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#fun fact! cowboys are my favourite gender

vikingqueer · 3 years

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music recommendations because i have some thoughts™

i don't wanna be that person who's like "my music taste is so weird lol" but i find that very often most of my friends don't really care for the music i like so i thought i'd just make a long ass post about it on tumblr instead. Fair warning, I'm very passionate about MIKA and The Mechanisms and so this very quickly got VERY long because it is part of my ongoing campaign to convince people to listen to mika and the mechs.

1) MIKA in general, but especially My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019) and No Place In Heaven (2015) (especially the Deluxe version!!)

MIKA is a kind of British singer (half Lebanese, grew up in France blabla), and you probably know him for Grace Kelly and Relax, Take It Easy from his first album Life In Cartoon Motion from 2007. He writes a lot of FUN music, interspersed with the occasional slightly sadder song, especially when looking at an album like No Place In Heaven, which contains a lot of songs with gay themes, resulting in some songs that are just a little bit ouch. He's originally classically trained and has a frankly RIDICULOUS range and idk he just writes very good pop music. Also I have so much respect for that time he talked about how a lot of pop is very fake, with like expensive cars and stilettos and mini skirts in the snow and said "Because I walk down the street, and I don't see any of that. I see fat women and gay men. I don't know... That's real". He's written 5 albums; My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019), No Place In Heaven (2015), The Origin Of Love (2012), The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009), and Life In Cartoon Motion (2007).

For starters, I recommend listening to Last Party, Origin Of Love, Grace Kelly, Blame It On The Girls, Blue, Happy Ending, Pick Up Off The Floor, Last Party, Underwater, Tomorrow and Tiny Love (yes this is a long list but i REALLY love MIKA). If you want a slightly broader palette that's not just my favourites, I recommend the Mika starter pack on spotify.

2) The Mechanisms. I warn you. I am making this a thing. I have been obsessed with the mechs since last march.

Boy, where to start? The Mechanisms were a British 9 member space pirate story-telling cabaret that "died" in January 2020. They rewrite songs to fit retellings of various stories. I don't even know what genre I'd describe them as, but probably folk but steam-punk?? Their 4 "main" albums are concept albums, and I honestly just recommend listening to the from beginning to end in chronological order. A good way to get into the mechs is also to listen to UDAD and then watching the live show on youtube or alternately try giving Death To The Mechanisms a listen, to get good quality live show audio of TBI and various other stuff. Also, it was streamed on YouTube and someone combined the footage with the album audio and it rocks. Really, I think the mechs' best selling points are honestly just their concept albums:

Once Upon a Time (In Space) Their first album from 2012. I'd say this is the most "easily digestible" for the general public, since it's a retelling of various fairytales. So, what if Old King Cole was in fact not merry, but rather a cold-blooded dictator, intent on colonising as much of the galaxy as possible. What if Snow White was a general, looking to avenge what King Cole did to her sister, Rose. What if Cinderella was to be wedded to Rose the day that King Cole attacked in order to kidnap Rose? But y'know, In Space and also like every other mechs album it's a beautiful tragedy. Fave songs are Old King Cole, Pump Shanty, and No Happy Ending.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn You guessed it, it's a story about Odysseus, or Ulysses because I guess Ulysses is easier to rhyme or fit in the meter or something, idk. Ulysses is a war hero of unknown gender who is said to keep something that could take down the corrupt Olympians, meanest families in the City, in a vault to which only they know the passcode. Oedipus, Heracles, Orpheus, and Ariadne have been hired by Hades, who happens to be The Mechs' quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, to get into Ulysses' vault. I didn't care much for udad at first, but honestly it's got some real bangers and the story is really good. UDAD weirdly stands out as the only of the concept albums to not feature any gay relationships, per se. Fave songs are Riddle of the Sphinx, Favoured Son, and Underworld Blues.

High Noon over Camelot This is my favourite mehcs album. So basically, this is Arthurian legend, but it's a space western and Jonny D'Ville does a bad southern accent. This is the story of the cowboy lovers Arther, Lancelot, and Guinevere searching for the Galfridian Restricted Acces Interface Login, or GRAIL, in order to stop their world from falling into the sun. Meanwhile, Mordred and Gawaine are ruling Camelot, and Mordred has convinced Gawaine to try to establish peace with the Saxons by whom Mordred was raised, but Gawaine hates viciously. If you love getting your heart broken and songs by a fucking off the rails batshit preacher I HIGHLY recommend hnoc. Fave songs are Gunfight at the Dolorous Guard, Blood and Whiskey, and Once and Future King. Honorary mention for Hellfire because it awakens something animalistic in me.

The Bifrost Incident TBI is the frankly only good adaptation of norse mythology I've ever known of, and I say that as Dane who was literally forced to learn things about norse mythology in school because it's my heritage or whatever. I've been listening to TBI a lot lately because it's VERY good. It's definitely the most refined of the mechs' albums (because it's the newest) but also I just love a little bit of cosmic horror. 80 years ago, Odin, the All-Mother, ruler of Asgaard, launched a train through the wormhole Bifrost that would reduce the travel between Asgaard and Midgaard from 3 months to 3 days, but things didn't go quite as planned. Lyfrassir Edda of the New Midgaard Transport Police is trying to solve the case of why suddenly the train has arrived 80 years late; to figure out whether it was accident or maybe it was sabotaged by Loki, who was allegedly sentence to death her murder of Baldur, by the Midgaardian resistance led by Loki's wife Sigyn, or maybe by Thor, who was to take over after Odin, and who holds quite the grudge because he used to be a friend of Loki's. You might've heard the song Thor from this album, it's apparently quite popular. Fave songs are Loki, Ragnarok III: Strange Meeting, and Ragnarok V: End of The Line. Yet again an honorary mention: Red Signal because while Lovecraft was a bitch, his invocations are fucking RAW.

Basically, the Mechanisms do all of their performances in character as captain first mate Jonny D'Ville, quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, pilot DrumBot Brian, master-at-arms Gunpowder Tim, science officer Raphaella la Cognizi, doctor Baron Marius Von Raum (neither a baron, nor a doctor), archivist Ivy Alexandria, engineer Nastya Rasputina, and The Toy Soldier, who is, as usual, present. You can find very obscure lore about the crew of the Aurora here, tidbits on Tales To Be Told and TTBT Vol. 2, such as One Eyed Jacks, The Ignominious Demise of Dr. Pilchard, Gunpowder Tim vs. The Moon Kaiser, Lucky Sevens, and Lost in the Cosmos.

If you feel like listening to a full 40-50 minute album to find out if you like a band is a bit much, I recommend listening to one of the mini stories Alice, Swan Song, or Frankenstein, which are about 12, 5 and 9:30 minutes respectively.

3) The Amazing Devil You know that guy who played Jaskier in the Witcher? I got into The Amazing Devil from spotify recommending them because I listened to the mechs, and apparently Joey Batey from The Amazing Devil is the same Joey Batey who was in the Witcher. Both him and Madeleine Hyland are VERY talented singers and songwriters and their second album The Horror and the Wild makes me go out into the forest and SCREAM. I listened to it on repeat for like a month straight. I guess they'd also be considered folk, but like. New Folk. Also yes, this is another British artist, I don't know why I'm like this. I've never really gotten that into their first album, Love Run, but King slaps. As I understand there's this whole lore about the Blue Furious Boy and Scarlet Scarlet, Joey and Madeleine respectively, but unlike the Mechanisms it's actually possible to find out things about the actual real people and harder to find the obscure lore? I'm open for people to please help me. Fave songs are The Horror and the Wild, Farewell Wanderlust, and That Unwanted Animal, which is literally a third of their second album, but again. I haven't really listened to Love Run that much, and I just LOVE the harmonies on THATW. (also im gay and dramatic leave me alone)

4) dodie I have so much love for this woman. Like many others, I first knew dodie as doddleoddle on youtube. I think I first stumbled across her in probably 2015, because I distinctly already knew her before she released her first EP Sick of Losing Soulmates in 2016. I think I watched probably every video she's ever made in the span of a few weeks. I just loved her quiet sound and was absolutely HOOKED. Also she's actually the reason I got into MIKA originally, so thanks for that. Dodie just realeased her first album Build A Problem (in addition to her three EP's; the one mentioned above, You, and Human) and it slaps. Yes dodie is also British Fave songs are probably Monster, Rainbow, and In The Middle.

5) Cladia Boleyn Unfortunately, Claudia Boleyn only has three singles and that's it. She's been making content on youtube for quite a while, and that's how I first discovered her. I don't know what genre her music is, but I like it. The songs are Celesta, George, and Mother Maiden Crone, of which the latter is my favourite. I'm not saying Claudia Boleyn invented women in 2017 when she released Mother Maiden Crone, but she did. Also you guessed it, Claudia Boleyn is British.

6) Hozier I'm not about to tell you about Hozier. You know who he is. Listen to Nina Cried Power, Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene, and Shrike. Also Hozier isn't stricly British in that he is definitely from A British Isle, but Ireland is not part of the UK. Give me a break.

7) Oh Land Oh Land IS DANISH. I like her early music best, because I'm not that into the electronic sound. I guess Oh Land is just you regular old pop, but with the occasional weird vibe? Oddly enough, I like her first album Fauna best. Unfortunately I haven't really listened to her newest album Family Tree much, but it seems good? Fave songs are Frostbite, Love You Better and Family Tree. I cried on the bus, first time I listened to the Danish version of Love You Better, Elsker Dig Mer because my mother tongue always just hits harder. Also Frostbite is Oh Land doing a duet with herself which is pretty cool.

8) Oysterband This is a live recommendation. I mean they're a decent folk band and all, but they're a fucking experience live. If you like folk and you ever get the opportunity to see Oysterband live, do it. Unfortunately, yes. They are British. Either way, they are incredible on a scene and I think they deserve a mention for that.

9) Ben Platt Honestly don't know much about this guy, but he's not British and he was in Dear Evan Hansen. He released an album in 2019, Sing To Me Instead, and I just think it's a good album, there isn't really not much more to it. Fave songs are Grow As We Go, Bad Habit, and In Case You Don't Live Forever.

and thats all for now. this has been a ramble. shout out to you if you actually read all of this, especially the mechs part.

#music stuff #amalie.txt #music recommendations #mika #the mechanisms #the amazing devil #dodie #claudia boleyn #hozier #oh land #oysterband #ben platt

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loudestcloud · 3 years

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Time for Luffy's fashion exam! Now, I'll be honest, I did skip an outfit because I decided I will be ending this whole thing with the Strawhat fashion show in Episode of Luffy. Also, sorry for the posting gap, I remembered I have other unfinished post sets. That being said, this is a very long one so let's do this!

Kid Luffy, Post-Enies Lobby & Fish-Man Island: I think it's super cute when Luffy has white t shirts with red based logos because it reminds me of the first picture. Makes him look baby plus, they can always be found in cute domestic EPs or fun, cute flashbacks. The shorts change over time and that's also kinda cute, a range of cuffs is a nice change up. It's nice to see the red contrast the blue shorts and the white is a nice color on him cos it contrast his hair!

Romance Dawn, Enies Lobby, Thriller Bark, Sabaody Archipelago, Amazon Lily, Marineford & last Dressrosa outfit: This look is the pre Luffy look. It's the pre Timeskip look everyone thinks of is cuffed shorts, Kimono sandels and sleeveless vest (and Strawhat, obviously) but have you ever seen them all in a line? It's mad. Each outfit is the same basic look bit more are more spicy each time! I like the Thriller Bark and Sabaody Archipelago looks a little bit more cos it's nice to see that jacket open and it feels like he was trying something new. I also feel that the buttons on the jacket look like the ones on Shanks' pegged ankle sailor pants when we first see him so that's cool. (it took me hours to find the name for his trousers, oh my fucking god) The last Dressrosa outfit feels like a nice callback to the rest of the line up here without being too much cos it's just a red vest top instead and I do find it funny it's like the Enies Lobby and it's used in Dressrosa because of the jokes people make about Robin and Law being so similar.

Timeskip: This is it lads, it's the one true icon itself, the post look! ☺️ When I sit back and look at it I see all the people this look is influenced by and want to cry at how masterful it really is. (Now, I do wanna say that I didn't come up with this nor am I the first to say it and I am definitely probably looking too much into this but) The yellow belt is taken from Shanks' red belt the first time we see him and the Shanks look Luffy is more familiar with. Now onto the jacket. I know it won't stand out as to why for most but it's Ace inspired! When Ace leave to become a pirate, the start of his adventure, he has his jacket open and Luffy having his jacket open also shows his scar from the ending of Ace's adventure. I also really appreciate how no one hides scars in this anime. Also, someone said that the style of the jacket and it's fancy frills could be in reference to Sabo's little jabot collar and honestly I do see it. it's quite subtle unlike Shanks' but not as hard to catch as Ace's so I enjoy thinking that it's there too. Lastly, he still has his cuffed shorts and kimono sandels because it's still Luffy's outfit at the end of the day and he is still who is is, just with a stronger appreciation of what people have done for him now. It's also his colour pallette for the pure fact he is the main character n needs his pallet. also sometimes he just has normal wooden sandels but the same outfit sometimes, it's a small detil a lot of people overlook but I prefer the sound of his Kimono sandels 😊

Dressrosa: I love this outfit cos it's stilly but also has very nice vibes. Looks ready for the beach but is really throwing hands and that's the best kind of outfit, it's a nice expectation subversion tbh. I also like how he tried to hide the Straw hat but not... All of it? And I love how the crew didn't actually question it either. It would have been super easy for one of them to just tell him to leave it behind or something but I do really love how respectful they always are of the hat. I myself have a hat that's super important to me and when I loose it I go mad.

Whole Cake Island: I love this arc for outfits! I swear if the actual content of it doesn't kill me, the act looks will 😭 it's all so magical and it knows it is! Like I said before, white is a good color on him as he has black hair but for the same reason, so is black! In this arcs outfit range, the Staw hat seems almost invisible and his outfit gets less and less 'Luffy' as the arc gose on showing this is not about him. He's not the focus of this arc and you can see that in a lot of the outfits thb. I also like the lack of blue and yellow, 2/3 of his colors as Sanji is often associated with those too as we've talked about before. Also, I like the little red strips on the white jacket with the gold buttons, idk why and I think it's nice that the last 2 outfits are so simple in general, it's a nice look for him. oh, what's that? A Pink jabot? Your killing me Lu, straight up killing me here lil' bro! Side note, is this the first time in canon Luffy has worn a suit jacket or is it the only time I've noticed? Cos DAMM!! Shits sick as fuck and I actually love that when wearing a suit jacket as such he always keep short on 😆

Spa Island, Z's Ambition & Strong World: WHOS READY FOR A RELAXING SUNNY DAAAYY!? (pun not intended but very much enjoyed) I actually adore the fact Luffy still tries to go swimming cos it was his favourite thing to do as a kid so like fuck Luffy is gonna give up on that. He's got his safety measures ready, what more do you want from him? I mean I personally want him not to swim with his hat on cos it's litrally Staw and that's not good for water but anyway Z's Ambition, am I right!? The top is so fucking cute and I just noticed those shorts are also ✨designer✨ fancy man!! Now, the pic of Zoro is the one I missed out before and it's also from Z's Ambition. I love that Luffy has the shark top but Zoro has the ocean shorts. I really love Zoro in this purple cos and thick white stripes really work with the ocean waves. It's really well put together and hes got dark brown sandels on to off set all the white but keep the purple from being a stand out color, it's cool! Than the last Luffy looks like he's at a fashion show. It looks like the shorts come from a kids set the shark top belongs to. Imagine those together, it'd be so cute. However, it isn't an ocean patten, those are clouds cos Nami has a bikini top with the same pattern in Skypiea and it's actually one of my favourites for her.

Boss Luffy Historical Special! This filler AU is so much fun, I think any it a lot. He has his hair up in that super cute and useless way that doesn't actually do much but I do have my hair like that a lot n it's just... nice? Idk, it's strange buy I like he did that. I really enjoy his Kimono more that the actual Wano one cos it's a lot more simple look. The Sai being tucked in in that way is also cool but kinda makes it look like it's stabbing him a bit 👁️👄👁️. I like the pin strips being like a faded purpleish cos if you just glance at it, it makes it look it fuzzy. The belt also looks very nice with the middle ligter bit. It really feels like the Wano one was inspired by this is a way cos of the color matches. Like, it's probably not but still.

3D2Y, Adventure of Nebulandia 😍 & Heart of Gold: Hat-less Luffy is both a sin and a blessing. Regardless, I LOVE OP BOYS IN HOODIES!! I had to show you this specific the 3D2Y because we don't see the hood and it's soooo cute cos it a paw 😍 but also 😬 cos it's like... Kuma's paw the thing that cause 3D2Y in the first place. But that's also why it's so cool at the same time and AHHHHHH 😄 Now! On to Nebulandia! I really like this movie but also in canon, how does he have that jumper? Who made it for him and can I have one? It's Usopp flag design so I guess it could be him but he doesn't seem the type. Point is I want one. Last of this set is some really cosy outfits!! "How much fur?" "Yes" am I right? Like the first one is sooooo cosy with all the fur! Plus, a funky new bamboo hat, always a good thing to have a new hat. I appreciate that you can see the zips on these too. Then the orange turtle neck one with little fluffy bits is just here cos it's so out of his usual looks, I had to at least mention it.

Strong world & Film Z: The shorts on the first one are really cute cos it's a light rosey pink with red fur and just a plain solid dark blue colour jacket works really well. Not to mention the fact he has a super cute orange and yellow flight helmet hat with goggles on under the Staw hat. The 2 bag straps also make an X which is a nice detail. The 2nd outfits in this movie are super fuckin cool ngl. It's so strange to see them all dress in black and have guns but I like the red shirt for him with the yellow highlighted parts. Makes the Straw hat actually work with the outfit instead of ignoring it. Film Z brings us the same flight helmet hat just brighter and without the goggles but also opens with this T-Shirt and Luffy being silly with it. I think that's the only reason to mention it, it's funny. Then the obligation pirate outfit, always stunning plus the meat belt.

Film: Gold & Stampede (also used in Cidre Guild): these are my top 3 Luffy outfits no matter what else I see. I love the straw cowboy hat sooooo much cos it's very Luffy. I like the balls they has as a team to choose white for all of them, considering they are all quite messy people, living for that dad shirt and I like the Golden chain around his neck but am always confused as to why it was never used against him. Like dude could and should have tried to choke him at least once, right? Anyway, the dress! Now, the dress isn't actually that good but it's my favourite because it shows how Luffy has no fucks about gendered things. On to of that, a big pink flower is wonderful and look at his confidences in it, he's so proud of it the boom, Nami told him he can't wear it! Lastly, the Stampede outfit!!! Just like the Nebulandia jumper, I have no idea who made it but it's irrelevant cos it's beautiful and I want it so badly. I like that it's white and red stripes, gives thenprefect vibes for Stampedes opening. The shirt is actually too big for him, you can see on his arms but it's actually super cute. I love the simple look of these shorts then the fact his yellow belt is replaced with white bandages and the black on the kimono sandels are now red? It's such a simple pallet and it's truly the best!

I also just wanna add, I think it's really cute when Luffy has the Straw hat on his back just cos his hair is really cute. Idk why, it's looks kinda cursed but cute at the same time

This post took 2 weeks or so to make and we made listening to the complete BNHA soundtrack, film gold OST and Sonic generations vol.1

Sanji

Zoro

Nami

#one piece #monkey d luffy #monky d luffy #straw hat luffy #monkey d. luffy #luffy #one piece luffy #op art ref #art ref #art reference

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causticsunshine · 3 years

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i was tagged by both the lovely @dyingstars-x and @harrymegirlfriend to answer twenty questions about myself! this was a lot more candid than i anticipated but here we go~

💗what do you prefer to be called name-wise?

alex!

💗when is your birthday?

july 21st! cancer season baybee

💗where do you live?

in the US! i've been in the pacific northwest for about eight years but i'm definitely still a californian at heart

💗three things you’re doing right now?

1. jobhunting 2. trying to open my online shop 3. attempting™️ to finish deadline stuff and this HSLOT drawing i've been working on since saturday 🤞🤞

💗four fandoms that have piqued your interest right now?

i go through little phases where i have my one big primary interest—one dee since returning to it last summer—that sticks around for awhile and then some smaller, less involved ones that tend to come and go, so i'd say right now the only other 'fandom' i'm kinda in is for MDZ/the untamed/cql, even though i'm a very late member to the party!

💗how is the pandemic treating you?

okay i guess? i'd really like to be moved out already as being in therapy and gaining confidence since my big mental breakdown last fall—accompanied with quitting my job of nearly four years that didn't get me anywhere in life—i've realized how many unhealthy behaviors and mindsets are perpetuated in my household and how they're....really not good for me at all. but i also know i can't get to the place i'd like to be mentally and emotionally without moving out, i also can't move out until i find a 9-5 with bennies with all my health problems + me losing my insurance in the new year so it's been....a time.

buuuut besides the soul crushing terror of being an adult living at home with people who don't understand you, i'm confident now and a lot of my mindsets have changed to healthier ones and i've regained my love of art and being creative?

💗song you can’t stop listening to right now?

it's a combination of 'i wish i never met you' by loote, 'crowd' by sophie cates, and...... 'stay' by the kid laroi + justin bieber (although i think that one's just an earworm i need to work out lmao)

💗recommend a movie

i just got to rewatch 'cowboy bebop: the movie' and it's sooo fun....(spoilers) i know the ending of the anime is supposed to be purposefully open as it just covers a section of time in the characters' lives where they're all together but i kinda wish i'd watched the movie after as opposed to when it takes place because it's a little bit...of a nicer (and much clearer) wrap up!

💗how old are you?

twenty five 🧓

💗school, university, occupation, other?

currently jobhunting for a Boring grown up job just for some regularity and insurance (and $$ to get my ass OUT) but i want to take on freelance commission work again too! i dropped out of uni in like 2018 because the school i was going to kept fucking me over with credits just to get my associate's but maybe i'll go back one day.....maybe.....

💗do you prefer hot or cold?

HOT only because it's so gd cold and wet where i live now and even when the summers are warm they're super short and don't compensate for the months i spend not moving out of arthritis pain and freezing my ass off

💗name one fact others may not know about you.

i always come up with fun ones when i don't have any reason to share them lmao but i guess.....staying on-brand with 1d stuff, and i might've said this before, but louis gave me my first bout of gender envy that i recognized as actual gender envy when i was like, fifteen? and as i was coming out of my obvious emo phase into one more subdued, i totally dressed like twink louis for almost a year....haircut and everything....

if i can find the one photo i'm thinking of i'll post it but until then use your imagination sjkgdf

💗are you shy?

i can be? i think once i vibe with someone enough it becomes easy to talk to and open up to them but before that i can be pretty closed off and a bit impersonal.

💗do you have any preferred pronouns?

they/them!

💗any pet peeves?

i'm one of those 'people talking or random noise being made near me while i'm trying to concentrate on something fuels my murder response out of nowhere' people but otherwise...outside of common courtesy/manners stuff being ignore, i don't think so? although i genuinely hate when people walk right behind me or right in front of me...shit makes me anxious and ticks me off dfjkngdf i got shit to do!!

💗what’s your favourite “dere” type?

am i boring if i say tsundere just because it's relatable? although dorodere is kinda fun in the right setting....i love a good character twist!

💗rate your life 1-10. 1 being really crappy and 10 being the best you could ever be.

i'd say a 5? there's a lot more i want to do and achieve and things i know i could have right now if my ADHD and anxiety didn't still have such a death grip on me but i'm also in the best headspace i've been in in years so i'll take that as a win!

💗what’s your main blog?

this one!

💗list your side blogs and what they’re used for.

swmpwxtch is my art-only blog because i'm slow at finishing things and know there's no point trying to make this an 'art blog' when i reblog so much, and then prickelndauge is my insp blog (so if you're wondering why there's a startling lack of fashion and art on this blog, it's mostly over there!), then i have one for creepy/spooky stuff (bonepickng) because i know not a lot of people want to see that on main, aaaaand am-ref a ref blog for art tips, life things, donation pools, etc.! (and some old urls i have saved)

💗is there anything you think people need to know about you before becoming friends with you?

at the risk of sounding like a YA protagonist: my heart is full of love and i try to be as understanding and open as i can be but i also have a very short bullshit fuse, so while i'm still happily understanding of certain behaviors and mindsets, if you cross the line that i put very bluntly in the sand, you're not crossing back over.

(ie i love my friends but don't be a dick and if you are you get one warning and that's all <3)

uhhh i know a lot of people got tagged already and have done this so! i'll be tagging @grimmpitch @hershelsue @niallnailme @dragmedown @ialwaysknewyouwerepunk @justmehernthemoon @non-binharry @genius0flove @mamaharry @theymetinthetoihlet @saintqueer and uhhh anyone else that would like to!! and if you've done this already please ignore me~

#tagged #twenty questions #oh geez that's me

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qwertyfingers · 3 years

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we know that bobby only watched ds9 and dean watched the tos movies for sure which implies he's seen tos as well (plus he calls jack spock). so what do you think everyone's favorite trek is? sam is without a doubt a tng fan first and foremost. i think out of all tos movies cas prefers the wrath of khan because he Feels Things when kirk and spock do the ta'al through the glass. charlie has definitely seen some trek (we've seen her llap), do you think she's into tos first and foremost? anyway let's talk about star trek nights in the bunker.

OKAY SO I HAVE. MANY MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS. SORRY THIS IS SO LONG.

like. like of COURSE bobby only likes ds9 of course he does i could have told you this without the show becuase like. bobby is That Bitch. i think rufus will have watched TOS at least because leonard nimoy worked hard on linking jewish faith and practices into the vulcan lore and i think that would mean something to him. bobby will catch rufus smiling at him sometimes while they’re watching ds9 and ask him what all gruffly and rufus will smirk at him and say something about sisko with jake and bobby with dean and bobby will just cough and take a swig of whiskey and rufus will raise his eyebrows but let it slide. rufus definitely makes a comment once about dean&cas being like jake&nog that totally flies over dean’s head but bobby is all knowing eyebrow raise about.

i think cas and jack would really like discovery. while it has some issues with inconsistency, pacing, being a little dark, it also does better than the other TV treks at utilising the nature of film as a medium to instill a sense of wonder, at space and the world, and that’s something they’d really appreciate. i have my own issues with disco, but an obol for charon is as close to the central core of trek that disco ever gets. cas and jack also like that one in particular because they like listening to all the different languages being spoken. they all love michael (everyone loves michael). cas’ faves are stamets and reno because they’re mean and gay, jack’s fave is tilly because she’s excitable and bright and he latches onto that. dean likes reno because she’s got spunk. sam’s fave is airiam and he will never forgive them for killing her off. sam, cas and dean all feel an uncomfortable kinship with both ash and culber - they’ve both been the one with monster teeming under the surface, controleld by something not themself, but they’ve also all spent that time in hell/purgatory, separated from everyone they love.

thinking about episodes that would really get to them all, darmok is. THE ONE. i have a whole unfinished essay about darmok as the platonic ideal of star trek; the perfect distillation of everything trek is SUPPOSED to be about. it doens’t always get there but by god it tries! that speech michael gives in the disco s2 finale - “There's a whole galaxy of people out there who will reach for you. You have to let them. Find that person who seems farthest from you and reach for them.” - that’s what darmok is about!!! it’s all about a situation where real communication seems impossible, where everything we know about talking and learning has broken down. and picard says, okay, i will find another way. i can’t relate to you, you can’t relate to me, but by god i’m going to try. we all meet people we have trouble communicating with in our lives, and often, those people will not care about changing their own ways to accommodate us. for people with autism, adhd, psychosis, the list goes on, this is a very common occurrence. it’s exhausting and frustrating and alienating. darmok is all about crossing that barrier. about reaching for someone through a world of difficulty and learning how to talk. learning how to share something with someone who seems out of our reach. it’s beautiful, it’s heartwrenching, it means more to me than i can easily put into words!

anyway i think the bunker fam would experience a lot of emotions watching it together. there’s defintiely a lot of hugging eachother, sam cries a lot and won’t look at anyone until after the episode ends. jack just asks a lot of questions and talks about his progress learning sign language with cas. dean snakes his hand into cas’ halfway through and doesn’t let go. doesn’t show the emotion on his face, but he clutches harder at the emotional beats. cas runs his fingers through jack’s hair and thinks a lot, and decides not to say anything unless dean talks first. its just a Lot for everyone.

dean def makes them marathon all the TOS and TNG movies. it’s an experience everyone needs at least once. i think you’re right about cas and TWOK with the ta’al through the glass, but also ‘this simple feeling’ and the hand hold would make him feel crazy. bones being the one that spock entrusts with his katra DEF makes dean feel some type of way because as much as destiel is kirkspock-coded, dean IS bones, and seeing spock trust bones so completely despite how at odds they were when they first knew eachother would dig deep into dean’s psyche and make him more than a little bit nutso. the movies are way too long for jack so he mostly sits and plays animal crossing while they watch and looks at the screen when everyone else gasps or when something exciting is happening that holds his attention for a while. sam’s fave is nemesis precisely because it’s terrible and he loves how camp it is.

dean has definitely seen all of trek. i refuse to believe someone who watches as much tv and films as dean wouldn’t sit and watch the whole shebang. i think he’s probably seen TOS and the TOS movies more than the others because its easier than sitting through 7 seasons, but i think rather than that being his favourite he’d just have really strong opinions about the best episodes of each one? like if you asked him what his favourite is he’d say you can’t answer that because they’re all so different from eachother

VOY - bride of chaotica, non seqitur, macrocosm for the favourite episodes. seven, janeway and tuvok would be his favourite characters. he think toms a bit of a knob but also feels a kinship with him for the similar brand of bab dad-ism but he wouldn’t be able to put that into words. he’s also a fierce defender of threshold being a good episode (he’s right for that)

DS9 - our man bashir it’s our man bashir. he doesn’t dislike ds9 but its very plot heavy and he didn’t care for it when he was younger. rewatching it after living through multiple supernatural wars he’d probably appreciate it more. i know for a fact he cries every time there’s an episode about sisko being a good dad. jadzia and garak are his faves

TNG - he LOVES q. he also absolutely will not be caught dead referencing how much loves q after cas comes into his life because sam will do the little brotherly knowing eyebrow raise at him and he will die of embarrassment. he regularly references ‘there are four lights’ because he’s a fucking nerd. he has made cas watch elementary my dear data and fistful of datas a half dozen times each at LEAST. cas KNEW how dean was going to be about the cowboy hat he’s defintiely got into full cowboy getup at home just for watching movies and in cas’ head star trek is fully to blame.

TOS - oh there are so many good TOS eps to choose from. obv he loves most of the series becuase TOS has MANY banger eps, his favourites are probably like. mirror mirror, amok time (baby dean defintiely had some kind of crisis watching it for the first time; i know the rituals are intricate). i know deep in my bones that dean watched the conscience of the king (introduction of the tarsus iv massacre) once and then spent his entire teenage years writing fic about that in his head, whether he posted it or not. dean related too much to those experiences of shared hunger. city on the edge of forever is one of everyone’s faves for a reason (and i’m STILL mad we never got a closer take on that episode in spn it could have been so fun).

ENT - he definitely thinks enterprise is stupid and he’s not wrong but he has also definitely watched it and been very repressed about the whole thing. mans was like oh i feel a kinship with malcolm reed the obviously repressed queer man. i will never examine this feeling ever again thank you <3 he also makes fun of archer for being obsessed with, of all sports, water polo. shran is his favourite character because he’s a little shit and makes him laugh, and t’pol, because t’pol is a badass and he’d appreciate that. i can’t remember the title of a single episode off the top of my head though lol.

i can see what you’re saying about sam being a TNG stan. i’m conflicted though, I feel like TNG’s generally the favourite of 1) obnoxious nerds who think knowing trivia facts makes them smart, 2) men desperately trying to seem masculine and 3) people who’ve watched it three times and have extremely complex thoughts on the personhood and rights of robots. i could see sam fitting into the third group, but people who are in it for the robot feelings are a coin flip between voyager and tng being the fave, and i just have a feeling that voyager would be his favourite. i know kid sam is getting gender envy watching voyager in shitty motels while dad and dean are out, trying to find the words for it. his first semester at stanford he talks a friend into giving him the janeway haircut and rides that high for months. sam’s favourite characters are seven and EMH.

sam and dean have definitely had dozens of long drawn out debates about philosophical topics in star trek. do the holograms deserve rights and if so which ones. are the romulans and vulcans still meaningfully the same people. was spock right for trying to foment reunification by going undercover on romulus. can the borg be redeemed. etc etc.

i haven’t seen any of picard at all so i can’t comment. i also think sam and dean probably read a lot of the trek books? they’re pretty common to find in secondhand bookstores and cheap, would have been even cheaper back in the day. sam probably doesn’t care for them much, dean has a few solid faves though. i’ve only read the disco books so i can’t comment anything specifically (besides the fact that i think dean read dead endless and cried like a baby), but some of the TOS and DS9 books are gay as hell and i know dean was eyes emoji-ing that shit.

#spn #spn fic #tfw 2.0 #treknatural

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danafaithwriting · 3 years

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>:3 w

Hmmm this one might be tricky. This is a character for a cowboy themed dnd game that when my pirate group finishes up with that story, we’ll move on to cowboys. So I’ve had this character ready for at least a year now, and I probably won’t get to play her for at least another year. (or maybe next week depending on how badly we mess up the next pirates arc :P) So I don’t really have a lot of info to give you, but.

Full Name

Eden Wiley

Nicknames, If Any

Eden Wiley is the nickname, on account of this girl’s got amnesia (listen, I know all my characters are the same)

Hogwarts House

See I don’t know for sure since i haven’t played her. Maybe hufflepuff?

Gender

Girl

Sexuality

I get bi vibes. I don’t know how much it’ll ever come up, but I like to imagine she had some dramatic romance in her past

A Song I Associate With Them

Devil is Fine by Zeal & Ardor because it’s the only cowboy song I know, but aside from that, it’s a fun vibe.

3 Important Relationships

Literally can’t do this because I don’t know any of the characters in this game yet EXCEPT

Wiley - Wiley is a retired military man who owns a farm now and follows Saint Tiana, patron saint of outcasts and the dying. When she crawled out of the grave with no memories, she wandered onto Eden Homestead, and Wiley knew what she was. But it’s not in his nature to deny help to someone. Especially someone who, on account of the fact that she’s visibly undead, would receive no help anywhere else. So he took care of her for a while, just long enough to get her on her feet, and let her borrow his name. He dies before the beginning of the campaign but he IS my favourite character and i adore him.

2 Fears

1. That something terrible happened in her past and would come back to haunt her.

2. Of her nature. Her being undead is strange and she doesn’t understand it. Who knows what she is capable of.

1 Element of their backstory

I promise you I know nothing of her backstory except that she was a horse girl. the DM is going to list off everything she has prepared for this character and put it an envelope for me to discover down the track.

#asked and answered #this one was hard but thank you because i LOVE EDEN SM #you can tell by the paragraph I wrote about Wiley #it's the only bit of backstory i get so I am gonna go deep on it #die-tenebris

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carriagelamp · 3 years

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November 2020: A Months of Familiarity

This November ended up being a month of me either rereading old favourites, exploring new books by favourite authors, or a mix of both.

…Be prepared for so much Terry Prachett, I found his audiobooks on Libby last month and since that I’ve been unstoppable.

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

The first of my Terry Practhett books to mention! I chose to include this one on my list because it’s a beautiful stand alone novel, perfect to read if you’ve never touched on of Pratchett’s works before, and is often overlooked.

The book is about Maurice, an “amazing” cat by his own admission, who has teamed up with a stupid boy and his very own plague of rats. The moneymaking scheme is simple: set the rats loose on a town and after causing a panic let the boy stroll in and offer to play his pipe and lead them away… for a fee. This is working well, until Maurice, the boy, and the rats arrive in the town Bad Blintz. Here the rats are beginning to question the morality of their work, the boy gets entangled with a young, mischievous local girl, and they’re all shocked to find out that the town already has a real rat infestation… or so the rat catchers claim. Things quickly turn sinister and deadly as the group is forced to confront not only the cruelty of humanity, but something even more sinister living in the small, dark, hidden place of the town.

This is a YA book, unlike some of Pratchett’s other novels, so it’s a quick, fun read, while still having all of his dry wit and heavy, complicated thoughts about society, morality, belief, and what it means to be a person. It’s a genuine delight to see Maurice and the rats, recently made sentient by wizards’ rubbish, struggle to come to terms with who they were and who they are now.

Black Pearl Ponies: Red Star & Wildflower

Y’all it ain’t a secret at this point that I enjoy a stupid horse girl book, right? I picked up the first two books of the Black Pearl Ponies books from the library on a whim and they were basically what they promised. Girl lives with family on ranch, father helps train horses, girl goes on pony adventures with ponies. A particular focus is given to horse welfare and care. Very mediocre but a nice thoughtless covid read if you, like me, get a craving for animals books written for seven year olds from time to time. Plus this comes with the added humour of it being written, as far as I can tell, by a British author who thinks all Americans are stetson wearing cowboys which I find unreasonably funny.

Crenshaw

I love Katherine Applegate’s work; I read the Endling series earlier this year and they are overwhelmingly good. Crenshaw was also an enjoyable read, though not my favourite by her. It read a little bit like a book I read last fall, No Fixed Address, which was also a very good read though not my usual genre. Crenshaw is about a boy, Jackson, whose family, though close-knit and loving, is experiencing financial difficulties and struggle with food scarcity, homelessness, and all the instability and stress that results from this. During this tumultuous time, Jackson is surprised by the reappearance of a tall, bipedal, snarky cat — Crenshaw, his old imaginary friend. This is a charming book that blends genuine, real world hardships with whimsy and magical realism.

The Enemy Above: A Novel of WWII

Since it was Rememberance Day this month, I decided to pick up a holocaust novel. This book is about 12-year-old Anton, a young Jewish boy who finds himself fleeing from his Polish farm in the middle of the night with his old grandma when a German raiding party that attacks their village in an effort to make the countryside “judenfrei”. The book is, perhaps, not the most well-fleshed out, but it’s fast-paced and exciting for a child/YA audience that’s being introduced to holocaust literature, without trying to downplay the absolutely horror and brutality of the Nazis. It manages to strike a satisfying balance between fear, tragedy, and hope.

“Everything he had heard was true. He was just a twelve-year-old boy and yet they hunted him. He had broken no laws, done nothing wrong. He was simply born Jewish. How could anyone want to kill him for it?”

Gregor the Overlander

Somehow I never knew that Suzanne Collins wrote anything other than The Hunger Games? I stumbled across this series at a used bookstore and was first taken by the cover and then shocked when I realized I recognized the author’s name. Well The Hunger Games was such a good read, how could I not pick up a book with people riding on a giant fucking bat?

Such a good choice. I’m almost done book two and bought book three today after work. It is exactly the sort of low fantasy that I live for, when a fantasy world lives so close to the real world that you can practically touch it. I also love the fact that while all the wild fantastical elements are happening, you still have the main character taking care of his toddler sister the whole time. It’s at times charming, hilarious, and nerve-wracking!

It’s about Gregor, a normal kid who’s doing his best to help his mom take care of his two younger siblings ever since his father disappeared years ago. Gregor expected months of boredom when he agrees to stay home over the summer instead of going to camp like his sister in order to watch his baby sister, Boots, and their grandma while his mom is at work. He never could have expected that a simple trip to the apartment’s laundry room would lead to both him and Boots tumbling miles beneath the earth into the pitch black Underland, a place filled with giant rats and bugs and people with translucent skin who fly through the massive caverns on huge bats. He also could have never expected that he would get wrapped up in a deadly prophecy that would force him to travel into distant, dark lands into the waiting claws of an overwhelming enemy.

Kings, Queens, and In-Between

A Canadian queer novel that I’ve seen trumpeted everywhere. Libraries, classrooms, bookstore, this book got so much hype (and has such a pleasing cover) that I had to get my hands on it. Now, I’ve got to admit that it’s not really my genre; I don’t love realistic fiction. But that being said, it’s a fun, heart-warming, queer romp through that explores gender, sexuality, love, family, friendship… there’s a lot of lovable, quirky, complicated characters that get thrown together in unexpected ways at a local summer carnival. While there’s tension and misunderstandings and mistakes, this is overall a very optimistic and loving novel, and would be a great read if you want a queer novel that reads like cotton candy.

Love, The Tiger

This book is the graphic novel equivalent of a nature documentary. There’s no text, but you follow a day in the life of a tiger as it moves through the jungle on the quest for food. The art is honestly beyond outstanding, and though it’s a really quick read it is so very worth it. I’ve also read Love, The Lion in this series (also good, though a bit more confusing imho) as well as one of the books from his other series Little Tails which is still very nature and education based, though for a slightly younger audience.

Making Money

More Pratchett! Making Money was the first Discworld book I ever read, and it’s one of my most reread ones — it’s an ultimate comfort read! This is technically the sequel to Going Postal (another book I reread this month), in which conman Moist Von Lipwig is saved from a rightful death at the noose in exchange for agreeing to work for the city. Going Postal sees Moist narrowly dodging death in many varied forms as he tries to get the Anhk-Morpork postal service back on its feet and get the drifts of dead, whispering letters moving again. In Making Money things at the post office have become… too easy. Moist is bored, restless, until he finds himself thrust into a new job: head of the Royal Mint. There he has been given not only charge of the biggest bank in Anhk-Morpork, but also a dog with a price on its head, a lethal family with all the money in the world out for his blood, and the fear that his secret past life may be on the verge of being exposed to everyone, all while he’s desperately trying to make money…

The Moist series is honestly an example of Pratchett at his absolute best imo, and the amount of humour, wit, adventure, and scathing commentary he can build around a bank is outstanding. Cannot recommend enough.

The One And Only Ivan

Another book I’ve been hearing everyone talk about, as well as another Katherine Applegate book. It’s been on my radar for a while, but with the sequel and a movie coming out, it had everything at a fever pitch and I finally picked it up. Fantastic read, I definitely enjoyed it more than Crenshaw. This book was based off the true story of Ivan, a gorilla taken from his home in the jungle and sold to the owner of a mall, where he spent years of his life growing from child to adult silverback in a small, concrete enclosure. In this fictionalized version, everything changes for Ivan and his friends, when a new baby elephant is bought to help revitalize the mall attractions and Ivan makes a promise he doesn’t know how to keep: to protect this baby, and keep her from living the life Ivan and his friends were forced to. This book made me very emotional. Applegate’s picture book that goes along with it is also a great companion read.

Ranma ½

I realized that our library had the 2-in-1 editions of Ranma ½ and honestly that was it for me. This has been a favourite series of mine since I was in middle school and realized that the creator of Inuyasha had written other things. It is unapologetically ridiculous and larger-than-life and you have to love the shameless joy it has at being ludicrous. It does start to feel a little repetitive the further into the series you go, but at the moment, with covid, I find I have a huge tolerance for rereading slightly repetitive things so long as they make me happy. And boy howdy does the vaguely queer undertones, endless pining, and relentless slapstick of Ranma ½ make me happy. This is classic manga y’all and if you’ve never read it you should!

The basic premise, for anyone that doesn’t is that of an bonkers martial arts comedy. It follows Ranma and his father who, while training in China, fell into cursed springs. Each spring has the tragic legend of a person or animal who drowned in it, and if someone falls in they inevitably turn into that creature any time they’re doused in cold water. Ranma had the misfortune of falling into “The Spring of Drowned Girl” and, indeed, turns into a girl anytime he’s hit with cold water. Things continue to spiral out of control when Ranma meets his arranged fiancée, Akane, who is as exasperated by this situation as Ranma. Both would rather be fighting people than worrying about things like romance. And don’t worry, there is lots and lots and lots and lots of some of the goofiest martial arts fights that you can imagine for a bunch of high schoolers.

Through the Woods

A beautiful and creepy Canadian graphic novel. I honestly really don’t even know how to describe it in a way that does it justice. It’s a collection of short horror stories, with beautiful, flowing art style that draws you in and sends chills down your spine. I’ll let the art doing the talk, and honestly beg you to go find a way to read this graphic novel:

The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner: And Other Stories

The last Terry Pratchett book on my list (though shout out to the others I’ve listened to this month: Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, Men At Arms, and Snuff) and one that I actually physically, rather than listening to the audiobook. I included this one because unlike the others, this was a Pratchett book I had never read before. It collects a number of Pratchett’s short stories that had been written for children over a number of years. These weren’t necessarily my favourite examples of Pratchett’s writing (I prefer his longer work that can really dive into social issues) but it was such a quick, easy, fun read that you can’t really help but be charmed by it. I liked the stories that took place in “the wild wild west (of Wales)” in particular.

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butcheredtongue · 4 years

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Could you please tell me about your favourite Mechanisms songs bc. I wanna get into them but idk where to start asdfghjkl

!!!! Omg OK here goes a lot of incoherence. First things first! The mechs are a band that's harder to get into on a song by song basis bc of the nature of their work--each album tells a story from beginning to end, with alternating prose and music for each song. None of their stories have happy endings but they're all v cool and diverse and they really slap so yaknow. They also bend genres and have fantastic prose (idk if u listen to tma but jonny sims' writing... Hell yes) The albums are as follows:

Once upon a time (in space)

this one is, as the title suggests, about fairy tales......... But in space! Really gritty reimagining of a bunch of well-known fairy tales and nursery rhymes telling the story of a revolution against an evil king with a lesbian love story at its core.

Fave song: Pump Shanty, a sea (technically space) shanty that makes my soul leave my body. Its got a gay bit too so hell yes.

Ulysses dies at dawn

In a cyberpunk future set on a planet dominated by a sprawling city led by the criminal Olympian underworld, a group of paid criminals (all reimagined Greek myth figures) look to break into a vault held by the war hero/war criminal Ulysses (fun fact! Their gender is unknown throughout) which is labeled only "penelope".

Fave song: Elysian Fields, which is a really beautiful song and the last of the album. Never fails to make me cry.

High noon over camelot

This album is my absolute favourite. Arthurian legend but it's cowboys in a dystopian space station doomed to a fiery end, with a conflict between the saxon ghouls of the lower floors of the station and Camelot above, led by sheriff Arthur and his two loves, lancelot and guinevere (POLY RIGHTS STAN THE PENDRAGONS THANK U AND GOODNIGHT). Also has my fave character, mordred and a really interesting story about identity, prejudice and absolute bangers.

Fave song: all of them. But especially Hellfire, featuring a mad preacher talking about his planet's fiery doom. 10/10 would be lectured on my sins again.

The bifrost incident

To start with, just thinking abt this album makes me cry. It's very good though. It's about odin, queen of asgard, who has just built a railway through the bifrost, a wormhole she has harnessed. The train, on its maiden journey, was destroyed, and the album picks up the pieces of what exactly went down. Feat. Loki who is a wlw and a freedom fighter (opposing odin's tyranny etc) who has had her mind broken and her wife Sigyn, who tries to get Loki back. Thor is also there, and is less of an ubiquitous hero than one would assume. Overall v interesting characters and really just a gorgeous ending.

Fave song: End of the Line. It makes me cry.

Honourable mentions:

Tales to be told vol 1 and 2, which I haven't listened to but I'm sure are very, very cool.

Anyways I haven't been into the mechs very long but I'm happy to ramble abt them forever akfkakfjs. Thanks for the ask and stan the mechanisms

#The mechanisms

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pfenniged · 4 years

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tagged by @anathenma WOO GIRL <3

rules: tag 10 followers you want to get to know better

name: Lauren

gender: Female

star sign: Virgo Sun || Leo Moon || Leo Ascendent, which basically means I have the usually quiet reserved personality of an analytical, organised virgo on the fact of things, am usually the goofy, chill friend amongst my friends, and don’t like to take anyone’s shit, but if I am disrespected, I’m a sensitive six foot flower and withdraw from the world until I can get over it. xD I don’t like conflict.

height: 183cm/6 feet

age: 27 (YIKES XD)

wallpaper on my phone: (I had to check XD) A calendar of May 2020 stylistically arranged around ribbons

house: Slytherin

ever crush on a teacher: Both my parents and my uncle are teachers and consequently I knew every teacher in my school as actual human people and not ‘crushes’ growing up. So no. XD

coolest halloween costume: I went as the Starbucks logo one year when I was eight, a gigantic Lady Luck die one year with a top hat covered in poker chips and cards. I had some good ones I made: I was creative as fuck when I was 9-11 especially, and I had to be, because I was already around 5′7 and people assumed I was just some weirdo dressing up to get candy (Hearing ‘AREN’T YOU A LITTLE OLD TO BE TRICK OR TREATING’ at eleven CRUSHED me XD)

Favorite 90s tv show:

Okay. So there’s one’s I watched actually as a child of the 90s, and ones that were just always ON in the 90s that I ended up watching. It’s debatable whether these are actually good NOW. XD

That being said, the background ones were Saved By the Bell (ZACH MORRIS IS TRAAAAassssh~~), Boy Meets World, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond.

As a kid, I loved the Aladdin Animated Series, The Hercules Animated Series, CHIP AND DALE RESCUE RANGERS (Which didn’t really hold up sadly but still has the best theme song of all time, fight me), and Timon and Pumbaa.

One I rarely caught but really liked was All That, The Wonder Years, Sabrina the Teenage Witch- occasionally Fresh Prince.

Out of all of these, I still have a super fond spot for Saved By the Bell, especially with the ‘Zach Morris is Trash’ series on Youtube (Seriously, go watch it. It’s fucking hilarious and basically breaks down how much of a serial killer in the making Zach Morris is XD). The clothing is ridiculous and no one really dressed like that in the early 90s outside of commercials and TV (unfortunately). Maybe one shoddy item out of the bunch. Meanwhile Saved by the Bell is like LETS PUT IT ALL ON. XD It was terrible once they got to college, but it was stupid and fun and made me feel ‘cool’ watching it because I was like three and being like, “YEAH, IT’S BRIGHT AND THESE PEOPLE ARE COOL AND I CAN FOLLOW THE PLOT. I’M MATURE.” XD It’s literally still the only one of these I actively watch now in the form of Zach Morris is Trash, so I’ll go with it. xD

Last kiss: Never had a consensual kiss. Make of that what you will. xD

Have you ever been stood up: Nope.

Favourite pair of shoes:

I have terrible plantar fasciitis from sports, so I’m a shoe snob, and have to have properly fitting/constructed shoes. It depends on what I’m doing in them, really. I got a pair of trail running shoes for trail running during COVID, but they’re not the most aesthetically pleasing. I’d say the best mixture between comfort and style are either a good ol’pair of black ankle boots with a slight heel (so I can be 6′2 and intimidate people with my height muhahahaha), or more practically on a day to day basis, I have a pair of Reeboks that are 90s-styled with pastel pink and blue triangles on the side. They’re pretty dope. xD

have you ever been to vegas: No, but my parents have. Basically, they said you tire of shopping after two days, and then you’re just stuck inside hotels and shopping malls there. If you’re not a gambler, drinker, or have a ton of money to splash out on stage shows, I don’t think it’s particularly worth going.

favorite fruit: Mango or raspberry, but they’re super-expensive in the land of Maple Syrup so I usually don’t get them any other way other than frozen in smoothies.

Favourite book:

I could never choose a favourite book. It’s literally like choosing between children. It’s my microcosmic version of Sophie’s Choice. xD Tasteless joke aside, it’d honestly depend on the occasion. There’s a huge difference between entertainment reading, literary exploits, and educating yourself through books as a whole.

My ‘plane’ book (which I’m terrible at flying, so that was a joke), as in, an easy, fun, instantly rereadable read to read on the plane when I used to have super long fifteen hour flights to Australia, was always Mario Puzo’s ‘The Godfather,’ because I also had a huge crush on Michael Corleone.

But it’s also not the ‘best’ book and literally spends an inordinate and honestly disturbing amount of time on the fact that this poor woman in the story (which thankfully in the film, it gets cut down), but the bridesmaid Sonny Corleone has sex with, and how you see his wife indicating his ‘size’?

THAT’S LITERALLY AN ENTIRE SUBPLOT OF THIS BROAD’S STORY I SHIT YOU NOT BECAUSE NOTHING IS ‘BIG’ ENOUGH FOR HER AFTER HIM AND THEN YOU FIND OUT SHE HAS A MEDICAL CONDITION AND GOOD FOR HER SHE’S ABLE TO FIND LOVE AGAIN BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MARIO PUZO XD IT WAS A LOT OKAY.

(Footnote: I also suffered through his horrific sequels because I love Michael Corleone and will take him in any form he comes in, even horrifically written Sicilian backhill exploits that were never told to us in the original book and were clearly just written because Puzo needed another pay check but I digress.)

Horrific subplots aside, I really enjoy The Godfather for its sheer pulpiness. The book is essentially what Andrew Lloyd Weber is to musicals. xD (Yes, I come with musical theatre burns. Fight me.)

In terms of a piece of literature that I think is amazingly well done? Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, or Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Stupidest thing you ever done:

Um, maybe when I was at Cambridge I tried to dye my roots to match the rest of my ‘blonde’ hair at the time, and it turned out bright orange? And because it’s Cambridge, they had this super-strict attendance policy, so I was literally trying not to hyperventilate because it was running close to class (which was across campus) and I was trying to find some way to remedy my hair without it falling out/ someone asking about it. So, I grabbed a toque-cap-thing despite it being literally one of the hottest summer on record in the UK (It was like 35 degrees, it was MENTAL), and had to sprint to class all the way on the other side of campus from my college dodging dodgy tourist groups blocking the sidewalk while I went. Then when I sat down inside, I had to be weirdly rude and wear my hat inside the lecture hall even though the professor was looking at me (it was a specialised program in German Literature) like, “Are you going to take that shit off?” xD THEN I tried to dye it back to brown, and it literally looked like mud mixed with a runny egg had exploded on the top of my head; it was AWFUL. XD So FINALLY I did my research and found a salon, but by THAT point I had done 250 pounds worth of damage to my hair (WHICH IS LIKE 400 DOLLARS CANADIAN AT THE TIME), and I almost had a heart attack and thanked my lucky stars that I had money put away so I could give my parents the ‘parent price’ when they asked why they hadn’t seen me on FaceTime or Skype for like, three weeks, and I replaced my face with a photo of John Cleese from Fawlty Towers, which they tease me about to this day. xD

The other dumbest thing I ever said was when I was so desperate for friends in grade six when I moved to a new school (and because being American was ‘cool’ at the time, apparently), I told everyone I was a dual citizen because my mother LITERALLY GAVE BIRTH TO ME ON THE BORDER CROSSING WHAT. XD And bless this poor bespectacled girl named Mara (who was actually a little class friend of mine), who just said timidly in the back, “That’s not how citizenship works.” xD It basically came out of attempting to be cool and failing, but I’m still SO embarrassed about THAT one that I’d never admit it to ANYONE besides shouting it out into the Tumblr black hole. xD I’m still embarrassed to THIS DAY.

All time favorite shows:

I’ll go for the original run of The Twilight Zone, which has some schmaltzy episodes (I’m really not a fan of any of the episodes entirely dedicated to the Space Race or the weird cowboy fanaticism of the fifties/ sixties, or anything that’s overtly like “ALIENS DID IT SO THERE”), but I LOVE their psychological horror episodes or Dystopian episodes. It’s when Rod Serling’s writing and narrative voice is the strongest and most prophetic, and the twists are usually the best. Other shows have tries to imitate it, or reboot it, but I really think the original, due to Rod Serling’s unmatchable voice, in every sense of the word. There’s lists of some of the greatest episodes, but I remember LOVING the episode ‘A Stop at Willoughby.’ The twist literally made me clap my hands in horror and delight, it was amazing. xD

Other than that? Off the top of my head, Mad Men and Band of Brothers, even though I haven’t rewatched either in ages.

last movie you saw in theaters:

Oh God, before all THIS hit? Probably Rise of Skywalker. I get agoraphobic and itchy if a movie theatre is too busy, and we only have really pokey sort of ones nearby that you’re guaranteed to see someone you went to high school with (terrible), so now that I can properly drive I go out to the big redneck theatre out in the boonies. I miss living in Montreal though, because when you live in a big city like that downtown (and can actually afford to live there), you could see blockbuster movies at like ten in the morning. xD Which would be AMAZING because I’d go to see any of the early Avengers/Marvel movies when they opened, the day of opening, and it was literally me, one old man who fell asleep halfway through and sat near the back, and maybe an elderly couple on a morning date to the movies. xD I get really annoyed with obnoxious movie-goers, and I’m really picky about just being completely absorbed in the movie, so I tend not to go unless I’m guaranteed that space.

tagging: Anyone who wishes to tag me back so I can learn about them <3

#meme #well god this was embarrassing #still hope you found something of interest in there though xD #personal #I indented the longer answers so this was somewhat cohesive

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crimsonredemption · 5 years

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Rules: Answer the questions and tag followers you would like to know better.

Tagged by: @cupofcowboys @flonfymicah and @retrouvel I mixed the questions since they slightly differed from each other :)

Nickname: Leni

Gender: female

Astrological sign: Libra!

Height: 175cm / 5′7″

Sexuality: straight (?)

Fav band/artist: Don’t have a fav! I usually enjoy individual songs from various artists

Song stuck in my head: Checkmate - Conan Grey

Last thing I googled: uhm had to return a jacket so I googled how long my local H&M has opened hah

Average amount of sleep: 6 - 7 hours

Dream Job: I always wanted to become a midwife or a teacher. When I finished school I decided to become a teacher and after finishing uni, I decided to go to midwifery school! I just started recently and am still very happy and excited to dive into this new field!

fav food: Thai cuisine (Tom Kha Gai has been my fav soup ever since I was two years old)

Instruments: I can play the Cello (Haven’t for a while though)

Languages: German, English, Japanese (currently learning), Latin, very poor Spanish haha

Most iconic song: oof probably Seeed - Ding (I doubt there are germans under the age of 30 who don’t know every word to this song??) also Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

Hogwarts house: Slytherin

Favourite animal: Elephants and Goats

Blanket count: 2

Where I’m from: Germany

Origin: Half German/ half Croatian (I guess that’s what this means)

Birthday: 23.10.

Blog purpose: Cowboy lovin’

Random fact: I always look at my food before I eat it. I really can’t help but fixate my eyes on the food on my spoon/fork. People always make fun of me for that

Tagging: @gentle-outlaw @galadrieljones @buckyyy-b @lisaflowers @somethinwickedthiswayrides @rattlingbrainbox @shallow-gravy @elenafishersps1 @mrskrazy @mrsescuella @redeadepression @reddeadrevival @thelastbaggins @distantcowboynoises @goshdarncowboys @husbandits @yeet-or-be-hawed @yeetmetotahiti and @ugh-my-back but of course everyone can do it, you don’t gotta be tagged!

#personal #ask game #long post #it takes me avout 1000 days to do a tag game hahhaah

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jauneflowers · 4 years

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Birthdays and Being Known

This blog post starts as my previous one did. With an inciting incident and a large, wacky realization. How exciting.

Thursday I got a parcel in the post. That has been a little more of a regular occurrence recently due to the fact that it was my birthday! Exciting, right? For anyone, a birthday is an excellent time to reflect, but this birthday in particular marks a rather large gender milestone for me. This I will delve into shortly, but back to what started this post, the post.

This particular postal arrival was significant because it had a cowboy boot on the front. A green, marker-drawn pointed toe boot with the classic cowpoke embellishments and denoted me as the ‘birthday babe’. I could not, for the life of me, think who this was from as the return address was not one I recognised. So, like any normal person, I opened it right away! Inside was a pink tote (hell yes) with a cowpoke print (hell yes!) and various little cowpoke goodies (hell yes!!!!!!). The items were by Morewenna Farrell (You can find Morwenna on Instagram as @morwennafarrell_illustrations, or through her etsy https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MorwennaFarrell). After some reading I realised it was sent on behalf of a dear friend!! Now you’re probably thinking, “Wow Jayne, this is very nice and all, but why are you telling me, the reader, about this moment?” Well. To receive a gift like this was wonderful. I love cowpoke aesthetics and the colour pink, so the two together was a real combination of these. It made me feel like the brilliant friend that had sent me this really knew me well and it made me realise how birthdays we really tied up in being known. Furthermore, it made me realise how birthdays are also tied up, for me, in aspects and symbols of my Non-binary identity, such as the aesthetics you hold dear to yourself- for me this would be Cowpoke/Western regalia. The mental gymnastics of which I will take you through a little further in just a moment, but for now I want to delve a little further into topics around my birthday. If that, or discussion of Alcoholism, gender and being closeted is not your cup of tea, stop reading now!

I want to start off by saying that birthdays have been historically and notoriously bad for me. Why? Well, when it is annually ruined by parental alcoholism and trauma, you come to expect the worst from your birthday. For a large portion of my teenage birthdays, what I really wanted, more than any gift, event or frilly whatevers was to have an anxiety-free day. To see the passage of time go by where I didn’t have to worry about wine or humiliation, that I could speak to the person I loved the most and spend time with her knowing she would be sober, happy and lucid. With this in mind, my first, memorable, wonderful birthday was my 18th. The actual day itself, admittedly, was shit. I remember sobbing and feeling like the most ungrateful child in the world as I begged for sobriety from my mother and she, in turn, told me I was spoilt. In complete contrast, a few days later, I had dinner with my friends at a local restaurant to celebrate the milestone. I wore clothes that made me extremely gender euphoric, I got to eat food that I loved and spent the time with people that I cherished. The true moment of the night is when a cake was presented to me, baked by two of my nearest and dearest. It was shaped like a geode and, inside, the cake slices were lemon flavoured and rainbow coloured it was several of my favourite things all at once.

At the time I had gotten increasingly into collecting crystals and had shared my delight at seeing a cake that was made to look like a geode (a particular favourite gem of mine) a month or so prior to my birthday. At the time I was also owning my gay identity more openly and proudly everyday, and having my friends recognise these two parts of me really touched me. I remember crying. I’m crying while writing this! I remember repeating over and over, “You know me! You really know me!” I’m not sure if any of them knew about my horrible past with birthdays, but in that moment I felt listened to, seen and known. I felt loved. There is extreme healing value in having these integral factors of yourself recognised by others. To feel this amount of love from everyone around me made me feel like the current home climate I was living in could be escaped. Even more so, it helped me start to relate having birthdays with feeling like those around me truly cared, and knew me in a way no one else could.

Jump forward to 22.

As mentioned, earlier in the week I had received that lovely cowboy bundle from one of the masterminds behind the gorgeous geode cake. Cowboys are especially important to me because I feel the aesthetics are somewhat relational to my gender identity, but that is a whole other blog post in itself! To the point, in the weekend to follow I was treated to a delightful day (appropriately socially distanced) by my closest circle. I got to pick American Cereal (I’m a lowkey expert in the stuff, dontchaknow, this is thanks to the Empty Bowl, which I listen to get to sleep. You can listen to them at www.bowl.rest ). If you’re wondering, I chose Trix Fruity Shapes as pictured, I had to see what all the fuss was about.

My friends took me to a Barbie capsule collection (pictured) and I got myself the most tacky and wonderful Cowgirl Barbie shirt and they treated me to a wonderful ‘experience’ ice cream.

The trip was topped off by my partner cooking a yummy dinner and the whole day I did not have to worry about a thing- not where I was going, what I would be eating or who I would be seeing. My gorgeous, fantastic, intelligent friends sorted that for me. The key to all of this was how every moment was spectacularly tailored to me, esspecially since all of the days experiences were markers of how I liked to establish my Nonbinary identity. As mentioned, cowboys have a special place in the abstract concept that is my gender, so does Barbie. It’s a lot of gender nonsense, there’s no need to get it completely. However, in acknowledging these things as a part of my interests, my friends also acknowledged parts of my gender identity too. All of these fun to-do items might have seemed vastly unrelated to do in a day, but grouping them together had a symbolic nature to it that I don’t think they even realised it had. During a pandemic, I would of course have just been happy if I had ended up with a digital well wish here and there, but the effort and time put together to craft a whole day with me in mind really sealed my thoughts on being seen, known, as well as having my gender (or lack thereof) recognised.

I’ve come to realise that, in the strangest way possible, my gender is tied up with my birthday, beyond the usual malarkey around a baby’s sex and birth. Birthdays are about celebrating a person, giving them well-wishes because you’re thinking of them. You may give them things they like because you know them enough to know what they’d want. The structure is inherently built on the idea of being known. In my opinion, being known and having your interests highlighted by others has an intrinsic link to transness, even further so to Nonbinary identity. A lot of the interests and aesthetics I enjoy are wrapped up in the conceptualisation of my gender. Cowpokes. American cereal. Ice-cream. They become abstract concepts that others see and connect to me, and they (and many others) are themes and aesthetics I consider markers of gender. Due to Nonbinary identity being incredibly personal to the individual, these things being celebrated with me, by my friends, was also a recognition of my identity as a whole.

I mentioned a gender milestone earlier in this text. That is because it has now been 10 years since I found the right language to describe my gender. I say that, instead of any alternative, because I personally believe describing it any other way is disingenuous and plays into cisnormative nonsense that I’m not that interested in. It is relevant to these ideas around being known and birthdays, because up until that 18th birthday I often concealed true interests or facets of my identity because I had been put into a setting where those that needed to care didn’t and I worried that lifting the lid on even the most tangentially related idea relating to my gender might result in transphobia and social punishment. In turn, birthdays where everyone turned the spotlight on me were incredibly nerve wracking and part of a cisnormative pantomime, because I didn’t feel comfortable telling people my real interests. To get to 22 and instead have a whole day where I can feel gender euphoric and comfortable in my own skin makes my birthday very special indeed.

This current birthday was great, but not just because I received material goods. 21 and 22’s birthdays were ones to remember because I got to spend it with people I love and feel their love, even through the digital glow of a screen due to Covid. I mention my 21st birthday because I think that is where the seed, planted at age 18, of birthdays and gender really started to sprout, but it didn’t flower until 22. I wonder what would have happened and how I would have turned out if this idea of Nonbinary identity and birthdays had been planted at age 12? If society let me feel safe enough to be myself? Would I have had more positive birthdays, despite my home situation? Speculation does not help my 12 year old self, so I will save myself from fretting on the topic.

Instead, I like to think about what I would say to my 12 year old self, now that I have this realisation. First of all, I think I’d give them whatever obscure anime cosplay their little heart had desired, and lectured them on safe binding. But on a more serious note, I think I would want to look into their eyes and say, “22 does happen. Things are a different type of terrible, but you are free and that is important. The overwhelming feeling is you are known, and you are loved by people you intensely love back. Your friends are great now, but don’t lose touch with reality about how you treat them. Treasure the friendships you have at 18, they will be some of your greatest friends. Oh. I also love you a lot. I know you’re waiting for someone to say that to you and mean it. And I do. I do mean it. You’re Nonbinary and great and loved and birthdays get way cooler.”

Phew. All of this aside, I think more stock needs to be put into the abstracts and concepts that make up Nonbinary identity. In the future, I hope to write a little more about the ‘things’ that make up my Nonbinary identity, such as music, fashion, art prints, mugs… In turn, I’d like you to think beyond boring regular language around gender and consider what makes you the gender you are. I have come to 22 with a large, abstract idea of my gender, collected from 12 onwards… and I hope to keep collecting until my last birthday.

#peronsal #Blog #gender #identity #birthday

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mitchellwrites · 6 years

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I was tagged by @colawrites @eluvixn & @octomoosey ! thank yooou ! ❤

Rules: Copy & paste into a new post, then answer any 20 questions about yourself and tag followers that you wanna get to know better!

1. name: marie

2. Nickname: literally just the letter M

3. Age: 31

4. Gender: female

5. Orientation: heterosexual

6. Height: 5'5

7. Favorite colour: black or rainbow there is no in between i want no colors or all the colors (no one get into semantics with me about whether black is a color or technically all the colors or technically an absence of color i dON'T WANT IT)

8. Book recommendation: !!! yeah i’m... not gonna be chill about this. (bypassing the quick, obvious recs: American Gods, Fight Club.) first: Vicious by V.E. Schwab, it’s about two assholes who give themselves superpowers and then try and destroy each other, & the dynamic between the two main characters is one of my favorite things in most books / media, plus it’s a fairly minimalist writing style which i’m always here for. second: first five books of the Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. fantasy with a slightly noir bent to it, he was pretty innovative for his time integrating modern / fantasy / mythological elements into his writing and Amber is the finest example of that, plus Corwin is one of my favorite protagonists of all time. the boy’s got tons of issues but like would i love him if he didn’t, & he’s basically a demigod but he excels at the ‘gods as men’ thing that i wish i could pull off better. (plus this is a dude that inspired the likes of George R. R. Martin & Neil Gaiman. you know the dedication in American Gods to Roger, that’s to this dude, he’s one of the finest sci-fi fantasy authors and he’s so forgotten that it breaks my heart.) AND three: the Lighthouse Duet (Flesh & Spirit / Breath and Bone) by Carol Berg. this lovely woman has written some of my favorite books & she also exists in somewhat obscurity? her novels are dark as shit and protagonists flawed as all hell, but this specific duology is some of her tightest story crafting. high fantasy but heading into more of a victorian era, wicked dark magics at play and a scrappy little drug addict magician who hides out in a monastery to try and hide from the Man. it’s some good, good shit. OK IM DONE NOW

9. Movie recommendation: fuck it, Highlander.

10. Anime recommendation: ok well Cowboy Bebop will always be at the top of my list it’s so fucking GOOD, for more recent stuff i got super into Psycho Pass so that too.

11. Music recommendation: Black Veil Brides just dropped their new album “Vale” and it’s murdering my face so i gotta go with that one

12. Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate? ah yeah, coffee. coffee WITH hot chocolate.

13. Cats or dogs? i love both we just don’t have room for doggos, but probably cats anyway because i love my precious children

14. Favourite meme: idk anything involving fat raccoons.

15. I want to live long enough to witness: the last Star Wars movie of the new trilogy and maybe that’s not overly optimistic but Trump is president.

16. Weird obsessions: man uhhh i’m not sure i’ll get super obsessed with one thing for a while and then move on to the next but at the moment i’m getting super into magic the gathering and i’m trying to build a vampire deck but i keep getting my ass kicked it is Not testing well but yeah that’s kind of fun?

17. Tumblr birthday: i don’t know and i don’t... care.

18. How many side blogs? a shit ton on this one because it was a dedicated 1x1 blog for a while so i’ve got all these characters hanging off the side & a couple random blogs on my main.

19. Random fact about me: i’ve written / completed one book & three novellas they’re just not very Good but it’s nice to remember because at least then i know i’m capable of it?

20. Goals for 2018: .better job would be nice, actually making some headway on this novel would be better because i can survive working this shitty job if i have to and it pays the bills but i need to stay creative to live so!

TAGGING: (if you want to!) @gamerpenny, @diazwrites, @suntorywrites, @sonybaloney-rps

#about #thank you for the tag everyone!#:3

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daisydaring · 5 years

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HOMEWORK FOR MITCHELL: 5 PUBLICATIONS

The Editorial Magazine

LINK: http://the-editorialmagazine.com

What the publication does?

The Editorial Magazine is an art and fashion publication run quarterly in Canada. I think the magazine has been going for a good four to five years. They have quite a loyal fanbase and so I think the issues sell out pretty quickly. The content of the magazine covers quite a broad range of topics. The editor-in-chief Claire Milbrath aims for the articles to be quite adventurous - stories and subjects that no fashion or art magazine has delved into.

Why did I choose this publication?

I follow the magazine on Instagram and I am always super interested in the articles or art they post. The tone of the magazine is silly and fun while at the same time being quite educational, which I think is unique in an art magazine. The layout style is pretty wacky and it makes reference to 90s teen magazines with bright, contrasting colours. This ironic kitschiness makes it inevitably aesthetically pleasing and hard to miss.

What makes the publication different?

As I said earlier, this publication is quite different because of its bizarre content. It kind of mocks the seriousness of other art and fashion publications. I think it is quite interesting that the publication has quite a lot of merchandise and content that exists outside of the magazine. Claire Milbrath or other artist guests make lots of great playlists that go alongside the magazine and I think they sometimes feature in the magazine. You can find them on Soundcloud and they are pretty good. My favorite is titled “Sad Cowboys in the Rain”. The publication team also sell hats, T-shirts and every now and then, a calendar which features their favorite artists. I also think the fact that it is only published quarterly makes the magazine more desirable. It stands as an archive which makes it more valuable.

2. ArtMaze Magazine

LINK: https://artmazemag.com

What the publication does?

ArtMaze Magazine is a British artist-run publication with five issues published a year. It promotes innovative contemporary art and it focuses on the diversity of mediums in the modern art scene. The magazine can be found online but it is also printed internationally. The publication focuses purely on showcasing art to an art loving audience as there are no advertisements to disrupt the content. I think this kind of demonstrates how devoted this publication is to promoting art and emerging artists. The magazine follows the basic content and layout of any art magazine, with interviews with art professionals and curated pieces dedicated to emerging talent.

Why did I choose this publication?

I was drawn to this magazine because anyone can submit their work to be shown in it. In fact, the latest issue’s cover features Zander Blom’s work and I’m pretty sure they have feature Gitte Moller’s work. They have a link to submit work on their website and their Instagram which appears pretty straight forward, however there is some sort of fee to be payed. I like that the magazine shows a large mix of artists from all over the world and it is a nice way to get a sense of current trends in material and subject. I think a lot of the work showcased comes from young artists who are probably still in university which I think makes the publication less pretentious. I think it is also a very accessible and easy way of getting your work out into the world.

What makes the publication different?

What I found interesting about this publication is the fact that they have in guest curators to select works from the submissions. The curators can come from established internationally-known galleries or work independently. This means that each issue will have a different aesthetic and will read in a different way. I find this quite a fun and exciting way of curating a publication. I also think this magazine stands out because it has no advertisements. What is a magazine without advertisements? It probably changes the flow of the content and frees up space for more artworks.

3. A Wes Anderson Zine

LINK: https://manjitthapp.co.uk/a-wes-anderson-zine

What the publication does?

This zine is made by the illustrator Manjit Thapp who’s work I used to be obsessed with. The publication was a little personal project which depicts illustrations inspired by scenes from some of her favourite Wes Anderson films. I think you can only buy the publication online which makes sense because the artist has quite an international following. The artist uses Instagram to promote her work and her profile kind of stands as a portfolio. I think the zine was made with her fans in mind as it a very sweet and consumable publication.

Why did I choose this publication?

I chose this zine as it is one of the only publications I liked enough to buy online. Like a lot of teenagers, I was obsessed with Wes Anderson’s films and the visual aesthetics. So the combination of the artist’s style and Wes Anderson colour palette merged really nicely. I think the simple layout works really well for illustrations and I like how the images fill the entire page. The artist combines traditional techniques with digital processes to create her illustrations which creates really nice textures. She also tries to show a diversity of people in her work in response to the lack of representation of people of colour in art, however this zine is not the best example of this.

What makes the publication different?

I think what makes this publication different is it only contains illustrations with no other information. The zine is very much designed for Manjit Thapp’s fan base. I think if you are a fan of an artist or musician you should try and support them by buying a work and this zine is quite affordable to do so. I think it is about $15 and the size is around a square A5. I think the artist successfully incorporated text without having to include any of her own. She worked with the text in the film stills to break up the figurative drawings. It is also impressive that she managed to have basically no negative space in the entire zine.

4. FRUiTS Magazine

LINK: https://www.instagram.com/fruitsmag/?hl=en

What the publication does?

Fruits is Japanese street style fashion magazine which was founded in 1997. The monthly magazine focuses on the fashion subcultures found in Harajuku such as Lolita, goth and punk. However about two years ago they published their last issue due to the fact that there were not enough stylish individuals to photograph. Its founder, editor and chief photographer Shoichi Aoki simple said, "There are no more cool kids left to photograph.”

Why did I choose this publication?

When I was little we had quite a few version of this magazine that also depicted Japanese street fashion. My sister was obsessed with them and she would tear out pages to stick up on her wall. We also had a coffee table version of the magazine which depicted a lot of images taken by Shoichi Aoki. I think looking at these images from such a young age was very eye opening and it kind of lead me to question the boundaries of fashion. I think Harajuku fashion definitely blurs gender norms. Gender becomes no longer important in how you express yourself, which is very different to what is depicted in western fashion and media. I picked Fruits because it is the most famous Japanese street style magazine and it helped draw western attention to Japanese fashion.

What makes the publication different?

The fact that this magazine documents people off of the street is quite unique and interesting. Sometimes the same person would be documented over and over again until they actually became quite famous. The magazine layout depicts a full page image of the photographed person alongside a brief profile which covers their age, occupation and the names of brands that they are wearing. What I also find interesting is the fact that a lot of the documented people are teenagers. This demonstrates that the youth of Japan were setting the anti-fashion fashion trends.

4. Pansy

LINK: https://www.pansymag.com

What the publication does?

Pansy is a menswear magazine which aims to challenge the boundaries of masculinity and femininity. The publication states that it is about, “not listening to your dad when he says you can't wear your flared, bedazzled hot pants” which I guess sums up the content pretty nicely. Pansy was founded very recently by Michael Oliver Love, who is South African. The magazine mostly exists online however there is one published issue which came out about a year ago.

Why did I choose this publication?

I picked this magazine because it showcases a lot of small, International designers that I love. I have been tempted to buy the publication but it is pretty expensive like most magazines are. I think it is quite impressive that this fairly new, South African publication was able to draw the attention of other independent photographers and designers to submit their work to it. I feel like most South African magazines in general stick to local creatives, and so it is refreshing to see a variety of designers from around the world in one publication.

What makes the publication different?

Most of the publications I looked at have a focus on fashion, however I think this publication stands alone because it only focuses on menswear. It goes beyond the norms of a men’s magazine as it challenges the societal constructs of masculinity. The name ‘Pansy’ pokes fun at the narratives of being a manly man while it empowers queer fashion. The fashion and the models emphasise this idea of blurring gender binaries while still being in the category of men’s fashion.

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

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Retribution Fails

by Dan H

Saturday, 26 June 2010

Dan did not like Retribution Falls~

A little personal history: the original title and subtitle for this article were “Still Up In the Air – Dan Hemmens is ambivalent about Retribution Falls.”

Then over the course of writing this article, I came to realise that while I really enjoyed reading the book (I finished it in two sittings over two days), in retrospect I found large parts of it cheap and annoying, and found myself increasingly unable to defend its hideous gender-fail. I also found out that this thing had been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke award which made me frankly despair, because if this is the best SF has to offer then the genre really is fucked.

So yes, this started out more balanced than it ended up. Short version: the book is quite fun, extremely faily, and not all that well written. Judged as a low-investment romp, it’s alright. Judged as a nominee for a prestigious award, it needs to be killed with fire.

Oh, and spoilers, for those that care.

Anyway, Chris Wooding's Retribution Falls is generally billed as a “steampunk western” although as recent discussions here at FB show, neither term is really well enough defined for this label to have much meaning. Speaking personally, I didn't get much of a western vibe from it, but that's possibly because Kyra and I have been neck deep in Deadwood and therefore I have trouble getting the real “Western” feel from something where people aren't yelling “cocksucker” every two minutes. Or it could be the fact that since it's primarily set onboard a ship, and concerns itself almost exclusively with pirates, it fits more into “pirate” than “cowboy” in my personal cataloguing system. Although actually this is all so much pettifogging since the whole distinction between “fantasy,” “steampunk,” “western,” and “pirate yarn,” can be neatly avoided by treating the whole thing as part of that (now obsolete) genre the “adventure story”.

So yes, Retribution Falls is an adventure story. It concerns the crew of the airship Ketty Jay as they develop from a ragtag group of ne'er do wells into a properly formed and fully functioning crew.

The crew (who are all neatly introduced by means of in-character introductions to one of the viewpoint characters in chapter two) are as follows: Darien Frey, hot lothario captain; Pin, stupid pilot; Harkins, cowardly pilot; Silo, silent technician and obligatory brown person; Malvery, the drunken doctor; Crake, the tormented daemonist and Jez, the new navigator who is also, for what it's worth, the only woman on board. I'm pretty sure I've remembered everybody, and if I've forgotten anyone they're probably highly forgettable.

I'm going to come back to gender issues in a bit, but I'm going to start by pointing out that having one female character out of seven is the worst possible option. Zero out of seven, and you have a setting in which women don't fly airships, which is absolutely fine. Put in exactly one, and you suddenly have a society where women are apparently perfectly accepted on the setting equivalent of the Spanish Main, but never the less you've only got one in your crew. Zero is a better number than one in this situation is all I'm saying.

But like I say, I'll come back to this later.

Anyway, the crew are hired to board another aircraft and steal a cask of gems, for which they will be paid fifty thousand ducats. This too-good-to-be-true job offer turns out (surprise surprise) to be too good to be true. Which results in the crew blowing up an airliner and having to go on the run from both the legitimate military (the “Coalition”) and a variety of scoundrels and bounty hunters that want to hand them over to various interested parties.

So far, so swashbuckling, and it is indeed about sixty percent rollicking good fun. Unfortunately it's then twenty percent tedious exposition, ten percent sloppy writing, ten percent sexism.

Anyway, where to begin:

You Can't Take the Sky From Me

A lot of comparisons have been made between Firefly and Retribution Falls, and this might be a good time to say that much as I find Whedon annoying, and as much pleasure as I take in questioning the man's uber-feminist image it's worth admitting that he does about a million times better than a lot of other writers out there. Sure, Mal Reynolds may have a rampaging case of nice-guy syndrome, and might treat Inara like dirt, but by comparison to Wooding, Whedon deserves every Equality award he's ever got. Which is good, since he's clearly going to keep on getting them.

But I digress.

Superficially, Retribution Falls is a lot like Firefly. It's even got an on-the-run aristocrat with a girl in a box. Structurally, however, it's a lot more like Lost or Heroes.

I'm going to digress again. One of my favourite things about Heroes is the fact that I once read an interview with Tim Kring, in which he admitted that he neither knew nor cared about the history of the superhero genre, and that his main inspiration for Heroes was the way in which Lost (and here I confess to paraphrasing) cynically manipulated its audience by doling out tiny pieces of information about members of its large ensemble cast over the course of the series. He just thought that this was a fantastic structure for a TV show.

Retribution Falls works very much the same way. The first three or four chapters are taken up with fast-paced introductions to the cast, which more or less go like this:

“Hello, I see that bullet wound you had healed mysteriously fast”

“Yes, it is, mysterious isn't it?”

“I know, I noticed it because of something that happened in my past”

“Your past? Gosh, might there be something mysterious about it?”

“Why yes, you'll find that most members of the crew have something mysterious about them.”

“Wait, we've just heard news that we're being followed by the dread pirate Trinica Dracken!”

“The dread pirate Trinica Dracken you say! Gosh, mysteriously I think the captain may have some kind of connection to her, in his past. His mysterious past.”

“Gosh how mysterious!”

It's not quite that bad. But it's almost that bad. Although it's not necessarily that bad that it's that bad, because this really does make the whole thing quite readable. Yes it's shoddy and manipulative, but the thing about shoddy, manipulative tricks is that they work. Show me a character with a mysterious past, and I'll be unable to put the book down until I've either found out what that mysterious past is, or convinced myself that I'm never going to. Therefore if you give me seven characters, each with their own mysterious past, and give me the background on one every four chapters then you can pretty much guarantee that I'll be reading until one in the morning.

Of course the downside of this kind of strategy is that in-the-moment readability comes at the cost of after-the-fact satisfaction. Few and far between are the occasions on which I've discovered a character's secret backstory and not found it some combination of trite, predictable, and implausible. It's like popcorn, utterly compelling but at the end all you're left with is a faint cardboardy aftertaste.

Structure and Story Issues

The book is certainly readable, and mostly fun, but there are times when it bogs down in tedious exposition. This would be bad enough if it was just your classic “as you know, your father, the King...” dialogue, although there is an awful lot of it – people in this world seem to spend an inordinate amount of time having conversations in which they explain the basic causes and consequences of wars that happened a couple of years ago, the equivalent of people in the real world saying “of course after the Al-Quaeda bombings in 2001, the American government launched a series of military actions throughout the Middle East, beginning by attacking the Taliban who at that time were in control of Afghanistan...” over their morning coffee. Unfortunately, as

other reviewers

have pointed out, the same principle is applied to little things like character development.

The key offener here is Darien Frey himself, the vagabond captain of a vagabond crew, guiding his motley band of reprobates to high adventure on the open skies. The emotional thrust of the book, such as it is, involves Frey learning to take responsibility for his role as captain, and to learn respect and affection for his crew (and perhaps for other people in his life as well).

The problem with this is that our only insight into Frey's emotional state is what the book tells us Frey's emotional state is. We are told early on that he does not value his crew, and that he considers himself a bit of a loser. We are told later that he does value his crew, and that he's pretty much okay with himself, and has accepted the responsibilities that come with his position as captain. The problem is that – with the exception of a couple of clearly signposted set-pieces - we see no appreciable change in his behaviour, or even his attitude. The man who leads his crew the a doomed attempt to plunder the Ace of Skulls at the start of the book is not discernibly different from the one who spearheads the attack on Retribution Falls at the end. Both ultimately involve Frey risking his ship and his crew, without their knowledge or consent, in pursuit of a large reward which he has little reason to expect receiving. The fact that the first attack is doomed and the second succeeds has everything to do with narrative structure and nothing to do with Fray's leadership choices.

To put it another way, Frey spends the first half of the book chiding himself for his selfishness, indolence, and pisspoor leadership skills. By the end of the book he has stopped chiding himself for all of these things, but has failed to show any actual change in his behaviour. Which creates the impression that all of his growth and development over the course of the book has served only to make him less self-aware.

member of the twitterati

sums this up all very succinctly as “The Heavy Handed Adventures of Captain Uttercock”.

In many ways, the book reminded me of

The Last Five Years

. I spent so much of the book going “this guy is a cock, am I supposed to think this guy is a cock, I must be supposed to think this guy is a cock, but nobody else seems to think this guy as a cock except his psycho bitch exes, but this guy is clearly a cock...” that it wound up being remarkably intrusive. I had no problem with the other unsympathetic characters (Grayther Crake the daemonist, for example, is clearly a judgmental asshole, but he's obviously supposed to be a judgmental asshole so I understand how I'm supposed to react to him) but with Frey I always felt like my perception of his flaws was always slightly to one side of the author's perception.

For example, the book opens with Fray and Crake captured by a gang lord (here Wooding gains points for starting with some action, and loses them immediately for having the action be completely unrelated to the rest of the story). The Gang Lord threatens to kill Crake unless Fray gives him the ignition codes to the Ketty Jay. Fray of course refuses, and Crake has a massive chip on his shoulder about this throughout the whole book. Then later in the book, Trinica Dracken (evil pirate bitch-queen – incidentally I'm using the word “bitch” a lot in this review, for reasons that should become clear later) captures them again, and makes the same threat, and this time Fray gives her the codes, thus causing a big sign to appear saying THIS IS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.

That particular element would have been more effective but for two things. Firstly, it was so telegraphed it lost all its impact – Crake spent the entire freaking book saying “hey Frey if that EVER HAPPENS AGAIN you'd better give over the damned codes, m'kay.” Secondly, refusing to give up the codes was absolutely the right decision.

Consider. You are being held captive by a psychotic bastard who is only keeping you alive because you have information they want. Your only chance of survival is to not give them the damned information. If you do give them the information, chances are they'll kill all of you anyway. In this situation, giving up the codes is certainly understandable, but it's also completely stupid.

This was broadly the interpretation I was assuming the Doctor was driving at when, after Crake complained that the captain almost let him get killed, the Doctor insisted that no, Frey was a good man who would never let his crew down. I thought, in fact, that they were going for a kind of Mal Reynolds effect – making the captain good but not nice, the kind of man who would always do the right thing, even if that meant letting somebody die for the good of the ship.

Turns out this wasn't what they meant at all. Clearly, giving up the codes to the psychotic maniac was supposed to be the right decision, which is why it's CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT when Frey does it later, so when the Doctor says he's a good man he just kind of means – I'm not sure. That he might be a selfish, whiney, borderline amoral dickhead but at least he wasn't actively malicious?

The only reading I can really support for Frey's character development over the book – as in the only reading which I think the author and the text expect you to take away from it – is that Frey is a good man deep down, but lacks the confidence to act on that goodness. He is, I think, supposed to be afraid of getting too close to people and it is that fear which we are supposed to see as his great weakness, not the fact that he chooses to act on that fear by treating people really unacceptably badly. To draw yet another comparison which will require me to link my own articles, it's rather like Tanis Blacksword in

Banewreaker

- Tanis as you might recall murdered his wife in a jealous rage, and perhaps I'm being a prude, but to my mind the key problem here is not the fact that he flew into a jealous rage, but the fact that while he was in it he murdered his freaking wife.

Wooding seems to be under the impression that Darien Frey is a good man who sometimes allows his insecurities to get the better of him, and seems to see the book as chronicling his battle to overcome those insecurities. I read Darien Frey as a gigantic asshole, who sometimes uses his perfectly forgivable insecurities as an excuse to treat people like shit.

Women

Probably the most illustrative example of this dissonance in Frey’s personality is in his reaction to his ex-fiancée, Trinica Dracken.

We are first introduced to Trinica as a terrifying pirate, a ruthless, ass-kicking queen of the skies. We learn fairly early on that she has some kind of connection to Frey, and I initially had high expectations for their reunion. To fully explain the reasons behind this, I’m going to have to go into some detail about Frey’s behaviour up to this point, so bear with me.

Throughout the book it has been clear that Frey has a history of treating his romantic partners like dirt. It is clear also that part of the reason he treats his romantic partners like dirt is that gorgeous women constantly throw themselves at him. Not only throw themselves at him, but throw themselves at him and actually fall in love with him, and then stifle him with their smothering girlness.

For example, when Jez – the new navigator – shows up in chapter two, Frey observes that he’s glad she isn’t too attractive, because if she was he’d “be obliged to sleep with her.”

How exactly is the causality supposed to work on this one? Does he mean that if she was more attractive he would want to sleep with her, in which case it wouldn’t be an obligation really, would it? Or does he mean that if she was more attractive she would want to sleep with him? In which case what, does he think that unattractive women don’t have libidos? (I suspect the answer to that last question is probably “yes” actually). At the time I took the most charitable reading, which is that this is evidence of Frey being a self-deluding cock who isn’t capable of owning his sexuality, and that over the course of the book he would come to realise this.

Then about halfway through the book, he has to infiltrate an Awakener (think Catholicism meets Scientology) stronghold in order to find one of his many former conquests and – if you’ll pardon the phrase – pump her for information. It’s a single sex institution and he spends most of the time while he’s infiltrating the building fantasising about all the nubile, sex-starved young women he’ll find in here. I’ll say here that I actually found his fantasising perfectly reasonable, because again I read it as evidence that Frey is a bit of a prick, and was quite pleased when it became clear that his infiltration wasn’t going to end in spankings and baby-oil.

Then he meets his ex (whose name I shall look up when I get home), who kicks him in the head (because she r strong wimminz!) and has a go at him for leaving her in a nunnery for two years, despite having promised that they’d always be together. Frey then has this long, self-justifying internal monologue about how you had to lie to women because if you didn’t they’d only go and find somebody who did lie to them (because you see women want a man who says he’ll be with them forever, and men just want sex, and there is no overlap whatsoever – no men are interested in commitment, no women are interested in straight-up fucking) and that it therefore wasn’t his fault. Then of course he lies to her again, they have sex and she tells him everything he wants to know, and he promises to come back for her which he of course has no intention of doing. But you have to lie to women, so that’s okay.

So anyway, by the time Trinica Dracken shows up on the screen Frey’s pick-up-artist bullshit is wearing pretty thin. Up to this point, however, I was honestly expecting Trinica Dracken to turn the whole thing on its head. I was expecting this to be the one relationship in his whole sorry past that had actually been a partnership of equals, a woman who instead of clinging to him with doe-eyed devotion had been strong and confident in her own right, whose relationship with Frey had been tempestuous and remarkable. I expected the love of Frey’s life to be a woman who had a ship of her own, a crew of her own and a life of her own. It wouldn’t have justified his acting like a dickhead ever since, but it would at least have explained it. I know that this strays into the realms of

counter-factual criticism

but my intent here isn't to say “Trinica Dracken should have been different” but rather “I had a number of false impressions about what Trinica Dracken would be like, that led me to read all the sexist bullshit in the book more favourably than I might have otherwise.”

Here, for what it is worth, is a summary of what Frey's relationship with Trinica Dracken is revealed to have been like:

Trinica Dracken was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist for whom Frey worked. When they were both in their late teens, they fell in love. Trinica was a lovely sweet girl with long hair who wore white dresses, Frey was much as he is now. Eventually, the relationship had gone wrong. Here is Frey's description of it:

In the early months he'd believed they'd be together forever. He told himself he'd found a woman for the rest of his life. He couldn't conceive of meeting someone more wonderful than she was, and he wasn't tempted to try. But it was one thing to daydream such notions, and quite another to be faced with putting them into practice. When she began to talk of engagement, with a straightforwardness he'd previously found charming, he began to idolize her a little less. His patience became less. No longer could he endlessly indulge her flights of fancy. His smile became fixed as she played her girlish games with him. Her jokes all seemed to go on too long. He found himself wishing she'd just be sensible

Okay, leaving aside for the moment that Frey's analysis of what went wrong with his relationship boils down to “the bitch wouldn't keep her mouth shut” note that here his dissatisfaction with Trinica stems simultaneously from (a) the fact that he starts to see that she isn't the perfect fantasy figure he thought she was (he “idolizes her less” which in sane-person world is a good thing in a relationship) and (b) the fact that she still displays many qualities of the fantasy figure he wants her to be (her “girlish games” and her “flights of fancy”). You've got to feel sorry for the girl, because I seriously don't know how she was supposed to please this arrant cocksucker.

It gets worse. Obviously Frey takes the sensible and mature attitude to being in a relationship with somebody for whom you feel manifest contempt, which is to agree to marry her, get her pregnant, and leave her at the altar. He does, of course, admit that this was sub optimal. Here is his magnanimous and painful admission of culpability, which represents a significant moment in his growth and maturation:

His love for her had been the most precious thing in his life, and she'd ruined it with her insecurities, her need to tie him down. She'd made him cowardly. In his heart he knew that, but he could never say it.

This? Seriously Chris Wooding? This is Frey's big moment of self-realization? That he was wrong to let her make him stop loving her? Not, say, wrong to be an emotionally abusive asshole? Or that he was wrong to abandon his pregnant girlfriend on their wedding day? Oh no, his great fault, his great flaw, is that she made him cowardly?

A fairer man might point out at this stage that Trinica does at least call him on this, the fact that he's always blaming his problems on everybody else. The problem is he doesn't stop doing it, but the book treats him like he has.

Anyway, Frey abandons Trinica, leaving her pregnant in a world where, it is strongly implied, a woman who has a child outside wedlock is basically ruined. This results in Trinica attempting suicide, which results in her having a miscarriage. Which results in Frey spending the next ten years hating her for murdering their child.

Of course here again, Frey has a Big Character Development moment, when he realizes that while he is totally justified in hating Trinica, because she totally did murder their child, he has to accept that he is also partly responsible for her murdering their child, because he allowed her to make him cowardly, so that when she attempted suicide (which, let us be clear, was also cowardly) he didn't get back in time to save the day.

To put it another way, Darien Frey's character arc ends with him confronting a woman who he emotionally abused to the point at which she tried to kill herself, and forgiving her for it.

Up until his reunion with Trinica, Frey comes across as a feckless, self-absorbed cock. His interactions with his former love, far from making him more sympathetic, instead reveal him to be a judgemental asshole. He accuses her of murdering their child – an accusation neither Trinica nor the text challenges. He calls her a coward for attempting suicide – an accusation which the text treats as factual. And of course he has a great deal to say about her appearance:

Her skin was powdered ghost-white. Her hair – so blonde it was almost albino – was cut short, sticking up in uneven tufts as if it had been butchered with a knife. Her lips were a red deep enough to be vulgar

Ironically, of course, this actually makes her sound totally awesome (although where the fuck does he get off judging her choice of lipstick – I'm sorry Darien, is your ex not looking virginal enough for you? Well fuck you you misogynistic shit). But just in case we don't get that her new badass look is bad m'kay we get the following exchange during their next meeting:

”How'd you get this way Trinica?” he said. He raised his head and gestured at her across the gloomy study. “The hair, the skin...” he hesitated. “You used to be beautiful.” “I'm done with beautiful,” she replied

Because of course after she attempted suicide (sorry, I mean “murdered her unborn child” - her life is not, after all, important here) she tried to run away on an airship, but she was captured by pirates who gang raped her. And of course she responded to that by making herself UGLY. Because it is made very clear in the text that She Was Raped Because She Was Beautiful. Incidentally, despite being “through with beautiful” she still wears lipstick, and apparently a particularly vulgar shade of it, if Frey is any judge. I can't be sure, but I'd have thought if you were going down the “I shall make myself ugly so people won't rape me” route you'd avoid lipstick entirely. Then again, maybe Wooding knows something I don't.

And of course Frey's reaction to the whole thing is:

He didn't pity her. He couldn't. He only mourned the loss of the young woman he'd known ten years ago. This mockery of his lover was his own doing. He had fashioned her, and she damned him by her existence.

So ... your ex girlfriend, the former love of your life shows up, and tells you that she's spent the better part of the last ten years getting beaten and raped by a series of pirate crews until she'd eventually clawed her way into a position where she finally had a modicum of security, and all you care about is the fact that she's no longer the innocent little girl you fell in love with? The innocent little girl who you fell in love with but also treated like shit, wanted to get rid of, impregnated and abandoned? You can't spare one second to think about anything except how her present situation reflects on you.

Die in a fire you smug, self-centred little fuckstain.

Umm, there's a fair amount more fail in the book, but I'm really not sure I can go on. Suffice to say that the only other female characters in the book of any significance are Jez the navigator, whose contribution to the climactic confrontation is to whore herself out to a mid-ranking Naval officer (and she doesn't even get to do it on page) and Bess, the golem that Crake created out of his eight year old niece, who he stabbed to death while possessed by a daemon. Crake occasionally angsts about allowing the crew to use Bess (who it is strongly implied can feel pain) as portable cover in firefights. This does not stop him from doing it repeatedly.

Fantasy Rape Watch

Number of Named Female Characters: 4

Of Whom Protagonist's ex Lovers: 2

Of Whom Dead: 2

Of Whom Rape Victims: 1

Of Whom Murdered By Viewpoint Character: 1

Causes of Rape and Sexual Abuse, by Attribution in Text

Nature of Violent Culture: 0%

Nature of Patriarchal Society: 0%

Decisions Made Freely by Rapists: 0%

Beauty of Victim: 100%

Consequences of Rape and Sexual Abuse, by Importance as Judged by Text

Emotional Distress to Victim: 0%

Physical Injury to Victim: 0%

Emotional Distress to Victim's Ex-Boyfriend: 25%

Victim No Longer Physically Desirable to Ex-Boyfriend: 75%

Who Suffers as a Result of a Woman's Suicide Attempt, by Attribution in Text

Her: 0%

Her Unborn Child: 70%

Her Boyfriend: 30%

Who Suffers as the Result of the Murder of an Eight Year Old Girl, as Judged by Text

The Eight Year Old Girl: 20%

The Murderer: 80%

Ways In Which An Intelligent, Talented Woman, Who Has Superhuman Strength And Is Nearly Invulnerable to Physical Damage Could Attempt To Rescue Her Companions At Short Notice

Steal a Ship and Mount a Rescue: 0%

Sneak into Execution and Mount a Rescue: 0%

Prostitute Herself: 100%

My Level of Surprise That This Book Was Nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award:

30%

My Hope For the Genre, Taking This Book As a Standard:

0%Themes:

Books

Sci-fi / Fantasy

Minority Warrior

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~Comments (

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http://alex-von-cercek.livejournal.com/

at 20:16 on 2010-06-26Holy shit.

I don't even have anything else to say. Just...holy shit.

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http://furare.livejournal.com/

at 20:48 on 2010-06-26Wow. That just *is* a world of fail, isn't it?

Focusing just on the "you murdered our child" bit for a minute, it's uncomfortably reminiscent of

something I read recently

about men who want to make abortion all about them, a terrible tragedy foisted on them by the actions of an evil woman. I know a suicide-induced miscarriage isn't exactly abortion, but I think Frey's reaction comes quite close to theirs. Made me wonder if it was possibly intentional - the parallel seems quite obvious to me.

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Arthur B

at 22:49 on 2010-06-26

Focusing just on the "you murdered our child" bit for a minute, it's uncomfortably reminiscent of something I read recently about men who want to make abortion all about them, a terrible tragedy foisted on them by the actions of an evil woman. I know a suicide-induced miscarriage isn't exactly abortion, but I think Frey's reaction comes quite close to theirs. Made me wonder if it was possibly intentional - the parallel seems quite obvious to me.

It's an analogy that jumped out at me too. At the very least, if performing an act that leads to a miscarriage is regarded by Frey as murder, then abortion has to come under that category for Frey's views (and the text's views, it seems) to be even slightly internally consistent. And "men's rights" morons do seem to like portraying abortion as a crime against fathers, and to blame women for everything that men do wrong in a relationship.

Out of interest, how do books get nominated for the Clarke award?

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Dan H

at 23:11 on 2010-06-26

I know a suicide-induced miscarriage isn't exactly abortion, but I think Frey's reaction comes quite close to theirs. Made me wonder if it was possibly intentional - the parallel seems quite obvious to me.

I think that's fair, there's a rather skeevy implication that she deliberately attempted suicide *in order* to induce a miscarriage *in order* to get at Frey.

Because Women Are Evil.

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http://furare.livejournal.com/

at 12:59 on 2010-06-27Because she couldn't have wanted to kill herself because she couldn't deal with the disgrace *he* left her with? I'm not trying to undermine her autonomy by saying it's his fault she slept with him; however, it's unquestionably his fault that he abandoned her at the altar. So surely, by his own logic, if she had succeeded in committing suicide, he would have murdered her. (Just kidding, I can see that Frey's "logic" serves no purpose other than to make sure that he is not genuinely to blame for anything.)

One slightly off-topic thing I feel the need to say is that I Have Had Enough of anything - books, magazine articles, people - who claim that women all want romance and/or commitment, while men just want sex. A lot of women actually want sex, and some of them are actually willing to admit that they're not looking for candlelit dinners or long-term commitment in exchange. Actually, "in exchange" is the problem, isn't it? It implies that sex is something you have to compensate a woman for if she "gives" it to you.

And seriously. If a guy I was dating told me that he wanted to "be with me forever", I would probably laugh in his face. And then try to scrape him off my leg. I don't mind commitment in and of itself, but that sort of declaration fucking terrifies me. But then, I've come to the conclusion that when pop culture talks about "women" and "what women want", they are almost never talking about me. It's like I don't exist or something.

To bring this comment back to the book under discussion, I think it's a real shame that the author squandered a potentially awesome character by treading tired old ground. I mean, a woman who's a badass airship pirate captain! That has so much potential - a character fantasy-reading women might enjoy and identify with. If she wasn't defined almost entirely by what men had done to her. Kind of typical for the genre, though, isn't it.

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Niall

at 14:38 on 2010-06-27

Out of interest, how do books get nominated for the Clarke award?

The Clarke Award is administered by a body called the Serendip Foundation. Each year, they arrange a panel of five judges: traditionally (that is, for pretty much the whole of the Award's thirty-year existence) two of these have been nominated by the British Science Fiction Association, two by the Science Fiction Foundation, and one by A. N. Other invited body, which at present is SF Crowsnest.com, and has been the Science Museum and various other groups. Around this time of year, the Chair of the judging panel writes to UK publishers inviting them to submit books for consideration. Any science fiction novel published in the UK in the relevant calendar year is eligible; the Award does not define "science fiction" or "novel", that's left up to publishers and to the judges to debate. The judges read all the books. They may ask the Chair to contact publishers and request that other titles are submitted for consideration.

The judges then meet in February (ish) to select a shortlist of six. The shortlist is announced in March or April. The judges re-read the books they shortlisted, and meet in April/May (for the last few years, it's been at the start of the Sci-Fi-London film festival) to select a winner.

Basically, it's the Booker Prize process, although I think that in the case of the Booker the Chair is a full member of the panel, and in the Clarke they're a facilitator, appointed by Serendip to run the judges' meetings but not having a vote themselves. Other differences: publishers aren't limited to submitting only two titles, as they are in the Booker; and judges are typically asked to serve for two consecutive years (not all on the same schedule, so there's some refreshment and some carry-over from year to year).

The other titles shortlisted this year were Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts, Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson, Spirit by Gwyneth Jones, Far North by Marcel Theroux, and the eventual winner, The City & The City be China Mieville.

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Niall

at 14:40 on 2010-06-27Oh, and the judges for this year were Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Chris Hill for the BSFA, Francis Spufford and Rhiannon Lassiter for the SF Foundation, and Paul Skevington for SF Crowsnest.

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http://alex-von-cercek.livejournal.com/

at 16:36 on 2010-06-27

Hell, Trinica sounds like the only interesting character in the book. In fact, the book that would be interesting to read would be titled "Kill Frey" and it would be about Trinica Dracken crossing off names from her Death List.

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Dan H

at 21:10 on 2010-06-27

Actually, "in exchange" is the problem, isn't it? It implies that sex is something you have to compensate a woman for if she "gives" it to you.

I believe this is an attitude which I've heard succinctly summarized as "women have sex, men want sex." And yeah, it's kind of a problem. It creates this notion that sex is something that men are supposed to get out of women by whatever means society deems acceptable, which leads to all sorts of nasty places.

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Melissa G.

at 22:31 on 2010-06-27

I totally forgive you for off-topicness because I am so sick of that attitude too! It's so annoying and gender box-y.

But I have to say that I'm even more sick and tired of this attitude:

Because it is made very clear in the text that She Was Raped Because She Was Beautiful.

Because that is such utter BS and a total misunderstanding of what rape is and why it happens. Rape is about power, not desire or lust or being unable to control oneself because the other person is so beautiful. It's so disgusting and irritating to see rape twisted into something where the guy just can't control himself because she's so damn hot. Come on, who could blame him? And then, that brings you to the "She should be flattered he raped her; he could have any woman he wants" mentality. Just...no.

Apologies for going slightly off-topic myself, but that mentality about rape is a huge rage button of mine. Especially since I recently seem to be reading scripts (for my job) of movies where violence against women seems to be the most used plot point for the male character to do anything.

Women in Refrigerators

, anyone?

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Dan H

at 22:55 on 2010-06-27

And then, that brings you to the "She should be flattered he raped her; he could have any woman he wants" mentality. Just...no.

Which might be an apposite moment to bring up the scene fairly early in the book when the characters are attacking an information-broker's hideout, and the guy's pet whores are holed up with shotguns worried that the band of armed psychos who just burst in might, y'know, rape them.

But fortunately Frey reveals that it is he, the hot man from earlier. So he can't be a rapist, because he is hot!

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Melissa G.

at 23:20 on 2010-06-27

So he can't be a rapist, because he is hot!

::facepalm:: That's right, hot guys can't be rapists, and ugly girls can't be rape victims. I mean, who'd want to rape them? They're ugly. And rape is just about how hot a girl is. Really, it's the ultimate compliment!

Sigh. The fail just hurts sometimes....

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http://alex-von-cercek.livejournal.com/

at 23:22 on 2010-06-27You know, taken 100% and entirely out of context, the interchange of

could actually be a snappy wisecrack on the lines of those typically delivered by pulp heroes or, say, Sam Spade. You know what, I think we should all ignore the context, Trinica is an awesome character without it.

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Dan H

at 23:28 on 2010-06-27

Sigh. The fail just hurts sometimes....

To be very slightly fair, I should add that I'm only presenting one of several possible readings. It's possible that they decide to trust him because they recognize him from earlier, for example, but mixed in with all the faily stuff about beauty it bugged me.

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Melissa G.

at 01:55 on 2010-06-28@Dan

That's true, but there's still a sigh on my part at rape-fail in general because I've heard that kind of mentality and attitude expressed far too many times. Especially in conjunction with celebrities who get accused of rape. >.< So the book may get a pass, but society does not. ::shakes fist angrily at society::

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Wardog

at 09:26 on 2010-06-28I was going to read this ... now I am not.

I am depressed.

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http://furare.livejournal.com/

at 11:06 on 2010-06-28Oh hell, don't get me started on the rapefail. I didn't touch it in previous comments because it kinda makes me too angry to write coherently. Let's just say I've read an awful lot about rape in recent weeks and months, and I am sickened by the attitude Melissa mentions with respect to rapist celebrities. I guess the assumption that a celebrity could "have any woman he wants" is pretty damned insulting, too. Sorry, but I don't sleep with guys who act like they're doing me a favour just by noticing me.

And on the general subject of rape and rapefail - it is really aggravating that blog posts on rape are *always* commented on by someone claiming that the real victims of rape are men who are unfairly accused. Because women love "crying rape" and having their sex lives, choice of clothes and conduct at the time in question, and a million and one other things scrutinised. I would not be surprised if an awful lot of retracted accusations were actually due to the fact that investigation of the crime makes the victim feel like they were at fault.

Regardless, "false" reporting occurs in 2-8% of cases, which is about the same as an awful lot of other crimes. (Rape apologists carry round a 41% false report statistic that was taken from a fatally flawed study done in the 70s, rather than the most recent FBI statistics, because it's the one that makes them look right.) But then, issues that largely affect women - like rape and domestic violence - have to be invaded by men telling us that MEN are the victims here, that rape is a stick evil women use to beat MEN and why are we still talking anyway SHUT UP.

So yeah. Novels - and anything else written by anyone ever - that put the blame for rape on anything the victim did or is, rather than the decision made by the rapist to rape her, are things I have no patience with at all. The fact that rape is seen as the victim's fault in real life makes it really far from okay to say that in a novel. Unless you're trying to make the point that your viewpoint character is a misogynistic shit - but I don't think that was the intended reading here.

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Melissa G.

at 01:14 on 2010-06-29

Oh hell, don't get me started on the rapefail. I didn't touch it in previous comments because it kinda makes me too angry to write coherently.

Ditto for me. It's gotten to the point where every time rape shows up in a book/show/movie/what have you, I tend to roll my eyes and then start to judge harshly. Usually it just seems like the writer thinks "What's the most traumatic thing that could happen to this girl? Oh, I know! She gets raped." Or even worse, "What's the most traumatic thing that could happen to this guy? Oh, I know! His girlfriend/wife/mother/daughter/sister gets raped." It just ends up seeming unoriginal and lazy - not to mention the possibility of epic fail.

I do just want to plug something that I was really impressed with as far as how it handled rape and incorporated it into the story. And surprisingly, it's a comic book! It was Ultimate Elektra - a short mini-series type deal. I actually thought that the rape was handled realistically and was meaningful to the story; it all felt like something that could really happen. I'd love to know if anyone else read it and what you thought of it.

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Arthur B

at 01:49 on 2010-06-29

It's gotten to the point where every time rape shows up in a book/show/movie/what have you, I tend to roll my eyes and then start to judge harshly.

Same here. I started to read

The Heart of Myrial

by Maggie Furey a while back, and at first it was silly but basically harmless fun.

Then there was a bit where some peasant woman gets raped by bailiffs to establish two things: that their employer is a rotter, and that the guardsmen who show up and summarily execute the rapist they catch in the act are basically good people who we should cheer for.

I stopped reading at that point.

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http://ignisophis.livejournal.com/

at 15:03 on 2010-09-14A friend of mine recently recommended this book to me. I read it, really enjoyed it and recommended it to my friends, one of whom pointed me to this review. Which is full of things I disagree with, so I thought I should post to explain why.

Judged as a low-investment romp, it’s alright. Judged as a nominee for a prestigious award, it needs to be killed with fire.

Surely a book should be judged on its merits, or lack thereof? Nominations for the Clarke Award have very little to do with quality, and shouldn't your issues with its shortlisting be a matter for a review of the Clarke Award and/or its judges? After all, I doubt Chris Wooding wrote it specifically with the Clarke Award in mind.

I don't agree that zero female crew would have been better than one - it gave me the impression, not of a setting where "women are apparently perfectly accepted", but of a setting where there is very strong social pressure against women entering that line of work. Given the sexism inherent in the rest of the setting, positive discrimination in the crew's gender ratio would have changed the whole focus of the story.

I had a different reading on all of this. For me, part of the appeal of the book is that almost all of the information we have is told from the point of view of a character who is, not to put too fine a point on it, a horrible self-deluding wreck of a human being, damaged by the consequences of his own actions and continuing to damage both himself and those around him. Considering the timescale of the book, I think any genuine change in his behaviour would be too rushed to be plausible. Instead, we see a change in his internal attitude and intentions which will maybe lead to a future change in his behaviour, and till then he's faking it until he can make it. We've spent the whole book being shown how much he wraps himself in delusional self-justification and I don't think there's ever much of a change in its level, just in its form and motives and likely consequences.

I did find it extremely effective, and honestly didn't know which way Frey would jummp. Firstly, Crake's earlier harping on about it did telegraph that a similar situation would probably happen again but could have just been to add weight and consequence should Frey have handled it the same way. Secondly, to my mind it was the right decision not to give the codes the first time, but the right decision to

give

the codes the second time - Macarde just wanted the information, the ship and a bit of revenge, whereas Dracken primarily wanted Frey and the crew and had a good reason to kill Crake; to her the information and the ship were just a bonus. Which is why I didn't think we were meant to think that giving up the codes the first time would've been the right decision.

This is a reading I completely disagree with. If this is the case then why, on the third-to-last page (after Frey has done some heroic things and finally started to bond with his crew), does the author feel the need to remind us of all the horrible things Frey has done? The impression I get from the text is that Frey is a horribly flawed man, but that even horribly flawed people can have some redeeming features, can occasionally do good things despite themselves, and can strive to be better.

I'm always reluctant to claim knowledge of an author's mind, but here in particular I think you're doing Wooding a great disservice. Particularly as Wooding never tells us what he thinks, only what Frey thinks.

because you see women want a man who says he’ll be with them forever, and men just want sex, and there is no overlap whatsoever – no men are interested in commitment, no women are interested in straight-up fucking

For me this was one of the cues that Frey's thought processes are not an authorial voice. He may think about it that way, but the one sex scene in the book has the woman taking the initiative and displaying a greater sexual appetite.

Causes of Rape and Sexual Abuse, by Attribution in Text Beauty of Victim: 100%

According to testimony of said victim, possibly in order to give herself security by thinking that she's safe from rape now that she is attempting to present herself as being far from beautiful. Attributed by a character within the text rather than the text itself.

Consequences of Rape and Sexual Abuse, by Importance as Judged by Text Emotional Distress to Victim's Ex-Boyfriend: 25% Victim No Longer Physically Desirable to Ex-Boyfriend: 75%

Who Suffers as a Result of a Woman's Suicide Attempt, by Attribution in Text Her Unborn Child: 70%, Her Boyfriend: 30%

Both according to the viewpoint of Frey, who as we've already established is a horrible self-centred git. Judged and attributed by a character within the text rather than by the text itself.

Who Suffers as the Result of the Murder of an Eight Year Old Girl, as Judged by Text The Eight Year Old Girl: 20%, The Murderer: 80%

Again, this is according to the point of view of the murderer, not judged by the text itself.

Ways In Which An Intelligent, Talented Woman, Who Has Superhuman Strength And Is Nearly Invulnerable to Physical Damage Could Attempt To Rescue Her Companions At Short Notice Steal a Ship and Mount a Rescue: 0% Sneak into Execution and Mount a Rescue: 0% Prostitute Herself: 100%

Jez is somewhat stronger than she would be as a human, can heal from a knock to the head and a flesh wound and is a decent shot, but this hardly makes her anything like invulnerable and it certainly doesn't make her some kind of superhero. The prostitution did irk me, but I mostly saw it as a comment on the way in which she was coming to see herself as an inhuman monster, and an acknowledgement that she was intelligent enough to realise she couldn't have pulled off either of the first two options on her own.

Overall, I think the heart of our disagreement over the book comes down to a preference for or against didacticism. It's something I strongly dislike - I want stories which present interesting situations and complex flawed characters then leave me to make up my own mind about them. Which don't try to insert authorial comment into the mindset of a flawed and potentially unreliable viewpoint character. Which present a sexist and corrupt society as what it is, without feeling the need to explicitly lecture the audience about it.

Judging from your review, particularly those percentage breakdowns at the end, you want a story in which the text and the author tell the audience what they should think of the horrible things that happen and the horrible things the characters do?

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Arthur B

at 15:43 on 2010-09-14Dan said:

Frey spends the first half of the book chiding himself for his selfishness, indolence, and pisspoor leadership skills. By the end of the book he has stopped chiding himself for all of these things

ignisophis said:

Instead, we see a change in his internal attitude and intentions which will maybe lead to a future change in his behaviour

How does going from "I'm quite bothered by my behaviour" to "I'm OK with my behaviour" make it

likely that he's going to change?

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Dan H

at 16:07 on 2010-09-14

Overall, I think the heart of our disagreement over the book comes down to a preference for or against didacticism.

I don't think it has anythign to do with that. Didacticism is one of those irregular adjectives. You're being Didactic, I'm just presenting things as they are. He has an agenda, I'm telling a story.

It's something I strongly dislike - I want stories which present interesting situations and complex flawed characters then leave me to make up my own mind about them.

So do I. Retribution Falls does neither of those things.

Your interpretation of Frey - as a flawed and complex but ultimately sympathetic character, that despite the horrible things he does he is always striving to be a better man - is exactly the one which I complain that the book was forcing down my throat.

Which don't try to insert authorial comment into the mindset of a flawed and potentially unreliable viewpoint character.

Authorial comment is *absolutely* necessary when you're dealing with a flawed and potentially unreliable viewpoint character. Otherwise how do you know they're flawed and potentially unreliable?

Which present a sexist and corrupt society as what it is, without feeling the need to explicitly lecture the audience about it.

You're presenting a false dichotomy here. You seem to believe that the options are "present a sexist and corrupt society in an uncritical and shallow manner" or "lecture people".

I'd also point out that /Retribution Falls/ does not, in fact, present a sexist and corrupt society. It doesn't really present a society at all. It's an adventure novel, it pays no attention to the way its setting would or could actually work. What you take as "presenting a sexist society as it actually is" I take as "just being sexist".

This is what I don't understand. The text *does* tell us what to think about the horrible things that happen, and the horrible things the characters do. It's extraordinarily heavy handed in that regard. Frey's interaction with Trinica is a good example. In the article I quoted the following:

This is telling you exactly how to feel, and exactly why you should be feeling it. Frey did a Terrible Thing in running out on Trinica, and we are supposed to condemn him for running out on her, but recognize that he has accepted responsibility for it and grown as a result. That's what allows you to interpret Frey as a "complex and flawed character".

Frey is only complex and flawed if you interpret his character in exactly the ways the book (very directly, very heavy-handedly) tells you to interpret his character. Otherwise he really is a dickbag with no redeeming features whatsoever and that's not an interesting character to read about.

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http://ignisophis.livejournal.com/

at 16:58 on 2010-09-14

Your interpretation of Frey - as a flawed and complex but ultimately sympathetic character, that despite the horrible things he does he is always striving to be a better man

But that's not my interpretation of Frey. That's how you think the author wants us to interpret Frey. My interpretation of Frey is that he's a flawed and complex and almost entirely

sympathetic character, who doesn't strive to be a better man until we're approaching the end of the book - and even then the motives for his striving are suspect and its eventual outcome uncertain. I don't sympathise with him, but I do pity him, and despite his being a git with virtually no redeeming features I do find him interesting to read about.

Authorial comment is *absolutely* necessary when you're dealing with a flawed and potentially unreliable viewpoint character. Otherwise how do you know they're flawed and potentially unreliable?

From an evaluation of their narrative.

You're presenting a false dichotomy here. You seem to believe that the options are "present a sexist and corrupt society in an uncritical and shallow manner" or "lecture people".

If you're going to rewrite what I say, please don't put quote marks around it! Or at least, use quote marks but put some editorial square brackets around the altered text.

"He didn't pity her. He couldn't. He only mourned the loss of the young woman he'd known ten years ago. This mockery of his lover was his own doing. He had fashioned her, and she damned him by her existence." This is telling you exactly how to feel, and exactly why you should be feeling it.

This is our disagreement in a nutshell. You think that excerpt is telling the audience what to feel and why they should feel it. I think that excerpt is telling the audience what

Frey

feels and why he thinks

he's

feeling it. What you appear to read as an objective narrator uncritically describing Frey's reaction in what we are meant to take as reasonable terms, I read as subjective narration by a selfish and dysfunctional viewpoint character speaking in the third person.

I think it's a deeply unhealthy way to feel, and would agree that the book deserved to be killed by fire if it suggested that the audience

was

meant to feel that way about Trinica's condition. Fortunately, I don't think it is.

Is not the definition of a didactic reading of a text the belief that the text is telling us what to do and why we should do it?

And in response to Arthur:

How does going from "I'm quite bothered by my behaviour" to "I'm OK with my behaviour" make it more likely that he's going to change?

If he was genuinely bothered by his behaviour beforehand then he'd have made an effort to change it. I see the transition as going from "I shall self-flagellate about my failings while using my awareness of them to convince myself that tryin to change would be pointless" to "I have failings, but I am making an effort to change". How genuine and lasting that effort is has yet to be seen.

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Dan H

at 17:50 on 2010-09-14

My interpretation of Frey is that he's a flawed and complex and almost entirely unsympathetic character, who doesn't strive to be a better man until we're approaching the end of the book

I think we're using the word "sympathetic" differently. I'm using it to mean "has qualities with which you can sympathize" whereas you seem to use it to mean "has no flaws".

You see Frey as flawed, complex and almost entirely unsympathetic but (presumably) with some redeeming features (you suggest as much in your previous post). Again this is *exactly* the interpretation I believe the text is pushing for.

The problem I have with Frey isn't that he's unsympathetic, it's that he's unsympathetic *in different ways to the ones the text cares about*.

From an evaluation of their narrative.

Which you would do how? I mean seriously how do you know a narrator is unreliable without some clue that comes from outside their narration?

I think it's a deeply unhealthy way to feel, and would agree that the book deserved to be killed by fire if it suggested that the audience was meant to feel that way about Trinica's condition. Fortunately, I don't think it is.

Umm ... I'm a bit confused here. What about the way Frey feels about Trinica's condition are we supposed to disagree with? How do *you* feel about Trinica's condition and how do you think it's different, and how do you think the text supports that feeling?

The book clearly explains to us that Frey had a responsibility to Trinica, that by running out on her he shirked that responsibility, which caused her to attempt suicide and lead to the death of their child, and ultimately to her getting raped and becoming the Dread Pirate Dracken. Frey feels guilty for shirking this responsibility. What about this interpretation do you think is incorrect? How do you think Frey is mistaken here?

Is not the definition of a didactic reading of a text the belief that the text is telling us what to do and why we should do it?

Umm ... yes it is. I read the book as extremely didactic, and dislike it because I consider it to be didactic. You seemed to think that my problem was wanting the book to be *more* didactic, when in fact I want it to be *less* didactic. The book as it stands tells us exactly how to feel about everything in it.

Again, that's exactly my problem and once again, your interpretation of the text lines up exactly with the interpretation I believe the text is telling me to have.

Frey's big flaw, as dictated by the text, is that he runs away from his responsibilities. That is the flaw he spends the book dealing with, and that is the flaw he overcomes at the end when he realizes that he has a duty to his crew.

Frey's real flaw is that he believes everything is about him. The thing is that it *really is*. This isn't a matter of perception, every single person he meets is willing to risk everything to either help or harm him. Even Trinica's suicide attempt was *about Frey* and she freely admits that it was about Frey. This isn't unreliable narration, this isn't the subjective viewpoint of a flawed character, this is how things actually are in the setting.

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Arthur B

at 20:44 on 2010-09-14

Which you would do how? I mean seriously how do you know a narrator is unreliable without some clue that comes from outside their narration?

To be fair, you can do it without outside clues. Gene Wolfe did it quite well in

Peace

- if you take the narrator at his word it's about a nice old man reminiscing about his life, but if you pay attention to the bits where he contradicts himself, glosses over something, or is clearly omitting something you realise that he's a horrifyingly evil person. (To pull a fuzzily-remembered example out of thin air, a particular character just plain disappears partway through the story after a fairly tense conversation with the narrator, and it's only later when he casually mentions possessing a piece of property that most definitely belonged to her that you realise he probably killed her - and if you go back and revisit the scene in question you can put together a fairly good idea of how he did it and how he disposed of the evidence.)

Not that that's necessarily what's happening in Retribution Falls. And I do agree that you do need the contradictions and omissions and whatnot in order to give textual support for interpretations that directly contradict the narrator's own assessment of things. The more internally consistent and solid a narrative is the less wiggle room you have for challenging the statements in it, after all.

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Dan H

at 13:44 on 2010-09-15But that's still a metatextual clue - Wolfe clearly included the reference *specifically* to allow for that interpretation, which is sort of my point.

I'm not saying the text has to stop and say "just so we're clear, the narrator is lying to you here" but it is actually very clear what *is* just viewpoint and what *isn't*. It's like people who will argue that Star Wars is shot from "Luke Skywalker's Viewpoint" and that the Empire might not be evil at all. It's not a legitimate reading of the text, and it displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how viewpoint works in fiction.

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Arthur B

at 14:01 on 2010-09-15Well the other difference is that

Peace

is very much delivered from the narrator's viewpoint - it's all spoken in the first person. It's not Wolfe writing in the third person who tells you that the narrator has the vanished girl's stuff, it's the narrator himself not managing to keep his story straight.

Of course, the other big argument against the "it's OK because he's an unreliable narrator" take on

Retribution Falls

is that as far as I can tell it's written in the third person, which would mean you can't firmly say that the narration is from Frey's point of view. The argument that the narrative voice isn't "subjective narration by a selfish and dysfunctional viewpoint character speaking in the third person" seems to me - unless there's textual support for it somewhere - to be a bit of a leap, when the default assumption in most books is that the narrative voice is objective, omniscient, and impersonal. I'm sure there's been books written in the third person where the narrative voice is in fact subjective, unreliable, and personal, but you'd expect to be tipped off to the fact if that's what you're meant to take away from it.

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Niall

at 14:16 on 2010-09-15

the default assumption in most books is that the narrative voice is objective, omniscient, and impersonal

Say what? No it isn't. I wouldn't even say it's the default assumption in most books written in the third person. In fact, I'd say that in contemporary fiction, an objective, omniscient, impersonal narrative voice is rare.

The specific paragraph being debated above is limited third person. Every sentence is grounded in Frey's subjectivity. For me to read it as an objective assessment of the situation, it would have to stand further outside him: "Frey didn't pity Trinica. It wouldn't do any good. The only thing to do was to mourn the loss of the young woman he'd known ten years ago..."

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Arthur B

at 14:46 on 2010-09-15

Say what? No it isn't. I wouldn't even say it's the default assumption in most books written in the third person.

OK, checking the wikipedia article on narrative modes I see that I've been sloppy about my terms and not used them especially correctly (though I note that over the entire sweep of literature the third-person omniscient has totally been the most commonly used so ya boo sucks :P).

For me the narrative voice came off as impersonal - the very fact that it's the third person seems to point in that direction, for starters. But I'm assessing that on a fairly limited selection of quotes, and I'd need to read a lot more to work out whether the narrative voice is meant to take an over-the-shoulder perspective where it follows Frey but doesn't necessarily condone or identify with him or whether it's meant to be Frey.

This is all, of course, secondary to the question of whether the reader is meant to sympathise or condemn Frey. And the thing is, the various attitudes he expresses, which both Dan and ignisophis agree are problematic, are common enough that I can easily imagine many readers reading the book and thinking "Yeah, that Frey guy's totally got it right - my ex's abortion was all about me too!"

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Arthur B

at 14:48 on 2010-09-15(Also I'd argue that the third-person omniscient has maintained a greater foothold in SF/fantasy than it has in other genres thanks to the influence of Tolkien in fantasy, and various brick-sized multiple-viewpoint novels of the Alastair Reynolds/Peter F. Hamilton variety in SF.)

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Niall

at 15:00 on 2010-09-15

I'd need to read a lot more to work out whether the narrative voice is meant to take an over-the-shoulder perspective where it follows Frey but doesn't necessarily condone or identify with him or whether it's meant to be Frey.

To be pedantic, I'm less interested in whether it's

meant

to be one or the other, and more interested in what it

, if only because we can't know the former and can meaningfully debate the latter. So: I think

Retribution Falls

is basically over-the-shoulder with occasional slips which come about because, when it comes down to it, Wooding is not a particularly impressive writer on a sentence-by-sentence level. It doesn't help that, as you say, the prose has a fairly unexciting default voice, neither strongly

the character it's following nor strongly

not

of the character it's following. Still, I didn't experience the book as didactic in the way that Dan did.

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Niall

at 15:05 on 2010-09-15Do you know, it's so long since I've actually read Tolkien that I can't remember what his narrative is like, but I wouldn't characterise Hamilton as third-person omniscient. From what I remember, even if he follows multiple characters, he sticks pretty tightly to a single character within any given scene. So I'd say he's multiple third-person-limited, and reserve third-person omnisicient for books like

Middlemarch

, where there is a single narrator that wanders between characters whenever it feels like it.

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Arthur B

at 15:05 on 2010-09-15

To be pedantic, I'm less interested in whether it's meant to be one or the other, and more interested in what it is, if only because we can't know the former and can meaningfully debate the latter.

But there's no objective test which will conclusively prove it's one or the other, if it's a borderline case; all we can do is see what it seems like to us, and consider what prompts the text are giving us (the latter of which is what I meant by "meant").

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Arthur B

at 15:07 on 2010-09-15

Do you know, it's so long since I've actually read Tolkien that I can't remember what his narrative is like, but I wouldn't characterise Hamilton as third-person omniscient. From what I remember, even if he follows multiple characters, he sticks pretty tightly to a single character within any given scene.

Yeah, but he'll regularly set up situations using the technique where the characters who are going into a particular situation know much less than we do, because the narrative voice has clued us in to stuff that's been going on which the current viewpoint character doesn't know about. The overall point is to give this helicopter overview of what's happening on a stage covering half a galaxy, which no one character can get a clear picture of but which the narrative voice seems to be showing us as we travel around in its company.

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Wardog

at 15:18 on 2010-09-15I'm with Niall on this - I think it is rare to find books where the narrative voice objective, omniscient and impersonal. Otherwise everything would sound like it was written by Henry Fielding. Most third books have conscious POV shifts, usually between chapters or between scenes, as you move between characters or else are specifically situated as being the perspective of a specific character - the Harry Potter books, for example.

Where it gets difficult is locating the overlapping subjectivity of character and author - and, by author, I mean the hazy figure present in the text, not the person giving interviews to the media.

Sorry to randomly tangent, but this discussion reminds me the discussion about

Sisters Red

over at The Book Smugglers. Essentially Ana condemns the book for its victim-blaming and honestly slightly unhealthy attitude to certain types of girls - later the author inadvisable rocks up in the comments to claim s/he has been misrepresented since the unhealthy victim-blaming stuff was all from a unhealthy character's POV.

Unfortunately "it's okay, it's a bad person saying it" becomes difficult it is very often implicitly supported by the structures of the book itself. to use the Sisters Red example, what you have is a damaged character expressing an offensive viewpoint, the same viewpoint echoed by a less damaged character not two pages later AND a world in which the offensive viewpoint is LITERALLY true. In the world of Sisters Red, girls who dress, look and behave a certain way are, in fact, targeted by predators. Whereas the "dress up pretty will get you raped" mindset is actually not only untrue (since the majority of rapes are committed by people who knew the victim, not strangers jumping on beautiful girls who go clubbing in short skirts) but a control strategy to keep women feeling vulnerable and dis empowered.

To return to the book in question, the issue, I think, is not with Frey's viewpoint itself but with the way the narrative as a whole functions to support it, rather than condemn it. I mean Frey views women in a completely obnoxious but the behaviour of every woman in the text actually reinforces the fact he's right to treat them as he does - I mean everyone he sleeps with, apparently falls madly in love with him and wants him to settle down and twu wuv with her. It doesn't matter how much pseudo bad-assery you paint onto a female character if *her entire life* revolves around a dude then Frey is, in fact, exactly right to view women as clingy, fragile and emotionally demanding.

The whole "He had fashioned her" line is grossly offensive - not least because, in the text, it is actually true.

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Arthur B

at 15:33 on 2010-09-15

Most third books have conscious POV shifts, usually between chapters or between scenes, as you move between characters or else are specifically situated as being the perspective of a specific character - the Harry Potter books, for example.

OK, I've tended to think of multiple viewpoint books as being objective/omniscient/impersonal because the narration isn't exclusively associated with one viewpoint, and gives you an overview of what's going on which no single character actually enjoys - so it averages out as being objective-ish and omniscient-ish and impersonal-ish when you take the book as a whole, but I'm obviously doing great harm to the terminology there so I'll stop.

Though that said, if the main character's ideas are never actually challenged by anything they encounter in the world, it doesn't matter much where the narrator's sitting does it?

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Melissa G.

at 17:35 on 2010-09-15

Though that said, if the main character's ideas are never actually challenged by anything they encounter in the world, it doesn't matter much where the narrator's sitting does it?

That's pretty much my problem with the "But the narrator is unreliable/a bad person so it doesn't matter if their POV is offensive" argument. If you want us to accept that the POV is in an unreliable person's hands, we needs clues in the text.

A good example of it being done right, imo, is Lolita. I don't particularly *like* Lolita, but Nobokov actually did a pretty stellar job of writing from the POV of a pedophile while still providing us with enough textual clues to be able to interpret Humbert Humbert's behavior and mindset as destructive and wrong. It's very subtle and not concrete evidence - hence all the controversy surrounding that book - but I truly believe we're not meant to view Humbert Humbert as *right* in what he does. Lolita displays characteristics of a sexually abused child, for example. Humbert Humbert doesn't pick up on this, but the reader can.

Anyway, back to the original point, I think if a writer is going to have an unreliable narrator or a morality effed up narrator, the text outside the character needs to display at least *signs* that they are effed up and unreliable. If the world bends to their viewpoint, I don't think there's any way that defense works. They are just being proven right, in that case, which is basically what people have stated above, and I agree with.

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Dan H

at 18:40 on 2010-09-15

I think you're right that the specific paragraph is a bad example, but I think part of the confusion here is that people seem to be misunderstanding precisely what I find offensive about Frey's reaction to Trinica and the way it is grounded in the text.

People are focusing a lot on the "didn't pity her" line which is actually the line in the whole thing I find *least* offensive. Pity is a patronizing emotion, and what offended me most about Trinica wasn't the lack of sympathy in the text, it was the lack of *respect*.

As Kyra points out, what's really offensive about the whole thing is the second line: "This mockery of his lover was his own doing. He had fashioned her, and she damned him by her existence." What is offensive about this line is not that Frey thinks that way but that the text really does provide strong evidence that he is *right* to think this way.

Frey's *entire* arc (as ignisophis observes) is about going from making excuses for his flaws, to facing up to them and taking responsibility for them. In this context, his taking responsibility for Trinica's condition is presented as both right and correct, and a step on his emotional development towards a better and more complete person. Similarly he *takes responsibility* for his part in the loss of their child, accepting that his cowardice in running away from Trinica was comparable to her cowardice in attempting to take her own life. These are all *personal revelations* which are presented as *unambiguously positive and correct*.

To lay it out clearly, this is a list of things which I consider to be facts about Trinica Dracken which (a) are what Frey believes, (b) are the canonical truth of the setting and (c) are deeply offensive.

1. Trinica attempted to kill herself because Frey left her. Unambiguously true, he admits it, she admits it.

2. Trinica's attempted suicide was motivated partly out of a desire to hurt Frey. She says specifically tells Frey that "I wanted you to know what I had done".

3. Trinica's decision to kill herself was cowardly. Frey believes this, the text does not challenge it, and Frey is presented as developing emotionally when he compares his own cowardice to Trinica's.

4. Trinica's attempted suicide was worse because she was pregnant. Again Frey believes this and the text supports it. Again, Frey's emotional growth comes from his recognition that he *shares* in Trinica's moral culpability for the death of their child.

5. Trinica is a tragic figure. A lot of the argument about what is and is not Frey's PoV seems to come down to the question of whether it is right that he "does not pity" Trinica. What is most certainly *not* subjective, or simply a result of Frey's distorted viewpoint, is that Trinica is *worse off* as a capable, independent Pirate Captain than she was as a nineteen year old china doll.

These are all genuinely, deeply offensive to me - particularly point 3: "suicide is cowardly" is one of the most repugnant ideas to go unchallenged in popular opinion, and a text that repeats it without condemning it reinforces it.

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http://ignisophis.livejournal.com/

at 20:42 on 2010-09-16

I think we're using the word "sympathetic" differently. I'm using it to mean "has qualities with which you can sympathize" whereas you seem to use it to mean "has no flaws".

"I'm [tautology] whereas you [are ridiculous]"? Heh.

In this context I'm using 'sympathetic character' to mean 'a character in whose circumstances I could potentially see myself having similar reactions and making similar choices'. To make it clearer with some examples, in this particular book I find Crake, Harkins, Jez, Malvery and Silo sympathetic. I find Frey and Pinn unsympathetic. Trinica Dracken I find to be about half-and-half.

I mean seriously how do you know a narrator is unreliable without some clue that comes from outside their narration?

I think Arthur and others have already addressed this point. To be clear, I don't consider Frey unreliable in his recounting of facts but I do consider him unreliable in the way he judges and presents those facts. Not due to explicit cues in the text, but by evaluating his judgements and presentations in relation to my own experiences of the real world, in the same way as Melissa suggests the audience is meant to pick up on aspects of "Lolita".

I'm a bit confused here. What about the way Frey feels about Trinica's condition are we supposed to disagree with? How do *you* feel about Trinica's condition and how do you think it's different, and how do you think the text supports that feeling? The book clearly explains to us that Frey had a responsibility to Trinica, that by running out on her he shirked that responsibility, which caused her to attempt suicide and lead to the death of their child, and ultimately to her getting raped and becoming the Dread Pirate Dracken. Frey feels guilty for shirking this responsibility. What about this interpretation do you think is incorrect? How do you think Frey is mistaken here?

As others have said, it's probably not the best idea to get overly hung up on this one paragraph. But to answer your questions...

As you say, one of Frey's big flaws is thinking that everything revolves around him. This is a perfect example. Yes, Frey shirked that initial responsibility, and he is right to feel guilty for doing so - but not so much for the fact that he did so as the manner in which he did so, which is never something he questions because as is stated elsewhere in the text he believes women

need

to be lied to. The crucial error is his assumption that each step led inexorably to the next, as if his initial flight toppled the first in a line of dominoes. The causal links are there but it's not a simple case of "If A Then B", at each step Trinica had a choice in how she reacted and there were multiple other influences on that choice besides the previous steps - such as the culture, her family and the pirates who captured her.

I read the book as extremely didactic, and dislike it because I consider it to be didactic. You seemed to think that my problem was wanting the book to be *more* didactic, when in fact I want it to be *less* didactic. The book as it stands tells us exactly how to feel about everything in it.

My point is that the didacticism doesn't lie in the book itself but in your reading of it. I don't consider it particularly didactic, and Niall appears to agree with me. Furthermore, your review rarely gave me the impression of wanting it to be less didactic - instead you are constantly railing against the book for telling you the wrong things, and rather than not telling you anything you seem to want it to tell you different things: that suicide is not cowardice, that rape is not motivated by beauty, that the person who suffers most in a murder is the victim.

Again, I think you're seeing things in the text that aren't there. For a start, I disagree that that

the way things are in the setting. The first two NPCs we meet, Macarde and Quail, most definitely

aren't

willing to risk everything to help or harm him. After that, most of the focus Frey draws isn't because of who he is but because of what he represents; to the Century Knights and society at large the killer of the prince who was the nation's sole heir, to Duke Grephen and his allies a threat to their conspiracy. The only people willing to risk anything for his sake (besides his crew) are Trinica Drecken and the Thades, all three of whom have solid motives for doing so.

what offended me most about Trinica wasn't the lack of sympathy in the text, it was the lack of *respect*. As Kyra points out, what's really offensive about the whole thing is the second line: "This mockery of his lover was his own doing. He had fashioned her, and she damned him by her existence." What is offensive about this line is not that Frey thinks that way but that the text really does provide strong evidence that he is *right* to think this way.

As I explained above, I don't think the text does provide strong evidence that he is right to think that way. Frey believes it, because he thinks everything is about him, but the reader hopefully has enough awareness of the real world to know that life doesn't work like that. I think part of the problem here is that Trinica is also a dysfunctional and psychologically damaged person, about which I shall go into more detail below.

1 & 2: (a) and (b) hold. But I'm not sure why you're taking offence? People find many reasons to attempt suicide, and it seems odd to take offence at somebody being psychologically vulnerable. (Tangent: The physiological changes brought on by pregnancy are well known to have an effect on mood, a brief google suggests that some people claim natal depression can cause an increased suicide risk while others claim there is a reduced suicide risk during pregnancy; I don't have the knowledge or inclination to properly search and evaluate the medical literature on the subject, but it's entirely possible Wooding didn't do his research properly either and happened across a study claiming an increased risk?). It's not as if the text suggests she was morally or intellectually justified in attempting to kill herself in that situation or for those motives, which is something I could support taking offence at. These are the interactions of two deeply dysfunctional people, and I see them presented as such.

3: (a) and (c) hold, but I think it's a considerable leap to go from "not challenged by the text" to "the canonical truth of the setting". To my mind, your wanting the text to explicitly challenge and condemn this belief of Frey's also counters your claim that you want the text to be less didactic as opposed to just differently didactic.

4: (a) and (c) hold, and it's possible that Trinica believes it as well. But it's only a canonical truth in the sense that certain characters in canon believe it, as with (3) I think there's a difference (at least in fiction) between not explicitly challenging or condemning a viewpoint and presenting it as a valid and objective ethical judgement.

5: Aristotle defined a tragic figure as someone whose misfortune is brought about by some error of judgement. So yes, I agree that Trinica is a tragic figure and that (a) and (b) hold. But I'm not sure what it is about Trinica being a tragic figure that you find offensive?

Whereas I do find it offensive that you characterise her nineteen year old self as a "china doll". We aren't given that much detail about her life at the time but we do know that she was a wealthy heiress and trained pilot capable of romancing Frey against her family's wishes, convincing Frey to say he'd marry despite his reluctance, and even after her suicide attempt and miscarriage able to steal some money and fly off alone in a small aircraft. Yes she was emotionally vulnerable enough to fall obsessively in love with Frey and attempt suicide when he left her standing pregnant at the altar, but to me the rest of that sounds fairly awesome, not particularly badly off and not particularly "china doll" like either.

Whereas she then spent years being raped and abused, stuck in a situation where she had to use her sexuality as a tool for survival and advancement and a culture where violence and murder are commonplace, then remaining in that culture while denying her sexuality and attempting to present herself as something undesirable. Laying aside the fact that despite the way it's glamorised by fiction and cultural mythology piracy is actually rather horrible, her position as a pirate captain may be capable but whether it's more independent than her early life is a position open to much debate. It's also a position in which I'd say that she possesses a lot more 'public agency' but a lot less 'personal agency', and one which I see as reinforcing and perpetuating the psychological damage she's suffered. So yes, I do think she is a great deal worse off.

A lot of the argument about what is and is not Frey's PoV seems to come down to the question of whether it is right that he "does not pity" Trinica.

I think that's in large part due to the choice of example paragraph!

"suicide is cowardly" is one of the most repugnant ideas to go unchallenged in popular opinion, and a text that repeats it without condemning it reinforces it.

I'd find it really intrusive to have an explicit condemnation, and I think the text does challenge it by showing that Trinica is most definitely not a coward.

To close, I just reread the last chapter of the book and noticed something I didn't before this discussion. When Trinica has Frey (and his crew) at her mercy she lets him go with the following dialogue, which I think stands by itself:

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http://ignisophis.livejournal.com/

at 20:44 on 2010-09-16Oops, missed a blockquote closure in my comment, hope the site admins can edit to make it a bit more readable?

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Arthur B

at 22:05 on 2010-09-16

To be clear, I don't consider Frey unreliable in his recounting of facts but I do consider him unreliable in the way he judges and presents those facts. Not due to explicit cues in the text, but by evaluating his judgements and presentations in relation to my own experiences of the real world, in the same way as Melissa suggests the audience is meant to pick up on aspects of "Lolita".

But doesn't this mean that you end up disagreeing with Frey's assessment of his world because you don't buy into his preconceptions and biases, whereas someone who did share his preconceptions would just find them reinforced?

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Niall

at 09:02 on 2010-09-17Arthur: possibly, but (a) I'd be willing to bet that there's no way to write about a character like Frey that a person like Frey wouldn't find a way to sympathise with, (b) Even if you could find a way to make this hypothetical person-Frey find character-Frey unsympathetic, I would imagine they'd just dislike the book rather than be challenged or changed by it, and (c) I don't think it's literature's job to be concerned with the reactions of a hypothetical person-Frey.

I expect to get some disagreement here on (c), and to an extent I'm going to immediately walk it back, because I think that what is missing from ignisophis' analysis -- while I am broadly more in agreement with his reading than Dan's -- is a sense of a structural argument. Trinica's psychological vulnerability isn't offensive just because it's there, it's offensive because there isn't a broad enough range of female characters in the novel for it to seem exceptional, and because there isn't a broad enough range of characters in the sf and fantasy genres for it to seem exceptional; that is, it plays into prevalent and damaging stereotypes.

I would prefer that stories not do that, he said, with heavy understatement. But that's because of how

react to it, not because of how I worry other people might react to it. I don't think it's sustainable, and I do fear that it's arrogant, to pronounce on the latter.

As I say, I agree with much of the rest of ignisophis' response to Dan's five points, particularly

I think it's a considerable leap to go from "not challenged by the text" to "the canonical truth of the setting"

. Absence of endorsement is not endorsement of absence, and as I've already said, I didn't feel shepherded towards one interpretation as Dan did. (In fact, where the female characters are concerned, I was more bothered by Jez than by Trinica (or Amalicia), pretty much because I didn't believe what I was told about Frey's exes -- to build on ignisophis' point, I think the "straightforwardness he'd previously found charming" is a clear hint that young Trinica was

not

precisely the delicate flower Frey imagines her to be -- whereas we get Jez's point of view.) At the same time,

Retribution Falls

is not a good enough book that I want to die in a ditch over it. Also, I'm now late for work. Oops.

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Arthur B

at 09:52 on 2010-09-17

Arthur: possibly, but (a) I'd be willing to bet that there's no way to write about a character like Frey that a person like Frey wouldn't find a way to sympathise with, (b) Even if you could find a way to make this hypothetical person-Frey find character-Frey unsympathetic, I would imagine they'd just dislike the book rather than be challenged or changed by it, and (c) I don't think it's literature's job to be concerned with the reactions of a hypothetical person-Frey.

Ah, but my problem with ignisophis's analysis isn't just it lets people who already agree with Frey off the hook, it also isn't especially helpful for people who already agree with Frey.

If this really is a book the reader has to resort to things that they already know and believe to cobble together an interpretation, which is what ignisophis appears to be saying, then the book isn't really bringing anything new to the table. It's not opening their eyes to another way of looking at the world because it's just asking them to resort to theirs, it's not putting forward any new ideas so much as throwing out facts for people to whip into shape using their own ideas, it's not communicating anything meaningful because the reader finds no meaning or message which they didn't already completely believe in when they picked the book up.

This is something which is, to borrow Dan's terms from the start of an article, alright if you're just talking about a low-investment romp but is troubling if it's something that gets shortlisted for an award. Major landmarks of the SF genre - or any genre, or fiction in general - need to do something more than just saying "Meh, I dunno guys, what do you think?"

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Niall

at 10:18 on 2010-09-17Philosophy-of-awards as well as philosophy-of-reading, eh? It's like you're deliberately

trying

to distract me from work... :-)

I was surprised to see

Retribution Falls

on the Clarke shortlist, I think a lot of people were surprised, there were plenty of books I would rather have seen shortlisted, and had it won, I would have been upset for pretty much the reasons you outline. That said, part of the reason I was surprised was that books like

Retribution Falls

-- by which I mean adventure novels -- just don't get shortlisted for the Clarke very often. And in principle, I would like a definition of "the best science fiction novel of the year" to be able to include really good adventure novels, which do after all make up the bulk of what gets published as sf. So there was an extent to which I was happy to see it on the shortlist, even though I think it's pretty disposable, because it represents an assertion that this sort of thing

can

be the best sf has to offer, and because when reading the six shortlisted books in quick succession, it was a change of pace.

I would be interested to know what people make of

The Fade

, Wooding's previous novel, which I read several years ago and much less attentively than I read

Retribution Falls

, but which I remember as significantly more interesting (and better) on some of the issues we've been discussing here. I'm also quite tempted, now, to pick up the RF sequel

Black Lung Captain

, just to see how things pan out...

Also:

Absence of endorsement is not endorsement of absence

That doesn't actually make any sense at all, does it? Just forget I typed it, stick with what ignisophis wrote.

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Niall

at 10:19 on 2010-09-17

really good adventure novels, which do after all make up the bulk of what gets published as sf.

That is, adventure novels make up the bulk of what's published as sf. Really good adventure novels, sadly, seem to be thin on the ground.

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Arthur B

at 11:14 on 2010-09-17

And in principle, I would like a definition of "the best science fiction novel of the year" to be able to include really good adventure novels, which do after all make up the bulk of what gets published as sf.

Oh, I think there are books that qualify as classics of the genre that basically boil down to being adventure novels - like anything Jack Vance ever wrote. But ideally your pure adventure novel should say "Hey, I'm a pure adventure novel, I'm not trying to say anything profound", which is at least a positive statement, rather than being an abstention from making any kind of statement at all.

(Of course Dan would argue that Redemption Falls doesn't abstain from making any kind of statement at all, but I'm not tackling that so much as I'm taking issue with ignisophis's stance that you can work out how the book is intended to come across by resorting to your own personal knowledge and preconceptions rather than anything in the text.)

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Melissa G.

at 17:53 on 2010-09-17

I'm taking issue with ignisophis's stance that you can work out how the book is intended to come across by resorting to your own personal knowledge and preconceptions rather than anything in the text.)

I see what you're saying here (I think). To bring it back to my original example of Lolita, the only people who will find Humbert Humbert offensive and creepy and wrong are the people who already think "pedophilia is bad". Any pedophile reading the book is likely to walk away thinking, "Yes, exactly, he totally gets it!" The smart, non-pedophile reader will vilify Humbert Humbert, whereas a creepy child-molesting reader is likely to vilify Lolita, that damn little cocktease.

The book does require people to come to it with the preconception of "pedophiles are creepy and wrong", and honestly most people do. Unfortunately for "Retribution Falls" (and I've not read it so I'm just going on what the article/comments have said), most people do not come to a sci-fi novel with a preconceived notion of feminism and an expectation of strong females characters because, as Niall said, it plays into "dangerous stereotypes". These tropes exist so strongly in SF/Fantasy that it's more difficult to assume that the reader will know not to take Frey's attitude as how we are meant to view the world. Granted, this gets into "assuming your reader is an idiot" which can be even more infuriating, but I think this might be what some people are taking issue with. Correct me if I'm wrong. :-)

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Sister Magpie

at 18:25 on 2010-09-17I don't want to weigh in on Retribution Falls since I haven't read it, but I remember Lolita as having a few moments where Nabakov seemed to make it clear that Humbert was wrong too. For instance, doesn't he get sick when he catches sight of Quilty watching Lolita innocently playing with a dog and obviously perving on her, as if he's looking at himself from the outside? And one thing I do remember is one passage where Humbert is describing their happy life together and almost accidentally talks about Lolita crying herself to sleep at night.

The book is mostly in his pov but iirc Nabakov had a real history of writing unreliable narrators so that became a central idea of the book. Pale Fire has a seemingly insane person writing notes on a poem, Despair (I think it was?) is a novel about a guy who finds his exact double...except only the narrator actually thinks they look alike. I'm not sure if this author has the same interest?

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Dan H

at 22:03 on 2010-09-17

I don't want to weigh in on Retribution Falls since I haven't read it, but I remember Lolita as having a few moments where Nabakov seemed to make it clear that Humbert was wrong too

Humbert Humbert is fairly unambiguously wrong in Lolita. This is what I really don't get about "viewpoint" arguments - it's entirely possible for a book to be written from the point of view of a character and still be critical of that point of view.

Heck, Retribution Falls does this with its other viewpoint characters. Crake's chapters are full of his comments about how awful and common everybody else is, but it is extraordinarily clear from the way the book is written that we are supposed to disagree with him.

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Dan H

at 23:28 on 2010-09-17

In this context I'm using 'sympathetic character' to mean 'a character in whose circumstances I could potentially see myself having similar reactions and making similar choices'.

Umm, then you're using a very weird definition of "sympathetic".

I *sympathized* with Humbert Humbert. I wouldn't marry a woman just so I could fuck her daughter.

To be clear, I don't consider Frey unreliable in his recounting of facts but I do consider him unreliable in the way he judges and presents those facts.

But his judgment of those facts is reinforced by the way other people behave and what other people say about him.

. The crucial error is his assumption that each step led inexorably to the next, as if his initial flight toppled the first in a line of dominoes.

Except that there is no evidence in the text that he is incorrect, and quite a lot of evidence in the text that he *is* correct.

My point is that the didacticism doesn't lie in the book itself but in your reading of it.

I think "didacticism" is actually the wrong word to use here. The book is *heavy handed*. It tells you very clearly and explicitly what to think about things. It's not a subtle text.

Again, I think you're seeing things in the text that aren't there ... The only people willing to risk anything for his sake (besides his crew) are Trinica Drecken and the Thades, all three of whom have solid motives for doing so.

But don't the crew, Trinica, and the Thades together represent all of the viewpoint characters and most of the incidental cast. Who's left to not give a damn about him, other than the Century Knights?

I really, really don't understand what you're saying here. You seem to be saying that because something is not true in real life, it should not matter if it is presented as being true in a book, because people will know it is not true in real life? That's *fairly clearly nonsense*.

Fiction, whatever fandom may believe, operates off a set of conventions which are not the conventions of reality. When a character reaches a conclusion as part of an arc which is *all about* their growing sense of personal responsibility and self-awareness, it is *ludicrous* to suggest that the conclusion is meant to be wrong.

Real life doesn't figure into it. I know that black people aren't subhuman monsters, does that mean that

On the Creation of Niggers

should not be interpreted as saying they are?

1 & 2: (a) and (b) hold. But I'm not sure why you're taking offence? People find many reasons to attempt suicide, and it seems odd to take offence at somebody being psychologically vulnerable.

It's offensive because it reduces Trinica to a commentary on Frey. It's offensive because it reinforces Frey's claim to have created Trinica which you've just insisted that the text doesn't reinforce. It's offensive because it contributes to the massive amounts textual evidence that Frey is actually basically right about both Trinica specifically, and about women in general.

If Frey wasn't a misogynist dickbag who believed women were fundamentally weak and needy, it wouldn't have been so much of a problem that the love of his life was fundamentally weak and needy. I might add that while people attempt suicide for a variety of reasons "in order to induce a miscarriage, in order to upset their ex boyfriend" is seldom one of them. Again it makes Trinica sound like a horrible, vicious, hysterical shrew and that's *not* Frey's viewpoint, that's what she's *actually like*.

I genuinely don't understand how your mind works here.

So Frey makes a statement: Trinica's suicide attempt was an act of cowardice. This statement is presented as part of his emotional development, and is reinforced time and again in the narration.

What you seem to be doing is letting your preconceptions from outside the text colour your ability to see what is *actually there*. Frey's beliefs are never challenged, therefore they are facts within the context of the text. That is how fiction works.

No. There isn't.

What the characters in a text believe is what is true in that text, unless there is some other evidence *within* the text that the characters are mistaken.

The Chronicles of Narnia are not about a world where superstitious people mistakenly worship a lion. Star Wars is not about a group of terrorists attacking the legitimate government of the galaxy. Twenty-Four is not a scathing attack on the War on Terror. Harry Potter is not about a manipulative headmaster tricking a selfish idiot-boy into killing himself.

That is not how fiction *works*.

Broadly speaking, what I find offensive is the fact that she's a woman in a refrigerator.

Whereas I do find it offensive that you characterise her nineteen year old self as a "china doll".

Since every single piece of imagery we get of her nineteen year old self is one of fragility and vulnerability, I stand by my phrase.

All of which are infuriating, offensive stereotypes.

The notion that women can only get on in the world by "using their sexuality" (whatever the hell that means) is a myth which fits in *exactly* with Frey's brand of misogynist bullshit. Notice we're never actually told how Trinica got to be captain, only that she "used her sexuality" and of course because she's a WOMAN and therefore has MAGIC WOMAN POWERS that's enough. Because apparently a group of people who will happily rape the shit out of you will also be totally awed by the mystery of your womanhood.

Trinica's entire backstory is founded on rape myths and misogynist bullshit. It is *impossible for her to exist* in a world in which a bunch of offensive, apologist bullshit about rape, sexuality and sexual power are not canonically true.

I'd find it really intrusive to have an explicit condemnation, and I think the text does challenge it by showing that Trinica is most definitely not a coward.

When?

Trinica is totally a coward. She's weak, pathetic and trapped. Hell you say as much yourself when you talk about how much worse off she is now than when she was an heiress. She's totally broken by everything that happens to her and transparently has nothing left to live for. She does dangerous shit, but that's because she's effectively dead already.

You don't think maybe that was just a cheap cop-out to avoid having yet *another* improbable escape?

Whatever she says (after all, aren't you the one who insists that what characters say can't be taken at face value) her *entire life* still revolves around Frey. Her *entire purpose* in the book is to provide Frey with something to angst about.

She's an awful, stereotypical, insulting character.

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Niall

at 09:50 on 2010-09-18

Crake's chapters are full of his comments about how awful and common everybody else is, but it is extraordinarily clear from the way the book is written that we are supposed to disagree with him.

Can you pin down what the difference is? Ideally, I guess, with examples, which specific sentences you think make clear we're meant to disagree with Crake, the ones that are missing from Frey's chapters. I feel like we're getting a bit lost in the generalities, at this point.

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Alasdair Czyrnyj

at 01:04 on 2011-06-18Well, I've started on Dan's old copy of this book (Thanks again for shipping it to me!), and right now I'm in broad agreement with his assessment of Capt. Cockspank. I've read stuff that's worse than this (I'm looking at you, Stephen Hunt and George Mann), and I give Wooding credit for avoiding the creepy ultraviolence those guys like to delve into, but RF is really a shallow book. I've haven't run into Trinica yet, but I've got past Frey's encounter with Amalicia at the convent, and that whole sequence was pretty sophomoric.

Actually, this whole thing has started me wondering about how George Macdonald Fraser managed to make Flashman as much of a pig as Frey and still be a fun character to read about. Right now I'm juggling between Flashman's self-awareness, the fact that his transgressions always come back to bite him in the ass, and the simple fact that he's actually funny and has a brain or two in his head.

(On a side note, the story has me wondering yet again how vulnerable the "air pirate" pseudosubsubgenre is to technological progress. Most of the stuff I've seen never seems to stray much beyond the 1920s and 1930s tech-wise, so I'm wondering if this is a fantasy realm that can't survive in an era of radar, missiles, and jet engines. Hey, I'm a child of alternate history. This is how we think, dammit!)

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/0txE6GYMzdiwjPOqDTwLdeHMvOdijS5Jm1c-#9995a

at 05:52 on 2011-06-18

On a side note, the story has me wondering yet again how vulnerable the "air pirate" pseudosubsubgenre is to technological progress. Most of the stuff I've seen never seems to stray much beyond the 1920s and 1930s tech-wise, so I'm wondering if this is a fantasy realm that can't survive in an era of radar, missiles, and jet engines.

It's probably possible, but you'd run the risk of jumping straight from "air pirates" to "space pirates" toting lasers that can vaporise half a mile of woodland countryside in the blink of an eye.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/0txE6GYMzdiwjPOqDTwLdeHMvOdijS5Jm1c-#9995a

at 10:34 on 2011-06-18

It's probably possible

I meant to put in "to write a novel featuring air pirates in a modernistic setting" right after that. Sorry, bit of an oversight on my behalf.

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https://profiles.google.com/Iaculoid

at 12:38 on 2011-06-18You could probably take some cues from modern pirates, like the ones operating off the coast of Somalia. Our hypothetical air pirates would probably fly fast, stealthy, and heavily-customised craft up-gunned from civilian marques and 'liberated' from their country's collapsed military, forcing down every cargo plane and airliner that enters their airspace and ransoming off their crew and payloads to the parent countries.

All you'd need is a slight advance in aircraft technology and its general commercial availability, as a matter of fact.

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Arthur B

at 13:57 on 2011-06-18

All you'd need is a slight advance in aircraft technology and its general commercial availability, as a matter of fact.

Perhaps not even that. Posit a Cold War era proxy war in which the US or Soviets armed one side with an air force... let the proxy war (and the superpower funding) die off with the end of the Cold War, and have all of these planes sat there with nobody especially keen on asking for them back (because that'd mean admitting the superpower's level of involvement in the war) and no effectual government to take charge of them. Throw in a bunch of fighter pilots owed a heap of back pay and with families to clothe and feed and protect in the anarchy that the war has left behind.

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https://profiles.google.com/Iaculoid

at 16:46 on 2011-06-18Indeed so. You'd even see several piratical conventions return with the aid of modern technology, like flying under false colours. Instead of, say, baiting in pirates with a lumbering freighter hiding a company of heavily-armed marines on board, you'd see stuff like military fighters using radar-reflectors to disguise themselves as juicy, tempting commercial aircraft.

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Alasdair Czyrnyj

at 01:11 on 2011-06-21Wow, you guys are all way more creative about modern air piracy that I am. I've toyed with the idea once or twice, but I just ended up decided that the precision machinery/know-how needed to keep modern planes going would be too much for a pirate outfit to afford. (Then again, I've rarely wondered about where airship pirates get their hydrogen/hydrogen knockoff, so maybe I'm being too close-minded here.)

Anyway, I've finished the book, and I've got to agree with the general consensus. I personally found that Frey's arc essentially read as a transition from a self-centered asshole to a self-promoting asshole (a.k.a. The Kirk09 Character Arc). I personally found Jez the most interesting character, though I felt she needed a meatier role (perhaps in a better book than the one she got stuck in).

One thing really irked me though, and it's something I haven't seen any other reviewers pick up on: the pilot Harkins. In the one chapter where he gets to be a viewpoint character, his interior monologue makes it clear that he's suffering from a pretty severe form of PTSD. And yet, his main purpose in the book is to be mocked for his "cowardice."

Not cool at all.

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https://profiles.google.com/Iaculoid

at 22:25 on 2011-06-21Yeah, I think that if you're disputing modern air-pirate concepts on grounds of realism (particularly Arthur's very down-to-earth redundant-pilots scenario), then you probably need to ask yourself some serious questions about why there weren't vast fleets of corsair zeppelins floating above London in the '20s.

In fact, I'd say that some old Cold War-surplus jets in a camouflaged airbase actually seem easier to operate than some fancy pirate airship. Could be wrong, though - my experience with airships is... less than exhaustive.

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http://ruderetum.blogspot.com/

at 09:03 on 2011-06-22I would think it is a question of familiarity. Airships have that air of classy obsoleteness about them, everybody knows they're not very practical as weapons of war and perhaps that whole slow ballooniousness makes them seem easier to supply and operate. Jet fighters on the other hand are well known as deadly and hugely expensive machines which require the financial capabilities of a nation state or a huge corporation to keep in the air. You also get the feeling that even if an airship has its problems, if it is filled and operational, it's quite autonomous; for example zeppelins flew to South America and back on a pleasure cruise. So a rogue airship, if it was armoured or whatever, could supply itself from the country side or land for a stop in different places, whereas a fighter needs a separate ground crew and all those facilities to remain operational from one day to the next.

So, airships could be more mobile basewise and thus it adds to the romance?

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Vermisvere

at 09:45 on 2011-06-22Perhaps the airship could serve as a mobile base and lift-off point for the jet fighters - sort of like a modern-day aircraft carrier, only airborne. Throw in some anti-aicraft turrets to be manned by the crew against hostile jets and airships and you've more or less got your pirate airship of the future.

In short, a militarised version of

this

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https://profiles.google.com/Iaculoid

at 14:18 on 2011-06-22Well, that'd certainly deal with the problem of having fixed, vulnerable airstrips on the ground for the military to demolish (though they'd best hope it's capable of landing planes of any size, or they'll still need somewhere to force their captives down onto). Plus it would serve as a convenient shorthand for 'hey, aircraft technology is really cheap and easy to use now!'.

Depends on how high-tech you want your air-pirates to be, I guess. Either daring, desperate wash-outs on a shoestring budget, or organised, brutally efficient criminals who are practically running a major corporate enterprise.

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http://ruderetum.blogspot.com/

at 14:21 on 2011-06-22Or an upgrade on

this

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Steve Stirling at 05:18 on 2011-07-13

I'm going to start by pointing out that having one female character out of seven is the worst possible option. Zero out of seven, and you have a setting in which women don't fly airships, which is absolutely fine. Put in exactly one, and you suddenly have a society where women are apparently perfectly accepted on the setting equivalent of the Spanish Main, but never the less you've only got one in your crew. Zero is a better number than one in this situation is all I'm saying.

-- not saying the book is good on male-female relations, but this bit is pretty accurate with respect to much of history. In other words, there -were- women pirates on the Spanish Main. Not many, but they existed, both in male disguise or 'disguise' and, still more rarely, as women.

And there was a well-known woman who became a captain in the Russian cavalry during the Napoleonic Wars, and was allowed to stay on by special order of the Czar after she was 'found out'.

The usual attitude was, inconsistently:

a) "everyone knows" that women are too weak, fragile and vulnerable to do this (for various values of 'this'), but;

b) Cynthia/Alice/Whoever is a good troop and we don't tell the Captain about her because she's hauling her weight and we need her, and besides she'd kill anyone who blabbed, like she did Frank.

In other words, women were present, but rarely; they weren't accepted, but could occasionally push their way in, with guile, luck, great ability and incredible determination.

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Michal

at 06:10 on 2011-07-13There's only one thing I thought when I saw that cover:

Airship Pirate!

#Ferretbrain #Retribution Falls #Chris Wooding #Minority Warrior #Dan H

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recentnews18-blog · 6 years

Photo

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/how-indie-developers-finished-half-life-3/

How indie developers finished Half-Life 3

On 25 August 2017, Marc Laidlaw, former writer on the Half-Life series with Valve – from the original game to its extended second chapter – posted a short story in the form of a letter entitled Epistle 3. While the names had been gender-swapped and other details disguised, it was clear that this was an interpretation of Half-Life 2: Episode 3, or Half-Life 3 as we have come to refer to it over the years. It was a concluding chapter in the story of Gordon Freeman (who refers to herself as Gertie Fremont in the text), a story that was never given a chance to be finished.

It was an extraordinary moment. After so many years of looking for clues and references to a Half-Life sequel, of seeing the number three in any Valve or Valve-associated title as a portent of Freeman’s return, we finally had this. A vision of what could have been.

Gordon Freeman: Rational Man is a creation of the Half Life 3 game jam.

A vision that writer Laura Michet didn’t want to see go to waste. “I saw someone tweeting it out and I was immediately fascinated,” the originator of the Epistle 3 Jam on itch.io explains to us. “That evening, at dinner with some friends, I ended up reading parts of it with them. We were all people who had grown up with the Half-Life games and started games careers in the shadow of the perpetually unreleased HL3.” And when the dinner was over and the enormity of what Laidlaw’s text represented settled into place, she sprang into action. “I rushed back to my computer to make the jam, actually.”

“There’s something fascinating about taking this thing that will never be made and letting it go free”

Brendon Chung, creator of Tiger Team

Game jams are a curious and wonderful thing. They are cauldrons of creativity in compromised conditions. Limits of time, resources and accessibility make them the open mic nights of the games industry, where veterans can play with new materials and up and coming creatives can make a name for themselves and show their talent. “They’re my favourite creative activity in the world, pretty much,” says Michet, who started out in the game jam scene after graduating a few years ago. “I love running game jams on itch, too, since that platform gives you instant access to other people who might be interested in the same topic. I love seeing the stuff that comes out of itch jams.”

How did the Epistle 3 game jam link to Half Life 3?

Epsistle 3 is a more psychedelic take on Half-Life 3.

The Epistle 3 Jam started on 26 August (the day after Laidlaw’s piece was revealed) and ran to 1 November, attracting a swathe of developers with the desire to finish what Valve had started. Developers such as the aforementioned Brendon Chung, creator of Thirty Flights Of Loving and Quadrilateral Cowboy for Blendo Games. “I was (and still am) a tremendous fan of the Half-Life games. They really blew up the definition of what a first-person shooter can be. Half-Life played a big part in shaping the kind of work I do,” he tells us. “There’s some really elaborate and ambitious stuff happening in the synopsis. Lots of great temporal and dimensional hopping. I wanted to use this aspect as the backbone of the project, to have you and your memories bumping around time and space.”

“It’s a beautiful, poignant farewell to a series that will never reach a proper conclusion.” Heather Robertson, creator of GENDERWRECKED and, for this game, the psychedelic EPISTLE 3, tells us. “Also, in the wrong hands, it is a ridiculous comedy piece where nothing makes sense and everything is horrible. I have those wrong hands.” And pretty much everyone we spoke to concurred that the prospect of creating a bootleg Half-Life was just too good an opportunity to pass up. How the developers chose to take it from there and what they created was wildly different, however. Of the 32 submissions to the jam once the process had closed, very few are actually first-person shooters or, even if they are, not in the traditional sense. Thanks to the nature of the jam and the source material, the creators felt a freedom to go wild.

What games did Half-Life 3’s unofficial synopsis inspire?

Rational Man is billed as a ‘visual novel parody’ of Half-Life 3.

“Evidently, not even Valve wants to take on the challenge of making a shooter follow- up to Half-Life 2, so I felt there was zero mileage in us attempting it – instead, a game focusing on relationships or dialogue seemed the most entertaining direction – especially playing with Freeman’s role as a silent, killing machine who’s always washed along by events,” says James Kapella, one third of TEK Collective, behind HL2: Episode 3 – Gordon Freeman: Rational Man. You can download the game to play on PC through the link, if you’re interested. Others had a much simpler mission statement. “I wanted to make the biggest, dumbest piece of garbage possible. I’d like to think I succeeded,” Robertson declares enthusiastically about her first-person fever dream of an experience that pretty much every other developer we spoke to praised for its design and ingenuity.

“I aimed for a literal interpretation of the most cynical take on the linear FPS genre,” game designer Dave Hoffman, AKA Dave Makes, tells us. “That is, walking down a hallway, killing everything, occasionally pausing while people talk at you. I’m not actually as cynical as all that, even as a joke, so I couldn’t help getting sentimental while writing the dialogue.” The result was something like a merging of Fruit Ninja with a relationship simulator called THE THIRD ONE.

In fact many of the developers looked to find the funnier side of the story, leaning on the absurdity of it all while also being reverential to their inspiration. “For a while I’d been wanting to make a game that was just a single joke, setup and punchline, communicated through gameplay instead of writing,” Nicholas Kornek, maker of I Have No Mouth And I Must Freeman, explains. “I actually came up with the title before figuring out what the game would be. I just knew that I really wanted to make something about Gordon Freeman’s strange inability to speak to anyone. In the end, I decided to make a game that would reflect on the futility of trying to communicate when your only impact on the world is through violence, but, you know, funny and stuff.”

And while the text of Laidlaw’s script gave these creators a lot of freedom to be inventive, the jam process enhanced it too. “The stakes in a jam are super low because everyone comes into the project expecting they’re going to fail,” says Laura Michet. “I ended up just making a bizarre interactive short story where you make only one real choice – whether or not to shoot the BreenGrub. The game keeps track of whether or not you killed him, and it also keeps track of how many people have killed him since the game has been running.”

How Half Life inspired an interactive fiction MMO

You can play text-based MMO The Grub right here.

In actual fact what Michet made has been described by some of the other developers as a Twine MMO, as the text-based story actually involved measuring the number of people making the choice to kill or save Laidlaw’s depiction of a Dr. Breen-like grub and challenges you to shift the numbers (similar in concept, but more complex in execution, to the Lutece twins coin toss scene from Bioshock Infinite).

“I think Twine is very much mischaracterised by both game fans and indie game developers,” Michet adds. “It has a very low barrier of entry, but a very high skill ceiling for people who want to use it as a complex expressive tool. Hypertext itself – telling stories using clickable links – is a kind of interactive fiction sub-discipline that nobody has quite yet mastered, I think. The possibilities of hypertext are pretty immense.”

Everyone’s approach in the jam was different, from sifting through old concepts to coming up with something original, using the longer jam schedule to play with a work in progress or come up with a new system altogether. It was a personal journey for everyone we spoke to.

“To be honest, I jumped into this jam with very little thought. I had been following Heather Robertson’s work in progress and it made me laugh so hard I couldn’t help but join in the fun,” Dave Makes tells us, for example. “It’s funny, THE THIRD ONE is probably my most personal game to date. The art style is just my rough doodles, they’re the kind of thing I fill notebooks with when I’m having fun.”

“I had already written a bunch of top-down game code for a game pitch I was working on and it came to me that I should make a Lego Star Wars-type game where everything is a caricature of the Half-Life universe,” says Owen Deery, creator of Small Radios Big Televisions who made a kind of chibi-shooter called Expo. Decay. “I figured I was already making an unauthorised Half-Life game, so I had nothing to lose by re-using Valve’s assets. This sped up the production process a ton since any time I needed a new asset I could probably find it in the Half-Life archives. More importantly, though, it really helped the game feel like a Half- Life game. When you kill a Combine soldier and his radio plays that flatline noise it really makes a huge difference.”

“Something we imagine that Valve would approve of”

Brendon Chung also delved back into the real games to fish out some authenticity for his homage. “It was a lot of fun taking the dialogue lines from Half-Life 2 and re-using them in a different context to create new scenes,” he reveals. “I basically listened to every line of dialogue in Half-Life 2 and ‘wrote’ my script around the suitable lines.”

The strange array of different approaches, the sense of humour, the irreverence of it all, based around a franchise that is so revered and praised for its narrative is an interesting thing, but something we imagine those at Valve would approve of. The love of Half-Life is so clear from these titles and the sympathy the developers feel for the creators was apparent.

“I’ve worked on games that have been cancelled, or suspended indefinitely, and it’s heartbreaking,” says Dave Makes. “THE THIRD ONE is a goofy, silly thing, but underneath that, it’s a love letter to game developers who have felt that heartbreak.”

I was also very pleased that most people didn’t just dunk on the HL3 developers or make a lot of angry games,” adds Michet. “It’s worse that the HL3 devs didn’t get to make their game than it is that we didn’t get to play it. Working on a project and watching it get cancelled or die sucks – that’s happened to me a lot in my professional career.”

So, while the Epistle 3 Jam may not have delivered much by way of an authentic conclusion to the Half-Life story, what it has inspired is a wide variety of fun and experimental games as well as a fantastic platform for a number of developers, some of whom only work on games part-time, to find exposure and have their creativity appreciated. And while many said they wouldn’t be coming back to these titles now the jam was done, some will be looking to build on what they created here.

“I want to play a little more with the world of Half-Life, rethink the barnacles, return the Vortigaunts as enemies. Make something crazy with it,” says Alexey Sigh, maker of HL: Minimal Edition, which mixes 3D world design with pixel art characters. “It’s simply fun to come up with something new using known characters and express your own vision. Also, I treated this project as a practice at level and game design because its minimal visuals allowed me to spend less time on assets and more on the gameplay experience.”

HL: Minimal Edition in action.

Deery also had an eye to the future with his creation. “I used the jam as a jumping off point to experiment and prototype my next project, which has similar mechanics, and this allowed me to take all the feedback I received from the jam and use it to improve the experience. I had to remove all the Half-Life assets obviously, but it feels like the same game in spirit,” he tells us.

“I am a firm believer in the idea that a game is like a little bird. Once it flies from the nest it grows wings and a beak, and would try to kill me if I got close,” Robertson tells us with an alternate view on things. “There are birds worth tracking down and binding so they would not peck me, but this bird deserves to be free. Also it has massive talons and a gun. Why did I give it a gun?”

“More than anything I’m really happy that a lot of people seem to be enjoying the game,” is Kornek’s take on the experience. “I’ve seen a lot of playthroughs of it on YouTube and the joke seems to land well for pretty much everyone, which makes me feel like I did a solid job on the design.” While Dave Makes just had a lot of fun with the development process, as he explains to us. “I had an absolute blast recording all the sound effects. My wife was trying to study while I was banging on things around the apartment, slamming a head of cabbage against the floor, obnoxiously chomping on carrots, swinging a big stick around for that crowbar ‘swoosh’ noise… and then I made her do head crab screeches with me. It was fun.”

“The outcome was better than I could have hoped”

Tiger Team was made by Blendo Games.

A jam is about giving game developers the spark of an idea that will send them forward. Sometimes that’s the one thing missing between talent and execution. Besides, thanks to Laidlaw’s writing and Michet getting the game jam running as quickly as she did, we now have all of these games and all of these interpretations of the Half-Life world to enjoy. Michet herself seems delighted with the response. “I was overwhelmed!

The outcome was better than I could have hoped. A lot of people interpreted the jam in a wide variety of strange, incongruous and hilarious ways and that is absolutely the best outcome,” she enthuses. “There were a ton of extremely funny, weird games in this jam, which was also amazing – I love how jams let people make the kind of outrageous joke-games they otherwise wouldn’t ever be able to make.” And so, while it feels more and more like we might never see Valve finish its saga, at least developers like these are tending the flame of Gordon Freeman, keeping the dream alive and giving us experiences that even a team as creative as the Bellevue outfit would balk at attempting.

“A jam is a great opportunity to capture a moment, either in your own development (technical or personal), or something external,” Kapella sums up for us. “Marc Laidlaw sharing Epistle 3 was both a stimulating gift to the community and a full stop the series was lacking – and this was our modest tribute. Half-Life belongs to the people now”.

Watch 10 years of Gabe Newell addressing rumors of Half-LIfe 3 in a 4-minute video.

Source: https://www.gamesradar.com/how-indie-developers-finished-half-life-3/

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paintrider13-blog · 7 years

Text

Get to know me?

Saw this on my feed and I thought it would be kinda fun so here it is

Name: Megan

Nickname: most commonly Meg or Megs but Julio to like 4 people in my life and their significant others lol

Age: 26

Gender: Female

Height: 5′3"

Favourite Character: Hmmmm SPN Dean, but I have 3 close seconds 😉

Hogwarts House: no idea

Favorite Color: Blue…. or red….. or orange…… or maybe green lol depends on my mood

Favorite Animal: This one has to be plural horses for sure, dogs and cuddly furry things

Average hours of sleep: To function super well 6, but normally? More like 4, 5 if I’m super lucky

Cat or Dog Person: Dogs, but I should have been a cat in another life.

Number of Blankets I sleep with: Uh as many as I can get!!

Favorite Singer/Band: There are way too many to list… I went to school for music so it’s broad buuuut let’s just go with Frank Sinatra (always) um Bad Company this week

Dream Trip: Italy and Europe I want to see all of the horses and old ruins.

Dream Job: Writer or anything with horses

Current Number of Followers: 56

What Made you decide to join Tumblr: a friend told me about fanfic and here I am!! I had no intention of ever writing it.

Relationship Status: married 😁

Piercings you have: um 8 total

Tattoos you have: one down my ribs of tribals and a trinity knot.

The meaning behind my url: The extension of my body and soul is my paint horse, when I opened my account I didn’t plan to do anything but read fan fiction and ended up doing much more.

A fact about my personality: I am almost always happy it takes a lot to get me down.

A quote I live my life on: “Are you going to cowboy up or just lay there and bleed?” My dad used to say this, when m I almost got killed my dad had it made into a sticker for my truck and reminded me for over a year that I needed to get back up.

Something I need to get off my chest: I do not understand how people are so cruel. I am by nature a naive person who thinks everyone will do you right and it has been the hardest lesson to learn in life.

The last time I cried and why: Tuesday, I had an anxiety Attack once I started crying I couldn’t stop. It was horrible.

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