#it’s important to engage in discussions and I’d love to hear some other perspectives

[tater-tot-jr]

I think I should put in my two cents considering the Hazbin hotel leaked Angel Dust clip. I’ll say that this post should be one absolutely massive trigger warning. If you’re sensitive please don’t read this, I’m pretty blunt. Also I’m only talking about a small leak but SPOILERS!!!

So before I make any points I’ll start by saying that I’m not an inherent fan of vivziepop, this isn’t meat riding, it’s a genuine attempt at open conversation and discussion. I’ll also say I’m a survivor myself and while I don’t claim to speak for anyone else I have some ground to stand on here. I completely understand that people can be triggered by this type of imagery and will at least skip this particular scene or episode, I promise I’m not talking about you guys.

You wanna know who I am talking about though? The weird ass moral police I’ve been watching mobilize. It’s crazy how people are making a big deal out of this. I’ve seen three arguments and all of them are terrible in themselves and being used to justify terrible behavior.

I’ve only seen people claim three major things, this is a bad depiction of a s/a survivor and situation, this is something that’s too graphic and immoral to put in a TV show, the fact that the singing and dancing lightens the tone in a way people find distasteful. I’m going to be trying to prove why I find these arguments mostly ridiculous and unfounded.

As for argument one, s/a survivors come in all shapes and sizes and hyper sexuality happens to be an incredibly common reaction to sexual trauma. I haven’t watched episode one and two but even if I had I’d still have too small of a sample size to determine the entire tone of an incredibly messed up complex dynamic between too incredibly interesting and layered characters. It’s ridiculous to have so many assumptions and expectations of an *11 second leaked clip.*

Secondly. Creative freedom is possible the most important thing in art. If we didn’t have the freedom to put what we wanted on paper or on screen then we wouldn’t have had so much societal change recently. Just because you might find something distasteful and immoral doesn’t mean it absolutely has to be hated on and removed. It’s okay to not like things because you find them gross, it’s okay to not enjoy graphic depictions of serious subjects, it’s not okay to start internet wars over moral bullshit. It’s okay to be mad in silence sometimes, guys.

Thirdly. I kinda get this one, I don’t agree with it but I do understand the point. The idea you don’t want a serious subject framed with a sexy pop song is not inherently bad, it’s just something that makes me think you wouldn’t have liked Hazbin Hotel anyway. I actually appreciate the fact they are using the creative medium to make bold and shocking decisions but I get some people are sensitive to new things, that’s fine. Where this argument gets ridiculous is when people act like this is very out of line for a show like this. This isn’t a Saturday morning kids cartoon it’s and adult animated show about people in hell. It’s highly likely that this won’t be the worst thing we see, you either need to heed the trigger warnings at the beginning of each episode or get over it.

You’ll notice that I didn’t bring up anything about the merchandise pins or the storyboard artist, I did this because they aren’t arguments but barely related attempts at character assassinations. When you spend five minutes thinking about them critically you come to realize that there is nothing substantial to those arguments.

I’d like to finish up talking about how I think this scene is doing more good than harm. It’s important to make people uncomfortable when you’re talking about things so horrible like s/a and rape. It shouldn’t be meek and palatable for a general audience, it should upset you. I remember hearing something in a video game once that stuck with me. There was a character who said that when you’re sick you need strong medicine and that the strongest medication is very bitter.

I think episode four will be some very bitter medicine.

#hazbin hotel #angel dust #feel free to leave a comment if you disagree #it’s important to engage in discussions and I’d love to hear some other perspectives #if you leave a comment with arguments against any points I made I’ll do my best to respond to you with a potential counter argument #and it should go without saying that if I watch the episode and realize I’m completely wrong I’ll post a public apology

[serpentstole]

Luciferian Challenge: Day 18

What “virtue” or “quality” do you think is best representing of a Luciferian?

Self awareness and reflection. During this challenge I’ve spoken a few times on issues I have with Luciferians or those with a similar religious leaning... specifically, that they often fall into the same pitfalls we tend to criticize in other religious communities.

I also think for any of us with even the smallest online presence, and thus a performative aspect of our religious practice, it’s deeply important to examine our genuine beliefs, admit when we’re wrong, be open to change, and try to express the best of what we think this religion or mindset can be.

All this is why I chose to do this challenge, to be fully honest. I wanted a record of my thoughts, in this moment, about my religion now that I’ve grown more comfortable and confident in it… and now that I’ve gotten enough engagement in this blog that how I present my ideas is a bigger worry than it was when I had basically no audience. I hate the idea of being seen as a teacher or authority when I still believe myself to be at the beginning of my religious journey and understanding, but I think having any degree of online readership demands a certain mindfulness in how you phrase or present your ideas, and which of them you share, if you want to be responsible with it.

So I strive to be sincere and genuine in what interests me and what I’m capable of, despite the fact that leaning in to certain trends or aesthetics might make me more “successful” when it comes to engagement... which would in the process defeat the original purpose of me having this blog at all. I try to have my opinions fully and reasonably formed as possible, but be open to be proven wrong and admit when it happens as best I can, as happened recently with some gripes I had about citations in occult books. And most of all I strive not to perpetuate the attitudes I think are harmful to our community and how it interacts with the wider world, and recognize when misinformed biases I’ve picked up over the years are rearing their ugly head.

That’s all I have to say about that, so here’s a bonus prompt that feels related enough to include. 

Has Luciferian/Satanism challenged your political beliefs or certain values that you have had before?

This one’s a bit complicated. My knee jerk reaction is to say no. While I’ve been trending further and further to the left since my days of being in a Christian household, I think this is far more to do with me no longer being a literal child than it does my religious label. I can say with confidence that I would be just as much of a leftist and just as big an advocate for empathy and the betterment of oneself and one’s community if I had instead become Catholic, Jewish, Agnostic, remained Wiccan, or anything else in between. It has never been my political or ethical views that have barred me from pursuing these religions or others instead of Luciferianism, and I know people within those religions who share my general views on the world.

I think, however, that my time as a Luciferian has given me a deeper appreciation for other religions. When I grew away from Christianity, I’d say I was religiously apathetic. I understood that there was good and bad in almost any community, that religious discrimination exists and was bad, that some religions are very misrepresented… but all that to me kind of feels like the bare minimum, to the point where I struggle to empathize with or understand the mindset of people that are so ignorant or radicalized that they can’t come to grips with that.  

It was as I researched religious history, and followed more and more blogs written by occultists from different backgrounds, that I began to really fall in love with religion as a concept and everything it can be. It has become one of my favourite subjects to discuss with people who are comfortable having those kinds of conversations.

It also drove home once and for all that they are horrifically bad actors within basically every religious label I can think of, and what changed was the form that abuse or hostility took and how much institutionalized support they had.

There are blogs I follow that are non-occultist/mystic Christians (mostly Catholic or non-denominational) that are just them exploring their faith and how it impacts their life, and I wish them well in those efforts, and I find it interesting and touching to see their thought process and emotional journey even if it’s down a path that’s very different to my own. I’m deeply curious about the experiences of Dual Faith practitioners, because they sort of bridge that gap in a way I know I can’t. I like hearing the views of people raised with a different religious background, or with different folk practices... I just really value experiences and perspectives other than my own, and especially with religion and related traditions.

While it’s my personal curiosity and desire to better myself and my understanding of things that probably led to this interest or value, it’s those same traits that are very centric to my Luciferianism. For that reason, I think it’s fair to say that my Luciferianism challenged me to maintain an open mind even when it’s easier not to, as twee as that sounds. 

#luciferianism #theistic luciferianism #illumine #30 Day Luciferian Challenge #30dayluciferianchallenge

[rainbowsky]

Final round-up of fan fic asks

I've gotten a few more interesting responses to the fan fic discussion so I'm going to round them all up here. This will be my final post on the topic until/unless there's a dramatic new development, or a particularly notable response I want to highlight. Thanks to everyone who brought their thoughts and experiences to the topic. I hope everyone at least feels heard.

The biggest piece of advice that I would like to offer is for everyone to focus on what they love rather than what they hate. If we all did that, the world would be a better place. Alongside that, I'd like to remind everyone to please support authors whose work you like. It's so important. Give them a kudos, give them a nice comment, recommend their work to others. You never know what kind of grief and harassment they are dealing with to bring you these great stories, and our support means a lot.

This is in reference to previous posts here and here.

Anonymous asked:

With regard to fandom and fan fic issue, my years of experience being part of very large fandoms has led me to believe that big accounts are v important in facilitating and enforcing the general consensus of the whole fandom. Unless there will be big accs who'll remind everyone of being respectful & just not being a dick over other's preferences, nothing will change.

This is also the reason why I think certain solo fandoms have adapted weird and twisted narratives as their general fandom story because no big acc has tried to police them & and say hey pls be rational. Whether we like it or not, in a place where how far voices, ideas, tweets, posts get heard is based on the number of followers you have, big accs will have the power and influence in creating/curating/shifting the narratives.

So, if you want to know why your/our fandom thinks like this in general, look at what big accs are tweeting/posting, look at what ideas & values they follow, look at their preferences or how strongly they react to certain situations. it's taxing and toxic for big accs given the nature of social media these days, but it's also the reality of system, the more followers/audience you have, the more influence you will have.

So to anyone reading this I hope we all practice more restraint and reflection before we post anything. Remember that words, no matter what medium you write it in, will always carry weight.

So true. It is easy - even for myself who spends a fair chunk of time answering people's asks - to forget that people can sometimes be impressionable and what we say can influence people whether that's our intent or not. I get used to thinking of myself as a regular guy just doing my own thing when sometimes my thoughts and words go well beyond where I initially posted them.

I think it's important for us to be careful what we say, and it's equally important to be careful what we take from what other people say. Especially when it comes to big claims. Always get a second, third, fourth opinion and don't be afraid to ask for clarification if something doesn't sit right or sounds confusing.

It's also important to reflect on how our words and actions might affect other people's experience of fandom, and err on the side of 'live and let live' wherever possible. It's great to have our own preferences and to champion them, but we should try to do so in a way that leaves space for other people and perspectives.

The more unique perspectives and the more friendly, open dialog there is, the healthier the community will be as a whole.

There's nothing wrong with encouraging and guiding growth in the particular areas we are interested in, as long as it doesn't step on, oppress or attack those who are peacefully enjoying something different.

Anonymous 2 asked: bjyx fans attacking gdgdbaby for including zsww/lsfy dynamics in an event named bjyx then turning right around and attacking the zsww/lsfy event organizer for excluding bjyx? god, can you hear my facepalm and sigh of resignation and incredulity from over there? im genuinely not surprised that they're trying to drive an entire part of the fandom out by disgusting them (and me) with these immature tactics. i believe what im about to say next will sound quite bait-y and i respect your decision 1/?

should you choose not to post this. but i do know that it is not only me, in fact there are many out there, that is of this opinion. we just dont talk about it on twitter to avoid the potential mess it will bring lol. okay, here goes nothing. (do note that im talking about the majority here, not every single person is like this) so bjyx fans tend to be cishet females whereas zsww/lsfy fans are more diverse in terms of age and gender, and most of them are part of the queer community too 2/?

i would like to clarify that most of these zsww/lsfy fans are not dynamic exclusive (in the sense that they are friendly and interact with all ggdd fans) they just prefer to "identify" themselves as zsww/lsfy fans (on twitter specifically) just to form a distinction from bjyx fans who mostly are dynamic exclusive (as in; they do not consume non-bjyx content, and straightup refuse to interact with non-bjyx fans, often blocking them). as a result, id say that the zsww/lsfy communiy is way more 3/?

mature and respectful (after all, they're mostly queer people talking about a queer ship) whereas many problems in this fandom, such as the homophobia, adamantly insisting on "drawing lines" between dynamics, stem from the bjyx exclusive fans, comprised of cishet females who "may not know better". so, it is of no surprise to me that they're resorting to these immature tactics of calling gg unsavory names, and organizing retaliatory events with controversial topics in an attempt to "purify". 4/4

I trust that you have arrived at that theory through your own experience and observation. I haven't personally spent much time immersed in this stuff so I can't claim to have any real insight or expertise. If you say that's your experience of it, then at the very least that's how you've seen things up to this point.

I just want to say that I think we should always be careful about making assumptions about people's age, gender/gender identity, etc.

There are plenty of good reasons to avoid doing that; because those assumptions could be very wrong, because those assumptions are often laced with ageism, sexism, etc., because those assumptions - even when correct - might not be an accurate basis for the conclusions we draw.

But the primary reason I recommend avoiding those type of assumptions is because anything that enables us to clump a group of people together in our minds like that will tend to make them easier to demonize and dehumanize. They are no longer individuals who are each responsible for their own unique perspectives, they are now 'the X group' who is known for 'A B C series of easily attackable ideas or behaviors'.

If we attribute undesirable traits and behaviors to a group of people we feel opposed to in some way, that makes us feel more righteous and justified in behaving unfairly toward them, dismissing their humanity and warring with them. It's just risky behavior to engage in, even when it's well-intentioned.

There might actually be some truth to what you're saying. It could very well be that most of these people are young, inexperienced, heteronormative, etc. but if that's the case then we should try to use those traits to better understand and empathize rather than to better dismiss and discredit.

Just my two cents on that.

It can be really frustrating dealing with what feels like other people attacking us, trying to oppress us, etc. - especially when there are more of them than there are of us. In my experience the best solutions to that sort of problem are generally the ones that focus on what we are doing and want to do rather than what they are doing that we don't want them to do.

As I am always preaching, we can't control what other people say, do or think. The only thing we have any control over is what we say, do and think (and how we respond to what they say, do and think).

I have found in my experience that the moment I step out of a conflict mindset and instead step into a problem-solving mindset, everything starts to come together. I feel better, my outlook is more positive, I can begin to see solutions and allies rather than problems and enemies, and most of all, I become more focused on what I am doing than what others are doing.

So I would recommend everyone who is invested in resolving these conflicts focus on that. "How can we best showcase and encourage the types of stories we enjoy?" instead of "How can we stop these other people from doing things we dislike?"

Anonymous 3 asked:

Hello again! It’s anon #3 from the fanfic post. I really do appreciate reading your thoughts on various issues like this, so thank you for always taking time to write in depth. As for supporting without going to war, the simplest way has always been to just show appreciation for the creators, hype them up. Kudos are the easiest way on ao3 but comments in addition are great. This goes for all content—art, fics, vids..etc. Creators love to see and read how people react to their content. Sharing is also great, fic recs are very helpful, just be cautious with art and reposting though. Hope this helps a bit!

Thanks so much, Anon. I think this is excellent advice. And it's true that appreciation is great, but helping to expand the audience is also great. Recommending stories, pointing people to the pages/websites of artists we like (as opposed to reposting), sharing our own ideas and approaches, encouraging people to try new things... all of this helps build healthier communities.

And here's another one: WRITE! DRAW! CREATE!

I urge anyone with creative interests or talents to bring their voices to the community because we all can benefit from hearing from you.

Thanks again everyone for sharing your thoughts on this issue. I hope that over time we can all work in positive ways to improve the situation.

I think this subject has been well-covered now so I'm going to retire it for the time being. If anyone still feels they want to discuss it further please feel free to message me privately. Thanks.

#fan fiction #fandom reflections #ask

[kassysyd]

“Her Sweet Kiss” - A Short  Analysis

Preface: In my job, a key part of my role is to select and analyse various different forms of poetry (yes, lyrics are a type of poem) so, I am keenly aware of the difference between what could be considered quality poetic verse and the doggerel we frequently hear passed off as lyrics in modern songs. I was expecting the latter from the soundtrack to Netflix’s The Witcher, I was wrong.

 Although, at first listen “Her Sweet Kiss” appeared to be a simple love ballad, the uncommon depth and intricacy of the symbolism stunned and forced me to take another listen. Additionally, its arrangement within key scenes of the episode, as well as the inclusion of both alternative lyrics and instrumental versions was ingenious. I don’t have time to do a full analysis, instead, I have pulled together a basic overview of the key elements which stood out to me from this marvellously complex song. I hope this may assist you with your own interpretations.

 Before we start analysing the lyrics, let’s look at the contextual placement of this song within the episode 'Rare Species'. It is featured at three key moments; the opening scene showing Jaskier composing the song, the sex scene between Geralt and Yennifer and then finally played over the credits.   

 In the opening scene, Jaskier is shown singing and composing while waiting for Geralt to return from a hunt. The lyrics are slightly different here and include the adjectives ‘gorgeous’ and ‘lovely’ in reference to the ‘Garroter’ character. He asks the men nearby whether the metaphorical use of ‘garroter’ is too ‘cerebral’, indicating that it is indeed symbolic of someone (Geralt). The lines “I’m weak, my love, and I am wanting… Gorgeous Garroter, jury and judge”, are sung by Jaskier and introduce the concept that the narrator is in love with someone but is also conflicted about their choice to follow them on 'The Path' (more on this later). It is also important to note that the notebook resting on his thigh contains an alternative version of the lyrics which do not feature the secondary 'her' character yet and instead focus instead on the narrator’s own weakness and inability to leave what he feels in an unfair relationship 'If I were a man of more merit,  if I were a man of resolve I’d leave you behind, get my fair peace of mind'.  

 The second time the song is heard during the sex scene between Geralt and Yennifer. This time the song is purely instrumental. The moment where they first kiss, the chorus line 'She’ll destroy with her sweet kiss' is playing. As the audience had already heard some of the song, they would recognize it. But as they only heard the earlier version, which describes only the narrator’s willingness to suffer to be with the one he loves, the full significance of the song is not yet established with the audience. This lack of audible lyrics further symbolizes the narrator’s uncertain feelings towards their relationship at this point in the episode. But also unambiguously associates the song with both Geralt and Yennefer, establishing it as a proxy theme song for their romance and further supporting the argument that the characters from the song are indeed Geralt and Yennifer.

 The final time this song is heard is over the end credits, this time the song is sung by Jaskier and plays in full. The previous ambiguity is sharply contrasted here when the revised set of lyrics are presented to the audience and the true theme of the is song revealed (Jaskier’s anguish). The final scene between Geralt, Yennifer and Jaskier is key to contextualizing these lyrics as it directly foreshadows many lines and themes explored in the song. For example, in Jaskier’s line 'that’s not fair' echoing the lyrics directly and the show’s constant depiction of Yennefer using storm imagery (both themes explored in more detail below).

 The Characters

The song contains three distinct characters 'I/Narrator', 'You/Garrotter' and 'Her'.

 'I/Narrator' – The narrator of the song, possibly Jaskier – It has been established in songs such as ‘Toss a Coin to Your Witcher’ that Jaskier frequently writes from his own perspective and as clearly illustrated in the lines 'When a humble Bard, graced a ride along with Geralt of Rivia along came this song' frequently portray Geralt as their protagonist (this is also canonical for the books, but, I’m limiting my interpretations to the show). Additionally, many key themes and concepts from the lyrics directly reference Jaskier’s own life and experiences (explored in more detail in later paragraphs). It is later shown that Jaskier has written so many highly successful songs about Geralt that the prostitute in the opening scene of ‘Betrayer Moon’ was able to identify his scars by their relevant songs and was surprised to find one that she did not recognize. It can plausibly be argued that ‘Her Sweet Kiss’ is both autobiographical and includes Geralt as a key character.

 'You/Garotter' - The love interest of the narrator and also addressed as 'My Love' and 'Fool'  -  We can connect this 'Garotter' character with ‘Geralt’ through both the phonological similarity between the words and in scene featuring Marilka in the episode 'The End’s Beginning' when she points out 'Geralt'… like Garroter?' a canonically explicit linking of the names. ‘Garotter’ is a term for a killer, specifically, someone who does so through strangling, symbolic of Geralt’s employment. Jaskier himself points out that the ‘metaphor’ may be to ‘cerebral’, indicating to us the audience the need to interpret the line figuratively rather than literally.

 'Her'- The rival for the narrators love interest - A woman described as a destructive and unjust force, using wild, nature-based metaphors such as ‘storms’ and ‘currents’ to describe her ‘love’. Repeatedly throughout the show Yennefer is also described using similar nature/storm imagery, such as Geralt’s description of her 'like a tornado wreaking havoc' (a line Jaskier is shown to have overheard as the camera pans to him).  

 The evidence then supports the supposition that the song may well be written from Jaskier’s perspective, exploring his feeling regarding Geralt’s and Yennifer’s relationship (for a discussion on the dubious nature of consent in this relationship see my other post). For convenience of analysis, from here on I will be assuming the narrator is Jaskier, the 'Her' character is Yennifer and the 'You/Garotter' character is Geralt'.

 The Lyrics

  The ‘’fairer sex’’ they often call it, but her love’s as unfair as a crook.

  Jaskier opens the song by comparing the cliché of women being 'the fairer sex' with the simile 'love’s as unfair as a crook' (an old-fashioned term for a criminal or thief). As ‘fair’ has the dual meaning of both beauty and justice, his description of her as ‘unfair’ attacks both her beauty and her morality. The simile comparing her to a 'crook' (an old-fashioned term for a criminal or thief) suggests that Jaskier feels that she acts both unjustly and steals her love (a possible oblique reference Yennifer’s willingness to use magic to coerce sexual behaviour and disregard consent – as illustrated by the scene Jaskier witnessed in ‘Bottled Appetites’ where she compels a large group of apparently unwilling participants to engage in group sex). The song also echoes Jaskier’s dialogue 'That’s not fair' after Geralt unfairly lashes out at him after his argument with Yennefer, providing further evidence for the autobiographical nature of the song.   

  It steals all my reason, commits every treason of logic with naught but a look.

  Yennifer’s ‘love’, he argues ‘steals’ (continuing the symbolism of her immorality) and commits ‘treason’ (the crime of betrayal) furthering the description of her as being both unlawful and ‘unfair’ in her relationship with Geralt. These lines also illustrate the despair Jaskier feels over not being able to convince Geralt of her corrupt nature. He feels that she can defeat or prevent his ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ easily, ‘with naught but a look’.

  A storm raging on the horizon of longing, and heartache, and lust

 The show repeatedly correlates Yennifer’s behaviour with the destructive forces of nature, and storms in particular. Scenes such as that at Aretusa where she bodily subsumes lightning then uses it to attack another student and when Geralt describes her as a ‘tornado wrecking havoc’ among others, highlight this correlation. Jaskier describing her as a 'storm' that is 'raging' highlights his perception of her as both destructive and aggressive. The storm in this line is be symbolic of Yennifer herself, showing that Jaskier recognizes her arrival as leading to ‘heartache’ and ‘lust’ rather than genuine love between her and Geralt.

  She’s always bad news, it’s always lose-lose

 The repetition of ‘always’ in these lines clearly illustrate how desperately Jaskier feels about the situation. He argues that involvement with her will inevitably lead to pain and loss for all of them, there is no way to win.

  So, tell me, Love, tell me, Love. How is that just?

  This line is a direct address to Geralt (his ‘Love’), begging him to explain, to see, to speak to him and understand. The rhetorical question 'How is that just?' again draws back to the concept of the ‘unfairness’ and injustice of her relationship with Geralt, Jaskier feels that she ‘steals’ love rather than earning or winning it (again a possible reference to lack of consent). The use of a rhetorical question also implies that he feels powerless and unable to expect any response to his pleas.

  But the story is this. She’ll destroy with her sweet kiss. Her sweet kiss

  Here Jaskier is using juxtaposition to show how her ‘sweet kiss’ (symbolic of her sexual relationship with Geralt) will ‘destroy’ him. He sets the tone by stating as fact that ‘The story is this', affirming his opinion that no other possible narrative exists beyond her storm-like destruction of their relationship and Geralt himself.

  Her current is pulling you closer, a charge in the hot, humid night.

  This line again uses the theme of the destructive power of nature, Yennefer is like a ‘current’ pulling Geralt towards her. The repeated portrayal of Yennefer as a destructive force of nature somewhat dehumanises her, correlating her actions with an uncaring inhuman force rather than that of a woman with genuine affections.

 The red sky at dawn is giving a warning. You Fool better stay out of sight

 This line references an ancient mariners rhyme 'Red sky at night, sailors' delight.Red sky at morning, sailors' warning.' meant to warn sailors of an impending storm when a red sky is seen at dawn. Jaskier is again using the ‘storm’ metaphor to warn Geralt about Yennifer. He addresses Geralt directly, calling him a ‘fool’ and advising him to hide from her destruction. 

  I’m weak, my love, and I am wanting. If this is the path I must trudge.

  This line provides a key insight into the identities of the characters and their relationship to each other. In Witcher canon 'The Path' is the name given to the life of a Witcher as he journeys around the continent battling monsters. It’s somewhat comparable to the religious concept of a 'calling'. By describing his choice to accompany Geralt on his quests as 'trudging' indicates that he does not enjoy the journey aspect of their relationship, but also signals his acceptance of this as the price he must pay for a relationship with Geralt.

 To further this point, in the show Jaskier does not always join Geralt in his actual monster battles, instead, it is implied that Geralt himself later recounts the stories. This is evidenced by the lines 'Geralt’s usually so stingy with the details' and later 'I’ll go get the rest of the story from the others'. This habit of receiving the tale after the events reveals that there is no need for Jaskier to continuously accompany Geralt on his journeys, multiple tales could just as easily be collected from Geralt or others (as seen in the tavern scene) at a later date. It can be supposed then that Jaskier, therefore, chooses to accompany Geralt for ‘love’, a reason which is also explored in the notebook version of the lyrics, 'If I were a man of more merit, if I were a man of resolve I’d leave you behind, get my fair peace of mind' It is implied here that he should leave but can’t because his love for Geralt is too powerful.

  I’ll welcome my sentence, give to you my penance. Garroter, jury and judge

 Jaskier’s conflicted feelings about his choice to accompany Geralt is explored further in the line above. He described the act of joining 'the path' as a form of punishment ('sentence' and 'penance') for being 'weak' and desirous ('wanting' Geralt). This ‘sentence’ is enforced by a 'jury and judge', the Garotter (Geralt).  

 The song’s repeated use of justice/legal symbolism is interesting. He places Geralt into the role of a 'Jury and Judge' passing out sentences from a position of power and control over Jaskier (and arguably Yennefer). Yennifer is described as a 'crook' who 'steals' and commits 'treason', but is not punished for these criminal acts. Instead, it is Jaskier himself who is punished, made to give 'penance'. He feels this is an injustice and 'unfair'. This sentiment neatly reflects the events of 'Rare Species', where after his disastrous romance with Yennefer, Geralt lashes out at Jaskier, accusing him of causing all of his misfortune.

 It can be imagined then that Jaskier may have taken his half-composed love song and written new lyrics in direct reaction to that betrayal; his pain laid bare in verse.   

#witcher netflix #the witcher #witcher meta #geralt x dandelion #geralt of rivia #geralt x jaskier #her sweet kiss #song analysis #meta #poetry analysis #jaskier #yennerfer #long reads #I should put this under a cut but I can't work out how

[princesssarisa]

“Beauty and the Beast”: Belle’s beautiful discontentment (warning: long)

In my Feminist Defense of the Animated Belle, I addressed most of the issues I’ve heard people complain about regarding Belle’s character. But there was one I didn’t touch on, because it has very little to do with gender roles: the common complaint that Belle is a “snob.” I’d like to discuss that topic now. I’d also like to use it as a springboard to discuss a valuable aspect of Belle’s character that sets her apart both from certain Disney princesses who came before her and from depictions of Beauty in other Beauty and the Beast retellings: her willingness to own her discontentment.

I do understand the “snob” accusations. After all, Belle’s neighbors are poor peasants working hard to eke out a living. It’s only natural that they have little time for books or dreams of adventure and think Belle’s passion for those things is impractical. It’s reasonable to sympathize with their perspective more than the movie seems to want us to. It’s fair to argue that the movie has a (probably unintentional) classist undertone by portraying the villagers as small-minded and bigoted and by having Belle only find a kindred spirit in a prince, albeit an enchanted outcast prince, and find her ultimate happiness by leaving the town in favor of a royal castle. I’m grateful that other BatB retellings exist (e.g. Megan Kearney’s webcomic, or Robin McKinley’s Rose Daughter) that portray Beauty’s peasant world in a more positive light, depict the historic cruelty of royal court life in the Beast/Prince’s backstory, and have him leave the castle in the end to become a peasant rather than Beauty becoming a princess.

But none of the above is any reason to criticize Belle.

I don’t think she looks down on her neighbors. She most certainly doesn’t shun them, as some critics claim she does. Just look at her meeting with the baker during the opening song: she tries to have a friendly conversation with him and tell him about the wonderful story she’s read, only for him to rudely brush her aside with “That’s nice... Marie! The baguettes!” I don’t interpret her subsequent shrug and eye-roll as showing disdain for his “low-class” disinterest in books – just as “Oh well, as usual, no one shares my interest.”

Nor do I buy the claim that she shows disdain for the “I need six eggs!” woman (and by extension for all struggling mothers) when she rides past her. It’s true that she does seem to be smiling, which might imply amused contempt, but she might also just be enjoying her ride on the wagon while at the same time wistfully yearning for a new life, with her expression having nothing to do with the woman. I don’t know what the animators meant to convey. And even if that overwhelmed mother does represent the life Belle doesn’t want for herself, and if Belle sings “There must be more than this provincial life!” in response to seeing her, what’s wrong with that? I don’t think it’s an insult to women who choose to have big families. Even a woman who chooses to have five kids shouldn’t be expected to wrangle them all by herself while also doing her grocery shopping, with no help from her husband or from anyone else. That’s the kind of unpaid labor women have too often been forced into and it’s not “insulting other women” for Belle to yearn for something different.

Belle has the right to be bored by her small town life and want something more. She’s not some rich girl looking down on the poor peasants; she’s a poor peasant too. A person trapped in a dull, stifling lower-class existence has every right to long for a different life. Would we accuse Cinderella of being a “snob” and “ignoring the value of domestic work” because she dreams of escaping from her enslavement by her stepfamily? Of course Belle’s life in the village is more comfortable than that, but it’s still reasonable that she should want to break free from its limits.

“But Belle is clearly richer and more privileged than her neighbors!” some critics argue again and again. “Most peasants in those days were illiterate, so the fact that Belle can read shows she’s had a higher-class education, and in the stage musical, Maurice tells her she’s ‘class’ while their neighbors are ‘the common herd’!” I don’t buy that argument. I’ve never bought it. Not one bit. The movie’s setting isn’t the real late 18th/early 19th century France – it’s the Disney version of it. The village has a bookshop in the animated version and a church library and schoolhouse in the live-action remake. There’s no indication whatsoever that Belle's neighbors can’t read. (Gaston holding her book askance as he looks for pictures in it and Le Fou’s inability to spell Gaston’s name don’t count; the first is a “parental bonus” gag implying that Gaston is looking for a centerfold, while the second is a “Le Fou is stupid” gag. Gaston quotes Shakespeare in “The Mob Song,” so he’s clearly had some education.) Belle just stands out because she has a passion for books, instead of only reading now and then during breaks from “more important” things, and because she would rather read than engage in smalltalk about practical everyday matters. Belle is shown borrowing her books, not buying them, which I presume implies she can’t afford to buy them, and Maurice builds his invention out of ordinary household items (e.g. a wood stove, an axe, a teapot), so he presumably hasn’t spent much money on it either. Nor are they any better dressed than their neighbors, nor does their house look any fancier. They certainly don’t seem richer than Gaston, who apparently owns the village tavern and can afford to arrange a wedding party on short notice and bribe Monsieur d’Arque with a bag of gold to help him blackmail Belle. As for Maurice’s remarks in the stage version, they’re clearly about her personality, not about social class.

Belle also has the right to be an individualist and a misfit. That’s part of the whole point of her storyline. It seems to me that critics who complain that she “looks down on normalcy” are doing the same thing the villagers do, which is supposed to be wrong: saying “It’s a pity and a sin she doesn’t quite fit in.”

It’s no surprise that people should complain about Belle’s complaining, though. Traditional fairy-tale heroines aren’t supposed to complain. As much as we can joke about the cliché that the “I want more” heroine became during the Disney Renaissance, we shouldn’t forget how innovative that kind of heroine was in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Just think back to Snow White: at the beginning she’s dressed in rags and forced to work as a scullery maid by her stepmother, but we find her smiling and cheerfully humming as she scrubs the castle steps. Then there’s Cinderella: a bit more complex and openly discontented than Snow White, but in general she still goes cheerfully about her chores. The heroine who lives in unhappy circumstances but “bears it cheerfully and without complaint” is a mainstay of classic, old-fashioned fairy-tales (and other stories too). The early versions of Beauty and the Beast are no exception. After Beauty’s family falls into poverty, we’re told that her sisters constantly wail and cry over their lost wealth and status, but Beauty swallows her grief, resolves to be cheerful, patiently shoulders all the household chores, and devotes her days to consoling her father and siblings. For this she’s held up as a role model, in contrast to her complaining sisters, who despise her and insult her for it, but whom she always loves and forgives.

Of course there’s value in that kind of character. Resilience in the face of adversity and finding happiness where others find none is a strength in its own right. But it can be overdone. The more that women, poor people and outcasts are encouraged to be cheerful, patient and uncomplaining, the more they’re expected to “stay in their place.” Any righteous desire or demand for a better life or better treatment is labeled “rude,” whiny,” “petulant” and “selfish.” It doesn’t always cross that line, but it can.

Linda Woolverton, the head screenwriter of Disney’s BatB, knew that she wanted Belle to be different both from the traditional Beauty and from the likes of Snow White and Cinderella. So did lyricist Howard Ashman, whose experience as a gay man did much to influence the outcast heroes and heroines of the three Disney movies he wrote for. As noted in this Time Magazine article, they resolved to create a heroine for “the next century,” who wasn’t “based on being kind and taking the hits but smiling all the way through it.”

They definitely succeeded.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s wonderful that Belle owns her discontentment. It’s beautiful that she doesn’t try to fit in or put on a patient, cheerful mask, but unabashedly yearns to escape from her dull, small-minded village and find adventure in the great wide somewhere. It’s wonderful that she has no patience for Gaston’s rudeness and arrogance and that she loathes the thought of having to give up her reading and intellect in favor of a mundane marriage and raising a gaggle of children. It all leads beautifully into her friendship and romance arc with the Beast, where she refuses to tolerate his bullying, refuses to let him control her even though he’s the master of the castle, only forgives him when he earns her forgiveness, and inspires him to change for the better. The happy ending comes about precisely because Belle was willing to be discontented and shamelessly wanted more than she was given at first. This makes her almost the opposite of the original tale’s Beauty, whose story was written as an allegory for arranged marriage and whose purpose was in part to convince girls to submit to unwanted circumstances for their families’ sake. I love that instead, Belle refuses to submit to what she doesn’t want, and her refusal becomes the catalyst for all the positive growth and transformation in the story.

Let’s hear it for heroines who want more!

#beauty and the beast #disney #belle #meta

[jdenvs3000]

Pursuing a Career as an Environmental Interpreter

Remember that quote that everyone refers to “If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life”?

When I truly think about the things that I love and make me happy, nature and the environment are at the top of my list. So what does this mean for me? Do I pursue a career as an environmental interpreter? What would that look like?

These are some questions that I have asked myself when thinking about my role in the environmental world.

A photo of my friend Meg enjoying the view at the Cup and Saucer Trail, Manitoulin Island. Taken by a friend, L. Overholt 2020.

When I think of myself in the role of an environmental interpreter, my main goal would be to help others understand and interpret the natural world around us. Now I know this may seem like a generic response, but my best way to communicate with others is through conversation. I find myself a very extroverted, enthusiastic person, and speaking to others about something I am passionate about comes with ease.

As an environmental interpreter, I want to engage with the groups I lead in a friendly manner in order to create curiosity about the landscape we are observing and/or nature in general. Ideally, this job would be in Southwestern Ontario as this is the geographical region I am most familiar with and confident to discuss with others. When I picture myself in this role, I envision myself working for a Provincial Park and providing an interactive learning experience for individuals to enhance their understanding of this natural region. Eventually, I would love to migrate my career to Western Canada, specifically Alberta, as this geographical landscape particularly calls to me. I mean, who doesn’t love the mountains! I would like to continue learning about the local environment of Alberta so that hopefully I am able to share my knowledge with others someday.

A photo of my sister and I at Lake Louise. Taken by my dad, P. Droog 2010.

As an interpreter, your job is to simplify concepts or information and present it to your audience. When sharing information with an audience, it is important to remember that everyone learns differently. You may need to adjust the way you are presenting your information based on your audience.

Personally, I know that I am an auditory and tactile learner. This means that I learn best when I am listening to someone else and when I am completing hands-on or physical tasks. For example, I am more likely to interpret the landscape better if I am able to physically explore it and interact with the environment. Knowing this, it is an important skill to remember that not everyone will have the same learning style as me and in order to effectively convey the message to a group of people, it must be tailored to all learning styles: auditory, visual and tactile.

Although communication is a key skill for this job, effective teamwork and an overall love and appreciation for the environment is also important! For example, for a Provincial Park and/or Conservation Area to run efficiently, everyone on the team needs to work together cohesively. Everyone has a collective responsibility to do their part to protect and preserve this environmental region.

A photo from the Cup and Saucer Trail, Manitoulin Island. Taken by a friend, M. Dalrymple 2020.

As this blog comes to an end, I’d like to pose a few questions.

What other skills do you think are necessary for a natural interpreters to possess?

In your opinion, what teaching techniques are the most versatile for all audiences?

What type of learner are you? Auditory, visual, tactile?

Can’t wait to hear others perspectives on the role of natural interpreters!!

Thanks for listening!

Janieka :)

[mithrilwren]

Carillon

For @essek-week​ day 6: tower/possibilities. This was a VERY last minute fill, and it was an absolute miracle I got it done before the clock struck midnight, but woohoo, here we are! It’s mostly for ‘tower’, but I think it has shades of ‘possibilities’ as well.

[Also on Ao3!]

“I really do appreciate that you were willing to come all this way.”

“Yes, well,” Essek said, inclining his head slightly. “It isn’t so far to travel for people such as us, is it?”

The blonde-haired woman smiled serenely. Lady Allura Vysoren, member of the Arcana Pansophical, senior member of the Council of Tal’Dorei, a talented and accomplished wizard - all facts he’d committed carefully to memory the night before, after a series of hasty messages to his more worldly contacts. She ushered him from the teleportation circle through an oaken door, into a hallway of fine wooden supports and demure beige paint. “Have you been to Tal’Dorei before, Essek?”

“No, I’m afraid I haven’t. My duties rarely take me outside my home country.” He gazed up at the high ceiling, wondering vaguely which government building she’d transported them to. He knew they were bound for Emon, but he hadn’t had time to collect any information about the layout of the city before Allura arrived to collect him.

“That’s a shame. I do love to travel, when I can.” Her pleasant niceties, far from putting Essek at ease, only amplified his confusion as to why he was chosen for this assignment. The role of ‘Shadowhand’ was exactly as unobtrusive as the name implied - he was no diplomat. His work was best done through intermediaries, if any social interaction was required at all. 

His work with the Mighty Nein was an aberration, but not wholly outside his purview: to gather information about illicit dealings within the Dynasty was quite within his usual set of duties, even if the method was… unusual. But he could not fathom why the Bright Queen would select him to play the role of ambassador, unless his seeming success with the Nein convinced her that he had some special pull with humans that other drow lacked.

Yet again, he found himself teetering on the knife’s edge of civility, trying to maintain his balance in an arena he did not understand. If he had little experience playing the host, he had less being the hosted, and he grasped one hand by the other in a vice grip behind his back as he floated after Allura, following her into a little parlor off the main corridor. She gestured to a chair, and he felt at once foolish to have taken the effort to resume his levitation spell, only to be forced to descend within a minute in order to sit.

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” Allura said as she walked to a little table and began pouring cups of tea from a delicate porcelain pot. Beside her, there was a glass door, partially ajar and seemingly leading to a balcony, but Essek could not see past the railing to guess any more about their location. Instead, Essek sank back into the armchair - plush, and upholstered with warm auburn velvetine that complemented the other splashes of autumnal colour within the room - and watched the light breeze from the balcony ripple within the blue folds of Allura’s dress as she finished pouring. 

A receiving chamber, perhaps, for foreign officials? It seemed pleasant enough for it, though nowhere near as grand as the Bright Queen’s throne room. Every so often a shout or cheer drifted up from the street below, also very unlike the reverent silence that he knew so well. Perhaps those things mattered less for a government ruled by a collection of individuals, rather than a sovereign. He had no frame of reference to compare it against.

After handing him a cup, Allura sank into an armchair across from him and took a small sip, just enough to wet her lips, before speaking again. “I hope it’s alright. I tend to drink a lot of tea in the afternoon, but if you prefer something else, I’m sure I can muster it up.”

“This is fine,” he said, and took a sip to prove it. And it was - a pleasant, earthy aroma, subtled by a splash of cream and what he assumed must be sugar. He’d never met anyone besides Jester who preferred sweetness in herbal drinks (or any drinks, in her case), but he had to admit that the flavours melded well. “But- you’ll forgive me, but I wasn’t given much information on the nature of this meeting. What was it you wanted to discuss?”

Matters of politics he had at least a good understanding of, a better one than how to act friendly and convince others to enjoy your company, and Essek was eager to shift to more familiar ground as soon as possible. While he doubted his social graces could net Allura’s esteem, at least he might be able to engage her mind in discussion, and then perhaps the worst of his awkwardness could be overlooked. 

And, for the most part, he believed he succeeded, in the ways that mattered. It turned out the Council of Tal’Dorei had simply wanted a check-in with the Dynasty after Allura’s involvement in the peace talks - a move which he now gathered was only loosely sanctioned by the council itself, though she had seemed quite confident when she arrived before the Bright Queen’s court all those months ago. She meant to shore up relations, and ensure that open communication would continue between their governments. 

He agreed to what he could, proposed options for further engagements, and all in all, performed adequately in his function, but hadn’t quite shaken the feeling he was missing some important detail in all of this - something that might explain why he, of all people, was the one taking part in this conversation. Allura was clearly a skilled diplomat, in addition to her arcane prowess. She projected an air of competence, tempered by a warm, inviting demeanor, but he did not doubt that her demeanor would change were they in her personal tower, rather than within the public eye. Wizards were not known for their hospitality, after all, and the ones he’d met outside himself always guarded their isolation jealously, quick to drop all illusions of civility once they were within a domain of their control. 

“Lady Allura,” he asked as she got up to refill their cups, unable to contain the pressing question any longer. “I’ve enjoyed our conversation today, and I think we’ve made good progress. But… if there is any skillset that I particularly may provide, please, do not hesitate to ask.” There. A way of proposing the question without betraying his own ignorance. The best he could do without surrendering ground in their back and forth. This was, after a negotiation, even if he couldn’t sense the parameters yet. One wizard did not call on another unless they desired something that the other could provide. Even Caleb primarily turned to Essek for help with spells or magic beyond his level, and they were friends - at least, they were.

(He pushed down any thoughts of dinner parties, or good conversation over wine, as the fancies of the past that they were. It was a bitter hope, to believe that there was a different sort of relationship they could have had, one not based on favours and needs. It did not serve him to dwell on it, when his own hand was what quashed that hope for good.)

Allura smiled, setting down the pot on the table. “Nothing of the sort. Truth be told, I actually asked for you personally.” Essek’s eyebrow raised.

“Really.” Though she made no threat, his hand itched towards his wrist, where his components were hidden. Weeks of warnings from Caleb and others in the Nein that an assassination attempt by the Cerberus Assembly might be coming, now that he had outlived his usefulness, had set him on edge. The thought of a powerful wizard with connections both in the Dynasty and the Empire asking to see him personally, and alone? It was worth every  bit of caution in the world.

“You sound surprised.”

“Diplomacy is not my accustomed role.”

“Nor is peacemaking mine, but we find ourselves in strange times.” Allura turned away, looking towards the window and the afternoon sky. “I confess, I still don’t understand the whole of the conflict on Wildemount’s shores. There are shades of grey to every war, and I don’t trust myself to recognize them with an outsider’s perspective. Which is why I asked the Mighty Nein who they would trust to speak to me honestly, and fairly.” She turned back to Essek. “They named you.”

A jolt went through Essek. “When?” he asked, shocked to hear the state of his own voice, strained as it was.

They’d barely spoken in the weeks since the end of the peace talks, other than the warnings about Ikithon and Jester’s occasional messages at inconvenient hours. He’d assumed any ties of trust he’d had with the Nein had been irrevocably broken. Despite any protestations in the Balleater’s hold, he had a hard time believing that No- Veth, or Beau, or even Fjord would count him as someone to be recommended. And yet-

“A few nights ago, when I asked them. I’m glad you were available on such short notice.”

“I as well,” he answered faintly.

And yet-

“Oh no.”

Essek’s head whipped up at Allura’s sudden change in tone to something akin to horror. 

“Is something the matter?”

He stood quickly and floated over to her, scanning the room for any sign of an intruder or threat, but instead he found her staring at a timepiece on the mantle, her eyes tracking the short hand with increasing distress. 

“She’s going to kill me.”

“Who?” Essek insisted, but she was already striding away from him towards the door. 

“How would you feel about a quick tour of the city?” Allura asked, her smile gone from welcoming to hurriedly apologetic in an instant. 

“...Alright.” Strange, but he couldn’t sense an immediate threat. He followed her out the door and into the same hallway, which soon led to a winding spiral staircase leading downwards into a depth of stone. 

“I’m very sorry for the abruptness,” she explained as she walked, “but I promised I would pick something up for someone, and I lost track of time. I’d like to send you off properly, but I also- I really did promise.”

“It’s alright,” he said. “I’m in no rush.” If anything, he was curious to see a bit more of Emon than whatever government building they were in - though, he thought as they continued to descend, it was a strange construction for one. If anything, the layout of the staircase reminded him more of a-

In what seemed like an instant, they were outside, and Essek’s suspicions were immediately proved unfounded. The moment they stepped out onto the street, they were surrounded by bustle - crowded houses, children playing in the street, dogs begging scraps from a food stall down the way. No wizard’s tower would be built so close to the rest of society. They were built for privacy, secluded and elevated above the world. His own house was a half-formed imitation of what he had someday hoped to achieve for himself: gated and lofty, and lonesome.

He didn’t have time to reflect further, or even glance back, lest he lose Allura in the crowd as she hurried away at a breakneck speed.

In the end, he caught up to her on the outskirts of a market, where sellers were just beginning to put away their wares for the coming evening. Essek found Allura at one particular stall, clutching a package of something smelling distinctly briny and looking triumphant.

“Lionfish,” she explained. “They only sell it one day a week, because it’s so hard to keep fresh on its journey from the coast. It’s also my wife’s favourite dish. I would not have heard the end of it, if I’d forgotten.”

“Your wife?” Essek asked, his understanding of Allura shifting in great bounds, like so many shifting cogs whirring into a new configuration. Had he ever met a wizard who was in a partnership, let alone married? It had always seemed to him that a relationship of that kind could only take time away from his work: an unsound investment. Or at least that was a convincing argument, on the days that the loneliness felt like it would suffocate him from within. He almost wanted to ask how she managed it, ambition and love both, but held his tongue. 

“Kima,” Allura provided. “She’ll probably be home by the time we make it back. Maybe you’ll meet her.”

“I’d like that,” said Essek, and found he meant it, which was the most surprising thing of all.

Now that they weren’t in a rush, he was able to get more of a lay of the land. The city was a strange arrangement of highs and lows. It seemed that they were in the high portion, with many houses spread out on the plain below. 

“This is the Cloudtop District,” Allura explained as they walked. Essek had decided to forgo his usual hovering, as his drow appearance was already garnering enough stares from passersby. “It used to be home to the most wealthy citizens of the city, but nowadays there’s a mix of all sorts here.”

“What changed?”

“A horde of dragons razed the city to the ground.” Allura shrugged. “The social divide seemed rather immaterial to most people after that.” She pointed forward at one singular spire, rising above the rest of the mostly one-or-two level dwellings. “Luckily, there was enough space left for me to rebuild the Ivory Tower, and the city’s come up around it.”

Essek stared. It was certainly the direction they had come from, and that they were now headed to.

So it was her tower then, that they had been in. Her tower, that she called ‘home’, that she used to entertain guests, and shared with her wife, and occasionally left to buy fish from a market three streets down. 

“Does it ever feel... crowded?” Essek asked, his own skin already crawling at the proximity of the strangers around him. 

“Sometimes,” Allura admitted. “But I like being able to say hello to my neighbours. I hid my nose in books for so much of my life that it’s a welcome change, for it to be as easy to meet new people as to walk outside my door. It takes some of the work out of it for me.”

That was… not a way that Essek had considered the problem before. He had wondered when he was younger why so many of his peers fell into relationships - platonic or otherwise - without any seeming effort, while he could not fathom how to make a single friend. But he had been separate from the start - isolated because of his mother’s position, and his own talent. Were relationships truly as simple as being in the right vicinity to stumble into them?

He pondered that thought all the rest of the way back to the tower, and up an unfamiliar staircase. “I just want to stick this in the icebox,” Allura explained, “and then I promise, I’ll see you home properly.” He followed her through a new door and into a little kitchen with an adjoining dining room, separated by a half-wall and banister. 

The kitchen itself was fascinating. He got the sense of Allura as an organized individual, but most of the space was pure chaos. Mismatched mugs were haphazardly piled on top of bags of produce and sharp knives were stacked, uncovered, by the sink. Allura’s nose visibly wrinkled as she moved aside a few unopened boxes with her foot in order to open the icebox and shove the package inside.

“Who’s this?”

The new voice caught Essek off guard and he whirled, only to find the air empty at his eye level. He looked down, and found a halfling woman in improbably large plate armor staring up brazenly at him. 

“Essek Thelyss,” Allura supplied from behind him, standing up and dusting her hands off on her skirt. “A guest of mine, from Wildemount.”

The woman didn’t extend her hand, but she gave Essek a good once-over before nodding, apparently satisfied by his look that he wasn’t a threat. He tried not to take it as a snub as the woman shouldered past him to get to Allura.

“Did you remember to get the lionfish?”

“Of course, darling,” Allura said, glancing over the woman’s head at Essek with a look that clearly read I told you so. “I wouldn’t have forgotten.”

Kima, then, and the swift kiss she planted on the back of Allura’s palm confirmed it. “Great, I’ll get started then. Go finish up with your friend, dinner’s in forty.” With that, she was off, pulling pots and pans out with reckless abandon, and utterly unconcerned with either of their presences. It was clear now to Essek that this place was Kima’s, which explained the incongruity with Allura’s neat parlor. 

He thought of his own house, where half the rooms were empty for lack of things to fill them with. He had always wanted to live alone, had never questioned the idea that he would hate to share any part of his home with someone else. 

And yet-

He could understand the appeal now, of sharing a space. Of seeing another person’s marks left over the places they frequent - the dishes in the sink, the paintings on the wall - or to be greeted by a kiss on the doorstep, from someone listening for your footsteps eagerly. It wasn’t a possibility for him, but he thought... he could see it. Why someone would want that. 

Allura sent him back to Rosohna with a promise of future visits and cups of tea to come. By the time he arrived back at his house, it was nearly time to rest, but he headed to his laboratory, intending to check on one of his experiments before closing his eyes for the night. 

The walkways between the different segments of his home were dark, as always, but they gave a good view of the streets stretching beyond his own empty one. From here, he could clearly see the light of Caduceus’s tree, the one beacon in the darkness that surrounded them all, guarding a house too small for seven occupants, but somehow functional, with enough space for all. 

During the day, neighbouring drow still flocked like moths to the flame, walking by the house and trying to catch a glimpse of the strange goings-on inside. He’d never understood the purpose of the tree, when all it did was draw unnecessary attention to the group. He started to wonder now, if that was the goal all along.

His spire was not a tower, but it was removed, just the same. Meticulously organized, just as he liked it to be, but there were still traces of clay he hadn’t managed to scrub from the floorboards. Essek stood on the threshold and saw scattered images of the past: of Nott laying on the floor, of Caleb at the desk, of Jester hounding him for snacks from down the hall. 

They flickered out, one by one, leaving only Caleb, trapped in a scene not from his memory, but from his mind all the same. He watched Caleb stand from the desk and move to the table, beckoning Essek forward. 

“Did you find it?” the shadow Caleb asked, and Essek nodded, heart caught in his throat as he handed over the requested scroll. “Good. Then we can finish tonight.” Caleb leaned over and gave Essek a peck on the cheek, and his lips felt of fog, immaterial and crushing at the same time.

Then he blinked, and it was all gone. Caleb was nothing more than a memory again, and the only proof of his one-time presence were the stains of reddish dirt across the floor.

He stumbled off to his room, feeling unsettled, and deeply tired, with question after question flitting through his mind.

How far would his tower have to climb, so that he couldn’t see the light of that accursed tree from his window?

How long can he pretend that he wouldn’t rather be under that roof tonight, instead of his own?

#critical role #essek week #essek thelyss #allura vysoren #shadowgast #(though only implied/possibly unrequited) #my writing

[arecomicsevengood]

AGING ALTERNATIVES

We live in a culture that worships the large-scale spectacle of the obvious. Partly because of this, the most affecting thing a person can do is something with a large amount of effort behind it, delivered to a small audience: An elaborate meal cooked for a loved one, a labored-over zine in an edition of ten. But of course, time has this great leveling effect, and attempting something large scale can easily crash and burn, and in so doing become something only for a limited audience.

There is an ongoing conversation being had about older comics but they are almost always superhero comics, with some weird eighties genre trash thrown in. This conversation includes a great many alternative cartoonists, but it is very rare for a forgotten art comic to slide its way into the discussion. There’s numerous reasons for this: The larger the print run, the larger the chance a work will find its way to a bargain bin. But also, artists are competitive, and largely inclined to promote themselves or their peers. Once an artist is no longer producing work, they are rarely championed.

Obviously, not everyone finds their way into “the canon,” but you would think that work intended to be somewhat personal would end up being valued enough by individual people that you’d hear about it now and again. The case for alternative comics is the same as it ever was: It’s an artistic medium that can do anything, and it’s released in the fairest most egalitarian way, via mass production, for it to find people who will support it. The art is immediately striking in a way that gives it an edge over the written word, but it’s distributed to shops across America rather than galleries, and so should have long life after its initial release. Of course, the vision falters due to the reality that most of what gets produced is pretty bad, and not really expressing anything particularly unique or individual, and this only goes unspoken at the time of a work’s release due to admiration for the amount of labor that nonetheless went into it.

But what ends up happening in retrospect is this thing where banal superhero work gets reevaluated, with certain aesthetic decisions dictated by the technology of the time (like the coloring) becoming romanticized and recognized as things of beauty, while tons of black and white comics made by people who were desperately trying to push the medium forward and make something that works as art or literature get tarred with a blanket dismissal, associated with either the indulgences of the highest-profile practitioners or simply casualties of their pitiful attempts at graphic design. Only the small handful of practitioners whose publishers have steadily championed them and kept their work in print get to escape this fate. But obviously, if you’re working at something risky, you might end up working with publishers who are not economically viable in the long term, or, if they are, it’s because they’re being subsidized by projects way more commercial than yours.

There’s plenty of stuff which had a large enough print run for copies to be found, but functionally exist at the level of visibility of a zine. But, while I might be interested in extending the same amount of charity I would to someone making work with no hope of commercial success, to engage with the work honestly means that the fact that it was attempting to find its place in the world of commerce must be taken into consideration when thinking about the goals it set out to fulfill. That so much fails to meet these commonly-held goals can make one feel pretty depressed about the medium, and maybe this is another reason for people to avert their eyes: When you’re talking about superhero comics of a certain vintage, while they might not have attempted to be art, at least the people making them got paid.

Obviously, The Comics Journal has been fighting this fight for decades. I am sure all of the books I am going to write about, they have already covered, and they probably came to the same conclusions, and depending on the writer, they might’ve been more entertaining to read than I will be. But I want to offer these reconsiderations in light of all the other reconsiderations being made, that are coming to the opposite conclusion of what The Comics Journal would’ve. It is easy to look back at the 1980s now and say, for instance, that Elektra Assassin is a better comic book than American Splendor.  There’s a discrepancy between what is the best work being produced at a given historical moment and what is the most exciting scene to be a part of. I like to think if I had been writing for the Comics Journal in the early nineties, I wouldn’t have gone all-in praising Palookaville, but I get that in the moment it would’ve felt important to do so. Now, of course, there is very little that feels exciting at all, in the context of real-world community, due to the global pandemic. This is an incredibly lonely moment, and nostalgia has a powerful allure.

But I’d like to ensure the nostalgia we feel compels us to fight for what’s human, rather than allow us to simply surrender our past to the colonizing forces of corporate interests. In the interest of the human, I will not make any grandiose claims for the works I’m writing about. I’m not describing anything as a masterpiece. These instead fulfill the humble virtues of being charming, cool, interesting. They didn’t upend my value system of what the comics medium could be. But, since it was all of the Picturebox releases that shifted my perspective on comics on its axis when I was in college that caused me to ignore some of this stuff, that its virtues can endure after such a flip is itself notable. Anyway, I have no reason to have written such a long preamble. I could’ve easily just made separate posts for each comic I wanted to talk about, but all this additional context seemed important to me to articulate. All of these are books I bought online over the past few months.

Shuck Unmasked, by Rick Smith and Tania Menesse

Feel like the main thing holding this comic back is a certain lack of joie de vivre to its line. There’s a certain cuteness to its designs that seems reminiscent of Jeff Smith or Goodbye Chunky Rice era Craig Thompson but it’s a little bit stiff in ways those cartoonists aren’t. The mask Shuck wears resembles the face Chester Brown draws himself having in Paying For It. I feel like this is maybe the only comic I’ve seen that frequently has dialogue that’s misspelled in an attempt to capture phonetic dialect and presents that through lettering that feels like a font. There’s a sense of being rounded instead of being scratchy, a lushness that feels hinted at, but also tamped down. There’s a literary flavor to it, an attention to the language, a deliberate and delicate sense of stately melancholy that’s present.

The Shuck of the title is a demon, living on Earth, tasked with making sure the dead don’t escape the afterlife and roam around. Despite his horned form, he’s able to wear the mask of an old man, and fit in with his neighbors, which include a little girl, with whom he develops a bond. There’s a gentle quality to it, but also a sense of darkness that prevents it from being cloying, an interest in the esoteric that suggests the profound. The premise could be a recipe for sitcom-ish stasis, but actually the status quo shifts quite a bit, over the course of these self-published comics, collected into a book by Top Shelf.  It feels like each individual chapter should be reread a few times before proceeding on; the chapters have a nice density to them. That’s the funny thing about a lack of velocity to the line, it suggests a studiousness with which to approach it, but doesn’t invite the eye to return to it. Two issues of a sequel were self-published afterwards, I would read those.

Tales Of Woodsman Pete, by Lilli Carré

I’ve heard a couple people call Lilli Carré the best cartoonist of her generation. The first time I heard it said, I had never read anything by her, but I was struck by the assertion because there’s so many heavy hitters in that cohort I’m not comfortable making such declarations about anyone. There’s a collection of Carré’s short stories I’ve checked out from the library, but I found that collection inconsistent, with notable highs that didn’t still didn’t quite bowl me over. This could be partly an issue of format - Few cartoonists of Carré’s generation have a short story collection of their work available, and it might not be the best way to examine the work and see its strengths.

(A sidenote irrelevant to the larger thrust of this conversation - I started keeping a google doc of what years cartoonists were born, and have a my own idea of “generations” of cartoonists in terms of whose work it makes sense to consider alongside one another. 1960-1967 is one cohort, then 1968-1975, then 1976-1982, then 1983-some point unclear to me at this point, there’s a generational divide for sure but I don’t yet know the rules of it. I lump Carré in with Eleanor Davis, Dash Shaw, and Michael Deforge, rather than the slightly older group which includes Kevin Huizenga, CF, and Sammy Harkham. That’s not to say the people championing Carre are making the same distinctions, these generational lines are weird and arbitrary and some people are “on the cusp” and everyone chooses their own peers to a certain extent. However, I do think these generations are important or useful to think about, in terms of who came up with access to alternative newspaper strip jobs vs. the Xeric Grant vs. Tumblr, and it’s just generally interesting to think about what was around to serve as an influence at a formative age. People born after 1967 have had very few opportunities or chances for institutional support, by my reckoning. Over time, more people became acclimated to making uncompromising art, and there also became way less economic opportunity for people making work intended for adults. I suspect the forthcoming generation will be more inclined towards making content for kids because they grew up with things targeted to children, and they can be part of the push to make that stuff more diverse. This coincides with all of the economic infrastructure except for libraries being obliterated.)

Tales Of Woodsman Pete is a smaller object, of digest proportions, that Top Shelf released, early in Carré’s career. It’s worth noting her style nowadays is far more experimental and minimal, although I suppose at the time her work might’ve been considered pared-down, closer to folk tales than novels. This comic follows a woodsman, who monologues to no one, speaking to the trophies he’s made of his kills, in a series of short strips. This is juxtaposed against bits involving Paul Bunyan and his ox Babe, who share a camaraderie between them that doesn’t truly abate Bunyan’s sense of loneliness. It is, like Shuck, a gentle thing, and is able to conjure up some emotion, but I wonder if the sense of tweeness present within it is something Carré feels she’s outgrown? That’s not to say I object to it, just that I recognize a shift away from that stuff. I believe Carré is a Calvino fan, this stuff might be closest to the early stories in Our Ancestors, but Calvino’s work became far more overtly experimental afterwards. I don’t know, I still don’t have a bead on who Carré is or where she’s going. And that’s great, why should I?

Hectic Planet: Checkered Past, by Evan Dorkin

In high school, I read a Hectic Planet comic called The Bummer Trilogy, and liked it a lot. That was a single issue collecting three short stories that were the last work Evan Dorkin would do with the characters. While in retrospect, high school is probably the ideal age to read this material, those strips still feel more mature, in a sense of being personal, than much of Dorkin’s work. He’s written some superhero comics for the big two that never did much for me, and he has some collaborative genre comics I’ve never read, but he’s most associated with his humor cartooning, which I have kept up with despite only finding them intermittently funny. There’s always a sense of Dorkin as a performer of his material, where the humor tends to feel angry, but his most self-consciously autobio material is about the fact that his psyche is a dumping ground for assorted pop culture detritus. What’s interesting about this material is that is, in fact, still kind of immature, but it’s moving away from the science fiction premise, to be present enough to make jokes and talk about feelings. It’s the falterings towards finding a voice and having confidence in it, a youthful move towards what might not be maturity, but is, at least, work. So chunks of this are about a dude who’s heartbroken because he caught his girlfriend cheating on him and so he’s annoying all of his friends by complaining all the time and he’s thrilled to meet girls who like the same bands as he does and he goes to the grocery store and only buys junk food and while this might sound dumb, in context, it’s the beginnings of a worldview that feels fairly true to life for someone who would’ve been that age, at that point in time.

So, considering the era, and the sense of a science fiction premise being abandoned, it might make sense to think of this comic as following in the footsteps of Love And Rockets, albeit from an East Coast Jewish male perspective, and nowhere near as good. It almost feels like if a low-budget eighties sci-fi movie had cast a stand-up comedian in it, and when the budget got cut, they let him fill out the runtime with his routines and riffs, in an attempt to make it a star vehicle in case he ever got cast on SNL. Slave Labor put out a lot of alternative comics, and they all kind of got looked down upon to one degree or another. Much of what they published is both really poorly drawn and nakedly chasing whatever youthful subculture audience they could. Dorkin is easily one of the better artists they had, but the desire to be cool according to the terms of the subculture of the times makes for comics that feel dated now. All the characters in this book are really into ska, the back of the book has all these images taken from ska compilations and 7-inches featuring the characters. But that’s also interesting, because sensing the book’s quest to find its readership lends such authenticity to the young adult milieu, of what it means to be on your own and trying to find your people. It’s from a moment in time when talking about young people put a work in dialogue with alternative culture and not major book publishers, who due to generational differences, would not have understood any of the things this comic is about.

(This piece is sort of a variation on what I talk about in my article in But Is It… Comic Aht 2, by the way. There, behind a beautiful Lilli Carre cover, you can see me talking up more explicitly “all-ages” comics Slave Labor published, like Zander Cannon’s Replacement God, and Scott Roberts’ Patty Cake. Halo And Sprocket was a little bit later than the time period the article focuses on, but I liked that as well. Maybe the most interesting thing I’ve read from Slave Labor that wasn’t all ages and was never collected into a book would’ve been Jon Lewis’ series Ghost Ship. I also like the issues I’ve read of Bernie Mireault’s The Jam, which ran at multiple publishers, and I would like to read more of.)

[lachryphage]

idk

I know I’m getting aggressively upset by the amount of criticism I see and it’s not healthy for me to engage with it, even in these little rants I’m posting, but the reason I’m so frustrated is because I entered this fandom with a lot of love and joy in my heart

really long post below the cut about my history as a fan of the gorillaz and why song machine is perhaps my favorite “phase.” I just want to talk about the things that are important to me and make me happy...

my introduction to the gorillaz was the feel good inc video. I was over at a friend’s house and she wanted to show me something really cool on the internet (I was so impressed she was allowed on the computer AND without any supervision). I was 8 or 9 years old and I didn’t know what a music video was, that’s right, feel good inc. was the first music video I had EVER seen.

needless to say, it absolutely blew my mind. it’s a fucking iconic song AND iconic video. I didn’t really comprehend what I was looking at, I didn’t know these were characters with backgrounds, and I don’t even think I realized that the song was like. a song from a band. I just thought it was some kind of short film, a self-contained story. my idea of that video was completely divorced from what the gorillaz actually are, and to this day it still kind of is. I love that. it’s special to me for that reason, it feels like. like it’s mine.

I didn’t really listen to music that wasn’t what my friends or parents like, and the first time I had music I could sort of call my own was when my sister moved out and left all of her CDs with me. it was all stuff she HAD liked but wasn’t really interested in anymore, and a lot of it was stuff that I got to hear on my own, by myself, an experience I didn’t have to share.

some of the music still closest to my heart came from that CD case, it’s where I discovered the killers and death cab for cutie, which I have always considered my favorites. for whatever reason, until recently, I hadn’t really considered the gorillaz were included in that, but that’s how I was first PROPERLY introduced to the music: demon days. 

I remember listening to that album, alone on my bedroom floor, completely entranced by sounds like I had never heard before. once again, it was divorced from the context of the gorillaz as a virtual, socially-critical band. all I knew was the music. all I knew was the sound. and I of course recognized feel good inc, but I didn’t really remember the video or where I knew the song from, I had suppressed most of the memories from that time in my life. and so that song existed as an impression of a memory, haunting my mind and connecting me to something I couldn’t quite put a finger on.

I had my own private version of demon days in my head. a loose series of images and colors and a sense of some kind of narrative based on what little I could understand of the lyrics. it had nothing to do with the characters, in fact I didn’t even know they existed. once again, that album still somehow feels separate from the way I’m experiencing the gorillaz now. and i like that. I need that to never change. it feel like it’s mine.

I’ve never cared about who makes the music I listen to (and I understand now that sometimes that’s a problem). I don’t know why but I never bothered looking up music videos for songs I liked, sometimes a friend would show me something or I’d be listening to music on youtube and happen across a video, but even then I preferred lyrics videos. I never looked up artist names, lead singers, band members, history of the bands... in fact I usually didn’t even look beyond the albums I already liked. this is how I managed to remain ignorant of the gorillaz and didn’t listen to any of their stuff beyond demon days until highschool.

that’s when I met my who is now my best friend. she was a REAL gorillaz fan. she listened to ALL of their music and watched ALL of their videos and knew the “lore”... when we first started talking about the gorillaz I suddenly found myself way out of my depth. when we watched the feel good inc video (which I’m pretty sure I hadn’t seen it since that first time) she had to explain to me that no, those characters, THAT’S the band.  and I was like, um what the fuck? as embarrassing as it is to admit, I thought that de la soul were the band because those were the REAL people in the video ^^”’

I still didn’t have a lot of context for what I was seeing in the plastic beach videos, but of course I liked the music and the videos were super fun! because of my friend, I would hear gorillaz songs fairly regularly, though I never really sought them out myself, which is why I never listened to plastic beach, humanz, or the now now as actual ALBUMS. all I knew from them were the handful of videos that my friend would show me.

to illustrate just how clueless I was despite all of this: we got the power played frequently on the radio during my last year of college. I found it inspiring and loved singing to it, always meaning to look up who it was by, but by the time i’d be done driving I’d always forget to. I literally had no idea it was a gorillaz song. in fact, the same thing happened with momentary bliss earlier this year.

so how did I end up here? how did I suddenly have a huge interest in the band in its entirety, listening to the albums AND falling in love with the characters?

well, song machine happened. désolé happened.

the song, the video, it felt like perfection. the vocals made a home in my heart, and fatoumata diawara is such a gorgeous, delightful person... and so my friend kind of just shared stuff more frequently with me.

désolé made me fall in love with the new music, but my attempts to love my changing body are what led me to an interest in the characters.

long story short, I started T wand was worried about becoming one of those guys that is skinny but out of shape, small butt and a bit of tummy. I was so self conscious but when watching the strobelite video I thought 2D had a body type that was a stylization of what I was going to end up with. it made me feel so much better about myself and so I thought it’d be great to cosplay him and since I was going to cosplay him, I thought it was about time to learn the backstories of these characters... I was wholly unprepared for just how much interesting content there was.

I had no idea the amount of depth there was! I really was discovering the whole other half of the gorillaz, I went from no character content to more than I could have ever dreamed of.

and so I guess that’s why I have a completely different perspective than the other fans I’ve encountered. I understand why people who are used to having something great are so upset about the character side of things now... but in a lot of ways I’ve experienced the reverse. I went from nothing to a whole world of stuff to explore. it’s fantastic! it’s exciting!

and it’s why I’m so easily pleased with the stuff coming out now.

I entered this fandom with the joy of discovery, with the desire to explore, with the love of the current phase because it’s coincided with my introduction to the characters and thus is special to me just like my introduction to the music was special.

and damn is it not heartbreaking to go into something happy and find that much of the discussion around this thing that you love is about how much other people hate it.

#sigh... #the long and the short is that i have a hard time relating to other fans #the feel when you actually adore the current phase #i'm usually pretty good about curating my online engagement with fandom in a way that allows me to just focus on what i like #but it's like every single gorillaz blog i try and follow is so negative that i just can't get away from it #personal shit #still not tagging this even though i really wish i could share #it's lonely here #damn this is long #sounds #music

[penguiduck]

The Relationship Between Readers & Writers: Creating Motivation and Appreciation for Readers

Introduction | Part 1: What is this Relationship? | Part 2: Creating Motivation and Appreciation for Readers | Part 3: A Day in the Life of… | Part 4: Creating Motivation and Appreciation for Writers: Perspectives | Part 5: Creating Motivation and Appreciation for Writers: Implementation | Part 6: How to Write the Best Feedback |  Part 7: Where Does This Leave Us?

Last chapter, we discussed the nature of this unique relationship between readers and writers, and the currency that is exchanged between them.  This section is for the writers.  I hope to give you some insight on how to motivate your readers and let them feel appreciated for giving your work the attention it deserves.

As a reminder, currency can be provided in a number of different ways, but I’m going to focus primarily on feedback in this section because I think it is the most feasible and appropriate.

A common theme that I’ve been hearing is that readers can be shy or uncomfortable giving feedback.  This can be due to the nature of an online relationship because reading work anonymously is an option.  It can also be due to a language barrier or general reluctance to engage.  Or perhaps it’s due to a bad experience with leaving feedback in the past in which they were reproached for expressing their honest thoughts.

Writers can’t necessarily help make a reader less shy or remove the language barrier, but they can be approachable and kind.  They can welcome feedback and reward those who offer it.  If a writer is consistently welcoming, it may encourage readers to take a chance and provide much-desired feedback.

In the case of a poor experience, I think it’s especially important to be cognizant and ensure that this does not happen between you and your readers.  I will address the acceptance of criticism and opposing opinions at the end of this section to help reinforce this.

If a relationship between readers and writers is desired, writers have the responsibility of being affable and fostering an environment in which readers can provide honest feedback without fear of confrontation.  Let’s first discuss ways in which we can encourage readers to come forth with feedback.

WHAT DO READERS WANT?

They want good work, writing that can make them feel what they want to feel, whether that’s heartrending angst or tooth-rotting joy.  They want to feel respected should they choose to voice their opinions.  They want to know that writers care about their work and their relationship with readers.

Nothing I’ve said is revolutionary, but I think there are a few things writers can consistently do to stay honest with these ideas:

1. Respond to your readers.  It’s a small gesture, but if they take the time to give you feedback, the least you can do is thank them for it.

Imagine you telling someone, random stranger or not, that you like their new haircut or their shoes, and that compliment falls into an awkward silence.  You probably won’t compliment them anymore because you don’t know if your compliments are welcome.  So if you, as a writer, want more feedback, you need to acknowledge those who are currently providing it.

This doesn’t just apply to comments and reviews.  This applies to emails, Facebook chats, Tumblr asks, etc.  It’s basic manners to acknowledge feedback, no matter how short or simple.

2. Thank your readers.  You can do this comment by comment, but I like to thank my readers by name in each new update.  It lets readers know that I’ve read their feedback and that I’ve not forgotten their kindness, even as I continue to write new chapters.

A sincere thank you goes a long way in expressing that appreciation.

3. Involve your readers.  I think having reader input is instrumental to writing some types of fiction.  For example, I primarily write reader-inserts — anything from straight one-shots in second person to versions of CYOAs and WWYFFs — and sometimes my readers say things in the comments that make me pensive.

Ask readers questions.  If you’re not sure about a certain writing style, theme, or idea, just ask them.  I tend to do this at the end of every chaptered piece of fiction that I publish because it’s an opportunity to gather reader input and make myself a better writer for my audience.  An honest desire to improve is a very welcome prospect for readers — it shows that you care about their thoughts and opinions.

4. Do things for your readers to show your appreciation.  You’re a writer — I assume you like writing.  Write for your readers.

You can do this by hosting raffles or opening requests. As an example, I host a raffle every month for my readers called An Expression of Thanks. Those who leave comments on my works are eligible, and the winner of this raffle receives a written one-shot.  When the events of COVID-19 first started, I opened a request booklet called A Single Word. to help readers cope with the global pandemic. You can hold raffles for any occasion and any conditions. 

Celebrate your accomplishments to thank your readers for sticking with you.  Did you get to a certain amount of kudos on AO3? Hit chapter 100 for one of your fics? Did you just reach an anniversary for posting on a specific site? 

These are all incredible accomplishments for you, but where would you be without your loyal readers?  Raffle off one-shots, art, beta-reading services, even gift cards or other items of sentimental value. Donate to a cause on behalf of your readers. Get creative!   

5. Update consistently and complete your works, if possible.  You certainly don’t have to spend every waking moment writing.  Self-care is important, after all, but no one needs me to tell you that readers appreciate quality writing and updates to their favorite stories. 

Do whatever you need to do to nurture your love for writing, and don’t let yourself burn out.  But don’t forget that there are readers waiting on the edge of their seats for an update, and by providing a new chapter or new piece, you could very well make their day.

ADDRESSING CRITICISM AND CONTRARY OPINIONS

I’d like to dedicate some time to criticism and how to approach it.  To level-set, allow me to define what I mean by criticism.  I am not referring to outright rude, trolling, or hateful comments.  These are of a different category and should be dealt with in another manner — they should be ignored and reported to an administrator.  For the purpose of this essay, I am specifically addressing well-intentioned feedback that is of a critical nature or a contrary opinion.

First, please realize tone is often lost in informal writing online.  It can be hard to hear when someone is being sarcastic or gentle or sheepish.  Start by believing that your readers have the best of intentions and give them the benefit of the doubt.  They’re not trying to ruin your day.

Understand that feedback is a gift, even if it’s critical.  Someone took precious time out of their day to tell you something about your writing.  They don’t have to do that, but they care enough to provide you this information.  Accept it, and thank them for their effort, even if you don’t agree.

Accepting criticism is not always easy — to be candid, not all criticism is fair.  It’s entirely possible that readers can misinterpret your meaning or, simply, be wrong.  Nevertheless, it’s vital that you remain gracious and kind.  You don’t have to agree with the criticism.  The nature of writing and art is subjectivity — some people like A, and some people like B.  That’s okay. 

What’s important is that you foster an environment in which these differences in opinion are accepted and appreciated.

Still don’t like critical feedback?

You can ask your readers to not provide any.  I’m sure they’ll kindly oblige.  However, I advise against this because if you want to grow as a writer, you need to learn to accept criticism, and even apply it to your craft.

J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter pitch was rejected 12 times before she found success.  Stephen King’s Carrie was rejected by 30 publishers.  Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time was rejected 26 times before finally finding a publisher who would accept it.

My point is that these are incredibly popular books, best-selling and well-loved by a huge portion of the world population, and even they were faced with rejection by those with varying opinions.

My advice is to grow a thicker skin.  Don’t let criticism crumble your confidence.  You’re still learning as a writer, refining and polishing your craft as you continue your journey.  Even published authors had to walk this same path — and are still walking this path.

There will always be opinions that contradict yours.  Oftentimes, they won’t be right or wrong — they’re just opinions.

You have freedom of speech, not freedom from speech.  You can write whatever you’d like; people can say whatever they want to say about it.  By posting your work online, you are opening yourself up to the possibility of criticism.  

It’s a fact.  Let it be.

I loathe what I call “care bear culture.”  While I think it’s important to be polite and thoughtful when rendering opinions, writers should not be offended by or shield themselves from innocuous, well-intentioned comments.  This exposure and acceptance of criticism is a fundamental piece of learning and becoming a better writer.  If you reject constructive criticism and limit your exposure of opinions to those that agree with your own, you reject personal growth.

People are allowed to have opinions.  They are allowed to think that A is better than B or X is superior to Y; and if you’re a supporter of B or Y, you have the right to respectfully defend your position.  But do not disregard a polite comment or piece of feedback simply because it is contrary to what you have done or prefer.

Do not allow opposing opinions to break your creative spirit.  Diversity of thought is incredibly important and powerful.  If you dissuade your readers from providing this type of feedback, you may not get any feedback at all.

Some of the most useful feedback I’ve ever received was uncomfortable for me to read and hurtful to apply to my craft.  It’s not easy looking at your writing with a critical eye because what you’ve put on paper is part of you.  How can you criticize yourself and your work?

There is a piece of writing advice out there: Kill your darlings.  Sometimes your readers can give you incredible perspective on who or what your darlings are.

Allow yourself to be uncomfortable.  Embrace that discussion.  You will be a better writer for it.

In the meantime, be gracious and kind when receiving criticism.  As I mentioned earlier, you don’t have to agree with the criticism, but take it to heart.  Consider it.  If you focus too much on why it’s said and not what is said, then you’re going to struggle with accepting criticism.

Allow yourself to be a better writer.  You deserve that opportunity.

This is also posted on AO3.

#Writing #Writing advice #Writing tips #The relationship between online readers and writers #Readers #Blog post #Writing blogs #Writing community #Criticism #Writing inspiration #Kudos #Feedback #Currency #Writing tutorial #Writers #Readers and Writers #Analysis #Fanfiction #Writing fanfiction #Original fiction #Fiction #Accepting criticism

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

You Asked, I Told

**Contains spoilers for Baghdad Waltz up to chapter 36 and the movie Soldier’s Girl (noted below); CW for some general discussion on the subject of writing about childhood sexual abuse**

Hello everyone!

I’m so sorry I’ve been so neglectful of my inbox and slow to answer Ao3 comments lately :(  I have so, so many wonderful asks here, and I want to push out a few batches of answers in the next couple of weeks. I’m a little over 2/3 of the way through Chapter 37 of BW, which will probably be hovering around the 20k word count. But Bucky and Steve will be having their first therapy session! With Claire Temple! And it’s going to be… Well, it’s Bucky and Steve, so stay tuned.

You are too kind, and I’m actually bummed that BW has changed people’s enjoyment of other fics, because this is not the first time I’ve heard this, and it’s certainly not my intent. I’m glad you enjoy the minor characters here, because they have been very fun to create. I have loads of backstory that will never see the light of day, and I adore them so much. As to the second part, I’m reading this as your wondering a couple things: 1) perhaps questioning Steve’s level of devotion to Bucky (or just marveling at it, if this is a rhetorical question), and 2) perhaps also questioning Thor’s assessment that Bucky is the guy you fuck, not the guy you settle down with.

In terms of Steve’s love, some would say that Steve is clearly devoted because Bucky is a very hard person to be in a relationship with, and the fact that he’s still even around is a sign of his devotion. Others would say that he hasn’t done enough to show how much he loves him, that he should do more, because Bucky is suffering so much and needs a lot of support now. We all have our own interpretations of what “enough” is, and I see this a lot in the comments section of BW. I appreciate multiple perspectives on this, and I think we all come at this from our own experiences on one side or the other of relationships like this. I think readers tend to fall on the side of one character or the other, and the Bucky people might err on the side of believing that Steve is not doing enough (or doing the wrong things) and the Steve people might err on the side that Bucky, although clearly suffering, is not considering the ways in which Steve is devoted and the ways in which he hurts Steve. I love both of these characters and am not overly devoted to either, so I see both of their perspectives and aim to write from both sides.

As for Bucky being too “wild” and not being the kind you marry/settle with, I don’t know if we can really trust Thor’s assessment of this situation. He didn’t know Bucky for long, and the time he knew him was at a time when Bucky was pretty low in personal insight. Although Bucky has proven himself adept at committing to an arduous career and excelling greatly, Bucky still does struggle to commit in relationships. But to say that he’s “wild” could be a bit of a misnomer. Pan the camera one way, and he looks like a fun and wild party guy who loves to drink and fuck and has a charismatic, wild personality that is irresistible. Pan the camera the other way and you’ve got someone who’s desperately trying to manage his emotions with alcohol and sex and sometimes can’t, a guy who is essentially “wild and charismatic” because he has trouble with emotional and interpersonal regulation due an extensive history of trauma.  As he works to uncover and confront his history, we will have to see how things unfold and whether he commits to engaging with care for himself after his rift with Scott.

I hope this addresses your Ask!

I have had a good deal of interaction with the military system in my life through various channels and have also done a LOT of research. For every military-heavy chapter, I look over a ton of regulations (even weapons manuals - fun!), talk to Army veteran friends and associates who are very generous with their time, watch documentaries, scour the internet for hours and hours and HOURS and just do… a lot. Which is part of why this fic is so slow to come out.

I just want to say thank you for this. I don’t know if this comment still holds for you, because I received it between chapters 35 and 36, but this is one of the things that I feel the absolute most anxiety about when I post this fic. The last thing I want to do is write anything that is going to be exploitative, especially since I know how many people in the general population have experienced childhood sexual abuse. I agonize over how much detail to include, because I don’t want to include unnecessary details just for shock value. However, I also don’t want to avoid the content if it’s part of the character’s internal experience. In chapter 36, for example, it was important for me to convey what it was like for Bucky to experience an intrusive memory of his abuse, because that is consistent with how I write the internal experiences of my characters. It’s part of my style and part of why people read BW, I think. To back away now because it contains this kind of content would be a disservice to the character and his experience, because this is important to his life and the person he’s become.

But I also don’t want it to just be an opportunity for readers to be like ohhhhh all the DETAILS WOWWW. So with everything that I write, I strive to think - what is the purpose of what I’m including? Is this consistent with the way a network of traumatic memories would operate? What’s the cue in the environment that would light this up? If the purpose is character development or plot progression, I can justify including the details. In chapter 36, for example, it was important for us to see that Bucky is allowing himself to remember his past, that it’s dysregulating him, which lead to his rift with Scott and his relapse. All character and plot points. But if it’s just for funsies or for some Jerry Springer-style reveal to shock the readers, or anything even close to that, I would try my hardest to screen for that. As for creating an arbitrary tragic backstory for some other character to heal, I can see how that would be a tempting thing to do for a writer. Although this is a part of Bucky’s history, and although there could be times when he feels like it defines him, challenging that may also be part of his journey. And I’m sure Steve would love if he could heal Bucky with the power of his love (or cock magic) alone. If only.

Thanks so much for this.

This is a good question. As you’ve seen, people certainly can have profound functional impairment when their symptoms come to a head, to the point where hospitalization is sometimes the best option. Bucky has made great strides in his recovery and has accumulated a lot of skills from AA and DBT that he didn’t have before, even with a meltdown and a relapse thrown in there. I know it’s sometimes really hard to see how far he’s come, but he’s traveled lightyears from overdosing at the Holiday Inn on Long Island.

That being said, this reaction isn’t extremely promising, given the implication that these are just the first real burbles of his traumatic past rising to the surface. I’d say a few things could happen as more of this starts to emerge.

1) He could do as you say, decompensate, have a lot of trouble functioning in his daily life, maybe go into some sort of partial hospitalization or inpatient hospitalization. This option would allow him to be in a  controlled environment, the kind of place where he might be able to manage this stuff without other demands getting in the way.

2)  He could rely very heavily on coping skills and social supports to manage this stuff as it comes up, and maybe it doesn’t overtake him completely. This would be extremely challenging because it would require him to reach out for help and accept it.

3) He could find some way to stop this process altogether by resuming drinking or some other maladaptive coping behavior. This would be very tempting for him, especially as things get exponentially more difficult.

Importantly, Bucky is still the same person as he was before, in terms of the primary effects his traumatic history has had on his life. What’s really in question here is his ability to face his memories and the truth of his own experience, which he can’t run from anymore because his old compartmentalization and avoidance strategies are falling apart. I think a lot will depend on whether he continues to make himself an island or whether he lets others close to him to support and assist him in this process. So much of the latter depends on trust and his sense of personal and emotional safety, which have been deeply shaken by his experiences. This makes everything so much more challenging. We’ll have to see how it all unfolds!

Thanks for the Ask!

**CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE**

UGH. Okay, I rented this DVD from Netflix when I got this Ask, because I thought, hey, why not… and then it sat on my shelf unwatched for about seven weeks. Netflix probably thought I just kept it. Obviously I have a pretty thick skin, given the shit I write about, but I was dreading watching it. The sleeve gives the plot away, so I knew what was coming, but God, kill me.

I died over a lot of the military inaccuracies, but it’s a TV movie, so it kind of gets a pass I guess. And it took place at Fort Campbell, Bucky’s least favorite place on Earth! This movie is also a creature of its time, which was fascinating in itself - a cis man playing a trans woman (megasigh, although admirably well), the commentary after from people on an active DADT policy still in effect, which was incredible. It seems so ridiculous to me now that it was ever in effect, especially when I recall the arguments against allowing open service for LGBQ folks (“but they’ll look at my butt in the showers!!”), and I wonder what kind of world we would have if Bill Clinton had gotten his way when he was elected and didn’t have to compromise with DADT.

It was very interesting to hear Barry’s sexuality being questioned so much because he was in love with a trans woman. The film makers talked about him “discovering something about his sexuality” because he was in this sexual relationship with her — like what? There was a lot of implication throughout the film and special features that trans women aren’t real women. And perhaps some of this stuff speaks to some level of sexual flexibility that might be present in someone who’s happy to give oral sex to a woman with a penis etc., so okay, I can buy that perhaps. But a small amount of flexibility is not necessary sexual confusion or radical sexual discovery, and it’s certainly not gayness or a sign that he’s not straight (though he may have been somewhere else on the sexuality spectrum, but that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with having romantic/sexual feelings for a trans woman). But there was an odd cissexist/transphobic thread that ran through the whole film, even though the actors and production team were clearly very enthusiastic about the story and sensitive to the characters. And Barry’s mother was straight up like “maybe they were just friends, who knows.” [sigh] I dunno.

But to the point of what actually happened to Barry - God. That was rough. It reminds me of kids who are bullied for being gay perhaps because they’re not masculine enough, etc. and end up killing themselves, even though they’re not gay. His death was brutal and shocking and horrible, and it gave me kind of a “Boys Don’t Cry” feel for me, but in reverse? If that makes any sense. The way he was ostracized by his peers made me sad, especially when he was working so hard to integrate into his unit, and it reminded me of all of the people who were victims of the witch hunts prior to DADT and even after, how lonely that must have been, how devastating to one’s career and connections to their military family. It’s one of the reasons Bucky tried so hard to appear either extremely occupied or extremely straight. But overall, I thought the movie did a good job of making this a love story and not fetishizing Calpernia’s trans-ness, and I thought it was pretty balanced and nuanced for a 2003 movie trying to tackle this subject matter. I’m glad I watched this, even though the end was awful. I think I left feeling kind of good about the love story, imperfectly told as it was. 

Thanks for the rec!

**END SPOILERS**

Oh god, I am so bad about Tumblr and everything else. I’m sorry for being so bad at all the tasks of maintaining a presence on social media etc. and yeah. I feel bad about it. I’m basically a social media renunciate in my personal life (my job is YOU NEED A LINKEDIN and I am cry), so it’s really not a habit in my fandom life. Thank you for your support (and the EG dig <3), and I’ll keep plugging away!

Please, please no worries!! I didn’t take it like that. I just want people to know that I’m working really hard and would get these out to you so much faster if I could. I know you’re all waiting and I wish I could deliver faster, but alas, adulthood. And I want these chapters to be as good as I can make them and sometimes writing is just really fucking hard, especially when your characters are falling apart. I do love them and telling this story and sharing it with all of you, so thank you for being awesome <3 

I will have more “You Asked” soon! Thank you so much for dropping me these messages. I am thrilled to get them, and I promise I will get to them all.

#you asked #asks #send me asks

[hiddenbeats247]

Spotlight - Andrew Cassara

Today our Spotlight – Andrew Cassara. In light of all that’s happening right now with the current lock down its great to see new music coming out to keep everyone just a little more entertained. Andrew is an up and coming artist from right here in Ottawa and we got a chance to chat with him (from a distance) about his music and new single Bad Bad. Check it out!

How did you get into music? When I was a little a kid, I was a huge fan of the Backstreet Boys. I remember how excited I was every single time their music videos appeared on television. I’d watch them and listen to their songs, and I knew all the words and dance moves, so I’d put on little shows in my living room for my family and sing and dance to their songs. Watching their concert videos and seeing all the bright lights and the fans screaming, it really inspired me. It started this dream about becoming an artist. That’s pretty much how I started becoming curious about music! Who are your musical inspirations? My inspirations have always been the Backstreet Boys as I grew up but as I started writing more and more songs, I started really getting into music from Maroon 5, Jamiroquai, Charlie Puth and lately Harry Styles. I’ve also opened my mind to learning about a lot of disco and funk bands from the 70’s and that really inspired me to add some retro flavours to some of the songs on my upcoming album. You’re incredibly popular on socials, and are super engaging with your fans, I was quickly scrolling through some of your followers, and you don’t follow very many folks. Who’s someone you follow that you wish followed you back? Man, that’s a really tough question! I’d say that a follow from Shawn Mendes would be pretty cool. I’ve been following him online for the past couple years and I’ve seen him live a couple times, so his career has been a good inspiration for me for quite some time. Plus, he’s Canadian too haha!! You’ve been making quite a name for yourself here in Ottawa, playing at Bluesfest, Glowfair. What’s it like for someone from here to be playing on stage where you grew up seeing the artists that inspired you? It’s quite a surreal feeling! I actually made myself a promise that I wouldn’t go to Bluesfest until I got the chance to be a part of the lineup. When I got the chance to perform on the main stage, because of the promise I made myself, I’ve never actually been to a music festival in my life so the whole experience meant so much to me. It’s one thing to see your favorite artists on the music festival poster, but to see your name on the same page with them, is a feeling that’s hard to explain. I felt really proud that day. You also recently played at the Live at Heart Festival in Sweden, the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants), and in South Korea. Anywhere you want to hit up next? There are so many places that I’d like to perform but for quite some time I’ve had my eye on the Summer Sonic music festival in Japan. I think that would be a wicked time! I’m also really curious about performing in more countries around Asia! I often get messages from fans asking when I’ll be coming to the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and China to name a few; so, I’m really looking forward to making that happen soon! You were signed with Steve Gardiner when you were 17/18? What was that like? One day I received a message in my inbox from Steve inviting me to record a song with him in his studio and the next thing you know, he’s my manager/producer. We’ve been working together ever since, and I think we make a really good team. He’s probably the person with the biggest heart that I know and I’m really glad that life has brought us together on this journey. I owe a lot to him for believing so much in me to this very day. If you could have a dream collab who would it be and why? Recently, I listened to the new Dua Lipa album that just came out. It’s very disco influenced and it’s probably one of my favorite albums this year. Since our styles a pretty similar now, I think that would make a really fun collaboration!

You’ve been very vocal in trying to open up better dialogue for mental health awareness, would you like to expand more on that? Of course! A couple years ago I took part in the YouthXCanada Music Tour. We visited Youth Centres in many communities around Canada to perform shows for the kids and we spent a lot of time having open discussions about mental health and the stigma that revolves around it. Hearing all the stories from the kids in these communities and seeing how music can bring out smiles got me thinking. While all of this was happening, I later realized that I was experiencing my own issues with Mental Health and I started pushing it off to the side because I didn’t really understand what was happening to me. It came to me that there are probably millions of cases around the world that are similar to mine. It wasn’t until things got much worse that I started speaking out about it and made efforts to try and solve the issues. So, I think it’s really important that I try my best to show that our mental health should be cared for like any other wound and that it isn’t a sign of weakness. With your new single is dropping, any other big projects in the work? Yeah! On May 1st, I’ll be dropping my debut album Freak on Repeat and then I’ll be working on bringing the album to the stage! What was your creative process like for Bad Bad? With “Bad Bad” the creative process set the pace for the rest of the album in my opinion. We worked so hard making sure that the song could be the best it could. It was definitely one of the songs that took the longest because we fine-tuned the all the elements in the track so meticulously until we decided that it was good enough to master. “Bad Bad” was also one of the first songs that I actually co-produced in my song-writing career. It was some of the most fun I’ve had in the studio. I really got to express myself creatively in a new way and in turn it motivated me to push myself to be more open-minded and take more risks by experimenting in various ways with the music style I’m moving towards. What is the story you are trying to tell with your music? I write a lot of different stories throughout my songs but the story that I’m trying to tell throughout all of them is to enjoy the moment and have fun! What is the best music advice you have been given so far and what would your advice be to someone coming into the industry? Probably the best piece of advice that I’ve gotten is from my manager. He often tells me that I should think of my career as a marathon, not a sprint. So, it’s really important to look at the big picture and focus on moving forward steadily. There will be lots of up and downs and you always get 1000 no’s before you get that one yes that matters. So, if you feel like nothing is happening in that moment, take a step back and look at how far you’ve come since this day last year. It’ll give you a better perspective on your situation and what you need to do to keep moving and doing what you love. What do you want to tell your fans? I’m so excited to release my debut album Freak on Repeat. I’ve been working on the album for 2 years and the time is finally near. I can’t wait to meet you all and perform the songs live for you! With the current state of the world in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, I’d like to say that I hope you are all being safe and careful out there. I hope to see you all soon once all of this passes. Sending lots of love – Andrew. Check out the new single Bad Bad available now! Make sure to follow Andrew for upcoming releases and new. www.andrewcassaramusic.com Spotlight - Andrew Cassara

For your change to get your Spotlight contact us here. Read the full article

#Interview #NewMusic #Spotlight

[uglyducklingpresse]

“WE ARE ALL SOMEWHAT COLONIZED IN OUR EXISTENCE”: JAMIE CHIANG IN CONVERSATION WITH ZAHRA PATTERSON

UDP apprentice Jamie Chiang interviewed writer and educator Zahra Patterson in February 2019 after the release of her UDP title Chronology, recent winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir/Biography. They discussed Zahra's journaling in Cape Town; her friendship with Liepollo Ranekoa, who passed away in 2012; the impact of language choice in postcolonial literature; tattoos; and more.

Taking as its starting point an ultimately failed attempt to translate a Sesotho short story into English, Chronology explores the spaces language occupies in relationships, colonial history, and the postcolonial present. It is a collage of images and documents, folding on words-that-follow-no-chronology, unveiling layers of meaning of queering love, friendship, death, and power.

Can you talk about the background of your decision to go to Cape Town to find who you are or the meaning of life? Did you find it? (In Chronology, Zahra refers to her journey to Cape Town as a search for herself.) 

Yeah, I mean sometimes I get a little dramatic perhaps when I'm writing in my journal. 

How old were you? How many years ago was that? 

It was the end of 2009 into 2010, so I would have been in my late twenties. I feel a journal is a place to express one's ideas, but it's also a creative space. I wouldn't take myself totally seriously in everything that comes out in a journal. I think there's definitely some self-awareness of one's own—my self importance, but also the quest to find oneself is not just to be made fun of. I think it's an important concept.

How long did you stay in Cape Town? 

I was there for around five weeks. As far as the decision to go, it was more spur of the moment. I was in South Africa for a wedding. My cousin got married and instead of going off traveling that far for a week, I thought I would just spend a couple of months if I had to go to that part of the world; there's no point in going for a week, so I was going to stay. I hadn't actually decided where I was going after the wedding until I got there, and Cape Town seemed to make the most sense to me. 

It perhaps felt the least imperialistic to go and spend time in such a cosmopolitan, international city as opposed to going somewhere more remote. You're either a tourist or a local, whereas Cape Town is an easy city to integrate into. 

I see. On page 33, you mention that you have a tattoo, and in the caption there is this word ke nonyana. What does ke nonyana mean? 

It means I'm a bird. 

That's the first word you spoke in Sesotho? 

Yes. I found the words in Liepollo’s English-Sesotho dictionary one day, and when she came home I spoke them. It meant a lot to her that I’d engaged with her language.

If you don’t mind, could you elaborate the story behind Liepollo’s colleague’s Facebook profile picture. What happened? 

It was the day she died, and his Facebook profile changed to her picture. It was an image of her. That was jarring because why somebody would put an image of a friend up, and there are very few circumstances that someone would do something like that and usually it's because they're dead. So when I saw that his Facebook picture changed to her face, it occurred to me that something terrible had happened. And I was at work at the time, so it was just very disorienting.

Sorry to hear that. Did you get your tattoo because of this? 

Yeah, so I didn't have anybody to mourn with because I had met Liepollo in Cape Town and we didn't have friends in common. Actually, we had a friend in common—an American who interned at Chimurenga while I was staying with Liepollo who I met once at the house in Observatory and once for coffee in Brooklyn—but she had moved to D.C. by that time, so I didn't reach out to her. It was a very isolated mourning experience. That's kind of why I got the tattoo, just to have her with me and to have that symbol and to think of her every day. Because when you have a long distance friendship, you're not going to think of the person every day. We were in touch every few months. I don’t want to forget her due to not having a lot of people to remember who she was with, so I needed to make her memory permanent on me. I think everybody thinks about getting tattoos in this day and age. My rule for tattoos is if I want it for a full year, then I'll get it, and I've never wanted anything for a year. So it’s my only tattoo.

And ke nonyana sounds beautiful. 

Thank you. I think it's beautiful also. 

And on page 37 and 38, there’s an interesting conversation you had with a Muslim guy named Saed. I found some of his talk kind of sexist. What was your reaction when you were talking to him? It sounds like he's almost preaching to you, trying to change your idea about what a woman's purpose is in this world. 

Exactly! But he also wasn't that; he was as if playing the role that he thought he was supposed to play and open to other ways of thinking. We're socialized beings, all of us. He wasn't terribly dogmatic. I don't think he'd been challenged too much in his way of thinking, but at the same time maybe he had because he was open to being challenged. So yeah, it was very interesting.

On page 47 to 48, you write about the panel What is the value of age and wisdom? at the Bronx Museum of Art. The five panelists are: Vinie Burrows, Boubacar Boris Diop, Yusef Komunyakaa, Achille Mbembe and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. There’s a quotation from Mbembe: “If the language we use is in itself a prison...We have to put a bomb under the language. Explode language!” Could you tell us more about the context? 

Achille Mbembe is a leading postcolonial theorist. I think his words are also quite poetic, so he's speaking metaphorically. The context of that part of the conversation is imperialism and language. That intellectuals from formerly colonized nations use the colonial language to express decolonial ideas is problematic, but it's still very accepted. And even these intellectuals who are on the panel, they write in English and they write in French, but they also find it problematic that they do that; however, it's also part of their survival. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o wrote Decolonizing The Mind in the early eighties, where he swore off ever writing in English again, but then he is put into prison and he's exiled, so he can't actually exist in his mother tongue and his mother land; the government there has ostracized him because he speaks out against what they're doing to the people. Therefore, he has to make his life in English in America, he teaches in California.

Circumstances don't necessarily allow a person to decolonize their lives because in order to survive in this society, we are all somewhat colonized in our existence. I think that saying to put a bomb under language is saying that we need to just get our ideas out there. There’s also the visual aspect of it, I see words and letters, like, splattered. Like fucking. . .we need to fuck with language; we need to push the boundaries of language.

As Diop said “Teaching Wolof enhances self-esteem.” Does Wolof have a writing system? 

I’m not positive about the history of Wolof’s writing system but I know some, especially in more northern Sub-African countries had created writing systems using Arabic script and maybe some of them now use the Latin alphabet, so I would have to look that up for Wolof specifically. 

You use your mother tongue to express yourself because ideas in a specific language can't be translated. When you lose the language, you lose the culture and the history of people. Also if you're writing in any of the indigenous languages to Africa, you're not writing for the colonizer; you're writing for the people who speak that language, which is also important. 

A lot of this theory, especially academic theory that is taught in universities, is very limited in its reach. I think even though these are serious intellectuals who write academic works for academia, they're aware and they're problematizing the limits of writing scholarly work for institutions that isn't necessarily reaching the people.

What other languages do you speak? 

I speak French. I lived in France for awhile. I would say I used to be bilingual; I'm kind of monolingual at this point in my life. 

What about in Sesotho? 

I was working on the project (an attempt to translate Lits'oanelo Yvonne Nei's short story “Bophelo bo naka li maripa” from Sesotho to English) originally, but the access to the language was limited. I wasn't able to access decent grammar books, I wasn't able to access the orthography that I wanted to access so I gave up pretty quickly...but it wasn't as simple as giving up. I stepped back because I didn't really feel it was totally appropriate for me to do what I was doing. I think that’s a hugely important part of my text, the part where I put myself into conversation with Spivak and she tells me, via an essay she wrote about translation, that what I’m doing is wrong. I want to learn a language in which I'm going to be able to speak to people. I’m still not totally sure if I should have published what was supposed to be such a personal exercise, so that section with Spivak is essential to me.

On page 72, you wrote Liepollo an email about a friend who taught you how to say Your sister is a whore in Tagalog?

A friend of mine, her first love was Filipina so she knew how to insult people in Tagalog. When she said it, it sounded Spanish to me so I was wondering if that kind of insult comes with colonialism...also a misogynistic perspective can come. Not to say that misogyny doesn't exist in all cultures, although I think there are probably some cultures where it doesn't exist. Just problematizing the way language can infiltrate into a culture and then become part of the existing language but isn't part of that cultural history—the etymology isn’t actually Filipino; the etymology is Spanish.

Are there any books and authors that inspire you a lot?

For this work, Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, that was a huge inspiration. Mouth: Eats Color by Sawako Nakayasu in terms of thinking about different ways, different things that can be done with form and then different things that can be done with translation. It was very liberating to read those two authors. I don't identify as a translator nor as a poet, so most of the things I've read are novels. My background is primarily in postmodern and postcolonial pieces of literature. I also thought about the nature of collage while I was working on Chronology. I looked at Wangechi Mutu’s work specifically for inspiration, but I’ve loved Romare Bearden’s work for years.

Thanks for sharing. The last question, what are you working on now?

I've started writing and hopefully I'm able to continue it. It's a piece that will potentially be called Policy. I'm an educator and I'm pretty passionate about how distorted and messed up the reality of public school systems is in this country. Although one could say I've been researching since I've been an adult, I started specific research for Policy last summer and I didn't start writing it until a couple of weeks ago. It's experimental in form. I'd say it's fiction meets theory, whereas Chronology is memoir meets theory. I'm not sure exactly where it's going but I'm thinking critically about charter schools and desegregation efforts in New York City and also the history of that. So going back to Brown versus the Board of Ed. . .I'll probably address school shootings, the school-to-prison pipeline, school lunches, teachers’ strikes; it’s about as intersectional an issue as there is—how we educate ourselves as a nation, and on the stolen land of our nation. 

I think right now, especially with the current administration, though public schools have been in danger for a very long time, our current secretary of education is a billionaire who wants to privatize education, so her agenda is to destroy our public school infrastructure. It's worrisome. Processing this information in a way makes me very angry because it's systemic. It's how you keep people oppressed. If you don't give people access to education, you're not giving them access to themselves. Never mind the tools they need to achieve and succeed in a capitalist society. 

I don't feel the United States has a liberatory agenda for education and I want to explore that a little bit in the history of curriculums and pedagogy because there have been, at the turn of the century, there were some really interesting education theorists like John Dewey and Ella Flagg Young, and their ideas for public education were very progressive, such as student driven classrooms, and not having really punitive systems. You find that education in private schools but rarely in public schools, so why are we not educating our youth in ways that let them think critically about the world that they're living in? Educating children to just follow rules and memorize doesn't work for most children. How many do you know in public schools who are excited to go to school every day? I think humans naturally are curious and want to learn and know things. So why is education taking that away from children? 

I don't know exactly how the project is going to manifest. It will be weird.

Zahra Patterson’s first book, Chronology (Ugly Duckling Presse 2018), won the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir/Biography and received a Face Out Fellowship from CLMP. Her short works have appeared in Kalyani Magazine The Felt, and unbag (forthcoming). A reading of her play, Sappho's Last Supper, was staged at WOW Café Theatre. She is the creator of Raw Fiction and currently teaches high school English at a Quaker boarding school. Her writing has been supported by Mount Tremper Arts and Wendy’s Subway, and her community work has been supported by Brooklyn Arts Council, The Pratt Center, and many individuals. She holds an MFA in Writing from Pratt Institute.

#author interviews #read #zahra patterson #chronology

[wings-of-a-storm]

Guys, there has been so much good discourse about Martino’s season on here! So much so that it is hard to think of anything left uncovered. Still, in these long days since the season ended, I’ve found myself swimming in thoughts when watching certain clips.

I used to be blocked from the tag this post might not even make it in (cheers Tumblr) and was never able to really offer up my own thoughts at the time, but I’ve been writing some stuff down finally. So if any of you are interested in going back down the rabbit hole with me and immersing yourself in the artistic genius that is Skam Italia, then here goes with my first (of hopefully several) deep dives.

SKAMITA DIVE NO.1

To this day, there is one clip that I both love and hate watching -- to the point of never knowing which sensation is going to win out. Naturally I must take a deeper look at it to figure out why it has such power over me.

That clip is Ammucchiate (3.5).

So many things about this clip fascinate me. Seriously. So many things. In this essay I will look at:

1A) The Couch Scene. I seriously love/hate this clip. The whole tone felt like a departure from the og (and that isn’t a bad thing, it just raises very different emotions in me). In fact, it feels like the whole point of the couch scene was changed in Skam Italia. It makes for very interesting viewing.

1B) Niccolò’s emotions. Ie. how very differently Niccolò reacts to Emma compared to what I was used to with Even. I love a character study.

2) The supreme UST going on between Niccolò and Martino.

3) How the absence of Earl Sweatshirt references both changes and doesn’t change Martino’s interaction with Emma (and infatuation with Niccolò).

TONE REVERSAL OF THE COUCH SCENE

What absolutely fascinates me is how the whole tone (and perhaps point) of the couch scene felt reversed in Italia. In og, it felt like Isak had a fairly therapeutic experience with Even on the couch, but Martino’s experience with Niccolò felt rather unpleasant. It was such an interesting divergence!

Let me explain. In og, Even’s conversation with Emma about labels was so important for Isak to hear. This new perspective on the ‘gay’ label coming from a wise older boy whom Isak admires would have helped with some of Isak’s internalised homophobia (with the added benefit of showing Isak that even if Even was actually straight and Isak had just imagined his chemistry with him, Isak could still trust Even not to judge him). All up, it felt like a pretty positive moment for Isak on that couch. The way he listened so intently to Even’s wisdom was gorgeous.

In Italia though, Niccolò ended up using the debate with Emma as a vehicle to test Martino’s sexuality -- in a way that put so much pressure on Martino and came across as almost shaming him for being in the closet. It felt like Niccolò was maybe trying to tell Martino 'I know you're not as straight as you like to appear' while testing his reaction to make sure his hunch was right. But it felt so unkind to do that to Martino in front of Emma. Was Niccolò just so pressed that Martino was giving Emma attention, he tried to force the truth from Martino? To get Martino to admit that Emma was just a smokescreen, so Nico could feel better about his chances? It was so uncomfortable to watch, whatever the reasoning…

I mean, boy can you see the differences in Isak and Martino’s faces: Isak engaged in a healthy new perspective VS Martino disconnecting in discomfort:

I really didn’t like the way Niccolò was pushing Marti and even smirking at him, but I’d be lying if I said the changes to the tone of the scene didn’t fascinate me. If I had to sum it up, I’d suggest that in Italia, it feels like the couch scene was meant to be less about helping Martino deal with his internalised homophobia and more about being one long set of UST challenges between Niccolò and Marti. Or rather, Niccolò trying to challenge Marti (pick me not Emma!) and Marti not giving into him. That, and Niccolò being unable to contain his jealousy.

Let’s start with the jealousy.

NICCOLO & HIS EMOTIONS

Subjective fact: Even is cool and collected when dealing with Emma.

Subjective fact: Niccolò is a jealous force to be reckoned with when dealing with Emma.

For a clip that ticked off all the important scenes from og, it couldn’t be more apparent how different Niccolò is to Even in this clip. In og, Even catches Emma (who is very obviously immature) falling into the danger of making generalisations and draws her into a polite debate. He remains very calm and collected through it, so it comes across as him intrinsically wanting to call her out on a troubling mindset (one that would affect Isak) and show her a different perspective. (With the bonus of proving to Isak how much cooler he is than her.)

In Italia, Niccolò heard Emma make a generalisation and just kind of pounced on her. The tone he uses and the look he gives her is of such irritability. The shift in his emotions felt so immediate; he was ready to cut her down and even got into battle position. It kind of felt like he was pouncing on her for the sake of pouncing on her -- ie. the debate he instigated became an outlet for some of the bitterness he had been harbouring towards her as his rival. In other words, their debate felt more about him than about sending Martino any secret message.

I mean that “Hm” before getting into battle position! It was such a ‘hold my gloves’ moment. I was preparing to duck for cover because he seemed so pressed! At the time I was just like: Woah, my son, I know Emma said something dumb but this is not the way to call her out on it -- you’re escalating the situation instead of having a healthy discussion! But now I think it was a really clever way to demonstrate how Niccolò handles emotions/how his BPD might amplify his emotions/how mercurial he can be.

OR - because there are too many goddamn ways to interpret someone's reactions - was Nico trying to defend Marti? He knows (or hopes) Marti is in the closet and generalisations/labels like that from Emma would give Marti a harder time. Was Nico just being: YOU KNOW NOTHING, JON SNOW to her? Less likely since Nico added his own jab at the end, but possible.

Side note: I have to confess that even though Nico being a bit of an ass makes me uncomfortable, his ‘why the hell are you still here’ look when Emma keeps talking remains one of my favourite Nico expressions of the season. It makes me laugh every time. (That, plus going all Moses/red sea on them was A+.)

But why was Nico pushing Marti so much on the couch? Oh let me analyse you, complex clip of wonder.

MARTINO AND NICCOLO: THE ‘UST’ PUSH AND PULL

It kind of feels like Niccolò’s continual challenging of Martino’s self-image and sexuality on the couch was a way for Ludo to keep upping the ante of their UST and make us anticipate whether they were going to actually do something about it. The clip is called Ammucchiate/accumulate, after all. It felt at times like Niccolò was pushing Martino, daring him to drop Emma for him: ‘I know you aren’t straight, why are you bothering with her when you can have me?’ But Martino kept pulling back and standing his ground. And that became their alternating push and pull dance all night.

Let’s rewind for the full UST experience: Niccolò arrives at the party and basically hands Maddelena over to the girl squad so he is free to go find Martino. You can see the sly dog knew exactly where Martino was (did you see how quickly his head turned not just in the exact direction but to the exact friggen degree!). Here is where interpretations can get murkier though -- from that distance and with  Martino’s reflective glasses, it isn’t clear whether they actually make eye-contact (from Nico’s perspective, at least) before Martino grabs Emma and kisses her. Still, Martino suddenly launching himself at Emma wasn’t exactly subtle. It was a tad over the top, so surely Nico would have been at least a little suspicious?

It would mean that Niccolò has to decipher Martino’s actions though. Is it Martino just in the closet, trying to play the straight guy in front of everyone (this is coming off the cold reception Niccolò got in front of Martino’s friends earlier in the week, after all); is it Martino using Emma to prove to Niccolò that he isn’t some pathetic loser pining after him (but actually is); or is it Martino genuinely into Emma? Because although there had been chemistry between Nico and Martino, there might have been with Emma as well when Nico wasn’t around. Like ‘You were an option, Nico, but so was Emma and I’ve chosen her because you have a girlfriend’.

Nico would be hoping it is everything but the latter but the only way to find out would be to: A) get them to stop kissing (obviously the number one priority!) and then B) test Martino the first chance he gets.

So he goes straight to them and comes up with a line and excuse (karaoke -- but with all three!) to get them to stop kissing (because hell no!). And just in case the line isn’t enough, he enacts his fail-safe plan: physically separating them with his own body. I love that he was so thirsty for Martino (and perhaps territorial?), he also found excuses to actually touch his thigh, put his arm around him, do the eyebrow wiggle, and pat his shoulder on two separate occasions. What a pro. He does something similar in Halloween and you bet I’ll be doing another post on that because I looooove it.

The problem is Marti is standing firm on the anti-karaoke thing. And somehow this annoys Nico? You can see there was little mirth when Nico more or less accuses Marti of internalised homophobia/being in the closet (even though Nico tried to disguise it towards the end).

Did Marti’s refusal touch a nerve for Nico because he genuinely wanted to do karaoke with Marti and bond with him (and shut Emma out somehow in the process)? Did Nico panic a bit because it felt like Marti was pulling away from him instead of being up for anything like he was used to Marti being? Or was Nico just starting to feel irritable in general because of Emma’s presence and was losing his patience with the grey area between him and Marti? So he started to push Marti to get answers and didn’t stop at the in-the-closet accusations, going on to basically call Marti gay to his face. Nico seemed so smug after seeing Marti’s reaction to the ‘boring gay’ comment, like: ‘Gotcha! You are into me!’

I’m trying to figure out why Nico was pushing Martino so darn hard though. Did he think he would never stand a chance against Emma while Marti is in the closet so he needs to push Marti out of it? Or was he just being gelosa in culo because he was worried that Marti might actually have feelings for Emma and it’s easier to pick the pretty girl than the impossibile guy? So his jealousy got the better of him?

Of course, there is one other possibility. Nico might not have been annoyed-annoyed; he could have been concerned that Marti might have been rejecting a fun activity out of fear. In that case, his calling Marti out on that fear might have been him trying to help Marti be himself.

Either way though, Nico seemed to be challenging Marti on that couch to give up the pretense (and pick him).

But Niccolò’s meddling efforts are for nothing because the two of them leave him to dance together anyway. Nico lost the unspoken challenge he threw out to Marti (admit you’re not straight and drop Emma for me). I love the brutal shot of them walking away from Nico in favour of spending time without him. You really feel that sting as he sits alone on the couch. (He kind of deserved it though...)

The lost challenge means that Nico has to watch Martino and Emma make out AGAIN on the dance floor though. And he is so over it. His stare was so fierce! I can’t even tell where his jealousy at watching Martino kiss Emma ends and his ‘one day I am going to kiss you like this’ determination begins.

But Marti doesn’t stop kissing Emma despite their mutual eye-f---ing. He and Marti are having a thing but it’s a stalemate, so once again Nico is kind of losing. It’s incredible that we actually get to see the effect Martino kissing Emma has on him (which was missing in the og); how he and Maddelena actually stopped kissing because Nico was so vexed/upset/distracted. (I wonder if his insecurities were flaring up here: that maybe in the end he just isn’t good enough for Marti.)

Their mutual staring was obviously the peak of their UST/challenging-each-other game and I have come to accept that the dark lighting was a good choice to emphasise that tension/seduction. I still can’t get over Nico’s laser-beam stare or how Marti was the one to start the whole thing.

But then their lust battle is interrupted by Silvia’s Parental Crisis. And surprise surprise, Nico finds a way to get close to Martino again -- he just happens to be close by when Marti needs help carrying the garbage bags out. What a coinkydink.

So hallelujah and small mercies, it is finally just the two of them outside. Nico can try to breach that distance between them and, you know, try and bring back their flirty dynamic to deal with all the intense UST. But how to start that process? The best Nico can think of is an “Elio~” tease. That will break the ice and give Nico a chance to explain about Maddelena -- that their relationship isn’t working anymore (for him at least). But he can’t leave her... (Side note: I love how personally affronted Marti seems at that, like it should have been a done deal even though he and Nico aren’t actually together.) There is no way Nico can explain to Marti why he can’t leave Maddelena though; there is no way Marti can ever know about Nico’s BPD. The best he can do is disguise both of those truth bombs as a joke.

But the silly story/projection of his own fears ends and Nico is still stuck at square one. The distance has lessened but it’s still not where Nico needs it to be. He needs to find the courage to make a move before he loses this window of opportunity.

What could test the waters while making it obvious how Nico feels about Marti? A gentle stroke of his pinky. It’s innocent enough to explain away if things go wrong, but if it goes right, it can lead to more.

And it does go right. And Marti’s lips move into that brief pout as if he is subconsciously asking for a kiss. So finally, finally, after all that pushing and pulling all night, Nico can lean in to kiss him like he has been wanting to for so long. And Marti is smiling back at him; he wants it too. It is the best feeling.

Until reality intrudes again and they don’t get a catharsis to the UST. But it’s okay -- because at least Nico knows now that Marti is definitely into him. That will be enough for him until they can be alone again…

End challenge battle. Until Halloween.

But guuuuys, he chose a gentle pinky touch! After all the mean jabs on the couch and intense laser-beam staring on the dance floor, he goes for the sweetest, most softest thing. It stands out so much; like under all the bravado and lusty stuff, this is the precious, fragile emotion that was hiding.

I used to feel conflicted about how abrasive things felt at the party, but maybe it actually works if it helps emphasise the softness of the beautiful pinky-touching moment.

Before I leave this Ammucchiate analysis behind though, there is just one more change in the couch scene that I had thoughts on: how the lack of NAS/Earl Sweatshirt references does and doesn’t change Martino’s interaction with Emma (and infatuation with Niccolò).

ONE LAST CHANGE: MIA EARL SWEATSHIRT

In the og, my favourite part of the couch scene was actually Isak and Emma talking about NAS (yes, I liked it over the Even stuff even). I loved that it made Even present; that Even was there between them on that couch long before he physically joined them. That Even was always on Isak’s mind; that that was how much he had affected Isak. Because of course Isak had never heard of NAS before that day in Even’s bedroom, yet suddenly it was his favourite artist and how could Emma not know of his music? Isak wants to like what Even likes; it means they are connected. So even though Isak is trying to bond with Emma, it is still all about Even in the end.

I relate SO MUCH to that. I have done exactly that in my high school days. It felt like such an insightful demonstration of what being infatuated with someone can be like.

So when Marti and Emma were discussing their musical interests on the couch in Italia, I was disappointed (at first) that Marti didn’t nominate Earl Sweatshirt. I was waiting for his full blown infatuation to show, for Nico to be present without being present. But no, Marti stuck to his long-term favs (kudos to that, actually) and Emma knew who those artists were. Because she is also different to her og character and has far more in common with Marti than og Emma did. That ups the stakes for poor Nico and presents her and Marti as a potentially compatible couple.

I realised I liked that Ludo makes these small changes to make his characters different people. Sure it was a shame that I couldn’t have my ‘Nico is present without being present and that is typical infatuation’ moment, but Marti basically being on the lookout for Nico fulfilled a similar vibe and--

OH THAT’S RIGHT. Ludo was keeping it for another episode where it would actually HURT. (We can’t have nice things. What’s the fun in that? They always have to hurt!)

I’m of course referring to Marti listening to Earl Sweatshirt on his way to school in Assenze (6.1). AFTER Nico had broken up with him. AFTER he had caught Nico kissing his supposedly ex-girlfriend as if Marti meant nothing. AFTER feeling betrayed by Nico. AFTER a week of depression and self-imposed isolation.

I mean, wow. After all that, Earl Sweatshirt was Martino’s musical comfort; the artist that helped him find the nerve to get out of his house and back to school. I know Isak also used Even’s NAS to go back to school (such an iconic scene), but unlike og, we didn’t even know if Marti liked Earl Sweatshirt or bothered listening to him after Nico’s lounge-room introduction.

That is of course until we hear Marti listening to him after Nico broke his heart. And if that doesn’t pack a punch...

Like, had Marti been listening to Earl Sweatshirt all week? Had Marti actually been lying in bed, listening to Earl Sweatshirt songs because he so desperately wanted to feel connected to Nico? Because he wasn’t ready to let him go? Because he was missing him so much despite everything? And that is when he started to really connect with Earl Sweatshirt’s music to the point of using it to steel himself to go back to school?

My heart just cannot take this.

So yeh, I’m fine now that Earl Sweatshirt wasn’t referenced in Ammucchiate, but rather saved up for lethal detonation later on (I’m such a masochist, ugh).

And yes, another reason why we didn’t really need an Earl Sweatshirt reference in Ammucchiate is because technically we can claim a role reversal: that Marti was the one ever-present on Nico’s mind  because he came to the party in a Marti/Marty McFly-esque outfit. I was well fed and I didn’t even know it.

So that takes me to the end of my thoughts on Ammucchiate. I didn’t mean for it to get so long, but if you’ve read this and have your own thoughts please do let me know. :)

#Skam Italia #SkamIta S2 thoughts #Nicotino #my need to overanalyse must be stopped #this is seriously long son #Skamita deep dive #martino rametta #niccolò fares

[laurasroyalblog]

I’d like to jump into the Kate discussion if that’s okay. I agree with you and others that she could do a lot more, it seems as though long periods of time pass without her doing anything at all, and I don’t think the children’s school holidays should be an expected cease-work for her - many parents work through their children’s holidays. However, I’m not sure engagements are an accurate representation of work done because they’re costly with security detail and obviously interrupt (1/2) **

** (2/2) the normal function and day-to-day of charities (imagine, for example, that a women’s shelter is shut down except to pre-vetted personnel and visitors so Kate and various camera teams can be there safely; it can’t do its job under those circumstances), so I would imagine a lot of work happens in closed door meeting or unannounced private visits where more can be accomplished with less to-do about them, and we may never hear about those. Thanks for holding this discussion!

So I think this is definitely important to consider and why I say a holistic point of view is necessary.  It’s not as if there’s a magic number of engagements that signify good job and bad job.  Some of the royals with higher engagement counts represent the BRF at openings and things like that.  Not that there’s anything wrong with those things but one of those things is different than a Kate engagement because a lot of times she’s so much more invested in a long term relationship with that organization.

We definitely see some of the private meetings on the Court Circular. Not all for sure but some.  We know Kate has been involved with the Early Years steering committee for instance.

I keep coming back to this word but it’s so true: holistic.  It’s not like there’s a checklist Kate has to meet and then she’s doing good but if she doesn’t then it’s bad.  You have to engage and critically examine everything.

It’s actually kind of like other jobs in that regard.  For my job of course showing up is important but I am salaried so I’m late some days, I don’t work a full 8 hours others.  But I put in extra time a lot too.  When 4pm hits, I don’t jump up and leave right in the middle of something.  And beyond that, I provide skillsets and expertises my company wants.  They can see the impact my work has made. My boss could point you to things.  He doesn’t have a checklist either that says “If Laura does x, y, and z she’s great.  Otherwise, she sucks.” He can tell you what I bring to the table and areas I need to improve.  He could tell you if the weight he assigns those things means I’m doing overall good or bad.  But it is all with a more nuanced.  There’s qualitative and quantitative measures in my review, and I think the same should be true of Kate.

Thanks for such a thoughtful contribution, anon.  I always love responding to these kinds of asks.  TBH I could’ve written so much more in response to this actually.  When you critically think and bring up new and interesting points from your perspective and seem open to a back and forth, the result is usually a far more interesting ask than an oversimplified ask.

#answered #royal #royals #british royal family #kate middleton #duchess of cambridge

[calliecat93]

Red vs Blue Season 17 Review, Part One

On March 9th, 2019, Red vs Blue: Singularity premiered at last. After the monster cliffhanger of S16, to say that many of us had been anxious would be an understatement. Well, it’s several months later and the season has concluded it’s 12 episode run. So, was it good? Was it bad? Well… that’s a hard question to answer. But however we feel, we’re going to be going over it today in my Season 17 Review~!

This baby got a Hell of a lot longer than intended, so hopefully, it’s coherent. I tried to be firm, but honest. No matter what I think though, there is no arguing that these people put in a lot of work to make this season a reality. I never want that fact to be ignored. So thank you Jason, Miles, Josh, Austin, Greg, Joe, RT Animation, and everyone else for all the hard work. Couldn’t have been easy, but we appreciate it all the same~!

So with that said, for the final time, let us talk about Red vs Blue Season 17.

Visuals/Machinima

This season was unique in that not only was Halo 5 still being us, but they had to go back and use all the past renditions as well. It looked like they were going to use Halo 2 Anniversary for the paradox stuff, a familiar yet different design, but I guess someone decided it was better to just reuse the older games. Which I think was probably the right choice. Halo 2 Anniversary I think would have helped add this feeling of everything being off, but at the same time seeing the previous versions helps connect to the moments more. It adds more emotional investment since we’re seeing something that we recognize being fucked with. It meant more work for the Machinima team, and I hope that they’re all still alive and had a nice vacation after it was all over cause yikes. Their efforts are greatly appreciated~

The machinima was overall very good. Josh Ornelas has been with the show for six years as a machinimator and directed at least a few episodes of S14. So he was more than fit to be a co-director for this season. Austin Clark is newer and IDK when he started (my guess is around 14 or 15), but I think he’s shown that he’s perfectly capable both as a machinimator and as a director. I never noticed any issues with the machinima that threw me off… but as usual, it’s hard to critique what are essentially video game movements/defaults. Very least whenever the characters were emotional or something, I got the feeling from how the scene was framed. Even though you can’t see the faces, the machinimators know how to frame it to make you feel the intended emotion. Episode 9 with Carolina and Wash’s talk I think demonstrated that. Yeah, the VA-ing helped, but you can see the emotion, even though there’s no emotion to display. And while Austin handled the even-numbered episodes and Josh the odd ones, everything felt like they were on the same page, which is essential when co-directing. They both did an excellent job directing.

Animation was sadly sparse compared to the last season. Wasn’t bad though. There were some good bits, like the opening credits and Wash directing his gun at Genkins in Episode 3. Oh. and Genkins getting stabbed with his own golf club was pretty gruesome, especially with his writhing around, but seeing the original Halo animated was nice. We only got one fight scene, but it was Carolina vs Carolina and it was badass. Not as creative as the Donut vs O’Malley fight, but still really good and impactful. Loved it!. The sets and effects were all very good. Just look at the opening. The effects used for The Everwhen looked really cool and other-worldly. The Labyrinth looked pretty creepy, as it should be considering its true nature. And of course, all the previous Halo’s still looked good… maybe a little dated with Halo: CE but still as good as it did in the remaster.

Overall, visually speaking, the season was really good. The machinima looked great and was directed competently. I felt engaged, and that’s what’s important. Definitely one of the season high points.

Voice Acting/Music

We’re mainly going to be discussing Dan Godwin, Shannon McCormick, Jen Brown, Ricco Fajardo, and Lee Eddy. Everyone else in the main cast was pretty much at the expected level of quality. There’s sadly not much to talk about specifically, which we’ll go more into during the character section. But Joel, Matt, Gus, Geoff, Becca, and Jason Saldana all did well and gave the quality that I expect from them, just nothing that stands out really. I’ll say this, Geoff and Becca’s performance in the finale was very strong and emotional and I loved it. Matt he both got to do Wyoming again and had to do Doc and O’Malley at the same time, which he nailed perfectly. And hearing Burnie as Church again was really nice… but never let him do English Lopez again. Ever.

Let's talk about villains first. Ricco Fajardo as Genkins is freakin’ fantastic. While we got glimpses of it last season, Genkins fun but truly shitty self is on full display this season. And Ricco is clearly having the time of his life recording it. He’s just always so cheerful and having fun, but it feels so messed up and sadistic due to the circumstances. But he owns it. Sometimes having a villain who is just shitty can be fun, especially if you have a competent actor doing it. And Ricco absolutely nailed it. We also have Lee Eddy, who voiced 479er, make her return to RvB as Chrovos. She too is clearly having a fun time. She goes full-on Large Ham with Chrovos’ theatrics and basting but also portrays her getting fed up very well. It’s the Gwen in her showing, haha. But yeah, these are two fun villain characters, and the performances very much reflected that. Loved it~

Next, we have our Freelancers, Shannon and Jen. They both got the emotions hard this season. Which considering how their plot ended last season, is no surprise. It’s no shock that these two did very well, but… man… Jen had to express a lot of guilt, but also a lot of tears and pain. Which she did very well. Carolina feels terrible and has to accept that her efforts were in vain, and Jen conveyed that very well. The second that Carolina breaks down in Episode 9… God, I just wanted to hug her. Then there’s Episode 11 where Carolina is confronting her past self, and it truly does feel like two different characters, even though it’s the same actress. It was a very strong performance this season, arguably her best one yet.

Then we have Shannon. Oh golly, Shannon. How long has he been doing Wash now? Over a decade, right? He knows this character in and out… and he perfectly shows that this season. Wash has a lot to get through this season. His anger at Carolina, him having to accept what happened, accept what has to happen, it’s a lot. Shannon nails it. From going back and forth between normal and crazy in Episode 3 to any time his anger at Carolina showed, to his talk with Carolina in Episode 5, his acceptance of his fate and prepping for it in Episode 9, and his horror to seeing everyone die in 11. And he still got lighter moments, like his interactions with Donut, which were super enjoyable. Shannon just knocked it out of the park this season, and I loved it.

But of course, the one I have to give the biggest kudos to is Dan Godwin. While he has performed Donut since the very beginning… well, he only got to do so much since Donut only got to do so much. He never did a bad job, or he was on par with everyone else, but he simply wasn’t really allowed to go beyond ‘optimistic, innuendo-spouting moron’. That is, until now. Dan got to do so much this season. He got a full range to do with Donut that he really never got, or only got so briefly. He got to be emotional, he got to be angry, he got to be frustrated, he got to be utterly done with absolutely everything. And he conveyed all of that very well. Heck, I think the pitch even lowered a little bit compared to before, or it felt less squeaky as the season went on. It feels more like an in-between of Blood Gulch Donut and pre-Paradox Donut, which I think works. Overall, Dan got to show how much experience with the character he really has after so many years of not getting to, and he was by far the best performer due to it.

Everyone in the cast did great. Even for brief returns like Miles and Gray with the Mercs, Arryn Zech with Dr. Grey, and the Freelancers all did a great job. Jason Weight as Grif’s coach was also simultaneously hilarious and scary. He clearly put his all into it, anyways. As for the music… what? Ae we surprised that it was good? David Levy and Trocadero again delivered a solid soundtrack. The fact that we have to wait for both this soundtrack and still for the S16 soundtrack continues to upset me. But at least it means a lot of quality tracks whenever they do come out. Solid job overall from the music team.

Characters

So one of the problems with these reviews is I have to remember to look at things two ways: as a fan and as a critic. We had a lot of really good character stuff with some characters… and not so much with others. And looking at it as a fan and then as a critic causes two widely different perspectives regarding this section. Normally I’d rather get the negative out of the way, but to explain the negative I have to talk about the positives first. Hopefully, I don’t come off as too harsh, but I want to be honest in this review as well. So.. here we go.

Okay, happy first. The two main focuses of this season are Donut and Wash. Let's do Wash, and in turn Carolina, first. Wash… well, got put to the side last season for the most part. His plot was mainly focused on his brain damage that he didn’t know about and ended with his blow up at Carolina. Which we all know what that leads to. Here, Wash has to deal with the fallout of it. He gets to stabilize and be back to pre-brain damage and is determined to save the others… but his anger at Carolina is lingering. His arc this season is about him forgiving Carolina, helping Donut, and accepting his own fate. I think, overall, Wash had a very good arc. And this is coming from someone who is not that big of a Wash fan.

Wash’s anger at Carolina is understandable, but he realizes that she did it out of concern for him and never meant to hurt him, and especially after talking to her in Episode 5 and how even when paradox’d she still trusts him, he forgives her. Carolina, in turn, has to deal with the immense guilt of her actions… again. Yeah, the fact that we got another ‘Carolina is guilty’ story after Freelancer, S13, and S15, it’s feeling a little repetitive. But her emotions regarding it were very well written. You do really feel the remorse and understand why she did what she did. It makes it even worse when in Episode 9, Wash accepts what has to happen and Carolina has to accept it. It was one of the toughest scenes in the season but was such a beautiful, poignant moment for both. They still have problems, like Wash fears of losing everyone and Carolina has past issues lingering still over Freelancer and her family. But it’s safe to say that they’ve both become closer and stronger.

The biggest character of this season is, of course, Donut. This was a long time coming. Up until the end of the last season, Donut was probably the most underutilized character in the show aside from maybe Lopez and Doc. He went from a dumb but semi-competent rookie to a flamboyant, one-note joke character. Like after Blood Gulch I can't think of anything significant that he contributed. Recollection more or less wrote him out/killed him off, Chorus did nothing with him, and S15 also did nothing with him and even forgot him in certain scenes. S16 began to fix that, having Donut get annoyed at being ignored, nearly betray everyone, and then get into one of the shows best fight scenes by far. So we were building up for something for this season, and sure enough, it came and it came hard… was that at innuendo? Dang it Donut, you’ve influenced me too much!

This was developed for Donut that was loooong overdue. He further got frustrated with being ignored and belittled by everyone around him. He recognized his innuendo problem and tried to actively improve it. He showed some of that competence he had in Blood Gulch, piecing things together and actively taking charge since he understood things the most. When he told everyone off in Episode 7, it felt so satisfying because of how long he’s been treated like a nuisance when he was at worst a little annoying and TMI. He was willing, tried his best, and it really felt like he was finally allowed to be more than just a joke. It really made me like and appreciate Donut a LOT more than I did before. Like he used to not just be my least favorite Red, but my least favorite of the BGC. Now? He’s right below Grif and Simmons on the Overall Favorites List. Yeah, that’s a LOT of places.

Donut was great and I wouldn't change him getting him this development… but this development did come at a cost. That being development for everyone else. The other Reds and the Blues were shafted and shafted pretty badly. The first half of the season, they are trapped with no memory and go about how they would in that time period. Which okay, it’s necessary for the plot so we can overlook that one. They get restored in Episode 6… and they are STILL badly shafted. They are all joke characters, which does NOT work when we’re this deep in the plot. I mean we get some moments, like Tucker reliving his failure on Crash Site  Bravo and recognizing his fault over the past few seasons, Sarge has his scenario in Episode 11 that I thought was very insightful, but those are small moments. Sadly, Donut got too much attention. Even with Wash, him realizing how he was the Donut of Freelancer was more or less contributing to making Donut look good, as did Tucker’s moment. I like those scenes and I love Donut… but not everything had to be about him. He’s the main character, not the only one.

Let's do the Blues first. As I said, there were more or less just there and had no real major character development or effect on the plot. But that being said, they were given some legit good stuff. Tucker got it the best as he re-lived Crash Site Bravo and finally realized true leadership was. It was about stepping up when no one else would and when things were at their bleakest, not being the cool, macho guy like he kept acting like it was. Which after these past two seasons, was nice to see. I was one of the people who were perfectly fine with how Tucker was written the past two seasons because I could see why he had regressed. But I do know that a lot of people didn’t like it, and this feels like a good way to bring it all around. Have Tucker relive his worst moment, this time having to let it go through, and therefore truly remember what caused him to step up on Chorus: because he had to. It’s short, but it does its job and this along with his Labyrinth vision I think has really helped Tucker’s character immensely.

Caboose is overall pretty minor but had some good scenes like beating the shit out of Genkins in Episode 6 and figuring out how time travel worked before the others. It helps show that he’s an idiot, but he’s a smart idiot (if that makes any sense) and was a step up from his limited screentime last season. He also had my favorite line in the entire season (“These graphics look horrible!”). Sister was overall minor, but I’ll go into her later. You’ll see why when I get there. Doc was overall also minor and how the Hell he was in the Everwhen I’ll never know, but I do like him in the finale and finally getting a grip on O’Malley. He more or less is a combo of the two now and seems much more capable due to it, so that’s good. So yeah, while it may not have been a lot, the Blues and Doc were at least given something, which is better than nothing at all.

The Reds though… so you know how these past two seasons started giving them more development? You would think that since Donut is the main character, that would continue, right? Haha… nope! They went right back to ‘the comedy relief team who do absolutely nothing!’! Which after the past two seasons started to do more with them… yeah, this felt like a slap in the face. Sarge annoyed me this season. Mainly in Episode 7 where he was a hypocritical asshole about Donut’s betrayal, ignoring how he not that long ago betrayed everyone and was still feeling guilty about it. He was also the one primarily being a jerk to Donut, which did not do him any favors. I know it’s Sarge and he’s an asshole, so it’s not 100% unexpected… but I felt like it was pushed too much just to contribute to the ‘Donut is so unappreciated!’ arc. His speech in Episode 6 was hilarious though and I did like his Labyrinth vision showing that he can't handle both civilian or army life. It was surprisingly insightful in a way that I’m not used to with Sarge. So yeah, I feel his screentime was on par with Sister and Caboose at least.

Simmons… got nothing. Absolutely nothing. I mean the running gag where he kept seeing Donut shot was really funny, and it also meant he wasn't an asshole like Sarge. Heck, he seemed to be the only one willing to hear Donut out about saving them in Episode 7. And he did more or less point out how they could launch the gold club through the portal to stop Genkind from reigniting the paradox, which was minor but nice to see for him. Him not being a kissass anymore is also sticking, which seeing him back when he was pettier in Episode 2 did make me appreciate where he is now. The way that he was legit concerned for Donut during the ‘Wash shoots Donut’ gag also helps make it look like he at least cared about him in contrast to Sarge’s jackassery. But he was otherwise just there. Very least, it also means he was the only Red that I didn’t get frustrated about since his character remained consistent… until the finale with the utter bullshit that was his nightmare. Seriously guys, what the fuck?!

But at least with Sarge and Simmons, they weren’t exactly in the spotlight last season, so I don’t feel like I got cheated with them. I cannot say the same about Grif, however. Which we will cover that, as well as the Story section, in Part Two.

(Part Two)

#rvb #rvb17 #rvb spoilers #rvb reviews #callie reviews