troupe came together and survived for all these years was so affecting. i think it was scott specifically that really signaled to me that this show was something special, and the part where bruce talked about comforting scott while he had cancer by telling him how the rest of the troupe would die first was so powerful. honestly no individual movie has changed my life more than comedy punks did specifically bc it gave me that push to get into kith and approached it from such a human perspective, which definitely informed my approach to the rest of their work and them as people. i remember watching comedy punks for the first time and getting this strange feeling i couldn't pin down yet that was like this is important, not just referring to the show or the troupe, but like this feeling that i had just crossed a turning point in my life, and i remember feeling this pull towards toronto which seemed frivolous at the time but has been so heavily solidified as i'm now planning to move there in just over a year.

so i bingewatched all of the kids in the hall tv show in summer 2022, as well as brain candy, death comes to town, the amazon season, etc. basically as much kith stuff as i could find. but i needed more. so i started getting into side projects, which brought me to "mouth congress" (a queer-punk band scott thompson and paul bellini had in the early 80s that they've recently started putting out new music with again). i found a youtube channel with a bunch of recent live performance clips of the band and each video had like less than 10 views. so since i didn't have anyone to infodump about kith with irl (aside from my very patient mother lol) i started commenting on every video, complimenting the performances and pretending i was talking to a friend, confident no one would actually see it

after 2 weeks of this, turns out someone did see it. PAUL BELLINI HIMSELF. this led to a whole back-and-forth which eventually ended up with him emailing me a copy of the unreleased mouth congress documentary, i emailed back asking if he'd be interested in meeting on zoom (since i am a queer comedy writer myself so both he and scott are my biggest comedy inspirations), and yeah bellini is a delightful person to talk to and we very quickly became friends. i ended up offering to run mouth congress's social media, which can be found on both tumblr and instagram as @mouthcongress and posts both vintage videos from the 80s/90s and recent live clips. they're currently working on an album of entirely new material written in the past 2 years which is going to be released soon (we don't have a specific release date but the recording is completed and they've started filming music videos for it!! but i'm getting ahead of myself lmao)

a few months pass and mouth congress is set to perform at a new year's eve show at a local club in toronto. i'd never been to toronto before, never even left the united states, but paul says it would be so great to have me there and by some miracle my parents say yes to making the trip (they still can't believe this is happening either, since they were kith fans first!). the trip is wonderful, i immediately fall in love with the city, i get lunch with paul irl for the first time and get to have my very first face-to-face conversation with my number one comedy inspiration scott thompson. it's honestly a little awkward but in an adorable funny way. i also have my first legal drink at that show (bc canadian drinking age is lower than the us), specifically saying i want to have my first drink with buddy cole, which both scott and paul are very into

it's actually only a couple weeks until i'm in toronto again, because scott is debuting a new buddy cole show consisting of monologues that were all censored by amazon that he pitched during the revival season. this is my first time traveling a long distance without my family which my mom is anxious about so paul bellini lets me have him as my emergency contact. the show is amazing, i get to stay for the afterparty, and while i'm there i casually mention that i'm surprised no one has made a buddy cole documentary yet. like, this character has such a rich history even beyond the kids in the hall (which i can infodump about all day lmao) and is such an important staple of queer comedy that doesn't get the attention he deserves. the kith documentary is great, but where's my buddy cole documentary? paul accepts my pitch (that i didn't even realize i was pitching), passes along the idea to scott, and yeah now i'm legit directing a film with my number one comedy heroes and i haven't even graduated college yet. what the fuck. i expected this to be the type of thing i accomplish over 20 years into my career, not at twenty!! so yeah that's how the buddy cole documentary started. i'm still in preproduction on it but we're launching an indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for it in the next 2 weeks bc this has evolved into a full feature-length film with some incredible celebrity interviewees, both kith and otherwise.

anyway a few months later it's announced bruce mcculloch is bringing his one-man-show to the city i go to school in. not only that, but his theater is literally 2 blocks from campus. i ask paul if he'd give me bruce's contact so i can set up an interview for my school's newspaper, paul gives me bruce's assistant's email, and i set up a 30-minute zoom two weeks before bruce will be in town. the conversation honestly goes bizarrely well. like it's honestly surreal how close bruce and i got after only knowing each other for a half hour? he's such an easy person to talk to and literally by the end of that conversation he was already calling himself my mentor, asking about my comedy, and offering to let me meet him backstage after his show. which is exactly what i did, launching yet another incredible friendship-slash-mentorship with one of the kids in the hall.

bruce eventually signed on to executive produce the buddy cole documentary (alongside paul bellini), i've been up to toronto in january, april, june, august, and october this year (so essentially every 2 months, though it was slightly offset by going twice in january) and i'm planning on going up in december, every time not only do i find time to meet up with scott, paul, and bruce but they all deliberately try to reserve as much "jess time" as they can because i have a unique and powerful friendship with each of them, every time i finish a new creative project paul has to see it bc he loves how ambitious i am, i repeatedly wake up to texts scott sends me at 3am about the documentary and how excited he is to have me on tour with him to film it next year, bruce thinks it's hilarious he used to think i was "shy" bc i've gotten so comfortable going on infodumps and tangents about things i'm passionate about, and the three of them all feel like extended family. best of all, i actually have plans to graduate from college a semester early so that i can use the money (and time) i've saved to find a place in toronto and start making even more connections with the comedy community up there (also for the record: no i have not met mark, kevin, or dave yet. i know kevin is aware of my existence from bruce giving me a shoutout at a show they both did but that's about it. but i know i will interview all of them for my documentary)

so anyway that's how i got into kids in the hall. i know only the first 2 paragraphs answer your question, but at this point my love for this show has become so so intertwined with my relationships to bruce and scott and paul as humans that i don't really consider getting into kids in the hall and getting to know the kids in the hall as separate things in my life.

(also if you have any follow-up questions on anything mentioned feel free to reply or dm me, this goes for everyone else too!)

#as always i hope talking about knowing some of the kith irl doesn't come across as bragging bc that's absolutely not my intention #bc i do very much feel like a very lucky kith tumblr nerd and my favorite thing is connecting the kith to this part of their audience #hosting little digital screenings of hard-to-find kith media or passing along questions etc #this is exemplified with my ''kids in the archive'' series which you should check out if you haven't already #but yeah this is a very (and i mean VERY) brief summary of how this all unfolded #bc like. yes this all kind of happened over a year and a half. but it was a very eventful year and a half #if you scroll far enough in some of my kith-related tags you can find posts from in-the-moment before i knew some of them #or when i was still coming up with the concept for the buddy cole doc or something like that #which is very interesting to see. this blog is like a living kith journal lmao #also: the bruce interview article was never written bc i actually lied about writing for the school paper lmaooo #but for the anniversary i might write a transcript and/or see if i can post the audio bc i did record it #i haven't relistened to it since the day (march 6th) so it'll be so cool going back and listening to myself being starstruck #compared to now where i see bruce as ''just some guy (complimentary)''

[denimbex1986]

'Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal might just be the most emotionally devastating couple you will see on screen this year. In the sensational All of Us Strangers, Scott plays Adam, a lonely screenwriter living in a near-empty London tower block. When he meets his neighbour, Mescal’s Harry, the two begin a tentative love affair, finding solace in each other’s arms. It is a film that deals with all manner of high-intensity emotions – grief, parental love, seclusion, loneliness, bullying, coming out. The protagonists’ sexualities are an intrinsic part of them and their story – but so are many other things.

“There is a gay storyline at the centre of it that we thought would appeal to LGBTQ audiences,” says Scott, who grew up believing he would never play lead roles because he was gay.

“But we’re dealing with lots of different forms of love. I don’t think people give a f**k about what sexuality they are when they respond to this film. It just wouldn’t be true to say that it’s just gay people [who] respond to this film. People get it. They get it and I love the fact that people are talking about love and they’re talking about emotionality and they’re so moved by it.”

“I think the least groundbreaking thing about this film is actually the sexuality,” agrees Mescal, who pinpoints the more universal emotions, such as loss, as the real heart of the movie. “That to me is remarkable and groundbreaking.”

Scott and Mescal are sitting together in an overly beige hotel suite. Scott, 47, is dressed in a white Lacoste jumper, while the 27-year-old Mescal is more casual still in a white T-shirt. They are relaxed in each other’s company, and spent the weekend in their homeland for the Irish premiere. “It felt cathartic,” says Mescal. “A great celebration of the film.”

Scott has been nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor and is delighted by the reception the film has been getting. “Genuinely wonderful,” he beams.

All of Us Strangers is the brainchild of writer-director Andrew Haigh, who previously proved his talents for shedding light on human frailty with the gay one-night-stand tale Weekend (2011) and 45 Years (2015), which starred Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay as an elderly couple whose relationship quietly implodes in the run-up to their 45th wedding anniversary.

Haigh clearly has an eye for formidable on-screen pairings. “I don’t think [Scott] has had a lead film role like this,” the director tells me. “And so that kind of excited me… I love the idea of taking someone that you might not have seen do something and then seeing them do it.”

He cast Mescal after seeing him playing the quiet, lost student Connell in the 2020 TV phenomenon Normal People. “It was clear that his star was on the rise.”

Since then, Mescal has been ­Oscar-nominated for 2022’s father-daughter indie Aftersun, proving Haigh’s intuition was spot-on. “It’s like he’s been blown out of a rocket into stardom.”

Despite all its immensely human themes, All of Us Strangers is also a ghost story. As Adam attempts to write about his childhood, he starts to revisit his family home and encounters his mother and father (Claire Foy, Jamie Bell), who are delighted to see him. Except something is amiss. They look straight out of the 80s –which they are. Both died decades earlier in a car crash when Adam was 12 – he is now, somehow, communicating with their ghosts. It seems he has the chance so many wish they had: to say things to loved ones after they are gone. One of those things is that he is gay. It is one of the film’s most touching scenes, as he explains, unashamedly, with Foy’s prissy suburban housewife shocked by the revelation.

Both Scott and Haigh are gay, and while the scene elicits laughter at her outdated views, it must surely speak to their own experiences.

“I remember growing up in the 80s, and it was a very rough time to be gay,” says Haigh.

“Back then people did not like gay people. And families did not like the idea of their children being gay. So I think it’s really important to remind us that that’s how the world used to think.”

As Adam’s visits continue, we see how his parents, as he ­imagines them, soften and accept him. We also see how much regret they bear that they did not do this when he was a bullied child, crying in his room. To borrow from the Frankie Goes to Hollywood song that features heavily in the film, it is a hymn to the power of love.

“I think it’s about the idea that you have to let love in,” says Scott.

“You can survive, and you can trap yourself and lock yourself away. But you’ve got to let it in. Because [otherwise] what’s the point of having the privilege of breathing in this world?”

True enough. But it is also a film about isolation and the way, especially in big cities, we can cut ourselves off from those around us. Like the characters, “I’ve lived in an apartment block that felt like I had no connection to my neighbours”, says Mescal.

“I have too,” nods Scott. “Also, not to be cliché about it, but both of us are Irish. And there is a – what’s the word? – friendliness that’s part of our culture. You see people on the road and you wave at them. You say ‘Hi’. It’s quite chatty, I suppose. London, it’s four times the size of the population of Ireland. I’ve certainly had a thing where I think I’m going to try to make friends with the person – or at least acknowledge the person – who works in my local supermarket that I see every day. For me, that’s kind of important to establish community.”

Their Irishness bonded Scott and Mescal, but there is an effortless, easy-on-the-eye chemistry between them that goes beyond a common nationality. Haigh says they were trying to get across a plethora of different things – “intimacy and tenderness and compassion… and sexiness”.

“I had an unjustified confidence in the fact that Andrew and I would get on professionally,” says Mescal. “And personally, I think that’s ultimately what people are saying when they describe chemistry. Chemistry is kind of like this magic word. Does it look like those two people like and love each other?”

Harry tenderly bathes Adam at one point; in another scene, they take drugs in a gay club, with Adam gently requesting Harry take care of him.

“Chemistry is so situational,” says Scott, whose equally charged chemistry with Phoebe Waller-Bridge when he played the “hot priest” in Fleabag brought him further into the mainstream in 2019.

“The imagination of the audience creates chemistry. If they like us as actors, they’re going to have an excitement about putting those two people in the same room. There’s a lot of different things, as well as our relationship, that dictates it and then you work on the actual physicality. But chemistry isn’t just about sexual chemistry. It’s about loads of different forms of chemistry.”

Encouragingly, Haigh reports that there was no “pushback” on any of the film’s more explicit sex scenes. “Everybody was very supportive about how to tell the story,” he adds.

“I do think it does show progress [in telling queer stories]. This isn’t a tiny film made for $500,000. This is a slightly bigger film. And I do think that we have progressed to a stage where we can tell these kinds of stories; whether they become massive blockbusters, of course, is a different matter, because of course they won’t. It’s not Barbie; it’s a different type of movie.”

Sadly, the Academy failed to nominate All of Us Strangers for any Oscars this week. Nevertheless, Mescal feels it is important even to be in the conversation.

“Films of this scale and size are so important to me,” he says. “[There] should be space for more films like this. If we need to free up more space by getting rid of ‘X’ film or ‘Y’ film every year, I think that would be a good compromise. Audiences actually love being challenged. I don’t think they want to go to the cinema and be thinking about what time it is or what their Facebook or Instagram feed is doing.”

Both actors have big-budget projects up next. Mescal stars in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2, while Scott plays Patricia Highsmith’s charming serial killer in Netflix’s Ripley, due out in April. But it is films like this that seem to matter to him most. “Of course, we all love a bit of fast food,” he says. “I’m not saying there isn’t room for that. But if that becomes the pervasive thing we all consume, it’s just a little unhealthier.”

All of Us Strangers is “nutritious” by comparison. “This film, I have no doubt, will continue to connect with people for years. And that is genuinely thrilling.”'

#Andrew Scott #Andrew Haigh #All of Us Strangers #Paul Mescal #Hot Priest #Fleabag #Normal People #Gladiator 2 #Ridley Scott #Patricia Highsmith #Netflix #LGBTQ #Lacoste #Golden Globes #Weekend #45 Years #Charlotte Rampling #Tom Courtenay #Claire Foy #Jamie Bell #Aftersun #Oscars

[superlinguo]

Superlinguo 2022 in review

At the start of 2022 it was my aim to move gently through this year, after the general global upheaval the pandemic brought, and settling back into work after parental leave. I mostly think managed that for myself, and things worth sharing still happened this year.

Lingthusiasm

Lingthusiasm turned 6 this year. As well as regular episodes and bonus episodes every month, this year we ran a special offer for patrons and did a one-off print run of lens cloths with our redesigned aesthetic IPA.

Main episodes

Love and fury at the linguistics of emotions (transcript)

Who questions the questions? (transcript)

The linguistic map is not the linguistic territory (transcript)

What If Linguistics - Absurd Hypothetical Questions with Randall Munroe of xkcd (transcript)

Various vocal fold vibes (transcript)

Language in the brain - Interview with Ev Fedorenko (transcript)

What we can, must, and should say about modals (transcript)

Tea and skyscrapers - When words get borrowed across languages (transcript)

What it means for a language to be official (transcript)

Word order, we love (transcript)

Knowledge is power, copulas are fun (transcript)

Making speech visible with spectrograms (transcript)

Bonus episodes

Speakest Thou Ye Olde English?

103 ways for kids to learn languages

Linguistics and science communication - Interview with Liz McCullough

Behind the scenes on making an aesthetic IPA chart - Interview with Lucy Maddox

Using a rabbit to get kids chatting for science

Language inside an MRI machine - Interview with Saima Malik-Moraleda

There’s like, so much to like about “like”

What makes a swear word feel sweary? A &⩐#⦫& Liveshow

Approaching word games like a linguist - Interview with Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer of Spectacular Vernacular

Behind the scenes on how linguists come up with research topics

Emoji, Mongolian, and Multiocular O ꙮ - Dispatches from the Unicode Conference

LingComm: 2022 grants and conference posts

This year we ran another round of LingComm Grants, and we’ve been enjoying seeing new linguistic communication projects come to life. We also published summaries of top tips from plenary panels of the 2021 LingComm conference, and I teamed up with Gabrielle Hodge to write about how to plan communication access for online conferences. The LingComm conference will be back in 2023!

Tips for LingComm series

Planning communication access for online conferences: A Research Whisperer post about LingComm21

LingComm23 conference (February 2023)

2022 LingComm Grantees: New linguistics projects for you to follow

Top Superlinguo posts in 2022

Superlinguo remains a place where I can test out ideas or share things that aren’t necessarily the shape of an academic publication. I also continued my slow series of posts about linguistics books for kids, with a gem from 1966!

General posts

Superlinguo turns 11!

New Superlinguo Welcome page

Linguistics books for kids: How You Talk

Long form blog posts

Notes and observations about air quote gestures

Fictional gestures in scifi and fantasy

Information and advice

Doing your own Linguistics Job Interviews

Planning communication access for online conferences: A Research Whisperer post about LingComm21

Managing Breakout Rooms in online Tutorials and Workshops

Adopting the Trømso Recommendations in academic publishing

Linguistics Job Interviews

In 2022 the Linguistics Job Interviews series was edited by Martha Tsutsui-Bilins. After 8 years and 80+ interviews, the regular monthly series is coming to an end. There were 12 new interviews this year: 

Interview with a  Director of Conversation Design

Interview with an Artist

Interview with a Research Scientist

Interview with a Language Engineer

Interview with a Data Manager & Digital Archivist

Interview with a Natural Language Annotation Lead

Interview with an EMLS/Linguistics instructor & mother of four

Interview with a Performing Artiste and Freelance Editor

Interview with a Hawaiian and Tahitian language Instructor, Translator & Radio Host

Interview with a Customer Success Manager

Interview with an Impact Lead

Interview with an Online Linguistics Teacher

Regular interviews may have ended, but I’ll have more on linguistics, jobs and careers in 2023. I also wrote this post about doing your own Linguistics Job Interviews, to encourage other people to share their stories or interview others about their experiences.

Academic articles in 2022

This year I had two academic articles published. I also published one academic review of a monograph:

Gawne, L. & S. Styles. 2022. Situating linguistics in the social science data movement. In A.L. Berez-Kroeker, B. McDonnell, E. Koller & L.B. Collister (Eds), The Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management, 9-25. MIT Press. [Open Access PDF][Superlinguo summary]

Gawne, L. & T. Owen-Smith. 2022. The General Fact/Generic Factual in Yolmo and Tamang. Studies in Language. Issue number forthcoming doi: 10.1075/sl.21049.gaw [published version][Green OA version][blog summary]

Gawne, L. 2022. Review of Repetitions in Gesture by Jana Bressem. The Linguist List. [HTML]

The year ahead

I will be on parental leave in 2023 🎉

Last time I went on leave with a newborn I had no idea if I would have a job to return to. I’m very grateful to not have that stress hanging over me this time around. Lingthusiasm will continue as regularly scheduled. It will be interesting to see how things here go without the monthly job interview posts. I’ll still have new publications, and various linguistics resources and observations to share, if maybe on a less than weekly basis. You can always follow Superlinguo on Tumblr @superlinguo), join the mailing list (in the sidebar), go retro and use the RSS feed, or follow me on Twitter (@superlinguo)

Previous years

Superlinguo 2021 in review

Superlinguo 2020 in review

Superlinguo 2020 (2019 in review)

Superlinguo 2019 (2018 in review)

Superlinguo 2018 (2017 in review)

Superlinguo 2017 (2016 in review)

Superlinguo 2015 highlights

#linguistics #languages #superlinguo #review #2022

[murfpersonalblog]

Loumand's Timeskip - "Dubai Is A Child"

This thought literally just woke me up at 4 in the frikkin morning cuz who needs SLEEP, but WHEN did Loumand move to Dubai?

I had a dream that I was still responding to this Loumand bed death post @vividxp made, thinking about this show's altered timeline; how Loumand was obviously happy/happier from the 40s-70s; and how the show will handle not only Louis' increasing descent into depression, but Armand's depression as well--which culminated in Armand finally breaking up with Louis for good in the books, pre-QoTD, ToTBT, Memnoch & Merrick, etc.

"....When I looked into Louis's tortured face...I knew that this black-clad dark-haired gentleman...was the alluring embodiment of the misery I felt. He mourned the loss of grace of one human lifetime. I mourned the loss of the grace of centuries.... I fell in love with him hopelessly, and leaving the Theatre des Vampires in ruins (he burnt it to the ground in a rage for a very good reason), I wandered the world with him until very late in this modern age. Time eventually destroyed our love for one another. Time withered our gentle intimacy. Time devoured whatever conversation or pleasures we once agreeably shared. One other horrible inescapable and unforgettable ingredient went into our destruction. Ah, I don't want to speak of it, but who among us is going to let me be silent on the matter of Claudia, the child vampire whom I am accused for all time by all of having destroyed?" -- Armand, TVA

What went wrong between the time we see Louis in SanFran, and the time we see him in Dubai? WHY did they move to Dubai, and WHEN?

"Time eventually destroyed our love for one another. "

The Ep6 flashback to 1970s SanFran has always jarred me, cuz Louis looks so dang vibrant here--flirty and joking and talkative in ways we don't really EVER see--"I HAve An ACceNT!?" 🤪

(One of my FAVORITE Louis moments--Pyromaniac Du Lac is a frikkin DRAGON, y'all. 🐲🔥🐉😍)

Then we cut to 2022 Dubai, and it's Hello Darkness, My Old Friend?

Did Louis start spiraling the night of Daniel's OG 70's interview? Maybe? Louis was definitely angry, that he hadn't adequately convinced Daniel that vampirism was a horror, not something Daniel should be begging for like a simp--"You were disrespectful!"

Unlike in the film, Louis actually bit Daniel on the show, and woulda killed/drained him if Armand hadn't intervened; "this time I won't save your life." They (read: Armand) wiped his memory, took the tapes & ran--presumably to Dubai? But why THERE? Pretty drastic change of scenery--it's not like Dan would've remembered enough to call the cops on them, forcing Loumand to duck the CIA or something. Louis was killing humans alllll the way up to 2000--attacking Daniel didn't stop him--he kept going for 30 years! Then in 2000 he suddenly stops? So it wasn't SanFran or Daniel that triggered Louis after the 70s and made them flee to Dubai, it was something else.

Also, for all their claims of wanting "privacy/anonymity," they definitely weren't HIDING in Dubai, not with their ostentatious lifestyle--using the Prime Minister's own illustrious Dr Fareed just to give Daniel meds--"you've got your own hangar at the airport, privileges on the Royal Meydan Bridge, and zero presence online. I know the Emirates are big on privacy, and that's probably important to you, but I gotta ask, what does it cost?..."

But it's certainly interesting that RJ chose Dubai as their modern home, since it only started being developed into a modern super-city of the UAE in the 1970s--right when Armand & Louis might've fled SanFran to live there. It certainly tracks with the real estate investments Armand made on Night Island in the 80s. Like Armand said: "Dubai is a child," and it's a HUNGRY, VAMPIRIC child at that, cuz the economy & real estate markets in Dubai literally SUCK.

But it took TIME for Dubai to become that glitzy nighttime city so attractive to vampires. If we consider all the iconic skyscrapers and Palm Islands and structures shown off in the pilot episode, ALL of those landmarks weren't constructed until the late 1990s-early 2000s. And remember what else happened in the 2000s?

Then there's the penthouse. According to Daniel, they're in the Al Sharaf Towers in Dubai--but unless Google's lying to me, there are no Al Sharaf Towers in Dubai. (And @eosphoroz did some pretty nifty super sleuthing about Armand's prayer location, too.)

In the original pilot script, the penthouse was actually in the JLT's Al Seef Towers, which actually DOES exist in Dubai, built in 2008--infamous for the FIRES started in the 20teens that made the JLT's buildings uninhabitable for almost a decade of repairs. 👀🔥

I wanna know why RJ changed the location/name of the tower!! 😭(This post gives a strong argument for why the April 2020 to June 2022 date was changed.) But it makes a lot of sense if they want to remove the penthouse from the temporo-spatial realities of Dubai, this liminal zone cocooning the vampires from the outside world by living in a fanciful Tower From Nowhere. But that's boring, since this show's paid so much attention to detail, and many other places they name-dropped really exist, like Polynesian Mary's. So I'm gonna just go with the penthouse being in a REAL building. Meaning:

after 1973 IMO Loumand was probably not in Dubai yet, and were likely still city-hopping. Daniel said the SanFran apartment they lived in was "a dump;" which tracks with book!Armand not being rich yet--they were both living like bums after Paris. (IWTV OG 70s interview)

~1985-1990s book!Armand took up treasure hunting, art theft, & real estate. Built Night Island in Florida, but soon abandoned it. (QoTD Devil's Minion era)

~1995 book!Armand attempts suicide after seeing Veronica's Veil (Memnoch/TVA era, meets Benji & Sybelle, lives in NOLA while Lestat's comatose).

~1999 book!Louis attempts suicide after his ghost!Claudia seance (Merrick era, but I highly doubt AMC is post-Merrick, cuz Louis burnt too easily in the sunlight to have gotten his vamp upgrade yet).

in 2000 Louis stopped killing humans again (WHY? And how well did he adapt to that diet with Armand, rather than Lestat? We saw how much Louis struggled to keep his energy up in the 1910s: "I tried to adapt to my new diet. I barely had the energy to hold up a book. My libido was not what it had been.") How long was it till they started keeping blood bags, hiring Damek & co., keeping Louis' favorite AB- "fresh from The Farm"?

How would 9/11 in 2001 affect Muslim!Armand? In the PL trilogy he owned Trinity Gate in NYC during the 20teens (briefly reunited with Louis before Louis left him to marry Lestat in RoA/BC). Trinity Gate was in Manhattan, where the Twin Towers fell. What kind of depression/existential crises does AMC's Armand face with American Islamophobia? Is THAT why they moved to Dubai? Finding a home that was safe for them BOTH in a post-9/11 world?

after 2008 Loumand moved into the (Al Seef/Sharaf) penthouse, even if they stayed elsewhere (in Dubai?) since the 70s. Did they hire that team of staff specifically to maintain the penthouse, or to help keep up the Rashid illusion only when Daniel arrived? (This was also likely when they started keeping The Farm, somewhere in the penthouse/tower presumably for on-demand drinks.)

The 1990s SUCKED for both Armand AND Louis, both driven to suicide during the events surrounding Lestat's coma. So I actually doubt it was the 1970s that broke Louis, but rather 2000 when he stopped killing--the turn of the millennia/century, which probably heavily impacted Louis' psyche, as the existential dread of living to 100+ badly affected his outlook on vampiric "life."

So I wouldn't be surprised if AMC's Loumand lived in NYC (a la Trinity Gate) after SanFran, and left America AFTER 9/11. Thus contextualizing Muslim!Armand's race & religiosity with real world events, the same way they did with Louis and the IRL race riots in Storyville. I could ofc be dead wrong, and S2 could confirm that they've been living in Dubai since the 70s this whole time.

But regardless, Dubai was obviously NEVER a healthy environment for either of them, especially not Louis--that dead, cold, dry desert wasteland of concrete minimalism & hypocritical elite extravagance. When Daniel asked Louis where his coffin was, Louis said "you're standing in it."

"Why did he come away with me afterwards?.... He remained with me because he had to do it. It was the only way that he could go on existing, and for death he has never had the courage, and never will. And so he endured after the loss of Claudia, just as I had endured through...centuries...but in time he did learn to be alone. Louis, my companion, dried up of his own free will, rather like a beautiful rose skillfully dehydrated in sand so that it retains its proportions, nay, even its fragrance and even its tint. For all the blood he drank, he himself became dry, heartless, a stranger to himself and to me. Understanding all too well the limits of my warped spirit, he forgot me long before he dismissed me, but I too had learnt from him.... I too went on alone--perhaps for the first time really and truly alone. But how long can any of us endure without another?.... We can't stand it, to be alone." -- Armand, TVA

Loumand's entire time in Dubai was built up on artifice--their relationship was withering on the vine, as Louis AND Armand were already spiraling by the time Daniel showed up. That's why Louis was so desperate to do the interview in the first place--"truth and reconciliation;" "you are chronicling a suicide!" (This is leading up to Merrick ISTG y'all....)

"It was the love of Louis which had at times crippled Lestat, and enslaved Armand. Louis need have no consciousness of his own beauty, of his own obvious and natural charm." -- David, Merrick.

Eff you, David, but YES, actually.

Cuz JESUS, this was the performance of the century, the Theatre would be proud--what were they even DOING with "Rashid"? That whole Penthouse was their stage--it's all FAKE--which is why I'm not buying Armand's explanation for "The Groan," either.

-- Rolin Jones

Daniel just forced Loumand to face bitter reality, that neither one of them wanted to admit about their pasts, present, or future.

But please understand, y'all, I'm NOT tryna be a mean-spirited Loumand "Bed Death Truther," claiming Louis & Armand are just perpetually platonic & miserable roommates. I DO think they were happy briefly--(in the books moreso in NYC at the Trinity Gate reunion than anything that happened pre-Merrick, while they were BOTH on the verge of suicide). They're BOTH walking around with untreated trauma, and their relationship was built on a stack of lies (thanks to Armand's culpability in Claudia's death).

So I smh at Loumand same as I smh at Loustat, cuz BOTH relationships were a frikkin WRECK--Daniel's right that the only relationship Louis needs is with a therapist! U_U

"Loustat suffered 7yrs of bed death & they're a literal pack of horndogs for e/o. 😅 Louis' depression (& diet) directly effect his libido. In the books Armand walked away once he realized he couldn't help Louis anymore. AMC's timeline's likely going in that direction. No way are Loumand by Ep7 & the S2 trailer the picture of a healthy thriving couple--they could be humping like rabbits and still be unhappy together. :( Like, I fully expect to see Loumand have a bubble of happiness together in S2--turning to him for comfort in 40s Paris. And we already saw them in SanFran cruising for thirds quite comfortably in the 70s. But something bad obviously happened to Louis by the time they got to Dubai--he is UNWELL, and this interview is unlocking way too many doors Armand obviously wants Daniel/Louis to keep closed. So even if it's not bed death YET, it's GONNA die--hence: Merrick." --Me.

Like, I'm lukewarm towards Loumand (at worst apathetic), cuz I know it doesn't LAST; and I know Louis was only with Armand out of necessity, cuz the books said so. I'm waiting on S2 to convince me otherwise.

#loumand #the vampire armand #louis de pointe du lac #the vampire chronicles #i hate math #iwtv tvc metas

[superman86to99]

The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special (November 2022)

We take another chronal jump to the future because we CAN'T not talk about this special, which reads like it was specifically made for us. This 80-page book is made out of four stories by each of the creative teams who worked in the original "Death of Superman" saga back in '92 (minus editor Mike Carlin, inkers Denis Rodier and Dennis Janke, letterer John Costanza, and uhhh whoever did the lettercol back then). The stories are:

"The Life of Superman" (by Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding)

The first official Jurgens/Breeding joint since... 1999, I think? I didn't realize how much I missed seeing their combined signature in that little circle; you know the one. This is by far the longest story in the book and, while I enjoyed it a lot, I kinda wish they'd made it shorter so that the others could have more breathing space (especially since the plot will continue in an upcoming miniseries written by Jurgens).

This one is set during the ??th anniversary of Superman's death, when a now adult Mitch Anderson (you know, the asshole teen who thought Superman was lame until a monster came crashing into his house and he needed someone to save him) visits little Jon Kent's school to talk about that historic day. This is a cool starting point because it parallels Mitch's first appearance being forced to sit through a televised Superman interview during class at the start of the "Death" storyline. The main differences are that these kids are much more polite than he was and TVs are way bigger now.

Anyway, Mitch's story is a huge shock to Jon, since the fact that his dad died and came back to life just never came up at home. Jon is upset with Lois for not telling him, so she spends a few pages recapping the entire "Death" storyline while walking Jon through Centennial Park, where Superman's empty (or is it????) (yes it is) tomb still stands.

Meanwhile, a mysterious creature has managed to demolish a whole building in Metropolis without anyone seeing it clearly, but reports indicate that it kinda looked like Doomsday. The Kents eventually come face to face with the creature right in front of the Daily Planet building, and it does look a whole lot like Doomsday, only with four arms... and, later on, wings. Jon names it "dOOmbreaker" (that's how they keep spelling it) but I kinda like his earlier suggestion of "Doomerang" better.

Superman is having a pretty tough time facing Doomerang, since not only is it as strong as Doomsday but it can also evolve and adapt while fighting, instead of having to die first like the original. While Superman fights the monster in front of a crowd of people who are standing way too close (do they want to get good phone pics if he dies again?), Lois goes off to use her journalism powers to find out where the hell it came from. She finds out Doomerang is actually a city worker who helped clean the debris left by the original Doomsday and then took one of his broken spiky bones home as a souvenir. Somehow, the bone has been mutating the guy into another Doomsday for years and conveniently finished the job on the day of Superman's deathiversary.

Lois brings the bone over to Superman, who decides to destroy it to prevent Doomerang from mutating even further. Blasting the bone with heat vision doesn't destroy it, but it does turn Doomerang back into a regular person, meaning that Superman manages to end this particular fight without killing the monster OR dying himself. The end! Until that mini I mentioned comes out, I guess, since it'll probably involve the magic Doomsday-duplicating bone wreaking even more havoc.

"Above and Beyond" (by Jerry Ordway, Tom Grummett, and Doug Hazlewood)

The sweetest story in the bunch, which is no surprise given that Ordway was always the best at pulling on our heartstrings. This is about Ma and Pa Kent having an understandably tough time watching their son getting pummeled to death on live TV. In order to take Ma's mind off the Doomsday fight, Pa pulls out her old scrapbook of Clark's exploits (which dates back to John Byrne's Man of Steel #1 in 1986) and they go over some other tough fights Superman has managed to survive. These include his tussle with Metallo in Superman #1...

...and the time he brought down Mongul in Warworld during his exile in space. Yes, THE BEARD IS BACK (along with the skimpy space gladiator outfit).

Superman leading a bunch of DC heroes to fight off Brainiac's invasion in "Panic in the Sky" also warrants a mention, which leads to has to be the first Agent Liberty cameo in decades. Side note: all due respect to Brad Anderson, who did a great job coloring the first story, but seeing Glenn Whitmore's colors in this one immediately makes it "feel" more like an authentic '86-'99 comic. (Note: see Don’s section below for a different take on Anderson vs. Whitmore.)

Back to the story, Ma reveals that she had a second, secret stash of Superman-related news clippings where she keeps track of the hundreds lives Clark has saved by quietly transporting donated organs across the country (without even charging for it! Hear that, Flash?). The point is that they reflect on how life can come out of death, unaware that that's literally what's going to happen to their son pretty soon. A beautiful observation illustrated via pictures of Superman punching villains. What more we possibly could ask for in a Superman story? (Other than it lasting more than 10 pages.)

"Standing Guard" (by Roger Stern and Butch Guice)

The Superman/Doomsday fight retold from the perspective of Project Cadmus' Guardian, filling in some of the gaps in the story and answering some questions only a massive Superman nerd could have, like "How long did it take Guardian to drop off Maxima at the hospital?" or "When exactly did he pick up Dubbilex?" Luckily, I am a massive Superman nerd, so I loved it.

So, we see Guardian learning about Doomsday's cross-country rampage and helping Superman in that small town that gets blown up, then in the tree city of Habitat, and then being too late to help him in Metropolis (not that he would have made that much of a difference). The story ends at the morgue where Superman is pronounced dead, when Dubbilex alerts Maggie Sawyer and Dan Turpin that Cadmus' Director Westfield is coming in to take the body for his experiments and Guardian says he's not letting that happen.

It didn't "end there," as you know (or Superboy wouldn't exist), but it's a nice moment. It's cool that, despite how much Guice's artwork has changed, this still feels like an Action issue from back in the day. Part of that is that Stern reuses a lot of old dialogue, but it's also due to his careful attention to detail when it comes to continuity and his knack for keeping characterization consistent -- Guardian, Dubbilex, Maggie, and Turpin are straight out of the '90s. Again: I wish this was longer.

"Time" (by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove)

Finally, this story shows us what John Henry Irons was doing right before and right after Superman's death. This one takes the opposite approach as the previous story: if Stern and Guice made sure to meticulously dovetail their scenes into existing continuity, Simonson and Bog play fast and loose with it to tell the story they wanna tell. In the old comics, we were told that John was buried under a building while trying to help Superman against Doomsday. This one retcons his origin so that John actually gets to see Superman's corpse.

This contradicts John's first appearance in Adventures #500, when he comes out of the rubble days later still thinking he can help Superman stop Doomsday (though he could be excused for being a little confused under the circumstances). However, this retcon provides a pretty strong ending for the story, which is mostly about John trying to reach Doomsday in his single-minded obsession with helping Superman, only to get sidetracked helping people trapped by the destruction in Metropolis. By the time he reaches the front of the Planet building, Superman and Doomsday are already dead. John is devastated, but then he gets up to continue "making a difference" and helping people, setting up the moment when he gets trapped under that rubble.

Yep, that's the psychic lady who later comes up with the whole "Superman's spirit possessed John" story; haven't seen HER in a while. This issue features other long-neglected characters like Keith the unlucky orphan, Myra the orphanage lady, and even Zoid, the kid with the glasses and the camo jacket who gets smoked by a Toastmaster™ in Steel's debut issue.

Overall, this special is like hanging out with old friends, and I love that it doesn't shy away from some aspects of the "Death of Superman" saga that usually get retconned away in all the retellings and adaptations. For instance, when Lois tells little Jon that Doomsday defeated the Justice League, we see the actual 1993 JLA including Bloodwynd, Booster Gold, and yellow ring era Guy Gardner, as opposed to Batman and Wonder Woman or something. One of the pinups even shows up long-haired Aussie Lex Luthor Jr., who is not a character DC seems eager to revisit (just because of how confusing he would be to casual readers, I guess).

This is a great labor of love by all involved and I'm glad it exists. However, I do have one major complaint: no Bibbo. 0/10.

And now, WAY more commentary from the great Don Sparrow after the jump!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and while I grabbed a few different covers, I think the most standard cover was the one with Jonathan Kent gripping Superman’s old cape with an image of Superman grappling with Doomsday set behind him (with further callback scenes on the foldout image).  This centre image is a callback to a couple of famous images—of course, this scene is the very first image in the original Superman #75, but also reminded me of the (excessively airbrushed) cover of the Wizard Magazine Tribute Edition.  Speaking of colouring, the colour throughout this issue is absolutely stunning, and the combination of the 90s style of art with the three-dimensionality of Brent Anderson’s colour is really really appealing.

THE LIFE OF SUPERMAN:

As we move into the story itself, I’m struck with how well the Jurgens/Breeding team can draw these kids looking like actual kids.  We’ve covered it quite a bit in the Byrne era that comic artists can drawn young people as tiny adults, but here, all the students’ dimensions and faces seem accurate.  There’s also a quiet effort at greater diversity among the Metropolis classmates, which is nice to see.

A few pages on, we see the modern Superman for the first time, and it’s wild seeing the Super-team of the 90s drawing the costume of the present age.  Granted, the changes are small, just the movie-style cuffs, the three-dimensional s-shield, and slightly more angular belt-loops, but it’s interesting how familiar and new it feels.  I also think Jurgens is drawing Superman to look a little bit older now that he’s a father.

A few pages after that, we see Lois for the first time, and unsurprisingly, Dan and Brett draw a great looking Lois Lane.  Her outfit in particular says “urban working mom” in a stylish way, and I dig it.  I’ve already mentioned Anderson’s colouring, but I can’t praise it enough—he treads a fine line, by ameliorating the underlying inks, without over-rendering.  He uses largely flat planes of colour, rather than airbrushing every curve, and it’s a really nice marriage, the panel of Lois’ stray hairs leaving a shadow on her cheek is a great example.

As we intercut between Lois’ retelling of the Doomsday storyline, and Superman investigating the new “monster”, the fear in Superman’s eyes as he recognizes his assailant is really well done.  So too is the emotion on Lois’ face as she retells the iconic “cape at half-mast” moment.

It’s a small thing, but I also like the sartorial choices they make for Clark, when he meets up with his family after Doomsday (somehow) scampers away off camera.  Our first glimpse at Doombreaker is a very close recall of a drawing from this same team in the Superman/Doomsday mini (that we should be getting to soon on this very blog!).  Superman taking flight to battle Doombreaker is a poster-worthy image (hurt a little bit in my opinion by the random Superman logo dropped in behind him for no reason).  There’s not a wrong note in this entire portion of the story, so it’s hard—I want to highlight all the art!  But the final panel of Superman flying away is an all-time great.

And to analyze the story a bit—it’s everything I was hoping for.  I was surprised to see the young Jonathan in this book, as the near-adult Jonathan has been so front and centre in the modern stories.  I’ll admit, I missed the dynamic between he and his parents that was done so well by Jurgens, and later Patrick Gleason, so to show this story as a flashback to when Jon learned about what happened to his dad was a really smart way to go.  It also seemed like an antidote to the 1990s that brought us the Death storyline.  This wasn’t a mindless slugfest, and despite the 90s-ness of the name “Doombreaker”, Superman didn’t solve this fight with brute strength.  It took compassion, and investigative reporting on the part of Lois to solve that day’s dilemma.  Right down to the title, it was an uplifting and hopeful story.

ABOVE AND BEYOND:

We are instantly transported back to the original 1993 story as we see the Kents holding each other in front of the television set.  Grummett and Hazlewood certainly have not lost a step, as their art looks as crisp and detailed as all those decades ago.  Glenn Whitmore’s colours are a bit of a comedown after the Brent Anderson chapter, but not distractingly so.  It’s fascinating to see Tom’s interpretation of so many iconic moments of Superman’s career (the Gladiator costume is always a particular highlight because it was such a departure at the time!).

It’s a testament to both Jerry Ordway’s writing, and Tom Grummett’s rendering that this story featuring an elderly couple, and very little non-flashback action threatens to steal the whole book.  The performances on the Kents faces tell a story as compelling as any action-adventure yarn, and it’s wonderful to read, and a very nice little PSA for organ donation, which is a legitimate way we can save lives through our own death, as Superman did.

STANDING GUARD:

Jackson “Butch” Guice inking himself here, and it’s a little scratchier and more textured than we’re used to seeing.  Still has the long limbed, leanly muscled figures we know from his work, but it’s perhaps not as sharp as the work he did on Action Comics, or more recently when he teamed up with Bryan Hitch on a Captain American mini-series, which was some of the best work I’ve ever seen of his.  The faces in particular seem under-drawn a bit, apart from the clearly-based-on-Tommy-Lee-Jones drawing of Dan Turpin.

And as Max pointed out, it seems like an odd choice to leave Bibbo out of a story in which he originally appeared.

TIME:

In a way, this was one of the most essential stories of the book, chronicling the exact first moments after Steel burst out of the ground in the wake of Doomsday’s rampage.  I had always thought he was under the rubble for days, and only emerged after Superman was already dead, but this new story reveals his full actions that day.

The art is a bit inconsistent, but very Bogdanove.  He copies older panels directly, which is effective, but sometimes jarring when they come before and after panels which are inked very differently than Dennis Janke’s hatching would have done.

The linework here reminded me of Kyle Baker, with its thin, precise minimalist line.  As usual with Simonson and Bogdanove, it’s a more ethnically diverse corner of Metropolis, and Bogdanove excels at drawing a variety of facial types.  At times the hulking John Henry looks a little wan, which again can be jarring with what we know of Bog’s version of the character. 

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

Jurgens’ story is just about perfect, in the way that it calls back almost every element of the original Doomsday storyline, starting—as it did in the 90s—with a classroom setting, and students arguing about who’s the greatest hero.  And how much do you love that Jon isn’t embarrassed of his dad, but rather argues he’s the greatest?  What a kid.

I love Jurgens’ writing of Superman and Lois as parents.  It’s a great moment when Jon voices his displeasure of having to learn about his own father’s death, even temporarily, in a classroom.  To her credit, Lois immediately cops to the fact that they didn’t handle that properly, and apologizes.  It’s the right move, and it’s great to see.

If I have one quibble about the art in the Jurgens’ story, it would be the lettering.  I found the clearly-computerized font for the word “Doombreaker” to not look great in the panel, especially how often it was repeated, and some sound effects are handled better than others.  The “Brakka-chak!” when Doombreaker shoves Superman into a building looks ok, but the “swit swit swit” earlier in the story where Doombreaker spins Superman by his cape just looks so computer-y and tacked on (besides being an odd transliteration—I kinda want to believe that it’s an excited USO show awaiting MASH star Loretta, chanting in anticipation).  But seriously, I do miss the feel of hand-lettered sound effects.

My personal favourite moment is perhaps a weird one, but I’ll explain!  My son’s name is Donovan, and since he was a little tyke, we have always called him “Dono” for short.  So it was very cool to see Jimmy Olsen calling Jonathan Kent “Jonno” for short.

Not to nerd out, but honestly, what do you expect at this point?—there are a couple factual errors within this issue.  One is in the first story, where Superman says it’s new for Doomsday to “speed-evolve” as Doombreaker does.  But Doomsday did the exact same thing in 1994’s Hunter/Prey mini-series, as he speed-grew new bones to cover his ear canals, and also his knuckle bone spurs became weird ropes at one point.  What gives, man?  Also, in the John Henry Irons story, they erroneously have John giving Lois credit for naming Doomsday. But the first person to call him Doomsday was Booster Gold.  Maybe John means she first used it in print?  [Max: I took it as John simply not knowing Booster used the name first... though, if Lois used it in print and didn’t specifically credit its creator, knowing Booster, she’s got a lawsuit in her hands.]

GODWATCH: Been a while since I’ve focused on the faith elements in these stories, but this issue has plenty.  First, when Lois tries to warn Superman, she invokes prayer.  Then in the story with the Kents, their mention of sacrificial love read to me like a Christian concept, and Lee Weeks pinup literally references the cross.

CLAY MANN PINUP:

Anyone who reads this blog even semi-regularly knows I’m something of a connoisseur of “Lois-looking-great” art.  As he showed in the Tom King Batman run, when Superman and Lois went on a double date with Catwoman and Batman (one of the best comics of the last ten years, if you haven’t read it!), Clay Mann draws a stunning, but realistically proportioned, Lois Lane.  Clark’s tailoring is decidedly 90s, but it’s a corker of an image, and my second favourite of the bunch.

LEE WEEKS PINUP:

An absolute stunner from one of my favourite artists and comic people.   The big red cape reminds me of a Bill Sienkiewicz piece, but it has that naturalistic, brushy feel of all of Lee Weeks work.  Great concept, great layout and great drawing.  My favourite of the bunch, actually.

WALT SIMONSON PINUP:

Unmistakably Simonson’s linework, with Laura Martin’s colours just lending a little bit of extra texture.  While Simonson’s looking a bit looser than other days, it’s still a strong piece, even if I’ve never liked the ram-horned look on Doomsday.

FABIO MOON PINUP:

Naturally, Moon’s quirky style is going to be a departure from the dynamic realism we expect from Superman comics, but the style matches the mood very well, here.  The concept of Jimmy using his signal watch for a Superman who will never come is a great and sad idea.  I do find the unidentified extra Planet staffers a bit distracting, though.  That might be Ron Troupe with his blazer over his shoulder (I guess his ”JAM” sweatshirt was in the laundry), and the mustachioed fellow could be Steve Lombard, as drawn in Superman stories from much later than the death storyline.  The other two ladies?  Not sure.  Maybe Alice and Cat Grant?  Or is it Daphne and Velma.  But the fact that I’m debating about it shows that maybe they could have been left out.  [Max: That’s definitely Alice for me, and therefore Cat next to hear because it’s just be weird to have an extra random person.]

BILL SEINKIWEICZ PINUP:

There’s Bill himself! He is such a master of energetic and photorealistic artwork that I have to wonder if he had someone dress up as Doomsday for this shot. Another interesting artistic take.

GABRIEL RODRIGUEZ PINUP:

A great circular layout, bringing the eye into the centre (and Superman’s face) both with the framing of Doomsday, and also the muted colours at the edges. Managing to include Jimmy and Lois is just the icing on the cake.  Great.

JAMAL CAMPBELL PINUP:

Another powerful, if simple image, with Lois’ grief front and centre, and the “Reign” storyline that followed behind her.  My only quibble is I prefer drawn lettering rather than computer fonts, but that’s a minor one.

CARMINE DI GIANDOMENICO PINUP:

I quite like the Superman movie inspired crystals as a motif, and the layout is well designed.  Doomsday looks frightening, which is a strange contrast from the placid expression on Superman’s face.  Buuuuuut, I have a few issues here.  Generally, I think computer artwork can make an artist a bit lazier, and we see that here.  The arms are literal mirrors of each other, which just feels a bit unnecessarily hurried. And one of my major pet peeves of the modern era is artists refusing to draw the actual Superman logo onto the figure.  Here it is slapped on (with at least some colouring to denote his chest muscles) in my opinion too high onto the uniform.  Lastly the planet Earth behind him (another thing modern artists often skip drawing) is not even a high-resolution image, and you can see the jagginess even in print.  

CULLY HAMNER PINUP:

In my top three of these pinups easily, it’s exactly what I want from a pinup—seeing familiar and beloved characters from the story, looking as they did in the original story, but interpreted in the signature style of the artist.  Terrific sense of motion here with unique, blocky colours in that Hamner style.  Love it. On the whole, I was surprised and pleased with how worthwhile the issue was.

#superman #dan jurgens #brett breeding #jerry ordway #tom grummett #doug hazlewood #roger stern #jackson guice #louise simonson #jon bogdanove #doomsday #mitch #ma kent #pa kent #guardian #dubbilex #maggie sawyer #dan turpin #steel #keith #myra #psychic lady whose name is given but i can't remember and i'm not even sure if she shows up again #doomerang

[sinterblackwell]

kay's favorite reads of 2023

and with that, my 2023 reading year has finally come to a close 🙏🏾

i haven't talked as much about books this year as i did in 2022, but i really did have a good time (with some tears.....)!! i discovered a whole new batch of books in the danmei genre that made my year and completely transformed my tastes; or just feels like it had :')

i read 76 books, all the way up to the last day, and it ended on a very high note, which i'm glad. i had fun writing this, as much as i could.

just something for me to look back on!!

if there's something i'm very consistent with, it's how much i write, so....there's the annual warning. but this is a passion project!! so that's all that matters.

honorable mentions:

lor (monstrous, #7) - lily mayne

--. what originally was meant to be a novella turned into a 600-page novel that is the longest of the entire series to date. i became a huge fan of lily mayne since 2022 because of this series, and i was absolutely delighted to get to continue it in the beginning of this year. at first, the story did read as a novella because of how contained it was, as if lor & jugs were living in this bubble. many clues, however, hinted that that bubble would break eventually-- political turmoil due to lor's position as the Moric and the fact that jug's human world has not yet fell into an apocalyptic state since this book is set in the 80s.

i genuinely became obsessed with the story once the plot kicked in around the middle, but i also admired how much the author put into the worldbuilding of this monster realm that our earlier monstrous characters had only been referencing up to this point. and it was absolutely amazing, but with a ton of faults that showed no world, even without any humans, is exempt from some messy politics. the fact that lor was so avoidant in his position causes a lot of upheaval, but his character arc in this story was very well-done, and it made for a very emotional read with all the events near the end. the author clearly got to have a lot of fun with this story in its setting and i look forward to seeing what will come when these characters meet with our earlier cast in the next book.

translations - brian friel

--. this was something i read for my irish literature course in the spring, and i ate it up in less than 2 hours at most. i don't read many plays and don't anticipate myself changing that fact in the future, but i had such a pleasant time with this one!! i think what made it so profound was having the text written out in front of me and yet i could visualize it so clearly as if i was following the script all along while the characters were performing on a stage.

this story is about the start of the end for the irish language, set in a small, rural town known as baile beag. having this play written entirely in english when these characters were majorly speaking irish is a connection that will stick with me for a long time, and it made the story so much more bleak because these characters weren't aware of what was to come.

my professor is so passionate about irish history, and felt just the same with this play. i got to take part in some very interesting discussions of the story while in class, and so now, a dream of mine would be to get to see this play in person someday :')

how to say i do - tal bauer

--. we cannot have a 2023 reading wrap-up without a tal bauer mention. despite not reading as much from him this year (mainly because i already read most of everything he wrote in 2022.....), i was glad to have this title to come back to more than once every couple of months. wyatt & noël are my most favorite tal bauer couple, next to sasha & sergey from the executive saga, and i just found them so sweet.

wyatt is one of the purest characters i have ever read; you can find no fault with him and his sweetheart persona. i loved how the author explored his own personal arc in the story due to the grief he held for his murdered father that he lost some time ago. he moved through that grief by taking care of his younger brother and working his ass off on the winery business he worked on together with his dad, and also the fields that this wine comes from. this land he grew up in is his home, and noël becomes a part of it as well.

this is a story about healing and finding peace with the people who care for you, and i adored it so much.

qiāng jìn jiǔ - tang jiuqing

--. there are no rules that can tell me i am not allowed to include this story here when i got through over 50% of it, and it is over 2,000 pages long. yes, i may not have gotten to finish it by this point, but i still consider it one of my greatest reading achievements. the story has such a huge cast of characters and very in-depth world politics, full with schemes and court intrigue, as well as betrayal and yearning.

it holds a very strong place in my heart because of the experience i have with it since i could only get to start reading it by surfing through a Chinese website and doing some rough translations. i was very determined to get started on it and actually paid some money that was ensured to go towards the author just so i could gain access to the fan translation. it is one of the best translations i ever had the fortune to read, and i got to pull a lot of my favorite quotes from it while gushing about the story with a friend.

that same friend did a very meaningful thing and found an epub of this translation before it got taken down since seven seas publishing has officially licensed it recently. i am very happy to see what it will look like in that version set to come in its first volume in june 2024, but i'm even more ecstatic to have this epub to finish the fan translation first. i hope to be done by this in the new year, so we'll see.

my summer of you - nagisa furuya

--. this is a comfort series for me, and i will always love that i got to read the first two volumes during the summer when the story was set. i couldn't get to read the third volume until early december, but the spirit of the season still shined through and i had such a nice time with these characters. the art was very neat and brought a smile to my face because of how adorable these characters looked, especially wataru as in the third volume, he ends up just looking more & more like an angry kitten.

i loved that even though there's no discernible plot to each volume, i still get to see this development in the established relationship between chiharu and wataru. their mutual love for film is what brought them together as close friends, and it's what nurtures the romantic feelings they grow for the other that are depicted in very soft panels. i'm not quite sure if there's more volumes to come, but for the ones that we have now, i'll cherish them for being something comforting to come back to when i need something light.

+ the art of cruelty - butchgoth (gremlingirl)

--. cue more self-indulgence!! because yes!! this is fanfiction!! beefleaf fanfiction in particular, inspired from mxtx's heaven official's blessing, but now set in an alternate universe where these characters live today. it was over 300,000 words, which effectively made it roughly over 500 pages, single-spaced; and for that, i will count it as part of my reading goal, so technically.....i've read 77 books this year <3

i just feel sentimental about this fic since it was the first one i read from the tgcf fandom. i discovered it on ao3 immediately after catching all the way up to vol.5 (which was the most recent volume published by seven seas at the time i picked up the series in january). it had all the drama of the canon series, but instead of ghosts & heavenly officals, we had these characters part of the mafia. a lot happened, and these characters' morality felt even more muddled than they were in canon (because duh.....the fucking mafia).

i think what my most favorite thing that i got from it was seeing the brotherhood relationship between hua cheng & he xuan. in the actual series, there isn't much depiction of any closeness in their dynamic, but the tgcf fandom took the bare minimum and expanded on it greatly; this fic is one of the biggest examples of that.

i came to this title for he xuan & shi qingxuan, and it absolutely delivered, but i also got to get attached to some of the other relationships as well (again, he xuan & hua cheng; i'm a sucker for sibling relationships, so i wasn't surprised when this happened).

and now for my top 10 favorite reads of the year!!

. . .

10. given (vol.5) - natsuki kizu

i had been wanting to read this series for a long time, actually. what always stopped me was the fact i had never gotten into manga and had a bit of trouble reading any graphic novels. i was someone who felt more comfortable with regular novels as i found myself feeling distant from the few graphic novels i read before this year.

what ultimately broke this pattern was my reading of our dining table in june, which became the first manga i ever read & completed. it was a contemporary romance that was very light & sweet, and involved a small family who were brought together through the love of homecooked meals. the art was one of the most striking things from the story for me; the little child, tane, having some of the most adorable illustrations i've ever seen.

after reading this manga, i started dipping my toes a little more into the genre, until i ultimately got to the given series, whose art is some of my most favorites of all manga, next to old-fashioned cupcake. what always got to me was how this is a story about music, and how much it means differently for the characters we meet here. my favorite thing about it was how the art made this music these characters were playing feel even more alive, as if i could actually hear it. the art was very expressive and the music resonated so deeply, i loved it so much.

volume 5 ended up connecting to me way more than i expected, and it was just all because a side character, ugetsu murata. we get to meet him in a previous volume, but learn even more about him here and it was all a very emotional read.

his relationship with akihiko hurt me a lot because i had met them when they were already nearing the end, and there was so much pain and resentment that lied deeply in this relationship, that i found myself grieving for what they had in the beginning (even though i wasn't even there to actually witness it??). you could sense the significance of their relationship despite that though, and their goodbye scene ultimately broke me due to (and no surprise here) the incredible artwork.

finding out ugetsu has garnered some mixed feelings from the given fandom was no surprise to me, but it made me love him more because i really did see a connection in him. his personal attachment to music as a renowned violin player is a story i would love to see more about, but he's not necessarily the main character, so...

the good part is his dynamic with mafuyu, who is one of the main characters. i love seeing them when they're together and i like to think that they do become close friends.

9. heaven official's blessing (vol.6) - mò xiāng tóng xiù

this volume was where we finally got to the white-clothed calamity arc, the most painful arc of the entire series that the tgcf fandom was absolutely dreading. it had all the trauma and heartbreak and grief and more, and it was the best arc i read from this series.

we got to see xie lian at his lowest after the fall of Xianle, and i just think one of the most striking things was how hua cheng played a role during this time. this was a point where xie lian & hua cheng weren't familiar to each other in the way they were now at the present timeline of the story, but they still had crossed paths in some shape and literal form very early on. hua cheng, or otherwise, wu ming, in this arc played a very pivotal role in his witness of xie lian's darkest point. to see him absolutely inconsolable because there was no way for him to reach out and protect the person he already loved with his whole being was painful to read. there had always been this quote that the fandom always loves to reference from hua cheng himself, and it all hurt so much more deeply when i saw what he was talking about.

"To watch with your own eyes your beloved be trampled and ridiculed, yet be unable to do anything, that's the worst suffering in the world."

ah so yeah, this volume is my most favorite of the series :') i have very fond feelings for the entire story because it was my first introduction to the world of danmei, and i am way too sentimental for my own good, so of course it had to be on this list.

8. peach blossom debt - da feng gua guo

at this point, i read quite a bit of danmei, and this one happened to be one of the few that didn't come from word of mouth but simple coincidence. this is a story from an author who's not as well-known as mxtx or priest, and i feel very disheartened about that because this danmei was something else (positive).

there's some stories you know you'll love immediately, while others you're not as sure of at first. this was the case of the latter, as the writing style seemed worlds apart from what i had become familiar with in most danmei i had read, and i found the first-person pov to be a very interesting way to handle the narrative. what first started out as a comedic and very ridiculous tale turned into a tragic character arc where song yao, the mc, seemed to have been cursed to repeat this cycle of loneliness that he's had to endure since before he even ascended. i found the twist that happened around the last quarter of the story to be somewhat convoluted in execution, but still overwhelmingly moving looking at the fact that i ended up sending a teary voice message to a friend.

in hindsight, that reaction was very dramatic of me, but all feelings were sincere. this is because the plot twist just absolutely changed everything that i thought i had grasped well from the story up to that point. i had gotten invested in the friendship between song yao and hengwen, the latter being the first & only person who alleviated that feeling of isolation that song yao had become so used to. he was someone who made song yao's ascension feel less overwhelming and brought his own humor & light to their dynamic, which made me ship them hard. when this twist came, it didn't ruin that dynamic, but in an even more ironic heartbreak, it made it seem more forbidden. the romance just became something so much more, and seeing everything that followed after the twist felt like a dream that made me love the story more than i expected i would.

if there's one meme i'd love to float around, it's the popular "would you love me if i was a worm?"; because as this story shows, the answer from one character to another is yes :') and i am obsessed with them for that.

7. stars of chaos (vol.1) - priest

the worldbuilding. the worldbuilding absolutely plays a strong part in this steampunk fantasy, and the main couple did, too <3

i think among all historical danmei, this, thousand autumns, and qiāng jìn jiǔ are much more a grounded visualization of ancient China and its events as it was studied in the books. my favorite thing about stars of chaos is that it still had this touch of innovation and magic that made it a thousand times more compelling than it would've been without. i found the idea of violet gold being seen as the center of all the machinery that exists in this time period such an interesting hook for the story, and chang geng's pov felt absolutely perfect for telling it, in a case of secret identities and and cursed ambitions.

his dynamic with another character, who we come to know as gu yun, is some of my most favorite of all danmei. as of recently, thanks to a couple ao3 fics, i feel even more like i'm bursting with love for them both.

i'm only really at the beginning with this story since we only have this first volume at the time i'm writing this. however, the second one is due to come in early january 2024 and i am so hyped for it. again, the story is really innovative and there's some action & mystery that pulled me in deeply. i'm really excited to get more to the root of it as each volume comes out and the tension grows even stronger.

6. lip and sword (vol.2) - jin shisi chai

because this is just the kind of person that i am, of course one of my top favorite reads of 2023 would be of a series that i finished on the last day of the year :')

there's so much i've already talked about regarding this volume on goodreads (x), but i really consider this series to be a precious gem to me because of how severely underrated it is (and i also mean that literally....the third volume only has 32 ratings on gr, including mine). of course, this series might be receiving much more pleasant feedback in other circles, as goodreads isn't the center of everything. however, there's no fandom to speak of that i have been able to access, and so it's made for a very lonely reading experience.

what made up for it, though, was how truly genius the story was. it's one of the very few modern danmei i've read, and it circles around the world of Chinese journalism, uncovering news stories that end up shaking the narrative in such a brilliant way. the author is so smart, and i got to meet one of my most favorite fictional characters of the year, xing ming. he's cold, logical, and on the edge of frustrating when it comes to how little he cares for the consideration of his colleagues, which makes him cross lines that shake up the story even more.

the romance between him & yu zhongye was....absolutely perfect; i feel gobsmacked at how perfect this series was to me in all its flawed characters and a fractured society fueled by the media. so much of it felt really intense and the translation, even with the few grammatical errors it had, did a really good job sharing the author's intent with the volumes. i really loved this...

--. note: this is where the list gets a little blurry, as these next 4 are practically interchangeable. the #1 spot is the most solid. i'm obsessed with them all, and having them on this list is all that really matters .--

5. the scum villain's self-saving system (vol.2) - mò xiāng tóng xiù

thanks to the absolutely chaotic svsss fandom, i got even more attached to this series in the months after i had finished it. i feel very fond for this community of readers who were just as obsessed with mxtx's debut as i was, and with this volume, i hold it even more dearly.

it was very chaotic. despite only being in shen qingqiu's pov, i loved how the author managed to convey everyone else's emotions in the series of events that occur. i already said this in the mid-year freakout tag, but it made things so laughable yet also so fucking sad for sqq to see himself apart from everyone else as he comes from the "real world". those like luo binghe are only capable of following the script from the original story and so in all the times lbh chases after his shizun, it only inspires more fear & sadness in sqq knowing what happens in the story they're following.

to be fair for him, honestly, lbh doesn't make it any easy to think differently because of some of his stalking behavior, but again, the author was able to convey lbh's heartbreak so clearly in their interactions. i am a sucker for angst and so to see two characters who are basically having two different conversations without realizing it, it made this volume a standout for me.

also, svsss is my favorite mxtx novel, by the way.

4. king of death (folk, #3) - lily mayne

ash in his self-destruction era :')

his pov is what really turned the story for me because i had been with him since the first book, mortal skin. he had been through so much deception after already reeling over the grief of the parents that raised him.

he was tortured to the point of death in efforts to shed his human skin and make him become full fae. he was led to believe that the love of his life, lonan, had been the one to deal the killing blow to said parents. he loses his arm as he was fighting to run somewhere safe away from the unseelie realm due to the evil plans of lonan's mother. he finally met his birth mother, who turned out to be a just as sickening as she saw him as a curse from the moment of conception; she wanted nothing more than to sap all his power away that she saw as rightfully hers.

he's forced to kill an innocent to conceal his identity in a public affair. he recovers all his lost memories of lonan and is left reeling over all the interactions they shared where he couldn't even remember him. he's thrust with the title of king of seelie and all its obligations in the face of those who dealt with centuries of tyrannical rule under his birth mother.

and then now we get to this book!! where he clutches so badly to the one good & normal thing he has left in his life....lonan. it was like they existed in this bubble where it was just them two as it was in mortal skin, and it was exactly when ash started falling in love with him. reliving this feeling, of course ash would want to have them stick together; but lonan had his own obligations.

it got to the point where ash had all these excuses ready for why lonan should stay with him, so readily able to ignore signs that say otherwise, that the forests that serve as the bridge between the seelie & unseelie folk was rotting away. what once was something really light and a force of good with them staying together ended up almost becoming a thing of the past.

it was such a long road with this story, and so heartbreaking. i just loved how the author was so consistent in the development of ash's character journey, and there was almost a point where it felt like he was so close to falling off the edge, but his brother, nua, is who pulls him back. i will always be so thankful for nua's presence in this book; it did everything.

and i'm also just glad that at the end of all this angst and hardship, ash & lonan do make it through. it was a hard-won fought :')

my reading experience with this series started over a year and i'm just really happy to have loved this finale as much as i did. it feels like i've giving it a proper send-off.

---. i've unfortunately reached the stage where my energy is starting to dwindle. but now we've gotten to the top 3 and just to say, i'm glad that i found these stories and everything that was listed before.

3. the husky & his white cat shizun (vol.3) - rou bao bu chi rou

taxian-jun was really the star for me in this one. that's all.

”Mo Ran, wake up already. Wake up…”

“I am awake! I’m perfectly fucking awake! You’re the one who’s asleep! Are you blind?! Are you blind, Chu Wanning! …

“As far as you’re concerned, his life is a life, but mine counts for nothing. Is that it?!” In his fury, Mo Ran grabbed Chu Wanning’s hand and pressed it to his bloody wound.

“Didn’t you want to stop me? Here’s your chance; go on then, dig out my heart! Chu Wanning, why don’t you just dig out my fucking heart?!”

2ha, my beloved <3

2. remnants of filth (vol.2) - rou bao bu chi rou

here's a series of quotes that broke my heart:

Mo Xi thought, if only he could see straight in. If only he could cruelly tear this man apart, pierce him through--if only he could get a good look at the secrets in his bones, the currents in his blood, the filth in his soul. If he could see how dirty the man kneeling before him was, perhaps he'd let go of this persistent attachment.

.

Give me your hand. No matter how dirty you are, I will embrace you. No matter how much it hurts, I will stay with you. No matter how far it is, I will bring you home.

.

So much hatred, so much love, and so much agony. An agony worse than death.

i really look forward to volume three; it can't come soon enough. the story of mo xi and gu mang hurts a lot :')

1. the missing piece - kun yi wei lou

Their eyes met, and the world was silent. The start of spring had just passed. The weather was especially good that day, with no clouds in the sky for miles. But Ji Mingxuan seemed to feel that only now did the rain that had lingered in his heart truly stop.

(x).

#❣️ #truly the year of danmei #danmei #booklr #yearly reading wrap up

[gillianthecat]

Fahlanruk episode 12

my mostly negative thoughts while watching the final episode

Sher really took off his shoe to throw at Fah. 

This ending is making me appreciate Big Dragon's finale even more. 

The problem with Fah and Sher is that their story keeps reminding me of other shows that do whatever trope or plot better. Tending a cut on the bottom of the uke's foot -> Between Us made it more interesting. "Don't let me chase you away" -> I cared much more when Ji-woo said this to Seon-joon in To My Star 2.  The shoe throwing I haven't seen before though. 

I feel like Fah and Sher aren't actually going to do anything to solve their problems. Like have a conversation about... whatever their problems are, I don't even know at this point. Not trusting each other I think is at the base of it, and that's not going away just because you're being cute and calling each other faen. 

Tap and Ping have such good pajama game. They're so cute in their coordinated old man jammies. I've seen very few repeats, and I've loved every one. Do you think Ping has been buying them for them both all along? Excited about getting into bed next to his crush in the couples pajamas he got for them? 🥺

Ok, this scene in the kitchen where Fah is about to feed Sher porridge and asks Sher to be his boyfriend is pretty cute, I will give them that. 

Ping and Tap tagging tagging each other in their relationship status on Facebook is adorable. I love the way they're looking at each other here. (But do university students in Thailand even use Facebook anymore? I thought it was passé for that entire generation.)

I'm annoyed that even in late 2022 even sexually voracious uke characters still turn reluctant about sex once the relationship is established. It makes no damn sense! First Big Dragon and now this. I mean, it does sort of fit both their characters and dynamics (and Yai better than Sher), but I'm so annoyed by the trend overall. 

But at least even the sweetest most innocent of the three couples get to have sex. Good for them. And interestingly, these actors seem most comfortable with the physicality of it, out of all three pairs. Well done, Gear and Prince.

There is no way that Sher's cut was that serious. This is ridiculous. 

Are these music people cameos by actual famous music people? Otherwise there is no reason to listen to their extremely boring conversation. 

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. Will anyone in this fucking show just let Sher live his own fucking life the way that HE wants to? Now that they're all done pressuring him to give in and date Fah they can't be content that they won that round and have to start pressuring him to reveal himself as a singer songwriter. There are a lot of good reasons for someone to want to remain anonymous and not be a pop star! Just because it doesn't fit your idea of how he should be living his life it doesn't mean he's not "embracing his own uniqueness" or whatever the fuck. I am getting much angrier than I should about this on behalf of a character I don't even care about. But it really is pissing me off. 

Wait, this play is about how toxic social media is and how gossip can fuck up relationships? Didn't Pink write this play? I... I don't even...

I'm still kind of rooting for Pie in all his campy villain glory. At least he's not pretending to be anything other than a selfish asshole and not trying to justify his interfering behavior as anything other than self-interest. 

Does no one teach the children basic internet safety anymore? Sher, why are you talking to this rando who messaged you out of the blue instead of blocking him. Maybe everyone SHOULD be making all of Sher's decisions for him after all. 

I know 80% of BLblr is relieved not to hear singing in their BLs, but it weirds me out when the characters are singers but we never or rarely hear them singing. Or, even worse, they play other music over footage of the character singing or playing. At that point, why even bother. 

See. These idiots never actually dealt with the fact that they don't trust each other! Shit like this is going to keep happening. Unless they somehow manage to have a real conversation in the last ten minutes of this show, but i I highly doubt that. 

Ok, I guess they did manage to sidestep the jealousy and work together. Whatever. I still don’t buy that they figured it out.

This episode is taking me forever to watch because I keep getting bored and/or irritated and going off to do something else. I could just not watch it of course, but I keep telling myself, just 30 minutes left, just 20 minutes left, just 5 minutes left of the whole fucking series, just get it over with so you never have to watch it again. So I am determined to watch it and be miserable. I am starting to actually hate the show now though, perhaps because of it.

They even did the thing with the play that I hate, where the dialogue is a barely veiled metaphor for the main characters relationship. And who is this woman in the white dress that they thanked? She was also the music... producer? that Sher met, I think? I feel like she must be a cameo because otherwise the focus on her makes no sense. Maybe the novel author? (She's certainly not an actress; she's even stiffer than all the other terrible acting in this show.)

Since I'm already being mean about it, I will take this opportunity to get it off my chest: the acting in this show is, with few exceptions, pretty awful. Sher and Fah feel like the worst offenders, but that's probably because they're awful characters that have no other redeeming features to save them. It's part of what's making this last episode such a slog. Them being "cute" together is not actually cute because I keep noticing how awkward and fake the acting is. 

And even Ping and Tap, as much as I adore them, are not doing very good acting most of the time, I hate to say. Ping is the best by far, and has moments of brilliance, but also a lot of awkward fake moments. I do blame the director for a lot of it, because it's so universal, and it often just feel like he's been given bad direction, and odd instructions regard timing/pacing. I would love to see him in something else with a better director because he's still pretty young and I think he has a lot of potential. As for Tap, I think he's the prettiest out of all the actors, and better than most of them, but he's still not that good unfortunately. But again, perhaps with a better script/director...

I do not understand (well 80% of this show to be honest, but specifically) why Sher and Fah are friends with Pink. Why they tolerate her sobbing and screaming "my ship has reached its destination." That is CREEPY. She is a fucking CREEP.  If I was them I would take out a restraining order. 

Speaking of things I don't understand, why is Fah doing an instagram live for the general public? He's not an influencer or anything like that as far as a can tell. Just a random popular kid on campus. Is this a real thing in the real world? Anywhere? Or in Thailand specifically? Do college kids these days treat the popular students like minor celebrities and follow their every move? It could well be, I am old™️ and don't understand how the youths are using social media. 

I do find it hilarious that for whatever reason they decided Fah and Sher needed a last minute separation. But only were willing to do it for a week(?). I couldn't actually tell you why or for how long because I'm seriously struggling to pay attention at this point. 

Yay! It's fucking over. I made it. Now I can let everything about this show slip from my memory, as it’s already trying to do. (Except for Ping and Tap, them I’ll keep.)

I will say that this final episode is making me appreciate Big Dragon's more. That one I did love, because the show has my heart and they did do many things very well, but I was also aware of several things I wished they'd done differently. But any flaws it had paled in comparison to the nonsense mess that was Fahlanruk ep 12. 

#fahlanruk ep 12 #grumpyblogging #in which i’m a bit mean #fahlanruk #fahlanruk the series #kind of like liveblogging #final episodes #gillianthecat reacts to bl

[squeemcsquee]

Anime Magic 2023: Saturday

Saturday morning kicked off with breakfast in @shbumi's room, then she and I did some PoGo in the area.

At about 1040, we headed toward the hotel ballroom to join the line for Drag Show.

It seemed odd to be going to a drag event in the morning, but apparently Oriana requested it when scheduling. There were some technical hiccups and delays, so the show proper (which was scheduled at 1100) didn't start until approximately 1115.

And what a show it was! As always, a kickass event. I apologize for any blurriness to the photos, but it definitely was a great time.

After the drag show, we stuck around for an Iaido demonstration and discussion. @lechevaliermalfet got to go onstage for some hands-on work while @shbumi and I remained in the audience, listening as the presenter explained what the groups on stage were doing.

After Iaido, it was time for some lunch. And then for shopping!

We made sure to make a pit stop at @artbyquinton's booth. It's always great to see what new stuff he's rolling out and it's also a good chance to catch up if we haven't seen him for awhile.

After his booth, we checked out the other offerings on display from various artists and dealers.

It may seem a strange thing to say, but in some ways, the artist alley and dealer hall feel too big for a con the size of Anime Magic. Like, I love having so many booths to visit. But I also don't budget for AM the same way I would for say, ACen or Otakon, in terms of money for the exhibit hall. I budget less, since the event is smaller. So then I feel bad when I see the amount of cool stuff on hand. There were plenty of artists where I ended up grabbing business cards to hopefully support them at a later time.

After shopping, it was getting on late afternoon and it was finally time for another panel: The Best of Steampunk Anime.

This was a cool panel, and it was presented by a member of the Chicago Steampunk Exposition team. So you know he knew his stuff. First, we were given a short background on steampunk, then divided into small groups to brainstorm anime we thought *might* be on the list that our presenter intended to talk about. Each group offered up a title, and we ranked what was offered.

And then, we began to review this list by CBR. For each title offered, we had some discussion as to why CBR included it...and why our presenter would or wouldn't include it in his own list.

I think I had more fun and learned more in this panel than I have in almost every other steampunk-themed panel I've attended.

After the panel, we ordered dinner from Giordano's, but knew we would have an hour to kill before it arrived. So @lechevaliermalfet and I checked out the itasha car show while @shbumi chilled in her room.

I loved wandering the cars and looking at the different wrap jobs, even if I didn't always know the show being represented.

I also tried not to pay too much attention to Tattoo Alley, which was right next door. See, I had considered getting a tattoo during AM 2022 but decided against it. And this year, I had planned to get one if the tattoo artist returned - but you aren't supposed to get a tattoo during pregnancy. So I just looked at the increased number of options and hey, we'll see. Maybe if we attend AM 2024, I'll get one. Next year's con schedule is a bit up in the air, since we'll have an infant to consider.

We grabbed some drinks and extra snacks from the Hello Tokyo booth (and got some pocky balloons) and then headed back to the hotel for dinner.

After dinner, we went down to the Anime Singalong Dance Party with Kohei. It was scheduled for 2100, but technical issues meant that it ran late. As on Friday, it was great to just sing and dance along to anime OPs with a bunch of other nerds.

Kohei didn't get to put on as long of a show as Friday night due to the tech issues, as there was a concert scheduled immediately after him.

Crunk Witch are a married couple who go for an electro-pop sound. They did some kickass 80s covers during their show. Annnd they also hit tech issues. Really, this seems to be a recurring thing for AM.

Oh! and on a random note, I got a free glow bracelet from the Atlas cosplayer, who was hanging out just outside of the concert.

I don't expect free stuff from cosplayers, for obvious reasons, so it was cool to get something.

I also grabbed a Crunk Witch CD after the concert. There was a dance scheduled for after Crunk Witch, but for us, it was time to call it a night. We were wiped.

#anime magic #anime magic 2023 #prose and cons #con review #con report

[dedalvs]

I posted 135 times in 2022

That's 135 more posts than 2021!

80 posts created (59%)

55 posts reblogged (41%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@belovedlittlecorpse

@quothalinguist

@frattynattyladdie

@zjofierose

@mandaloriandy

I tagged 83 of my posts in 2022

Only 39% of my posts had no tags

#conlang - 58 posts

#language - 43 posts

#valyrian - 24 posts

#high valyrian - 22 posts

#hotd - 20 posts

#house of the dragon - 19 posts

#got - 12 posts

#game of thrones - 11 posts

#orthography - 9 posts

#langtime - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 47 characters

#the vowels that are untouchable like eliot ness

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Hi, welcome back to Tumblr! Your Trigdasleng posts back in the day were fascinating, even though I never watched the show they're from. Keep on keepin' on.

Thank you! It's good to be back, and this is as good a place as any to talk about why I'm here and what I'm doing.

First, I left Tumblr when many others did when they instituted their infamous "female-presenting nipple" policy. It's not as if my Tumblr was ever a nsfw blog, or as if I had any female-presenting nipples, but I felt it was the wrong response to the difficult situation they'd been put in. It was something that hurt a lot of people who had a lot less of a voice and not much of a platform, and so I felt it was my responsibility to use the platform I had to take a stand, even if ultimately it didn't change anything.

As it happens, years later, Tumblr has finally reversed the policy (well done, @staff!). Tumblr may not be the wild west it used to be, but at least they aren't targeting anyone presenting a specific gender unfairly. I've missed my time away, and the people I got to know here, so I'm happy to be back!

As I see it, I'll probably be reblogging stuff less here, even though that's how I made my name way back when, and instead responding mostly to asks in my inbox.

To give myself a fresh start, I have deleted all 3,999 of my asks. I'm starting fresh—with this one, which was the first! My inbox got too overwhelming, so this was needed.

To answer some questions some may have, if you haven't followed me elsewhere recently:

I'm most active on Instagram, where I am @athdavrazar.

I have a YouTube series with partner and significant other Jessie Sams, who is @quothalinguist on Instagram. That series is called LangTime Studio, and we create a language from scratch together live on camera (we work on two hours a week every Thursday at 2 p.m. Pacific).

Jessie and I work together almost exclusively now, and we've done work on Freeform's Motherland: Fort Salem (which I hope you loved, Tumblr!), Peacock's Vampire Academy, the second season of Shadow and Bone (forthcoming), Amazon's Paper Girls (though you can blink and miss our stuff), and the second Dune film.

I worked on HBO's House of the Dragon, and got to create a writing system for High Valyrian, which I'm very excited about.

I created the Sangheili language for Paramount+'s Halo with Carl Buck, who is on Instagram as @tlacamazatl (he's on Tumblr as @tlacamazatl too!). We are presently working on season 2.

I worked with Christian Thalmann on Shadow and Bone seasons 1 and 2. The breakdown is this: Christian and I jointly created the Fjerdan language; I created the Ravkan language and orthography as well as the Kerch and Zemeni orthographies exclusively; Jessie Sams and I created the Shu and Zemeni languages jointly; Christian created the Shu orthography. I can't wait for you to hear and see our work in season 2!

Yes, I left Twitter (quite a bit ago). I'm now more active on Discord, where I'm on a few servers.

I created a wiki for all my languages, and am unevenly working on all of them, and some languages have a team of people working on them (in particular High Valyrian).

Despite being double-vaxxed and getting not one, not two, but three boosters, I got Covid in June, and that PoS hasn't completely left me alone since. (Note: I'd only had one booster before I got it; two have come since then, including the new one, which will hopefully be the last!)

I am traveling again, so I hope to announce those here when they happen.

If there's anything I missed, you let me know. I look forward to answering asks again, and joining in the general silliness of Tumblr! <3

139 notes - Posted November 13, 2022

#4

The Elder Runes from The Witcher

See the full post

157 notes - Posted December 1, 2022

#3

198 notes - Posted November 13, 2022

#2

Well now I HAVE to ask how to say/write "chicken" in your various languages!

Oh here we go...

🐔🐥🐤🐣🐓

Azrán: upózh

Bodzvokhan: dǝq

Castithan: chikano (< English)

Dothraki: jiz

Hen Linge: mak

High Valyrian: ñoves (rooster), qulbes (hen)

Irathient: tisese

Kamakawi: iki (animal), i'iki (food)

Méníshè: t'òdír

Noalath: vokach

Övüsi: kuge

Ravkan: shuk (rooster), shuka (hen)

Trigedasleng: omi (generic), egleya (hen)

Yulish: bökki

Zemeni: wela

Zhyler: levžel

That's not all of them, but that's a lot of them!

(Btw, I was sitting here coming up with this list, and @quothalinguist glances at it and is instantly like, "You're coming up with words for 'chicken'? Méníshè's got one!' And, of course, she was right!)

682 notes - Posted November 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Do you have any thoughts on the translation scene in Goncharov? I haven't seen a lot of people talking about it but it's a pretty pivotal scene and given that what they're doing is not dissimilar to a conlang imo i figured you might have some good insights

*sigh*

I figured someone was going to ask this eventually...

So listen, the whole translation scene in Goncharov is not technically conlang-related. It's actually even more brilliant, but it's hard to explain.

Since the tutor doesn't speak Russian and the nurse only speaks Italian, the aphasiac Soviet spy has to use an impromptu series of hand gestures to indicate that he either does or doesn't understand. I mean, you can glean that from the subtitles, so that's no big revelation.

But this is where it gets weird and...I mean, linguistically controversial, to say the least, but it was the 70s.

As the tutor and the nurse attempt to communicate with him and each other, they begin to winnow down their vocabulary to words that are cognate between Italian and Russian. And through this back and forth, the languages seem like they're blending, but what they're actually doing is reversing the sound changes of Italian and Russian until they both end up, improbably, at Proto-Indo-European. It's like something you'd see in Fantasia, but aural! It's...utterly bizarre.

And, of course the final word that the nurse and the tutor utter simultaneously, the one that brings the spy to tears, is *bʰewdʰ- "awake, aware"—which, I mean, knowing how the rest of the movie goes...yeah. Bombshell. And it's crazy to me that they didn't subtitle it! Like, you pretty much have to be a PIE scholar to get that, and the entire subplot hinges on it! I mean, bold isn't the word for it. Unfathomable. Cannot believe they got away with that...

Rumor has it that Morris Halle consulted on the film, but he's adamantly refused to talk about. (For years, he'd end all his guest lectures with, "Are they any questions about anything other than Goncharov?") He never once confirmed whether or not he was involved (of course, he wasn't credited, but that wouldn't be unusual for the time even if he was involved).

I can see why you'd think it would be a conlang, but the reverse-engineered sound changes were so precise, and the whole thing so by the book, that there really wasn't any actual invention. It was all Indo-European!

2,227 notes - Posted November 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #not bad for a couple months

[dragonotaku-justineverything]

So I was saving this 2022 yearly review after being mentioned by @therealmofamorus for when the year was actually done.

I also wanted to say somethings before we get to that, if you all don't mind me getting a bit serious for a bit.

I... was very disappointed with what I did in 2022. Or rather what I DIDN'T do. I barely posted anything, barely wrote anything, barely got any work done for all of my wonderful followers.

And I am sorry.

I am so, SO sorry.

I don't know what else to say...

I know I'm suppose to treat writing as something fun do or just a hobby... but I really let myself down with what little work I got done.

I am not good at managing free time at all. I constantly have ideas on things to write, but just never really sat down and did it this year. Mainly due to lack of drive to spend the time actually writing them down, as well as spending TOO much time on projects trying to make them exactly as I see them in my head, which just never really works out and then I get annoyed by it.

...And I'm honestly just a lazy person.

I hate to say it, but I am. And I hate that about myself. Because it also affects how I interact with others online as well. I want to talk to more people and interact with their amazing posts and writings, I just don't ever work up the courage or drive to.

So!!! After this year with such little writing and basically not interacting with people online, I'm going to do my best to change. I at least want to get 2-4 asks or 1 big writing project done a week, and that the goal I'm starting with. I'll try not to be spending as much time stressing over getting everything perfect on something, without my writing quality going down.

Hopefully I do more, but I'm starting small. I want to get back into making content for you all to enjoy at least a little bit.

I hope I can stick to it and I also hope that I can do some more things this year on a personal level that I won't dive into right now. Just please keep being patient with me everyone.

So with that stuff off my chest now, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! And here is my 2022 year on tumblr.

I posted 535 times in 2022

334 posts created (62%)

201 posts reblogged (38%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@freeusemuses

@howlingday

@madmanwonder

@jace-the-writer-guy

@therealmofamorus

I tagged 533 of my posts in 2022

#ask - 274 posts

#sfw - 239 posts

#reblog - 196 posts

#headcanons - 175 posts

#anonymous - 173 posts

#rwby - 168 posts

#non sfw - 110 posts

#character headcanons - 97 posts

#jaune arc - 91 posts

#relationship headcanons - 82 posts

Longest Tag: 80 characters

#i still remember getting my ds with pokemon diamond the day diamond was released

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Pyrrha's ass looks real great in those grey sweatpants, wouldn't you agree Jaune?

Jaune had long forgotten about doing his own share of chores. He had just come inside, after he finished shoveling snow out of their driveway, and just took off the last piece of his warm winter clothes when he caught a glimpse of one amazing sight.

His wife, the champion Pyrrha Nikos, folding their laundry while watching TV. She stood in their living room, in leisure wear, nonchalantly folding shirts, and not paying much mind to her husband's staring.

The reason for his staring was actually her leisure wear. Pyrrha had on just a plain gray sweatshirt with Beacon's symbol on it. it was rather baggy and thick, so it did well to hide the tone, killer body Jaune knew she had.

Her lower half though was much less obscuring. She still only had on plain gray sweatpants. However, the sweatpants were only baggy around the legs. Around Pyrrha's ass, even the loose gray fabric couldn't hide how plump and firm her rear looked. The fabric suddenly got much, much tighter. Jaune could also see just where her crack separated both cheeks into two smooth looking pillows.

Two big, smooth, looking pillows.

Two big, smooth, soft looking pillows.

That also looked very, very inviting to Jaune.

Jaune moved forward subconsciously. He didn't even realize that he had reached out his hand until it grabbed a handful of Pyrrha's plump ass. It was just firm enough to not sag, but soft enough to squeeze for the whole night. His hand now full of soft fabric and ass, as well as Pyrrha's stifled squeaky moan snapped him back to reality. "J-Jaune! W-what's this for?"

"Just... amazed..."

Pyrrha lowered the folded shirt in her hands back down to waist height. "Amazed by what?"

Jaune's hand let go of Pyrrha's champion tier ass, after an internal struggle in Jaune, and slid up Pyrrha's side. His hand traveled around her waist more when he was halfway up her body, moving to rest on her stomach while he brought his other hand around her on the other side, hugging her closely. "By how a boring, average joe like me got to marry a goddess of a woman like you."

Pyrrha's earlier surprise faded and was replaced with an affection she only held for her husband. He could say the most touching things sometimes. And out of nowhere was a wonderful surprise to her day~.

Pyrrha dropped the shirt into the basket at her feet and rested her hands on Jaune's. "That's very sweet of you Jaune~. Now, what pray tell, brought this up?"

It was Jaune's turn to get a bit embarrassed. "Just... wanted to tell you that."

"Oh? And it didn't have anything to do with you staring at my butt for five minutes~?"

Jaune winced and rested his forehead against the back of Pyrrha's head. "Y-you noticed huh?"

Pyrrha hummed melodically and closed her eyes. She pushed her butt back just a little bit, right into Jaune's crotch. "I need to be pretty observant to be a champion fighter. Buuuut it's not like it was hard to notice. You were just standing there after coming inside for almost five whole minutes, not doing anything. That, and I know how much you love these sweatpants on me~."

Jaune let out a steady breath as he felt Pyrrha push her ass against him. It took a lot of willpower not to let go of his hug and go back to squeezing her rear. "Well, can you blame me? What's not to love?"

Pyrrha giggled at that. Another cheesy line that made her heart soar~. "I guess you're right. Even I know my ass looks great in these~. And I know for a fact you really do love them~."

"Oh yeah? How's that Pyr?"

"Oooooh, you know." Pyrrha took her hand off of Jaune's and moved it behind her, right between her ass and his crotch. Her hand, palm facing towards Jaune, closed down around something of Jaune's. Something long, hard, and very, very big. And as the very big thing in her hand pulsed once under her grasp and Jaune's breath hitched from desire, she knew it was real. A sly smirk made its way onto Pyrrha's lips. "The same way I know you aren't just a 'boring, average joe~.'" Pyrrha lifted her head back just a tad and then leaned it back past Jaune's head, turning it to face her husband. "But for now, kiss me~."

Jaune smiled, feeling complete and fulfilled. He couldn't want anything more in life than the woman in his arms. "As my goddess commands~."

119 notes - Posted February 22, 2022

#4

Can we get some more Ace Ops Jaune being seduced by his teammates? I really enjoyed that AU!

Elm

“Oi Jaune. How much do you weigh again?”

Jaune paused in taking a swig from his water bottle and glanced over at Elm. They were both in the Atlas Academy gym, dressed in their usual workout attires. He had just finished running a few miles and was taking a break when Elm popped that question. Jaune pulled his lips off of the bottle and swallowed the water in his mouth to answer her. “Uuuuuh like... 170 pounds. 180 maybe. Why?”

Elm just continued to focus on wrapping some bindings around her hands, but she did respond absently. “No reason. But that’s like... 200ish with all of your gear right?”

“Yeeeeah... I guess so.”

“Okay then.” Elm clenched her fists to make sure that her bindings were good to go, then moved over to one of the nearby weight bars. After looking at the weight on it, she nodded to herself and picked up two weight plates, adding them to both sides of the bar. Jaune could see that they were both 50 pounds. And judging by what was already on the bar when she went over, Jaune had to guess the bar now weighed at least 200 pounds. Maybe even 250. 

Elm smiled to herself and glanced over at Jaune, who was still sitting down on a bench and still staring at her. Their eyes locked and Elm felt a small rush go through her chest as she grabbed the bar from underneath with both of her hands.

With little effort, Elm lifted the bar up and began curling it. All with perfect form, no shaking in her body, and all with a confident smile and seductive look directed right at Jaune. She subtly licked her lips as she saw his eyes widen and cheeks grew red. She confidently said, "Guess this means I wouldn’t have any trouble holding you up huh Little Knight~?. But let me know if you wanna test it out personally~.” and sent an air kiss and a wink his way for good measure. All without breaking her form.

Jaune just looked away from his senior teammate and covered his face from her view with his water bottle. He still wasn’t used to her teasing, but he was very happy that they were the only ones in the gym. His baggy shorts did little to hide the slight bulge in them.

Harriet

Harriet sent a quick right jab towards Jaune’s head. She slipped it past his raised forearms that he was trying to block with. Her gloved knuckles collided with his right eye, which made him recoil back. Thankfully they had aura otherwise he’d probably have a black eye. Jaune was even more thankful she didn’t have her exoskeleton arms, otherwise it’d also probably be a cracked eye socket.

Jaune’s head snapped back from the blow and he stepped back with one foot, trying to regain his balance. Harriet wasn’t going to let her opening pass by however. She quickly jumped at the man in front of her. Almost in slow motion, Harriet turned her body in midair to land with her thighs on Jaune’s shoulders, her crotch, which was only covered by some white athletic shorts, was less than an inch from Jaune’s face. Harriet’s momentum from her jump forced Jaune to take a few more steps back, pushing him even farther across the mat they were sparring on.

A brief pause came across the two. Harriet glanced down at Jaune, whose upper half was leaning backwards at quite a big angle. Jaune’s eyes reopened after he closed them to avoid the hit he thought Harriet was going to dish out after she jumped at him. They looked at each other for a moment, then Harriet smirked deviously and finished her move.

She spun herself around Jaune’s head and flung him down to the mat in one smooth motion. She rolled with him as his body hit the ground and immediately rushed to get back above him. She got above him, cocking her arm back while she kneeled above him. She was completely ready to rain down the blows when Jaune raised his head up and yelled out, “I yield!” from beneath her.

The female Ace Op let out a short sigh and lowered her arm. Seeing the incoming punch go away, Jaune dropped his head back down and let out his own sigh. “Man... today is not my day.”

Harriet rested her elbow on her raised knee. “Hey, that was only the fifth match today. And you landed some good hits on me.”

“Still my fifth loss though.”

“Yeah yeah, and soon you’ll get your first win, so don’t beat yourself up about it.” She smirked and leaned over Jaune more so she could really look down on him. “That’s my job.” To emphasize her point, she jutted her thumb towards her smirking face.

“Ha ha. Can you let me up now Harriet?”

“Hmmmm... I dunno~.” Harriet dropped her one one she had probed up, so that she was now on both of her knees. And straddling Jaune’s chest. As Jaune’s face lit up like a fire Dust crystal, Harriet sat her butt down right on his chest, her firm cheeks squishing down on his hard chest. And she totally didn’t grind down on him. “I kinda like how you look under me~.” Jaune just shut his eyes tightly and looked away from her, his face totally red. He couldn’t even retort, he was so flustered. 

Turns out he didn’t need to as Harriet started laughing out loud. “Haha no need to get so shy! I’m just messing with you Rookie! Come on,” Harriet stood up, still above Jaune, and offered her hand down to him. “Get off the floor. I think we’ve sparred enough for today.”

Jaune glanced back above him and saw the hand. After a moment of hesitation, he accepted it and the smaller woman yanked him up to his feet with surprising ease. He hopped back a step when he got to his feet, definitely not to back up from the woman in front of him.

But Harriet still seemed amused all the same. She placed a hand on her hip as she said, “How about you finish the workout with some leg stuff? You still need to get the base a bit stronger.”

“S-sure Harriet... Thanks.” Jaune quickly took the opportunity to turn around and hide his still reddened cheeks. 

Harriet watched Jaune the entire time he walked away and towards some of the workout equipment nearby. She also took a few glances at his ass while she did so. ‘I’ll never get tired of kicking that ass~’

133 notes - Posted April 13, 2022

#3

5 rwby ships reactions to Jaune having his towel drop by accident after exiting the shower

I'm going to have to start using a spinner app for these haha. There are too many ships to choose from for me!

Arcwitch (Glynda x Jaune)

*Light pink rises to her cheeks and the lenses of her glasses turn white, hiding her staring* "Mr. Ar- Jaune... Please cover yourself up."

Willow Knight (Willow x Jaune)

*Sips from wine bottle* "Lucky me~."

Lancaster (Ruby x Jaune)

*Atomic blush*

Arkos (Pyrrha x Jaune)

*Blush* "U-um J-Jaune... Your towel." *Covers her eyes and points, but peeks through her fingers*

At the Stake / Grimm Knight (Salem x Jaune)

*Sits down and looks at him like she's appraising a piece of art* "What a lovely specimen~."

How did the spinner work out? And is this format okay?

161 notes - Posted January 14, 2022

#2

jaune sempai au) ruby learns that jaune's big brother instincts can be exploited for hugs. and she also learns jaune gives the best hugs. she might have most of the female (and a good portion of the male) population after her now but she's very happy with her discovery

"Jaaaaaaaaaauuuuuune!"

Jaune swallowed the food that was in his mouth and looked over from his seat in the cafeteria to where his name was being called. And the voice calling him was slowly getting closer and subsequently louder. He smiled as he saw a mass of black and red bolting towards him quickly, but not as quickly as he knew she could. The smile on her face let him know nothing was wrong, and it was good news.

Jaune returned her smile and spun around on the bench to fully face her as she reached him. "Hey Ruby, nice to see you in such a good mood today. Is there any particular reason why?"

Jaune pulled his head back in surprise as a sheet of paper was thrust in front of it. An emerald green "98%: A" in the top right corner was the first thing his eyes saw on it.

"Me and Weiss got an A on Professor Oobleck's essay that we handed in yesterday!"

"That's great to hear Ruby! But it's 'Weiss and I'."

Ruby tilted her head to the side just a tad, confusion in her innocent silver eyes. "You and Weiss what?"

Weiss's top half poked out from behind Ruby, almost out of nowhere. "Don't trouble yourself too much with that Mr. Arc. I've been trying to improve her grammar since the first week of Beacon." Weiss stepped out from behind Ruby as she finished speaking, arms crossed and an icy expression resting on her face.

Ruby turned to fully face her partner. "My grammar is fine! You're just nitpicky! But anyways, Jaune!" Ruby turned back to her upperclassman of two years. "I worked really hard on this essay, do you think I could get a reward?!"

Jaune blinked a few times. That was certainly an... unexpected request from her. 'But... I mean she did do well on her essay, and she can't really want something too insane from me right?' "Uh suuuure Ruby. Uh... what did you have in mind as a reward?"

At this, Ruby's excitement actually diminished a little as she became rather nervous. "C-can I have another hug?"

Several loud snaps were heard as several people around the trio turned their heads to face them, Weiss included as she looked at partner in shock at her request.

"Uh sure, no problem." Jaune was the only one that didn't seem affected by her request, not seeming to find it strange at all. Jaune swung his legs over to the other side of the bench and stood up. As he stood up to his full height, almost a foot taller than the younger girl, and opened his arms casually to offer a hug to her.

Ruby smiled and darted into his arms, her semblance activating and a flurry of rose petals spawned behind her as she rushed into Jaune's arms.

Jaune wasn't even moved by the red and black girl rushing into his chest like a missile, but did wrap his arms around her back, giving her the same kind of hug he'd given to his family members for years. Firm and tightly, but not squeezing her.

Ruby felt the strong arms wrap around her and immediately did the same as she felt herself start to melt into his hug. Even Yang and her Dad didn't give hugs as great as this! It was so comforting and warm! She just... loved it!

"Heeeeeee~..."

She didn't even care about the content, dream sigh sneaking out of her as she smiled blissfully. Bubbles and sparkles started to float around her as well.

"Uhhh Ruby? You okay?"

Ruby's eyes snapped open as she looked up to see a curious look on Jaune's face. And just like that, the sparkles vanished, the bubbles popped, and her own little heavenly moment ended.

Ruby pulled away, embarrassed at how she'd acted. Although her cheeks were for a bit more than just that. "Y-yeah! Tooootally cool! Like mega cool! ...Well by Jaune!"

Without any more words to say, Ruby took off in her signature flurry of petals and vanished from everyone's sight. The sound of the cafeteria door shutting and the trail of petals let all the room's occupants know where she went.

Weiss sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "What. A. Dolt." With a deep inhale, she looked back to Jaune and did a slight nod to him. "I apologize Mr. Arc, but I need to go follow my partner. I need to make sure she works on her other assignments tonight. Good day."

Jaune just waved goodbye to the girl in white as she turned and walked away with her usual perfect posture. After she left, Jaune turned back around and went back to sitting at the cafeteria table again.

As he went back to eating his lunch, Jaune completely missed some of the reactions that had occurred throughout the rest of the student body in the cafeteria.

There were several faces of envy, and a few smiling at how cute the interaction was. However, there were a couple more... notable reactions though.

Yang was staring in shock at the upperclassman. How did her shy, dorky, little sister manage to get a hug from the cute, popular third year like it was nothing?!

Pyrrha was also staring at him, though more in harmless surprise than anything. She simply asked him for a hug? Could it really be that easy?

And Joan? ... Joan's reaction included gritting teeth and pushing her fork so hard into her plate that the prongs began to bend. But she totally wasn't jealous! She... just thought that he should go around hugging people to carefree like that! Yeah! Hugs like that should only be for people you're really close to! Like family members!

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166 notes - Posted January 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Has Jaune's harem ever thrown him a rainbow party?

A bit of a long Jaune x Harem lemon ahead. Haven’t posted something like this in a while so I hope you all enjoy it!

Pyrrha slowly dragged her green lips up Jaune shaft and pulled off his cock, a disappointed groan coming from Jaune. Left behind near the last two to three  inches of his cock was a stack of lipstick marks around his dick. A new green ring was at the top of the stack, a shade of green that matched the color of her lipstick. The other colors of rings in the stack after the green one included red, white, yellow, orange, black, purple, and magenta.

“Hehe, we sure have,” Pyrrha stood up and moved out of the way so the next girl could take her place between Jaune’s legs, that being the dark skinned beauty Emerald. “And are currently doing another one~.”

Emerald smiled smugly as she put her hands on Jaune’s knees to keep them spread open and rubbed them lovingly. She slowly used her tongue to get her lips wet. She was wearing dark brown lipstick and wanted to make sure her own ring would be visible too. 

She was also pretty excited for her turn finally. After almost 20 minutes of waiting and watching all of the other girls blow their shared boyfriend, she was just about to snap. But now his dick was all hers. And the whole reason that she opted to go last was about to happen.

She’s the one that gets to let him cum~.

Emerald brought her dark lips to the tip of Jaune’s cock and gave it a quick kiss. It twitched under her warm lips and Emerald smiled against the rigid head. The dick really never lied, she supposed~. And it must really like all the attention it has been getting today~.

Emerald slowly parted her lips and his dick slid right in comfortably. Well, comfortably for Emerald. For Jaune it was more accurate to say it was blissful as her warm mouth welcomed his cock. Her lips trailed all the way down to reach the stack of lipstick marks around his cock, stopping just at the top of the rings.

Then she started blowing him. She brought her mouth back up to his head only to slide back down immediately. She repeated that again and again, quickly building up speed in her bobbing. Impressively, Emerald never went below her own lipstick mark on his cock so none of the others got messed up. And since she was only sucking the remaining five inches of Jaune’s cock, it was much easier to blow him quickly than it usually was. She also wasn’t gagging because of it.

“Mmmmm slllrp mmmm. Hmmmm MMM! Guuug slurp.”

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t make some noise for the fun of it~.

Up and down. Up and down. Her head moved so fast that her mint green hair started bouncing with each bob. Her brown lips dragging on the veiny, thick rod the entire time, smearing the brown lipstick all along it the whole time.

“Hoooo dust! Em! Y-you got me so close!”

Emerald paused just a moment on the head when Jaune moaned that out. She knew he was going to blow soon, so she wanted as much of her mouth free for his cum as she could have. Her lips stayed locked around his tips, but then her tongue started doing all the work. 

Inside her warm mouth was an assault of teasing stimulations from her. She gave the head some gentle licks, swirled her tongue around the whole head, prodded and teased the hole a little, and sucked on it haaaard. It was only a matter of time before Jaune came. Which he did.

But without any kind of spoken warning. Not that Emerald really cared though.

As Emerald was teasing his dick hole with the tip of her tongue once again, she suddenly felt his cock pulsate, and then cum rushed out and splash onto her tongue. Emerald stopped licking immediately and just focused on either sucking, or just letting his cum fill her mouth. Jaune finally let out a deep moan after he shot about his third rope of cum into her mouth. 

Emerald kept her lips sealed tight and stayed there on her knees between Jaune’s legs, letting him take all the time he needed to finish his climax. As his cock finally slowed down in it’s pulsing all the way to a stop, Emerald released her mouth’s captive.

She closed her lips briefly, just so she didn’t spill any cum, and looked up past Jaune’s cock to his face. When she made eye contact with the panting man, showed him all the thick cum she had pooled in her mouth. And then swallowed it happily. The semen went down her throat very easily, despite how thick it was.

Emerald finally had the chance to speak now that her mouth was fully free after several minutes. “Ahhhhh~. Amazing like always babe~.”

“Fuuuuck mmmm~! I’ll say Emerald! That was so hot to watch!”

Emerald turned her head and glanced behind her at the other girls in the room. All of whom were wearing different colors of smeared lipstick. And who were also in various stages of masturbation or pleasing other girls.

Yang, with bright orange lipstick and the one who had spoken, was holding Blake’s head while she ate her out. The cat faunus’s purple lipstick still managing to leave marks around her pussy.

Ruby and Weiss were both three fingers deep and moaning steadily. Their red and white lipstick was still rather well kept compared to the rest of them. 

Arlsan was fully sitting on Resse’s face, a very pleased smirk was on her yellow lips while Reese’s magenta lips worked away on her pussy. 

And finally there was Cinder and Pyrrha, the two were taking turns sucking on each other’s big tits. Cinder’s lips were currently sucking on Pyrrha’s right nipple, leaving behind black lipstick marks. She already had a nice set of green marks right in the middle of her tits from the Mistral Champion, it was only fair she gets to leave some marks too~.

While the other eight girls were all having their fun, Emerald looked back to her boyfriend. “When we have rainbow parties though, everyone likes to get a bit more colorful~. Isn’t that right Jaune~?”

Jaune nodded slowly and looked down at the art on his cock, then back up to all his girlfriends and their own colorful messes and marks.

He did enjoy the former a lot, but the later was definitely his preferred view.

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174 notes - Posted January 20, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

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[itcamefromthetoybox]

Clearly the Bad Guy

Tomorrow’s my birthday, which, as you can imagine, I’m super excited for. Already, I’m getting birthday presents in the mail, and so, I decided to talk about one of them today. It’s fitting that the last review of 2022 is this dude, considering how we started 2022, and also considering what a dumpster fire the year turned out to be. Let’s end the year how we started it: looking at a creepy skull face. Now, let’s delve into “Masters of the Universe Origins 200X Skeletor” and see if he deserves a spot on your shelves.

My first exposure to “Masters of the Universe” was as a kid in 2002 when Cartoon Network aired the rebooted series. I absolutely adored Skeletor. He was sinister, proudly evil, comedic, and also a legitimate threat. His own minions lived in fear of him and he rode around on a panther. Unlike the Filmation Skeletor, who I am also very fond of, he was funny without being a joke, and viewers knew this was someone to dread. In this series, we did see an origin for Skeletor. 16 years ago, Skeletor, then called Keldor, tried to conquer the world and found himself opposed by the man who would be He-Man’s father, Randor, leading the other heroes. In the final battle, he tried throwing a vial of acid at Randor, who deflected it into Keldor’s face. Yeah, that was a bit intense. Keldor fled and made a deal with the demonic sorcerer Hordak to be transformed into Skeletor, since acid to the face tends to be a bit deadly, and Keldor wanted to live longer than the next hour. He and his minions were sealed behind a mystic wall for 16 years, though they eventually escaped to do battle with He-Man and his band of do-gooders.

This Skeletor will be old enough to drink next year!

This figure’s really interesting to me, because it’s an Origins figure, meaning that it’s an updated design from the original line of figures in the 80’s, but it’s meant to emulate a figure from 2002, released in honor of the 40th anniversary of the “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” franchise. Skeletor does come out looking good, but if you know the 2002 figure, you can really see where the designers had to make compromises with the design to make it work with the Origins toys. On the upside, if you don’t know the 2002 figure, then you won’t notice this at all, since he’s just a straightforward Skeletor with no gimmicks. He looks exactly like how Skeletor should look, he has a very basic design, and he honestly works as a good first Skeletor figure for people looking to get into the Origins line.

Like all Origins figures, Skeletor has fantastic articulation. He’s very posable and fun to play with, and his chest piece and skirt, which are removable with some difficulty, don’t get in the way of his movements. Just know that they’re made of a softer plastic and can be bent out of shape if you’re not careful.

Once sold out his entire team to see if he could hire actually competent staff.

Skeletor comes with two accessories: his magic Havoc Staff and his sword from the 2002 cartoon. The Havoc Staff is unchanged from every other Origins Skeletor, so not really much to say there. It’s a purple staff with a ram’s head, and it fits in Skeletor’s hand. His sword, meanwhile, both looks cool and is my one problem with the figure. The 2002 Skeletor’s sword could split in half into two swords, and in their combined form, they actually had two handles. Each side of the sword even looked different, to show kids that they were two swords stuck together. This Skeletor’s sword has the two handles, the different designs on each side of the sword, and even sculpted line down the middle of the blade like the combined sword from 2002 had. The issue is, though, this sword doesn’t split in two like the 2002 one. It looks cool and fits in Skeletor’s hand, but the fact it has all the signs of being two swords but isn’t bugs me. I can live with it, but it’s still something to note if you’re getting this toy.

Dark plastic really does not photograph well. I mean, at all. Pretend you can see the detailing.

Other than my issue with the sword not being able to split, there is one other problem I have with this toy: there’s nowhere to store the sword. Most Origins figures don’t have a place to store accessories, so that shouldn’t be an issue, but my most recent Origins Skeletor is Battle Armor Skeletor, who has a place to store his sword, so I can’t help but be a little annoyed, especially since the 2002 figure did have a storage spot on his back.

Now for the moment of truth: would I recommend this figure? Absolutely. He’s a really solid Skeletor other than a few details that I admit are me nitpicking and comparing this figure to one from twenty years ago. He’s also only about $12-$18, depending on where you get him. I know that’s a wide range of prices. Toy prices have been kinda weird lately, and most stores with a toy aisle have He-Man stuff. But I would definitively recommend this toy for fans both young and old, and I for one really enjoy him. Also, it just hit me that I watched the show this guy’s from over 20 years ago. It’s seriously been over 20 years. I’m 31 tomorrow. Oh God, I’m old. Anyways, this is JS, signing off and wishing you Happy Toy Hunting!

#motu #masters of the universe #motu origins #masters of the universe origins #skeletor #toy #toys #toy review #review #reviews