#it’s. not enjoyable to most audiences unless you like it for reasons of personal taste

[anti-dazai-blog]

see the thing that makes stories interesting is conflict. Which is why audiences don’t tend to enjoy it when a story goes “plot twist! there was never any conflict to begin with!”

#This is about Chuuya not being a vampire in the first place #And Dazai pulling the “I knew everything all along and it was all according to plan” #plus any emotional or psychological conflict both of them would have had over the entire situation #it’s just. Eurghhhhhh #bad. #it’s. not enjoyable to most audiences unless you like it for reasons of personal taste #Because “there was never any conflict to begin with” carries just about the same weight as “it was all a dream” #Oh that thing that I thought happened? The thing that made the story interesting? Yeah it never happened. #my GUY. why tell a story if not to tell it sincerely. #like I said before this is the same as marvel movies killing their sincere moments with quips and one-liners

[beesmygod]

i think another issue with webcomics having any scene or being taken seriously at all is that its a lot of stale air, everybody got captured by ig/twitter/tumblr and subsequently become trapped in the trappings and style of those websites. all discussion is couched in the boring 'fandom' subculture on websites with pre-built in infinite scroll and shit search, so updates to their comics or body of work are just as ephemeral as posts that are basically 'lol i farted on my dog' and any criticism is 'just being mean' or 'dogpiling on a poor artist'. not to mention any discoverability of anything new is basically going down the twitter/instagram likes of 'known quantities' for your own comic taste because of how atrophied any discussion around the medium has become

I dont see any way to escape this beyond social media dying a brutal and unprofitable death

trying to argue against the webtoons/IG model was entirely pointless the few times i tried, but its a topic that's hard for me to not devolve into frustrated sputtering about. it's so obviously antithetical to the purpose of making art, enjoying things, creation, joy, goodness, etc. and i would, frankly completely irrationally, be framed as someone who had it out for vertical strips. a sentiment which makes no sense unless you assume im the biggest moron and dipshit in the world. im sure arguing against someone is easier when the position you saddle them with is a seriously stupid one.

the inevitable downward spiral of these platforms feels entirely predictable. any model that revolves around quantity over quality is an obviously flawed one in most circumstances but when applied to art its completely absurd. the ideal artist for these websites are people who have no interest in contributing to a vaster landscape of complex works and instead are hyper-focused on being part of a large scale skinner box experiment for adults with compulsive spending issues. the artists themselves have severe numbers poisoning.

these are purely ephemeral and unremarkable comics that are rarely ever seen outside of instagram for their lack of any exceptional or worthwhile unique elements worth passing around. they are created with a factory mindset; crank them out as quickly as possible and flood various websites with the comic equivalent of grey goo in order to amass the maximum number of clicks. their ideal audience is undiscerning and simply looking for stimuli that will not challenge them on any level. logically it follows that is work is explicitly for the largest possible audience one can acquire: the lowest common denominator. they are making work for a computer or an advertiser to enjoy. human enjoyment is secondary.

the unironic and sincere discussion of views and followers as if the numbers have ever been real was surreal. everyone was around for when facebook revealed that it had been grossly inflating its video metrics after strong-arming everyone into moving to video, causing the destruction of several indie companies and websites. you would have to be straight up delusional to think the webtoons numbers are real. like, it is genuinely hard for me to be nice about people who bark bark bark about "its where the audience is!!!!" when the worst comic you've ever read with 2 updates has 12876492375238576 views, 0 patreon followers and 8909 comments. the obviously AI generated comments by accounts with no profiles (as in, you can't click on profiles at all to confirm its even a real person commenting) are beyond the pale lol. its some emperors new clothes shit, if the emperor made his own invisible clothes and cried about how hard they toiled for nothing. and also they were emperor of synecdoche, new york

how does a reasonable adult look at this and conclude its real? isn't it an obvious fiction? its because it's mean to point out otherwise, and being mean is the worst thing you can be.

people used to bitch about how the "had to" made reels and i felt like i was going insane. superstitious nonsense about "the algorithm" spread and has incited people to tortuously warp their work to fit with advertising standards they don't see a penny of, in the hopes of finding an audience that doesn't exist. when the algorithm changes to better suit advertiser needs, they are somehow blindsided and betrayed by this, as if it has not been the M.O. of social media websites for the past 20 years. they will do it again. and again. and again. as advertising becomes less and less financially viable and more and more intrusive, public opinion is going to turn hard on the people who tied themselves to these ships.

call me a rat for fleeing, but i can't bear to entertain this stuff anymore. it's embarrassing, the idea of sacrifice in the name of a greater good (sacrifice being uhhhhh not using fail platforms lol) should not be such a shocking and radical act. it should be reflexive

[omegasmileyface]

Bound by the Food Chain

"man what if there was something incorporating both the Ghost King and Ghost Hunger aus" i say, not prepared to spend weeks writing up an entire ecosystem structure for the ghost zone,

thanks @attackradish and @ectolemonades for help figuring out the science and writing!

summary: The ghostly Staff who've taken up residence in Phantom's Keep notice Danny doesn't eat any ectoplasmic food. That can't be good for him.

warnings: detailed description of ghost hunger, which is vaguely like cannibalism

words: 2830

AO3 link

===

“King Phantom, when do you feed?”

“Huh?” Danny looked up at the Keep’s Librarian, Vellum. It felt like an odd question, seeing as he was currently actively eating a sandwich he had packed up with him into the Zone. He was spending a few hours in the Keep that day since it was nice and quiet for getting work — from both realms — done, and he had brought some earth food over. Ghost plants just didn’t taste very good.

Vellum looked a little shocked, like she hadn’t realized she’d asked her question aloud. “I mean, clearly you eat human food quite a bit,” she gestured to his sandwich, “but I’ve never seen you take in any sort of ectoplasmic substance.”

Danny wasn’t an expert on the (strangely psychological) ecology of the Infinite Realms, but he was familiar with the fact that all ghosts had to take in some sort of ectoplasm if they wanted to be anything more than an inert impression of emotion. Since he had never gotten any enjoyment or significant energy from eating ghost plants or breathing in the stuff ambient in the air, he pretty much just stuck with eating human food and converting the chemical energy between his forms. He was lucky that he could do that, being part human. He knew he automatically gained some energy from the human emotions around him (including his own, another benefit of being liminal) but it was negligible. He got drained pretty easily, and he knew there were things he wasn’t trying, but… he was tired, not desperate. He’d be tired anyway, with his lack of sleep.

“That’s because I don’t. I can still use the chemical energy I get from human food in my ghost form, so…” he shrugged. “This is pretty much it.”

Vellum’s brows furrowed in concern. “Are you not a—” She pursed her lips. “Are you not tired?”

“What do you mean? I definitely eat more than a regular human, and as far as I’m aware I don’t lose any of my energy in conversion. I’m getting by.”

“I think we should talk to Dr. Marchs. I don’t know if it’s… ok, that you’re not feeding ectoplasmically.”

With some exasperation, Danny let himself be brought back to the Throne room, the preferred place for anything that could constitute a “meeting”. Apparently, talking to the Keep’s Doctor, Chef, and some other Staff members about his diet counted.

The various adult ghosts looked at Danny with shared expressions of confusion and concern from where they stood around him. He was sitting on the arm of the Throne, not the most comfortable but it still felt wrong to be properly seated in it unless necessary.

Dr. Marchs finally spoke their piece. “Forgive me for asking, Your Majesty, but… are you not a hunting-ghost?”

Danny was already out of his league culturally. He had a lot to learn. “As in… like, a predator?”

“Exactly! Your core best processes ectoplasm directly from other ghosts, correct?”

Danny paled. “I don’t… know? I tend to avoid going around, just… eating other sentient creatures.” He tried to say it in a humorous way. It didn’t work.

“So you’ve never tried! I had thought… Well, I think you must be a hunting-ghost. You put out a radiant power that is only associated with that core type.”

“None of us have seen you feeding,” added Vellum, “so we weren’t sure you didn’t just defy that association. I don’t think anyone really understands all the complications of half-human physiology.”

Dr. Marchs jumped back in easily. “It’s still just speculation. You have said that you don’t enjoy eating plants from this realm, yes?” Danny nodded. “And you don’t seem to get significant relief from human emotion. Well, we’re just going to have to have you try feeding on some ghosts.”

Danny jumped to his feet. “What?! I don’t… need that, I get by fine on human food!”

“But aren’t you tired?” pointed out the Chef. Her eyes widened. “That’s why you get so drained after using big attacks! Your energy reserves aren’t being nearly refilled.”

“I believe she’s right, Your Majesty. There’s only so much energy you can take from human food, which isn’t even alive… I think you’re always tired because your core is designed to have a level of energy that you can’t provide it without processing Vital ectoplasm.”

Danny didn’t want to admit that he was consistently pretty damn tired. Instead he tried to change the subject. Ghosts were passionate beings, and as much as he hated to take advantage of that, having one of the Keep Staff gush about one of their passions to him was much better than talking about his relationship with what was essentially cannibalism. “Vital?”

Dr. Marchs’ eyes sparkled a little. “Vital as in living, not as in essential. Ectoplasm comes in three major forms. Ambient plasm makes up most of the Realms, in environments and atmospheres and auras. All ghosts are made up of Vital plasm, and those with cores have their Obsession or Purpose imprinted into the crystal structure of their own ectoplasm, which can be turned into Charged ectoplasm. The Charged form can take up an elemental type according to the ability of its source, and it has the most capacity to hold or be converted into ectoenergy. The Charged form is used to transmit intention onto a target, so it’s generally created by Cored ghosts, who are creatures of intention, in attacks or construction. Regardless of type or state, ectoplasm processing depends on its form — Uncored ghosts can process strong human emotions or Ambient ectoplasm into the Vital type. Among Cored ghosts, hunter-ghosts can best process Vital ectoplasm, gatherer-ghosts the high-activity type of Ambient plasm found in ghost plants, and scavenger-ghosts human emotion. Additionally, Charged plasm no longer linked to the source of its intention will eventually disperse into Ambient, as its most inert form.”

Danny, sitting down, had already known part of that, but the Doctor was properly smiling at this point. Dr. Marchs blushed as they realized they had just been talking, but none of the other ghosts in the room appeared to mind.

“…Regardless, King Phantom, we should really find some blobs for you to try eating. I cannot in good conscience leave you persisting off such low energy.”

He wanted to argue, he really did, but all the Keep Staff present were looking at Danny with this pleading expression. They looked genuinely concerned, and he remembered a comment he’d heard before about some of the Staff latching onto the King with their Obsessions. Some unfortunate result of the connection they’d formed with the Keep, Danny certainly didn’t deserve it, but he did know how it felt to Obsess over taking care of someone and have them turn down that care. With the same concerned look directed back their way, he got up and was led to the Garden out back.

Danny was having second thoughts again once he found himself surrounded by blobs that had been enjoying the intricate plants and high Ambient ecto levels of the Keep Garden. They were squishy but soft, like mochi coated in a good layer of starch, each a bit smaller than his head, and they all looked at him with these big vibrant eyes. Their postures were energetic, like they expected to play a game.

Once he sat down with the rest of the small group — why did he have to have an audience? — the blobs swarmed around him, resting on the sky blue grass and on his shoulders and in the others’ laps. They looked almost as expectant as the Staff in front of him.

“I…“ he bit his lip. “I can’t justify eating a living creature when I can choose not to. I know lots of ghosts have to eat others to persist, but I have the privilege that I can eat human food instead. Since I have that option, I can’t just… end another creature so I can feel a bit better.” Hey, Sam would be proud of him.

The present Staff donned looks of confusion. An Advisor who used the Keep as a home spoke up, eyes wide with realization. “Ah! Living creatures all share a survival instinct — that’s a natural result of evolution, yes? Things that do their best to live have their genes passed on? That’s not necessary for Uncored ghosts, since they do not reproduce and therefore don’t evolve. The only instincts experienced by the Uncored are instincts to better the Realms. Unless they’ve developed a strong individual personality, the Uncored are much more interested in contributing than in persisting.”

Danny’s head tilted in curiosity. Dr. Marchs took the reins on the rest of the explanation.

“The Realms are built socially where the living realm is built physically. Our homes and well-being are made from emotion, belief, and community. So for Uncored ghosts, spawned of the dimension itself, they want their ectoplasm and energy to be where it supports those communities the most, and that means ensuring the health of the ghosts in charge. Generally speaking, the more powerful a ghost is, the more likely they are to have some importance to the Realms. The Uncored — and many Cored — can sense a ghost’s power due to how much excess ectoplasm they let off. In fact, that excess is almost immediately put off as Ambient ectoplasm, meaning that there is simply more Ambient plasm around a powerful ghost, and the Uncored are often attracted since that provides sustenance for them . It’s a mutualistic relationship where one entity feeds off another, and in the end the resources of the weaker ghosts are given to the stronger, supporting the Realms. In fact, there are some cultures who believe that converting ectoplasm into a form the Cored can process is the entire reason for the existence of the Uncored.”

Vellum smiled slightly as she added on, “It’s not an entirely accurate strategy, as the most powerful ghost around is not always going to be a hunter type. They usually are, seeing as that’s the most efficient form of feeding, but it’s not impossible to be otherwise. The result in these cases is Uncored ghosts following around said Cored ghost, and as the same aspect of community comes into play, that ghost soon ends up hanging around a hunter type, who feeds on the prey that was collected.”

Danny cringed a little at the use of the word “prey”.

He looked around at the blobs nuzzled up against him. Those who didn’t look to be something resembling unconscious were peering up at him. They certainly looked expectant, as much as something without even a permanent mouth can.

After he was silent for a few moments, another Staff member spoke up, likely wanting to lighten his mood. “They really do like you! I’m not surprised, even aside from your natural power, the role you play as High King causes ectoplasm to be magnetized to you. I’m sure they’re having a little feast themselves!”

It did not lighten his mood. Danny felt genuinely guilty. Even if he wasn’t doing it on purpose, wasn’t he effectively manipulating these creatures into offering themselves up to be eaten? It wasn’t right, to make them feel as if they want to be ended, just because he had some sort of aura.

But the gathered Staff were still concerned, and anticipatory, and, somehow, hopeful . He couldn’t turn them down at this point. He’d just have to bite into one of the little ghosts surrounding him, just once. He’d throw up, disgusted with himself, and the Staff would realize it wasn’t better for him, and the remaining blobs would remember that they don’t want to die, and they’d flee, and everybody would just leave the subject alone . He only had to try.

(The human dread he was emitting at this point must have been feeding everyone else.)

“…Okay,” he said simply, and gently picked up a blob that had been sitting on his leg.

Before he could rethink himself again, he brought it to his lips. He opened his jaw slightly wider than a human’s would likely go and, fangs instinctually extended, bit down.

Danny was familiar with the scent of ectoplasm. Copper and citrus and battery acid and salt. But when he broke the surface of the small ghost and the viscous fluid burst into his mouth, the salty and bitter aspects were lost on his tongue, replaced by a thick sweetness and the cold tingle of energy. Where his fangs pierced an inch down into the substance of the ghost, he tasted this fulfillment in its emotional ectoplasm. He’s not sure he would have been able to taste it if he weren’t part human. Still, the feeling was something distinctly ghostly, a similar satisfaction to fulfilling an Obsession or a Purpose. It was hard to feel bad, sympathizing automatically with that simple rightness. The way the emotion pressed at his brain, the way the semisolid edges of the ghost slicked against his tongue, his own self-revulsion melted to the back of his mind. The ectoplasmic flesh met his teeth with a thick resistance, but it was nothing to break past it and open up to the deeper substance. It was vibrant, a pure cool energy that pulsed against his fangs. (His core sucked it up greedily.) His mouth met the energy with a pulsing of its own, a harmonizing signal sent from his core throughout his body like a heartbeat. It came out as a low purr that vibrated deep through the charged air around him. He couldn’t help but rush to swallow, though his body absorbed it just as easily without.

The blob ghost had been the size of his foot, and now it was part of the energy making up his own form. Compared to the power his core was passively putting out, to the amount it longed to have refilled, it wasn’t all that much. Unconsciously, his core put out an ectoenergetic signal that he was ready to feed. The blobs around him nuzzled closer yet, making themselves available. Danny could feel a few other Uncored ghosts who were drifting nearby come into the garden and join them.

He looked up from his ectoplasm-stained hands at the Keep Staff. They were looking at him, relieved, pleased (even though they just watched him tear into a living thing and then absorb it into his being like it didn’t even matter, said a part in the back of his consciousness. It was hard to focus on, though. It was coming from his brain, not his hungry core, after all). With his core this active, he could feel the presences of all the other ghosts around. The blobs flocking around him had auras that were weaker than the Cored Staff, but sturdy. There was a balance to them that signaled the ectoplasmic types they were taking in and storing. He sensed the Uncored pulling in the Ambient ectoplasm that sloughed off of him, barely connected to him anymore if not for the weight of the space surrounding him. And he could feel all of their stores of energy-dense Vital plasm.

He could also feel, just as an aspect of his being, his own energy stores. The metaphysical space in his center that his form and all his strength drew from. He could remember, abstractly, the moment he died and that reservoir came to be and was instantly flooded with energy. The way the portal had searched the air until it found his body and his little human soul and used him as a conduit, and all that electricity punched a hole between planes right where his ghost was trying to form, and something tore outward from that starting place just on top of his being, and the vacuum that formed on earth and in the Zone and everything in between pulled until the Infinite Realms rushed his body and in one instantaneous moment his forming core was flooded with enough ectoplasmic energy to become entirely corporeal (if it hadn’t, his ghost wouldn’t have manifested nearly quickly enough to keep him alive), and his being was stretched beyond its limits containing everything. For one moment, he had been filled with more energy than he had thought possible, and his ghost had formed itself to accommodate. Since then he’d felt so… empty. His body took what it could from human food and environmental energy, but it was made for more than that. He had blocked out the awareness of his reserves and gotten used to trying to power all his defenses on so little. He was always so tired.

He still felt low, running on just enough to operate something humanish. But his core had latched on to the ectoplasm provided by the blob, the kind it was designed to process, and finally felt a little relieved. Most ghosts that stayed within the Realms were almost always full. Danny wasn’t nearly there yet.

He reached down and grabbed another blob.

#alt title: What Taco Bell Does to a Bitch #danny phantom #my writing #roxys worldbuilding #i havent posted the Full Ecology Rant so this is as close as my blog is getting rn lmaooooo #ghost hunger #ghost king danny #hey this ones actually edited! #HOW do you people write things more than 5k.....

[lizziestudieshistory]

Books of 2021 - August

I had a decent reading month in August! Not only did I FINALLY conquer Anna Karenina but I also managed to knock a fair few books of my long term TBR.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by That Woman - a reread that completed my entire series reread. I enjoyed it, found a new love for Severus Snape, and rediscovered a love that had suffered from Rowling herself. I don't want to say too much because Harry Potter isn't exactly under praised!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - Okay I KNOW I just finished a reread but I was playing the Harry Potter games from when I was a kid and wanted something to stick on in the background I didn't need to fix my entire attention on... I also wanted to revisit some scenes from this book to follow up some thoughts I'd had in the later novels.

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio - I ADORED this book! It took me a little while to get into it but once I was hooked it was intense. The drama was intense, the relationships between the main character were beautiful (if a bit twisted), and the love of Shakespeare permeated every page. It was a suspenseful read that came to me exactly at the right time!

I would highly recommend if you love Shakespeare and, for some reason, haven't read this yet, or if you're into dark academia as a literary genre (I actually think it's better than The Secret History!!!) If you don’t love Shakespeare I would recommend familiarising yourself with Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear before you resd this one as an awareness of these plays will really help you enjoyment. However, this is definitely one of the best books I've read all year - I absolutely adored it!

The Warden by Anthony Trollop - This was an unexpected boom for me to pick up. It's been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years at this point and I've never felt the urge to pick it up. I knew I wanted to try Trollope and I thought I'd enjoy this because I am a bit too into church politics but I'd never felt particularly motivated to read it - turns out I did really enjoy it!

It's probably not Trollope's best work (although I have nothing to compare it to) and I definitely wouldn't recommend it as a starting place for Trollope unless you do really love church politics. However, I had a great time and really enjoyed the discussion around church abuses, personal responsibility, and the effect unthinking busybodies can have on otherwise content individuals. It was a promising start from Trollope and I'll definitely be reading more in the future!

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë - Another unexpected read for this month, however, like The Warden I picked this up to help with my momentum through the 1kpagesaug21 readathon. I liked Agnes Grey, it was an interesting little book that I enjoyed reading. The exploration of a governess' life was powerful and eye opening - although it was probably moreso for a Victorian audience than it is today.

However, I felt there was something lacking in Agnes Grey that was present in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The characters didn't feel as vivid - even Agnes herself felt flat to me - and her life didn't draw me into the book. I do think the relationships, particularly between Agnes and the children she taught, were very well developed. Children, especially teenaged girls, really are THAT horrible and cruel. But most of Agnes' life didn't interest me that much, her relationship with Mr Weston felt a bit forced (and predictable!) while her happily ever after left me underwhelmed.

The emotionality and passionate heart that's so iconic in the Brontë's work didn't come across in Agnes Grey and I felt a little bit disappointed. It was a good book and I'm glad I read it but The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is definitely the superior Anne Brontë work in my opinion. In Tenant I really feel Anne's passion and anger, which is more in line with my taste.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - Okay I literally cannot review Anna Karenina here... It's too much in the space I allow myself, so I'll try to do a full review at some point in the future (don't hold your breath I have a backlog!)

Let's just say I struggled with Anna Karenina. I loved parts and loathed others. It's truly a novel about life and life is not always enjoyable to read about... I think Tolstoy gets lost in the scope of his novels! He does too much, encompasses too many plots, and Anna Karenina really should have been two books, not one.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - I'm STILL processing Piranesi, I've been putting off my monthly reviews to try and decide how I feel about it but I just don't know! It's a beautifully written book, the prose is to DIE FOR. Clarke could write about anything and I'd think it was beautifully written.

Yet the book itself is weird, not in a bad way though. It's slow and whimsical - nothing really makes sense until you've uncovered the whole mystery of the House and Piranesi. It was enchanting to read, I really was spellbound, but I'm not sure if it was enjoyable? I found it hard going in places, especially at the beginning where Piranesi was doing nothing for 70 pages! I do think it's worth reading, and I did love the plot (when it actually happened) I just wished it was slightly more to the point in the opening part.

#books of 2021 #august reads #books #reading #harry potter #if we were villains #m.l. rio #the warden #anthony trollope #agnes grey #anne bronte #anna karenina #leo tolstoy #piranesi #susanna clarke

[thoughtfulfangirling]

January 2021 Books

I tend not to come to dislike or hating things very easily. Generally, the things I try, I can find a lot I like in them and go with the flow. I feel like it doesn’t make me very good about recommending things because I’m not too picky once I get invested in things, but here are my takes on the books I’ve read this month. (I can be super picky about what I pick up in the first place, but once I overcome that and get a foothold in something, the above applies.)

Anyway, belatedly, here’s last months reads and blurbs on my thoughts under the cut (long)

1. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas

I somehow didn’t realize this was YA. It has the plot simplicity I’m used to seeing in YA but it definitely got darker and more sexual than I would have expected for the genre. I actually rather appreciate this series for that reason. It did some things alternatively I didn't expect and was quite delighted by it. Fantasy, romance (f/m), fairies, light political intrigue (setup for book 2), etc.. I have since read book 2 and would have caveats about this depending on who was interested.

2. This is How you Lose a Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

This was amazing! A quick read of poetic language and dark love across sci fi warring factions. Primarily told through a series of letters exchanged back and forth between protagonists and focused on the characters.

3. Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire

What a great ghost story! it's told a lot like a series of short stories that come together into a winding narrative of a ghost's journey through the roads of America. Heavily American mythology vibes. Fascinating world building, intriguing characters, and beautiful message and arc. I'm thinking I might pick up more from this series in October. I got pointed in this book's direction due to how the way the book is structure feeling like a great depiction of trauma and how things get segmented and out of order and intangible, and it was just a really neat book. Would definitely recommend.

4. No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder

I’ve now read a fair amount on the topic of domestic abuse, but they have largely focused on the individuals involved, and while this book does pick particular individuals as an example of extreme DV, this book zoomed out and looked at this problem from a broader perspective, talking about stats and looking at environmental and systemic factors. It’s a dark book that gets heavy and dissects sensitive situations but didn’t feel like it failed to humanize the issue, sometimes more so than a reader may expect. I definitely found it an insightful and interesting read. It’s the first book in quite a long time that was a physical book I held in my hands. I expected I might struggle too much between it not being audio and being nonfiction, but I moved through it quite quickly.

5. Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins

This was a re-read. It’s a cute little wlw class romance. I think I read it in 2018, and it was fun to revisit. It’s a quick read with some enjoyable characters, and for those who do audiobooks, some cute accents. 

6. The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett

This was a beautiful story about grief and the way our connections open us up to new possibilities and changes in our lives if only we’ll reach out grasp them. It’s a slow paced story, functioning mostly in the internal monologue of our protagonist dealing with the loss of the man she’s loved and the things she comes to find out she didn’t know about him. 

7. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

This was another reread, doing a chapter an evening with Empty. It helped so much to listen to this a second time between being able to see the pieces put down and not listening to it at such stressful times and in such a fragmented way. I love how it is somehow a puzzle, a haunting, and a journey of growth in an old relationship that seemed doomed to fail in so many ways. Plus I love big, sarcastic, sentimental butch disaster Gideon so goddamn much. XD 

8. Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

This was very enjoyable, but I can definitely tell that I’ve outgrown a lot of YA. It’s not that there’s anything wrong these stories-I would have loved to have grown up with this book-it’s just that it lacked a complexity I’m getting used to and that I look for in these stories. I’m so glad though to be seeing more writers of color writing experiences and characters more like them getting attention in the literary world, and I will continue to find reading these stories worth it to get glimpses into that, but I wish I saw more of this sort of hype for these writers around more adult books. It’s out there I’m sure; I just have to find it yet. Working on it! But for a YA reader I think this is a great story. I like the worldbuilding so much and the costs of the magic and the journey. I might still have to check out book two when I need an easier read. 

9. Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist by Franchesca Ramsey

I’ve been holding onto a hard copy borrowed from a friend of this for well over a year now. I got this book around the same time I got my hands on So you Want to Talk About Race and thought they were going to have very similar contents. I was incorrect. Well, That Escalated Quickly is much more about what it means to have a popular online presence. It was a really great read in a time when being online is, right now, for many of us, the only consistent way we can interact with others. I really appreciated her sharing her stories of her mess ups both as someone who needed to be called out and as someone who, for a time, was considered a ‘call out queen’ and her thoughts on community responsibility and bearing responsibility on both ends of those spectrums: it’s not just a person who messes up who bears a responsibility to act with community goals in mind to reduce harm, but also the responsibility of those who call out and when and how those might look for most effectiveness for change, personal wellbeing, and community responsibility. (The term community responsibility I’m using probably comes more from Conflict is not Abuse than this book, but I could very well see this book being a great primer for Conflict is not Abuse and might rec this to someone not yet ready for the later.) 

10. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas

This book was a roller coaster. I started off really excited about some ideas and themes it was exploring that I don’t really see done hardly ever and was really intrigued. About a third of the way through, it did something that I felt very much undermined one of the themes I was enjoying a lot, and up until the very end, I was very close to deciding against reading book three. At pretty much that last minute though, it intrigued me enough to want to see how a thing would be played out and a resolution would be found. I don’t even know if I’d say I super liked the book and thus series by the time I was done reading this one, but I was intrigued. Sometimes I get the feeling the author doesn’t trust her audience and spells certain things out way too much, sometimes to the detriment of the plot, and I’m really not a fan of the ‘so totally outclassed, all odds staked against the heroes’ thing that’s pulled in this book that comes out of nowhere and when this time we actually have powerful characters but here we are. I don’t think I’d actually recommend the series to others unless I knew their tastes aligned well, but I think I will be finishing it. 

#tf reads #a court of thorns and roses #this is how you lose the time war #sparrow hill road #no visible bruises: what we don't know about domestic violence can kill us #her royal highness #the magician's assistant #Gideon the ninth #labryinth lost #well that escalated quickly: memoirs and mistakes of an accidental activist #a court of mist and fury #books #long post #under the cut #thinky thoughts #tf rambles #2021 Reads

[maggot-monger]

some musings on shipping culture

just to get this out of the way: this post is prompted by things i have seen people say and reblog recently about a variety of ships and fandoms, some of which i have been in, some of which i have not. it is not directed at any individual in particular. 

i am also not upset. how other people like to enjoy fandom is interesting to me but ultimately it’s totally irrelevant to how i like to enjoy fandom. in fact, my apathy about other people’s favorite ships is a major reason i am curious about how some people respond to each other/canon/whatever.

the main question is: why do people care what other people ship and why they ship it?

here’s what i got. this list is not ordered by importance.

1) purity culture 

tbh i am kind of burnt out with thinking about purity culture. probably a lot of reasons are somewhat related to purity culture, but i don’t want to get into whether or not it’s ok for people to ship stuff they wouldn’t condone in reality (although for the record, if you couldn’t tell, my opinion is: ship literally whatever you want). so, moving on.

2) whether or not ships are likely to become canon

a lot of the time, this debate gets avoided either because none of the ships being argued over are likely ever to become canon, or because one of them is almost definitely going to become canon. sometimes it’s an argument about which relationship is more important, whether romantic or not (two examples: 1) most wincest shippers understand that sam and dean were never going to kiss on the mouth on tv, but are very invested in the brothers’ relationship being the central relationship in the show regardless. 2) debates over whether elsa in frozen should have a girlfriend or stay single). 

much of the time, people get passionate about ships going canon because of issues of representation. wanting the queer ship; wanting the ship involving at least one character from an underrepresented group; wanting the ship that resonates with some meaningful experience much of the audience can relate to. that’s all cool. i get all of that. i don’t personally have many feelings about ships i like going canon because that’s not really part of the experience for me, but i understand why it’s appealing to others.

i do not, however, understand why some people whose ships might become canon care about telling people whose ships are never going to become canon that their ships are, uh, never going to become canon. like, in my experience, usually people who ship a never-going-to-be-canon ship know that it’s never going to be canon, and while they might be salty about it, they aren’t claiming that their thing is going to be what happens in canon. i get why never-going-to-be-canon shippers might get pissy at might-be-canon shippers because it sucks to “lose,” or because often (not always) might-be-canon ships are very popular comparatively and it can get tiresome to see your fandom dominated by something you don’t like/care about. but why do fans of popular (might-be-)canon ships get pissy about fans of never-gonna-be-canon ships, within fandom spaces?

a lot of this tension might be because of fandom dominance wars, rather than canon dominance wars. the never-gonna-be-canon shippers might feel that the might-be-canon shippers are dominating fandom spaces, but the might-be-canon shippers might feel that the never-gonna-be-canon shippers are dominating canon spaces. often when this happens both ships take up a lot of fandom space regardless of which takes up more, and might in fact be equally popular. so this might be just misperceptions about relative popularity, and feeling like your ship is being attacked/ignored disproportionately in the fandom when in reality it isn’t. i have definitely seen this sort of attitude from warring flagship supporters many a time.

but ok, to come back to why might-be-canon shippers make arguments against never-gonna-be-canon shippers based on likelihood of canonization: why? i don’t get it. i’ve seen this happen even with people who ship fully realized canon relationships arguing against people who ship fully non-canon relationships. why? 

my instinct is to think that last one is a sore winner thing. like, you won dude. good for you. take your winnings and let everybody else lick their wounds/carry on with their own preferences in peace. i’m even inclined to think that canon shippers as a rule should ignore most baiting by non-canon shippers because losers should be allowed to be little a bitter, as a treat. but at this point, i realize that i have just made a claim about how people should act in fandom, and who am i to say that? no one. so: never mind. and it might not be a gloating thing anyway.

another piece of evidence i see people bring up in these arguments is about basis in canon, rather than likelihood of canonization. that seems like another major point, so let’s move on to that. 

3) basis in canon

whether or not a ship is likely to become canon, there are lots of conversations about which ships make the most sense given evidence from the canon. 

i, being a massive slut for characterization, get this sort of. usually even when i enjoy crack ships i want to make them work with textual evidence somehow. i personally just think it’s more satisfying to figure out how two characters might have met and what would have appealed to them about each other to lead them to connect/date/bang/whatever, even if it never happened and never will happen and nobody would even think about the pairing unless either they were trying to be funny or they were really far down a rabbit hole. that’s my own geeky cross to bear.

i don’t get why “basis in canon” makes any ship better than any other ship though. sometimes a ship is within reach of canon characterization/story, and the work to go from non-canon to canon is suuuper minimal. these ships make sense pretty much as they are. that’s cool! such ships are usually popular for a reason: they appeal to a lot of fans of the canon because not a lot has to be done to the source material to make it work. often, the more you have to modify/do interpretation footwork, the more people’s interesting is going to drop off because you’re getting further from the source, and the source is why everyone is here in the first place. (some fandoms are of course exceptions to this.)

but why is closer-to-canon better? sometimes the work to get from canon to a far-from-canon ship is really clever, and does actually make a lot of sense if you follow the reasoning. sometimes far-from-canon ships are satisfying in a way other closer-to-canon ships aren’t (at least to some people). sometimes far-from-canon ships allow for creativity that closer-to-canon ships don’t. sometimes the appeal of far-from-canon ships is none of that, and it’s purely because the ship is sexy, or it’s controversial, or it’s weird, or people have gotten tired of the fandom flagships and they’re looking for something new. 

i don’t understand why any of that is worse than the reasons for shipping something with “more basis in canon.”

personally, i get tired of fandom flagships in most of the fandoms i’ve been in very quickly. furthermore, i lose interest in ships almost immediately if/when they become canon. that’s not a value judgment; it’s just a pattern in my own preferences that i’ve observed from 15+ years of fandom involvement. i enjoy having to work in the murky waters farther from canon to justify my weird little ships. i find the moment of canonization exciting and satisfying (and sometimes emotional and vindicating), but i do not enjoy watching people actually being in romantic relationships very much (part of this is probably due to the fact that i personally do not enjoy being in romantic relationships very much). i also just tend to enjoy elements of ships that a lot of people find off-putting, but this is going back to purity culture and, again, i don’t want to get into that. these preferences reliably lead me away from close-to-canon ships and fandom flagships. 

(just to be clear: i’m not being attacked. i do not feel attacked. i'm just using myself as a rhetorical example here.)

does this make my taste in ships bad? i don’t know what "bad taste in ships” means, but if you’re going to say that my taste is bad, i’m going to want you to justify it. 

does it make my taste in ships stupid? well, sure, i do like stupid shit sometimes. but i also feel that it would be strange, if not flat-out incorrect, to claim that my taste in off-norm ships is not thoughtful. i think about many of my far-from-canon ships a lot — often, i think about them a lot before i start shipping them/see anyone else ship them, and i decide i like the characters together because i’ve come at it from a character analysis perspective. i have liked ships for some extremely nerdy reasons. a lot of people who like far-from-canon ships get there because they like thinking about characterization and plot and symbolism. to be completely honest, i often end up liking rarepairs in part because the people who end up liking rarepairs often have higher overall intellectual skill and desire to think about things extensively on average than fans of fandom flagships do on average. so, is liking far-from-canon ships stupid? that’s subjective. is it unintelligent? probably not.

is enjoyment of these ships dumber when people don’t get there through a lot of analysis, or when they don’t try to justify their enjoyment once they’ve decided they like a ship? i have seen extremely well-written, clever, extensively researched fic about pairings the author had no interest in justifying, and imo that’s just as intellectually motivated as analysis about why the ship makes sense. so, i would say, no.

is it bad to ship stuff and have no intellectual interest in it all? i mean, everyone can have whatever opinion about this, but in my opinion, no. this is fandom. this is for fun-having. i’m a nerd, but not everybody has to be a nerd. sometimes i like to read stuff that is not nerdy, that just shows me something comforting or new or evocative and doesn’t ask me to care about how we’ve gotten there. i might care anyway, but that’s on me, and it doesn’t make my enjoyment better than the enjoyment of someone who doesn’t want to overthink it.

finally, even if a ship having no basis in canon does make it worse somehow, who cares? what is the point of arguing over ship quality, of all things? is it just elitism? is it defensiveness against criticism of fan work being inferior to original work? is it a desire for everything to make sense, paired with a belief that people prefer things that make the most sense? if anybody has read this far and has insight into this, please tell me. i see this so often, and it baffles me every time. i don’t really want to agree, but i want to understand.

so, i don’t quite get this one. i get parts of it, but overall, i don’t get it. 

4) i don’t have a number 4. i put a number 4 when i started writing this post but i think i covered what i was going to say here in points 1-3. alternatively i forgot my 4th point in which case RIP.

if you read this far, i apologize for the messy organization. i wrote this primarily to sort out my own thoughts. i’m not sure it helped, but it was something to do for an hour XD

#please don't reblog #(idk why anyone would but) #(i am happy to chat though! i am genuinely interested! my questions are not rhetorical) #further disclaimer: none of this is about my current main fandom which seems blessedly tolerant compared to many fandoms #i say things

[sanstropfremir]

I absolutely LOVED reading your kingdom review. You gave me such an insight in things I never even considered, especially since our rankings are so different from each other. The Boyz was my favorite, the narrative was about RTK. How they felt bad for having to compete against their friends but eventually the groups only lifted each other up and it helped TBZ grow into the group they are now through the hardships and mental dilemma, falling into the next challenge right after they reached the top. It should have been more obvious though, I agree, it wasn't really visible for anyone who didn't know. I was wondering how you felt about the dancing in general? my reason for not ranking BTOB high was lack of choreo (and Peniel's verse), same goes for SF9. Mostly because I don't feel the hype when watching, it doesn't keep my focus on the stage. As a baby-performer myself, my goal is to make the viewer curious about what's next. is that the wrong way to look at it? that's what I've always been told, building the tension up and down to create focus. would love to hear your feedback on that! thank you so much for sharing, we need more reviews of people who actually know what they're talking about.

i'm glad that you got some insight from it! like i answered in the previous ask im here to hopefully bring some more depth and understanding for people that care and are curious!

you unintentionally proved my point about tbz’s performance: that is way too complicated! even the most talented solo dancers i can think of would have trouble distilling that down to something readable in 100 seconds, much less a group of like, a dozen people! the introductory stages are meant to show us the character of the group and their abilities in the most concise way possible, it's not the stage to do deep philosophical and emotional introspection. for a full stage? absolutely, go hog wild! but for this stage it was too ambitious and ultimately was ineffective to anyone that isn't a fan of them specifically. 

by dancing in general do you mean like, every group? i put most of my opinions on the dancing where i had them in each of the individual rankings but honestly? unless there is something that really stands out positively or negatively, a lot of ‘average’ kpop dance looks the same to me. i know it’s not, obviously, and if pressed i probably could do a more serious breakdown, but dance is only one element of performance. it has equal weight with all the others in my mind, and therefore i notice when it is either 

very good

does something unique

very bad, or

interferes with another element

which is the same as how i evaluate every element, if that makes sense. 

hmmmm. i thought about this a lot in the shower and turns out i had more opinions that i expected so i'll put them under a cut.

firstly, i don't think lack of choreo should be penalized or considered an ‘incomplete’ performance. at the end of the day, these are bands, and a part of their brand/product they sell is the music. complex choreo does not need to be attached to that to make it a successful performance. also, btob did have choreo. any movement on stage is technically choreography. but this terminology can cause confusion so usually non-dance choreo is referred to as ‘blocking.’ but they also did include the song’s original point choreo at 1.41. the blocking in their performance was well thought out and suited the arrangement, by placing spatial emphasis on each part of the song that needed it. obviously it comes down to personal taste if the performance is ultimately ‘successful,’ because all art is subjective, but just because something isn't as visually complex as something else doesn’t mean it doesn't have the same level of thought. think of it like this: one is a super clean-lined post-post-modern grey/white living room, and the other is a kitsch goth basement. both share interior design principles and have obvious care put into the space, but they are vastly different styles that appeal to different tastes.

part of the job of production designer/AD is to decide what gets emphasis. a question you're always asking yourself is ‘is this important to the story that we’re trying to tell?’ and btob/their AD made a very smart choice with their introductory stage because it says a lot about them and their abilities in a short amount of time. that stage said ‘our foundation is strong, we have the training and experience and confidence to be up here and not rely on visual tricks.’ because they know they physically cannot do the things the 4th gen groups can; they're a decade older and they only have four members, it's just not feasible. something you learn with experience is the power that specific and pointed emphasis holds, which segues into my answer to your last question. i don't necessarily think that ‘building hype’ is the wrong way to perform something, but i do think it is a flawed way to approach creating a performance.

i think that ‘hype’ is flawed concept at its core, and one that focuses on the idea that there’s always being something more, something next, beyond the work itself. now there’s nothing wrong with playing with tension within the internal structure of a piece, that's exactly how constructing a narrative happens. however, the flaws come once we extrapolate beyond the boundaries of that individual work. the idea of ‘whats next’ implies that you have to constantly be promoting, have a sequel coming, building hype etc so people will keep engaged with your work. which is deeply capitalistic in nature and operates on the assumption that art exists purely as a product to be sold. and in order to keep selling you need to keep making a bigger and better and more spectacular product. and this is not the case at all. marketability is not the essence of art, it merely a factor of creating it under this insufferable system. kpop in particular suffers from this because the industry is specifically fabricated to produce capitol. we can have discussions all day about idols and their artistic integrity but at the end of that day, they are all cogs working with a system that was specifically made up by essentially one person to be culturally exported and to just print buckets of money. so in following that train of thought, there is a constant attitude of bigger and better because shock value (whether positive or negative) gets social media attention and therefore it sells. and it has become exponentially easier (and also seemingly required) to make things that are bigger and better than ever before. i remember being blown away by the projection floor at the sochi 2014 olympics because something of that scale and complexity would never have been possible without literally having the funding of the olympics. now that technology is easily accessible to anyone with an amazon account and the time to learn how isadora works. in comparison, it took 2400 YEARS for just the job of a ‘theatre designer’ to be even become a job at all.

because of kpop’s fan culture it is especially prone to ‘hype’ behaviour. in general with the accessibility of the internet and social media, everything has turned into a competition, and who can generate the most buzz ‘wins’. but ultimately that has taken away the general public’s ability to recognize that you can enjoy something quietly and you can enjoy something slowly. that the enjoyment of something doesn’t need to be all exclamation marks and keysmashes and trending hashtags on twitter. there is value in a work engaging in an emotion within you that is not just excitement. most of the artists and companies that i consume the work of i don’t do so because their work makes me excited, i do so because i liked the experience of engaging with that work. several years ago i saw the eternal tides by legend lin dance theatre, which you can watch a really short clip of here. that is not slow motion, that is actually how slow the dancers are moving. and 90% of the show is performed like that. and its two hours long. and it was one of the most incredible performances i've ever seen. if i ever get the chance I will go see another one of their shows again, not because i care about how they can top that experience i had, but because i know they can produce that experience, and that is enough to make me want to seek them out again. the speed of the internet has also loosened the general public’s understanding of just exactly how long creating a performance work can take. the lead dancer in the eternal tides was with the company for eight years before she and the piece were ready enough to be performed. large scale operas, musicals, and plays often have a year or more of pre-production before they even get to rehearsal. smaller theatre companies workshop new pieces for years at a time. performance is hard and it takes time. you can eliminate some of that with sheer amounts of money and people, which is what the kpop industry has done, but it speeds up the cycle of consumption to a degree that is not sustainable, especially for companies and creators who do not have that kind of access. performers and performance makers often don't put enough trust in their audiences. if they like what they see, they will come back. they dont need to be constantly bombarded with content at all times.

now that i’ve said a bit about why i think hype is a flawed concept, let's bring it back to kingdom. sf9 did something very interesting with their stage in that they actively chose to limit their dance time. and this plays very well off the performance film stage that taeyang did a couple of weeks ago. taeyang is talented and confident (for good reason), and his solo was incredible. but when it came to the intro stage, instead of trying to one-up the solo stage, the group instead said ‘well people are going to be looking at us because taeyang is insanely talented, so let's show them that we ALL have the confidence and the attitude to be up here.’ no need for flashy theatrics, they had the foresight to do something that would make them stand out from the rest of the groups. even if i was just casually watching the stages without doing any analysis on them (like i did for rtk), i would still be able to distinguish them because they had the stones to stand around for half their stage time. now i recognize them and would like to see what else they can do. same principle as what btob and also what ikon did. there is a fine line between anticipation and hype that gets equated in media consumption nowadays, but the two are not the same.

i think the tldr on this is that you dont need to ‘build hype’ or ‘go all out’ to make an interesting work. just focus on telling the narrative that you want to tell, and the people that recognize that will come. i could have a lot more things to say about peoples shrinking attention spans and the constant stream of information that we consume on a daily basis that devalues the labour done by artists in the eyes of the public and promotes hustle culture that is burning out and damaging creators at a rate that is both exponential and frightening, but that’s probably for another time, because this is SO LONG

#kingdom #kpop questions #this was a very interesting ask thank you anon! #the consumption and production of art is fascinating and also as an artist it gives me a fucking headache #many thoughts head too full #i hope this provided you with some more insight anon #none of your opinions are wrong i just have different ones and thats ok! i love discussions like this #Anonymous #kpop analysis #text #general design questions #kingdom review responses #answers #kingdom asks

[magaprima]

Part 2 Episode 6 Analysis (3/?) (i.e the horrible scene where Adam is served on a plate)

And now we come to That Dinner. Firstly, the table has been set, the vegetables cooked and prepared, the candles lit, and that’s a lot of small details and there’s music and everything’s just clearly prepared for a romantic meal, and while I know Lucifer clearly wanted to lure Lilith into a false sense of security, I can’t imagine him being someone to ever have the patience to do all that and to make it right, to make ti feel genuinely sweet and romantic. So the torturous part of me thinks that he killed Adam in the cottage, or in the garden, possibly while Adam was making dinner, so all these preparations were Adam’s, but then Lucifer killed him and made him the main course. But regardless, this does mean, as Lilith is eating a cooked steak, that Lucifer went to the effort of not just killing Adam, but getting him into a sizeable portion that fit in Mary’s oven? Side note: Mary must get a new oven if Lilith didn’t already rip the thing out. Second side note; where was the rest of Adam’s body? What did Lucifer do with it?

“You are a man of many talents, Adam; this roast is delicious”

This line kills me for two reasons. The way she says ‘many talents’ suggests she has seen his other talents, that she’s gotten to know him so well that she knows his skills, she knows what he’s good at. It also nicely implies some sexual/romantic gifts. The other reason this line kills me is that she thinks the roast is delicious, in a way that suggests it’s extra delicious, more so than usual....and it’s just, in retrospect (or in foreshadowing for that matter), the confirmation that Lilith feasts on male flesh. She doesn’t eat it, it’s not something she has to have to survive like a vampire with blood, it’s something she feasts on (her own choice of words) which is to say it’s something she indulges in, it’s a treat, it’s something she really enjoys. And the fact Lucifer knows this about her, and knows how much she’ll enjoy the taste because of how much she enjoys feasting on male flesh, and uses it against her, knowing that not only would she be horrified to realise who she is eating but that it would likely permanently ruin her enjoyment of feasting on male flesh permanently (as it is interesting we never see her eat human again after this episode)...is just such a specifically cruel way to torment and punish her. 

“I promised you deliciousness once upon a time”

Lilith is so blissfully content and blissfully ignorant in that contentment, she totally misses the clue in that line. The promise of deliciousness, the phrase, the implication it is, is always tied to Satan.....yet she doesn’t even blink, she’s too happy and satisfied in this little world she believes she still has. 

Now when Lucifer!Adam says ‘Dessert is your reward for saying yes to Tibet’, the first time I watched it and we didn’t know Adam was dead, I immediately had the thought of ‘oh so now we’re seeing who the real Adam is, that he’s not as nice as he’s appeared, we’re going to find out he’s controlling and abusive’, because that phrase was so out of character for Adam. It was the sort of demanding thing he never does, and it’s like even when Lucifer is pretending to be Adam he can’t manage to mimic him right, because Adam respects women and respected Lilith and would never imply such a demand-and-reward attitude. And you do see Lilith pause at this, as if thinking it odd or dislikeable herself. Which is why she stares at him and says ‘I haven’t said yes yet’ in her usual defiant way. 

Yet, when Lucifer!Adam replies ‘but....you’re going too’, she reconsiders and seems to think that rather than being demanding it was simply Adam knowing her well enough to have already guessed her answer, and this reveals a lot about her feelings for Adam, how much she loved him. She presumes he knows her that well now, because she feels that open and free with him, she may not have told him her real name, but she isn’t acting like anyone but herself, the ‘new Mary’ he believes he’s seeing is just Lilith without much filter at all. So therefore, he knows her in her opinion. Then  it also tells us that she loves him and knows him so much that she knows he wouldn’t ever demand anything of her, he would never hold something over her head, so she therefore ‘knows’ it can only be that he’s teasing her. Which would have been true....if Adam wasn’t actually fucking Lucifer. 

And it’s in that moment, that moment when she thinks she’s realised he knows her so well and she’s come to the conclusion she also knows him, and it’s this knowing-each-other-respectful-love that she makes her decision about Tibet. She takes a huge breath, she pauses, she sets her wine down; we are in no doubt that this is not an easy or sudden decision for Lilith, this is a big deal. She knows in saying yes to Tibet she is giving up being Satan’s right hand (or left hand as they’ve said in the show), she is giving up playing her role in the prophecy, she is giving up Lucifer, and most importantly, she knows she is giving up the throne. That is a huge fucking deal. And she is giving it up, because for the first time in her life, Lilith has a choice for happiness. Before she’s had choices between freedom and prison, death and survival, power and powerlessness, this is the first time ‘happy’ has been part of the choice, and when given a choice between happiness and power...she’s choosing happiness. And that says a lot about her character and her true nature. And it’s such a big fucking deal. 

And the moment she says ‘Yes, I am’ and takes a bite, is the moment the audience gets a flash of what’s to come. It’s a single frame, a glimse of the future that lasts no more than a single frame of a second, showing Adam’s head and Satan sat at the table. We know the truth before Lilith does, which is like saying ‘this is a joke on her. this entire conversation was a farce at her expense’. But it’s so quick, you don’t really see it unless you freeze frame by frame, it’s subliminal, giving us the sense something is very wrong as we then hear the unnatural crunch to Lilith’s bite and we see her pull out the enchanted ring

"How did that get in there?”

Okay, let me just cry at this line. Lilith says this so breathless with genuine confusion, she’s so bewildered because she cannot understand what’s happening. Lilith is usually the first to click about what’s going on, she’s also a very suspicious person, and as Ambrose says she notices everything, but right now, despite every sign telling her something is horribly wrong, she’s oblivious. She was that content in her little happy bubble that she forgot for a moment that Lucifer is an abusive arsehole who murders people and tortures her to keep her in her place. She was so lost in her feelings about Adam, and the hope of having a new, free life, and of going to Tibet, that she briefly thought she lived in a world without the Dark Lord. And it’s just so freaking innocent; the way she says it is one of those flashes we get of the way Lilith was in the beginning. The innocent, hopefully, yet strong and rebellious Lilith from the beginning, the one who had yet to suffer betrayals. 

Even when she sees his clawed hands, even when she looks up and looks straight in the Dark Lord’s face, it doesn’t click straight away. She’s surprised, she’s fearful, but the penny still hasn’t fully dropped. She’s in a state of denial, as if subconsciously, she still naively hopes that Adam is somewhere else, that he’s just at the shops while Satan is here tormenting her. just like when he spoke to her that night, threatening her, while Adam was in bed, utterly oblivious to it all. 

And then you see the fear deepening in her eyes as she glances down at the table, and I think, even  before Lucifer lifts the platter, she’s already starting to finally realise why the steak tasted like it did, and how the ring got into her meal, but she still doesn’t want to confirm it. You see how much she tries not to look at the platter, but it’s unavoidable....and then she can’t take her eyes away. And you can physically see her trying not to try, she is trying her hardest to hold back her sobs and, what I suspect, would be a scream of horror. She doesn’t want to give Lucifer the satisfaction, it’s a knee-jerk habit she undoubtedly has learned over the millennia to show as little weakness as possible, but this is really testing her. You can see the horror on her face and you can also see her heart slowly breaking in two, you can physically feel it. Everything she thought she had, everything she was counting on all of thirty seconds ago, just thirty fucking seconds, has all be taken away, violently, cruelly and deliberately. And then, what is both more heartbreaking and also interesting, is we see her horror start to turn to panic. She starts breathing erratically, because not only is she having to face this horror before her, but she also has Lucifer’s words in her ears, reminding her of what it all means:

“Our bond is eternal. Our bond is unbreakable. There is no escape to Tibet or anywhere else”

He is telling her that no matter what he does to her, no matter how he treats her, no matter how she changes her mind, no matter how her desires may change, no matter how she might want other things, no matter what she does, no matter whether she wants to serve him or not, no matter whether she wants to be with him or not, she has no choice. There is a bond between them that is eternal and unbreakable. Two interesting choice of words, as we know witches and warlocks sign the Book of the Beast as part of a contract, but it’s never said to be eternal or unbreakable, and from what we saw at Sabrina’s trial we know there are loopholes. We also know that Lilith never signed the book and was a witch in her own right, so any bond between them was never in exchange for power. So the fact there is a bond between them at all should be something self made. But the fact it is an eternal and unbreakable bond tells us it’s something beyond the norm, it’s something deeper than signing a Book, it’s something bigger than family, or even King or Queen, it is something ancient and powerful. Their stories are entwined, and Lucifer uses this to his abusive advantage. But the language choice is so interesting and revealing, and is perhaps the more mystical way of saying what Lilith qualified as ‘co-dependent’. 

He is also telling her that he knew precisely what Tibet was for her, he know she wants to escape, he knows her thoughts have changed, that her ambitious and priorities have shifted and that her loyalty has wavered and is waning also, he knows exactly what Tibet meant to her on every level, and Lilith is realising as she listens that as he has taken Tibet away, he will take away anything else she ever tries. He is reminding her that she is trapped. And as she looks at Adam’s severed head, she is seeing the person who respected her and made her feel happy and genuinely free has been ripped from her life, and all she is left with once more is nothing but her abuser. 

“Now, clear your plate of the mortal”

This instruction is horrendous. We don’t see her following this order, we only know that she does by the vomiting scene. But after telling her precisely what is on her plate, he makes her eat it. Bear in mind, she canonically states that Adam was the ‘one thing’ that she loved, bear in mind that we saw her excessively happy with him in the previous scene, bear in mind she was a minute ago planning to run off to Tibet with him, and she is being made to look at his severed head on the table, his dead eyes staring at her, while she eats a steak made of his fucking torso. She is made to clean her fucking plate. That is trauma that not even the rightful Queen of Hell is going to get over any time soon (hence why she broke into fucking horrified panic in Part 3). But thankfully, we’re spared seeing that scene.....all we watch is the moment where Lilith finally breaks.

You know that defence I mentioned above where she tries not to cry and you can see she knows showing weakness makes him win and makes everything worse and you can see her employing her usual survival techniques? That all goes the moment he tells her to clean her plate and she knows she’s going to have to, because she’s all alone and there’s no one going to help her, no one going to defend her or support her. She breaks, we see her give into the sobs. A choking sob, before she covers her mouth, trying to hold it back, but there’s no denying it, she’s not hiding it, she’s had her heart broken. Again. 

#episode stuff

[jeremys-blogs]

Fantastic Beasts: More Beasts, Please

If you've watched a lot of movies in your time, you'll have likely come across a fair few that you wish would have done things just a touch differently. And I'm not talking alternate endings or the like, but rather finding that there's one part of the movie that you enjoyed so much that you wish the entire film had been centred around that, rather than what they might have ultimately done with it. As someone who has watched a lot of films in his time, I've come across several such films, but recently I've been thinking about one in particular, and as you can probably tell from the title, that movie is the Harry Potter spin-off, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Now, I am not saying that this is a bad or unentertaining film, not by a long stretch, but there's no denying that, as I watch it, I find myself hugely enjoying a part of the story that, by the end, I realised that it didn't really want to be focusing on. That part would be the titular beasts themselves, and especially the time they have with series protagonist Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne. Title or no, this movie had, sadly, left those creatures by the wayside, choosing instead to focus on other things.

If you're unfamiliar with the series, they centre around Newt, a former Hogwarts student and lover of all magical creatures, and he's devoted his life to them. Finding them, caring for them, returning them to their natural habitat and trying to help his fellow witches and wizards understand that they're not as dangerous as they might first appear. In fact, his very presence in the USA in the first Beasts film was entirely due to this passion for the creatures of the wizarding world, as he was attempting to ensure that a thunderbird was returned to its home in Arizona. During this American trip he comes across a muggle (a non-magical person) named Jacob, whom he introduces to many of these animals, and much like the audience, Jacob is fascinated by all of the different types that Newt shows to him. This right here was something that I utterly fell in love with in this movie, seeing all of these different beasts, learning about them and seeing Newt look after them. It was an utter highlight of the story and something I always returned to first whenever I felt the need to revisit the movie. When it came to delivering on its title premise, the movie did a, and pardon the remark, fantastic job of it.

Unfortunately, despite my love for this side of the movie, the film as a whole eventually shows that it's not going to be about that. For you see, the real story at the heart of this is the establishing of the conflict regarding the antagonistic character of Grindlewald, a wizard who will ultimately serve as rival to the famous Harry Potter character, Dumbledore. In fact, the only real connection that this main story has with the beasts of the title, and even the main character of Newt, is that the latter has possession of a particular magical creature (if it can even be called that) called an Obscurus, which Grindlewald needs for his plan. And in the sequel this becomes even more apparent, because while there are indeed more magical creatures for Newt and the audience to witness, the stuff involving Grindlewald moves even more to the forefront than it did in the first movie, to the point where the titular animals aren't even involved at all in the villain's plan. In short, despite the name of this particular spin-off series, the "Fantastic Beasts" are only marginally connected to what the movie actually wants to be about, almost to the point where they're only used as an excuse to bring the audience to this villain plot-line rather than wanting it as the focus.

Now, I fully acknowledge that this could all just be personal preference on my part, rather than any objective problem with the movie myself. I have, after all, always favoured the smaller and simpler moments in fantasy stories to the big and epic ones. And this was something that applied even to the Harry Potter movies that spawned Fantastic Beasts. It wasn't the battles against Voldemort, the big mysteries of what went on in the past or Harry's role as a chosen one that engaged me with those films and books, it was the everyday goings on of his and his friends' time at Hogwarts. Leaning new spells, spending time with the other students, playing their quidditch matches, those were the things that brought me the most enjoyment. And it's exactly the same here. Give me a scene of Newt looking after his animals, and I'm smiling, but force me to watch some big plot on trying to counter Grindlewald's plan and I'm just looking at my watch. So no joke, I truly believe that this film would have been near-perfect, at least in my eyes, if they'd simply stuck to the angle of the fantastic beasts, and just jettisoned all the stuff with Grindlewald and the whole subplot of Credence, as well-acted as they might have been.

Having made my stance as clear as I have, I can already imagine a few doubts for anyone reading this. After all, watching these charterers interact with the magical creatures is all well and nice, but could an entire successful film be made out of it? Would audiences be willing to come to Fantastic Beast is it was just about fantastic beasts and nothing else? Personally, I believe they would do. Remember, despite having a big adult audience, films in this franchise are meant for children above all else, and I don't think there's any denying that weird and wonderful animals are pretty popular with them, regardless of what story we're talking about. And even if we're sticking to just general audiences, remember that Hagrid, a guy whose entire thing was his love for exotic and dangerous creatures, was one of the most popular characters in the original Harry Potter films. And not just him but a number of the animals themselves proved pretty engaging. Fluffy the three-headed dog, Fawkes the phoenix, Buckbeak the hippogriff, people just really loved these animals. So yes, I'm confident that a movie that focused entirely on the beasts would have been a success, and if nothing else it would have given people a lot to enjoy, which is always the most important thing when making movies.

I suppose, at the end of the day, my main reason for writing out all of this is not really any dissatisfaction with the movie itself, but rather the trend that seems to overshadow movies like this and others. When a story that has so much in it to just be laid-back, peaceful and nice, the people responsible for it never seem to have confidence in that niceness. It's always that they seem to think that unless the stakes are high and the story full of plot and intrigue and all of that other stuff, then people won't want to come and see the film. Simple, to put it bluntly, isn't an eye-catcher. If a movie advertises itself as just nice and relaxed and chill with something straightforward like "a man looks after animals for two hours", the people behind it likely won't think of it as a winner. And as someone who, as said before, adores the lighter and more easygoing things in movies, it's just generally disheartening to see those aspects be shoved to the wayside just because someone decided that it wasn't going to put bums in seats. Again, it's my personal preference, but I doubt I'm the only one who feels that way, nor do I feel I'm the only one who feels it about these films in particular.

Please don't take any of this to mean that I think you shouldn't enjoy this movie. And also don't think that I have a dislike of people who prefer the more complicated or high-stakes kinds of cinema. Your tastes are your own and life is too short to not just like what we like. And besides, since this movie wound up doing about as well at the box office as several of the Harry Potter films, then I have to conceded that there's an audience out there for this. I guess all this really is just me musing on what could have been, the kind of movie I wanted it to be rather than what it was. And in truth it really was a good movie. The sequel wasn't perhaps as enjoyable, but again, as I mentioned before, they did away with the beasts even more in that one, so I guess it was inevitable that I wasn't going to like it as much. But I maintain that a story that was just Newt, Jacob and their colleagues being around these extraordinary animals would have been something special. Something that would have brought me no end of joy to watch. And while I know I'll never get that movie, I suppose I can at least take solace in the fact that, in times we do indeed see those fantastic beasts, they were the best parts of the movie 😊

#essay #writing #my stuff #fantastic beasts #fantastic beasts and where to find them #newt scamander #harry potter

[shimikonde]

Romeo and Juliet and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Return of the King pt. 2/5 (4th light novel, pg 86-95)

Sorry for the wait!! But I finally got this finished. :) Thank you to @imitationpersonne for doing the proof reading!! u guys would all be getting such drivel otherwise.

first part available right here

Holding her hands together as if praying, Shiozaki muttered to herself while standing in the wing, “I am the spirit of the ring… I am the spirit of the ring…” Shiozaki’s role was that of the spirit living inside the legendary ring. It would be some time before her debut, but she seemed to be getting into character.

Kaibara, who was standing next to her, attempted to ease her tension. “You’ll be fine, Shiozaki. You’ve already got the spirit look down.”

“Thank you. However, it’s not a question of how I look. What’s important is that I’m able to understand the spirit’s heart…  Would it possess a heart of compassion, like a divine messenger, or would it have the simple innocence of one loved by nature…?”

Behind Shiozaki, Pony and Shishida Juurouta, who where changing into their beast suits, spoke up.

“Shiozaki’s the type who gets toootally absorbed in her role. The three of us practiced a bunch!”

“In order to fully become a fairy, Ms. Shiozaki has been waking up early to pray to the spirits of the forest. Accordingly, so as to become hippogriffs, we envoys of the spirit have also been wildly patrolling the forests.”

“Ahh, so that’s how that rumor about the weird noises coming out of the woods early in the morning started.” Tsuburaba said, as if he’d just realized, to which Juurouta and Pony both voiced their apologies.

“Oh, was there such a rumor?”

“Sorryyy!”

Turning back toward them, Honenuki said, “It’s just about time we put you-know-what on standby in the back.”

“Oh, you mean that surprising one!”

“I feel somewhat reluctant to do this to our honored guests, who have come all the way here to watch us perform, however…”

“Surprises are just another part of showbiz. Now...”

Lacking the others’ enthusiasm, Shiozaki took Pony and Juurouta with her behind the set. Tokage, Kuroiro, Tsuburaba, and Rin Hiryuu all quietly slipped out along with them, full of excitement.

Honenuki called out to them. “Everyone, I’m counting on you.”

“Names and natures do often agree, as they say.” Rin grinned, before disappearing down the pathway.

“Good luck, everyone…” Tetsutetsu cheered, using all of his strength to whisper.

Honenuki watched them for a moment, and then looked at Kodai, who was getting a mike check from Komori in the back.

“Kodai, you’re almost up.”

“Mmhm.”

“She’s finished! The perfect heroine!”

“Oooh!” let out Tetsutetsu and Bondo Kojiro as they appreciated her handiwork.

“Ufufu.” Komori giggled, puffing out her chest in pride. She’d chosen a simple one-piece-style dress to highlight the natural purity of Kodai’s features. This was somewhat hindered by her expressionless face, but that also helped to add to her aura of mystery.

Even if she didn’t do or say a lot, Kodai was the type of person who drew the eyes. While poor at expressing herself, she exuded beauty just by existing, and it was for that reason she was chosen to be the heroine. She wasn’t much of a talker normally, so they’d also done their best to ensure she didn’t have many lines.

“Aah, why must the stomach hunger? Meat…. I want to eat meat…. I can’t go any further as long as I don’t eat meat…”

“But my prince, this forest is said to be inhabited by demons… There isn’t a single animal.”

“That’s right! Now that you mention it… There it is! When I left, I stored a bit of dried meat in the bottom of my bag to use as emergency rations!”

“Hand it over! Your prince orders you!”

“But… Even so, is that something a prince should say?!”

“Shut up! An empty stomach makes a fiend of everyone, even a prince!”

“Wha—to point your sword as us…!”

“Before, you said that an empty stomach could even turn a prince into a fiend… Very well. In that case, let us take up arms, one human to another. Come, my prince! It’s a battle, with the dried meat as the wager!”

“Argh!”

On the stage, a sword fight to the death between two men on the edge had begun. At first glance, it seemed only to be a terrible dispute caused by people nearing starvation, but it actually held much deeper meaning, challenging the notion of loyalty amongst men. The fierce clashing of their swords reverberating through the hall and the lighting brought the scene to its climax, leaving the audience breathless as they watched the fight unfold.

In the end, after the prince’s inevitable loss, the two split the dried meat equally between themselves, tearfully discovering true friendship for the first time.

“Who knew that dried meat could taste so delicious…” the prince said, still sobbing. “Not even Gondor’s specialties, Spring Breeze Grilled Robin or Hangnail Crocodile Steak, can even come close to comparing to this delicacy…! Aah, please forgive me! I’ve been so foolish up until now…!”

“I don’t think I shall.”

“Wha-”

“Unless you swear to become a splendid king, I shan’t forgive you.”

“Alright. I’ll swear it, here and now. I will definitely become a splendid king worthy of Gondor. And when I do, I swear that my people’s bellies will always be full—that I shall bring them happiness!”

In response to the young prince’s proclamation to set his eyes on the future, the venue, unbidden, erupted in applause. Seeing Monoma’s face had begun to dawn a nasty smirk in response to it, Nirengeki ad libbed, “Well, then, my prince! Let us continue on our journey!” as he forcibly pulled him away.

“I wonder what you’re doing, in the middle of my scene?”

Turning their backs to the audience as if continuing down the forest path, Monoma voiced his opposition in a low whisper.

Nirengeki replied, just as quietly, “We’ve finally captured the audience’s hearts, but I doubt they’re going to want to root for a prince that makes that sort of awful expression.”

“Nice ad lib, Nirengeki,” Awase said in whisper.

Monoma still didn’t look entirely satisfied, but he put on a smile as he looked back to the front of the stage.

“Now, it’s time for Juliet to make her appearance.”

Kodai-as-Juliet came onto stage, riding atop a giant rock wall set piece.

“Someone, help me…!”

Immediately following Kodai’s cry for help, an enormous dragon flew out from behind her.

“Ahhh!”

Under the spotlights, the dragon looked almost real as it soared all the way out over the audience, making them shout in surprise. As Kodai jumped down from the rock wall, Monoma caught her, saying, “Watch out!”

“It’s a dragon!”

“Run for it!”

As Nirengeki and Awase spoke, they helped Monoma and Kodai right themselves.

“Hurry, over here!”

“Yes.”

The lights dimmed around four of them as they ran away, and when they came back on the dragon had moved so that it was flying right beside the audience seating. Again, the lights dimmed and came back on, this time moving the dragon behind the audience, and then once more, the dragon lunging down at them from above. Shiozaki and company, controlling the dragon with their quirks, timed its movements carefully with the lighting. Further adding to the atmosphere, scales from Rin’s quirk, Scales, fluttered down from the dragon with every motion.

Voices of astonishment and excitement could be heard amongst the crowd’s continuous chatter. Honenuki nodded to himself as he heard their responses. “Okay.” He wanted to let himself bathe in the simple happiness of the audience enjoying themselves just as they’d planned, but it was the stage director’s job to ensure that the stage moved along without the slightest delay. With a moderate amount of joy, Honenuki sent the next cue over the radio.

“Lightning in six, five, four, three… now.”

In the next moment, lightning flashed across the stage, and the dragon’s roars faded into the distance. The auditorium finally quieted again as the soft sound of dripping water came from the stage. A dim light shined over the corner of it, where Monoma and Kodai sat. The scene had been written that the two of them had gotten separated from Frodo and Sam while running from the dragon.

“Thank you very much for saving me.”

“It was nothing… I’m Romeo. Why on earth were you being chased by a dragon?”

“…”

“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine… But, if you could at least tell me one thing: what’s your name?”

“…Juliet.”

“…Only now I realize just what an ignorant life I’ve lived. To think that I didn’t even know the name of the most beautiful person in the world…”

Watching the two as they gazed into one another’s eyes from the wing, Tetsutetsu, mustering all of his strength to whisper, said, “Leave it to Monoma… I’m impressed he can say such an embarrassing line with a straight face…”

“Phew, it’s so romantic!” Komori sighed, standing beside him and watching on with rosy cheeks. Team Dragon Flight, having quietly returned, also gathered around.

On stage, Monoma gasped and made a face as if he’d just realized something.

“Juliet…? I could’ve sworn I’d heard that name before… If I remember correctly, that was the name of the Rohan’s princess, the kingdom that has been engaging in hostility against my Gondor for years… Juliet… It couldn’t be, you are… Rohan’s…?”

Kodai bobbed her head in a quick nod. Tragic music played as a spotlight trained on the shocked Monoma, who staggered to the center of the stage.

“…Juliet… Oh, Juliet, Juliet…! Wherefore art thou Juliet! What a cruel fate god has cast upon us…! That the person who would steal my first love would be the princess of an enemy country… God? Ha! You’re no god, but a demon that uses his name! What enjoyment do you get from eating away at my poor heart?! I curse you! I shall send all of the lovers in this world to hell…! May all the love in the world burn away to nothingness! Hahahaha! Ahahaha!”

The audience swallowed as they watched Monoma’s ghastly performance.

“I guess Monoma’s really best at acting out these kinds of hopeless characters, after all.”

As Togake voiced her observation, Rin retorted, “Can you really call that acting? More like he’s just showing his true nature. He’s totally into it.”

The maddened laughter filled the auditorium and made the entire room chill over. In the middle of this penetrating coldness, Kodai gently grabbed Monoma’s hand, staring straight at him.

“…You can’t burn it.”

Her words drifted through the silence left in the wake of Romeo’s madness, and in that moment everyone in the room fell for her.  

Monoma seemed to crumble down on himself, looking repentant. After a pause, he said, “I really was ignorant. There may be no god in this world, but beside me sits an angel…”

Then, as if spellbound, he muttered to her, “In this dark cave, your eyes are like ancient treasures that have been long since hidden away. Their dignified beauty makes my heart quiver, like glittering lapis lazuli…! Your hair, as soft as silk, makes me uneasy—for it seems as if it might melt away into the darkness. Your skin, smooth like ivory, is dangerous… If I were to reach out and touch it, I’m afraid that I would never be able to retrieve my hand.”

“…”

“Aah, I know. If I did that, the two of us would never be able to part again… But, even so, I want you to know how this chest of mine quivers! My heart is screaming that this is fate, and I would tear it from my chest if it would only prove to you my love! If I die, so be it! I don’t care if you’re the princess of an enemy country! To me, you are…”

As Monoma said this, a ring fell from his pocket, and he gasped.

“Ah…! But I have something that I must do… I must search for the king…! To choose between you and my duties is impossible!” He paused. “Wait. Who was the one who said I had to chose? It was me! It seems I’ve misunderstood. If I can’t chose one, then I should choose both! Juliet, right now I’m on a journey, but when I get back I intend on becoming a splendid king. I promise you that I’ll right the relationship between our countries. Let’s become a couple who can bring peace and prosperity to our people! Please, would you be my queen…?”

“…”

After taking a long while to think, Kodai gave a short nod of her head.

“My dear… I pledge my love to you now, with this ring…”

Monoma wrapped Kodai in a sudden, tight hug. In the audience, the girls let out dreamy sighs, while jealous mutterings could be heard coming from the guys. There was even a commotion in the wings, where Pony and Komori amongst others squealed softly at the scene. Beside them, Kaibara looked at Kodai’s expression and snickered wryly.

“Kodai could really stand to look a little bit happier.”

Tokage followed up, “This is already the best Yui can manage, though.”

Without looking from the stage, Honenuki said, “…No, on the contrary, her lack of expression makes the audience think that she’s a heroine with a secret. It’s just as Monoma said.”

The audience were all fixated on the expressionless Kodai. Monoma was a guy who, if it was for the class he loved, could put all priority on stage direction. His personality was a bit abnormal, but the fact that he’d gotten into UA at all was proof of his competency.

Nirengeki-as-Frodo and Awase-as-Sam joined the two of them on stage. However, upon seeing Romeo completely enraptured with Juliet, they couldn’t help but be suspicious of her.

“…It’s almost my turn…” Dressed up in a cape, Tetsutetsu came up beside Honenuki.

“Go destroy that sappy atmosphere!”

“Make them despise you!”

As Kaibara, Tsuburaba, and all the others cheered him on, Tetsutetsu burst onto stage at Honenuki’s cue. He swept Kodai-as-Juliet into his arms like the wind and took in a deep breath, opening his mouth.

“I’m taking back my property!!!”

part 3

#bnha #bnha light novel #class 1b #sorry for the cliffhanger

[buzzdixonwriter]

Gene Autry's Horse

Peter David recently posted a short essay on the current brouhaha over Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola saying the Marvel movies aren’t real cinema, not genuine works of art, but just “thrill rides”.

Before going further, let me state my unabashed respect and admiration for Peter David.  He’s a creator who certainly earned his spurs, he has a massive body of work, he is an all around mensch, and his opinion is hard earned and well informed.

Except in this case, his conclusions are wrong.

To prove my point, let me ask Peter a question:

What was the name of Gene Autry’s horse?

Those of you wondering what Gene’s horse has to do with the Marvel cinematic universe (hence MCU), my explanation is this: The single largest genre of films made before 1960 were Westerns.

Add to that television programs, where Westerns remained a staple until the mid-1970s.

And radio shows.

And pulp novels.

And comic books.

They were the definitive American movie genre from 1903’s The Great Train Robbery until Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid drove a stake through the heart of the standard genre offering in 1969.

There are some who claim Blazing Saddles did the genre in, but Westerns had endured numerous comedy and parody versions in the past.

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid killed the Western as a popular genre by simply having Butch and Sundance do the most logical thing at the first sign of danger, the thing the real Butch and Sundance did in real life:  They ran away.

And thus a genre trope was forever slain…

This is not to say they’ve never made another film that falls into the broad category of “Western”, but there’s no audience clamor for more of the genre.

Westerns are now simply historical films set in the American west during the period from the fall of the Alamo (1836) to Arizona becoming a state (1912).

There are films that employ Western genre tropes that take place in the contemporary era (Road House and Extreme Prejudice to name two) or transplant the Western genre to other lands (Sukiyaki Western Django and Tampopo, f’r instance), but as a genre it is dead-dead-DEAD.

Yet at one time, Westerns were so popular that not only did everybody know the name of Gene Autry’s horse, but said horse starred in his own TV series!

So what happened?

Well, several things.

I could cite the changing audience in America, going from 80% rural prior to WWII to 80% urban / suburban after WWII (with a corresponding rise in detective and spy genres, as well as sci-fi), or I could cite a huge glut of material made even more accessible by television, but the truth is this:  The overwhelming bulk of American Westerns were nothing but product.

It was actually built into the genre.  I’ve been trying to locate the original essay, but a scholarly study some years back concluded only 8 basic plot conflicts drove Western stories, and only 17 stock characters carried said stories (they can be good, bad, or neutral characters, effectively tripling their number).

The essay went on to liken American Westerns to Japanese noh or kabuki dramas:  Far from familiarity of material being a problem, audiences came expecting certain tropes and stock characters, and gained their enjoyment from how well said tropes and characters were presented.

Sound familiar?

This is not to say there weren’t films that fell into the Western genre that also aspired to art, but you either had to be a Hollywood heavy hitter to get a chance at making a film like that or, at the tail end of the genre, flying so low under the radar that nobody recognized what you were doing until you did it.

Does that sound familiar?

But the overwhelming majority of Westerns, while possessing technical craftsmanship, were just product:  So many feet of gunfights. So many reels of stampedes.

Big budget A-picture or bare bones B-movie, they all fell into the same general patterns, and studios, large or small, promoted them the same way.

And audiences were fine with this.  Tom Mix, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans frequently wound up among the top 10 box office draws in Hollywood during their careers.

Where are those Westerns now?

I’m a big fan of old B-Westerns, having grown up with them on TV as a kid, and know a fair amount about the personalities and production companies involved, seeking out B-Westerns on Amazon Prime and YouTube and the multi-pack bargain bins at big box stores.

How many of today’s superhero fans could identify William Boyd or Red Barry or Rocky Lane or Buck Jones?

They might remember hearing the names of Roy Rogers or Gene Autry since those stars were involved in mainstream marketing such as fast food restaurants or baseball teams (and Autry donated a museum to Los Angeles that’s named after him), but how many have actually seen any of their movies?

We have two competing superhero universes today, DCU and MCU.

Where are the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents movies?  How come there’s no Dr. Solar or Brain Boy or Magnus, Robot Fighter films?

Answer:  No large corporation stand to make billions promoting those characters and licensing them to toys, video games, vitamin, and Underoos.

Corporations possess no sense of integrity to the original creators’ concepts.  They will change things in the blink of an eye if they think it will boost their profit margin.  They’ll promote the silliest and the most self-damaging ideas if they think it will make them a few extra bucks today.

Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman succeeded at DC bcause nobody there cared what the creators did so long as they turned their work in on time.

Product.

Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and Jim Steranko blazed exciting new trails at Marvel because Martin Goodman couldn’t have cared less what they were doing so long as they delivered on schedule and under budget.

Product.

They flew under the radar.  They worked in a fast and grungy fashion, knocking the books out as quickly as they could.

To amuse themselves they trafficked in big ideas, eccentric art, outre stories.

That it caught on and blazed a new trail proved a combination of talent and luck.

There was no similar boom for romance comics or nurse comics or Western comics during the same period.

Right now the MCU movies are riding high and they are made with a great deal of technical care and they are amusing and entertaining.

So were Westerns.

MCU movies aim at too specialized an audience.  They appeal to this generation, but there’s no guarantee they’ll appeal to the next.

Indeed, there’s a strong argument that the next generation will reject the previous generation’s entertainment simply because it’s…well…theirs.

The films of Coppola and Scorsese will be watched.

They’re not product.

Oh, there were financed to make money, sure enough, but they were financed to make money by expressing the director’s personal taste and vision.

Further, they tend to transcend genre.

Yeah, two generations from now people who really love gangster movies will probably look up The Godfather and GoodFellas.

But people who love film, people who love art will be watching them as well.

They’ll also watch Public Enemy and Little Caesar, but unless they’re film buffs with specialized tastes, they’re going to skip the dozens of “programmers” cranked out in the 1930s to satisfy fans of that genre.

And the reason?  The Godfather and GoodFellas and Public Enemy and Little Caesar transcend their genres.

They are about people, not thrills and chills.

Consider classic Universal horror films.

James Whale & co. snuck one bona fide brilliant work of art past Carl Laemmle with Bride Of Frankenstein but after that the brakes clamped down hard and fast.

Uncle Carl couldn’t have geniuses running around doing whatever they felt like, thus risking the audience for Universal’s product.

Consistent mediocrity is better than risky genius in the eyes of the corporations.

The classic Universal monsters?  Reduced to The Munsters now; familiar icons, to be sure, but empty jokes, shadows of their former selves.

Replaced by newer monsters who in turn have been replaced by newer monster who in turn have been replaced by newer monsters and who will be replaced by newer monsters still.

‘Twas ever thus.

I begrudge the enjoyment no nobody who enjoys MCU movies.

Have fun.  Knock yourselves out.

But never mistake popcorn for caviar.

    © Buzz Dixon

  Champion was the name of Gene Autry’s horse.

#Peter David #Marvel #superheroes #movies #B-Westerns #Gene Autry #Champion the Wonder Horse #MCU #Francis Coppola #Martin Scorsese

[frederator-studios]

Graham McTavish: The Frederator Interview

At the moment, Graham McTavish is in Malta getting his head torn off by a Werewolf. Jack Bauer once rammed a fire poker through his chest then slit his throat. He’s been set on fire, drowned, strangled, stabbed, speared, knifed, shot - not to mention, kneed in the balls, punched in the face, even slammed over the back with a log by an over-eager young performer. All in a day’s work for the Scottish actor, who’s played the baddest of baddies on a slew of excellent dramas-with-a-twist, from Preacher to Outlander, 24 to Castlevania. But Graham himself doesn’t view his characters as ‘villains’ - just passionate, complex people, of which Dracula (though he’d resent to be called “human”) is the embodiment. Read on for Graham’s take on playing one of literature’s most iconic, dangerous anti-heroes—from the relative safety of a recording studio.

Are you in LA long?

I’m flying out tonight actually, back to New Zealand. My kids are there, so I split my time. I’m doing Lucifer at the moment for Netflix as well as Castlevania, so I had to come back for a day, yesterday - I flew back just for that. (wow whaaa?) Yeah. I do a lot of traveling, but even for me that’s insane! It’s also unusual for the scheduling to work out perfectly, which it does the next few months. I have an episode gap now, then in October, I do a film in Malta, and the day that wraps, come back to LA to finish Lucifer, and the day after that, fly to Canada to do a film with Willem Dafoe about the Iditarod. I’ve got to learn how to mush a dog sled.

That’s awesome. It’s like getting sponsored to learn a cool obscure skill.

It’s definitely a nice side effect of being an actor. What other job would allow you to learn how to mush a dog sled, unless you were actually becoming a professional dog sled musher? It’ll be great.

How is it for you to switch between characters, with so little time between roles sometimes?

It really depends on your approach to acting. I approach from the point of view of a child. I have two young children, and the great thing about being that age, is they can switch from one thing to another in an instant. Very fluid. I think because I’ve never trained as an actor, I can see work as play. Some actors live as a cobbler for 5 years to play a cobbler, and that’s what works for them. Personally, I pretend. When I'm mushing dogs, I will give the illusion that I really know what I'm doing. That’s what acting is: an illusion that the audience willingly participates in. And everybody is complicit.

You didn’t have professional training?

No. I used to write comic sketches at school with a friend of mine, and we didn't trust anybody else to perform them, so we did. The Drama teacher at school asked me on many occasions to be in a play, but I always said no. Then on one occasion, he asked me to step into a play called “The Rivals” by Sheridan, filling in for an actor who’d fallen ill three days before the production was due to be performed. I said yes. To this day, I have no idea why I agreed. But I did the play, and was of course bitten by the acting bug.

After that, a local Dramatics company asked me to join them, so I did amateur theatre for a year. Then I attended Queen Mary College London University and majored in English literature. I was lucky enough to have a professor who loved Shakespeare and Jacobean drama, and he cast me in all of those plays. As an English Lit major, I was doing two or three Shakespeare plays a year, performing roles that I never would have been given if I'd been at Drama School. I'm not against it, but I don't think it's for everyone. I got my union card in Britain after doing a Beckett play, and then just started working professionally. I also did a lot of Repertory Theatre in the UK, which I think is a great training ground for actors. So it was all slightly accidental, the case with a lot of people.

How did you choose to play Dracula? What about that part compelled you?

I played him onstage once, a great experience. Dracula is the sort of character people love guiltily. If you get the opportunity to play that, it's a no-brainer. Just reading Bram Stoker’s book, your sympathy is with Dracula, in many ways. You live the story through him. It's such a wonderful ride to be playing a man whose been alive for hundreds and hundreds of years. Dracula plays to our secret desires, our secret fears. I think in all of us, there is a fascination with the idea of living forever. Fear of living forever, and fear of death; the Dracula myth plays on that edge. It’s so powerful because it takes something that we all have to face one day and says, what if you didn’t? But in gaining immortality, you lose something very important. Dracula is very enviable in some ways, but is also deeply sad and tragic.

How is it, playing tragic characters?

Among the few advantages of getting older is you have more life experience, including with tragedy. It’s inevitable. And you can draw on those memories. But you can also draw on your fears as well. I did a scene in Outlander, toward the end, where my brother is dying. I thought of my own father, and all the things I never said to him. Those emotions definitely informed that scene. When tragedy and death and loss touch your life, you carry those feelings into your future.

Are you an animation fan?

I love animation, I grew up with it. Along with books, it was my first experience of storytelling. Cartoons, as we called them; they fired my childhood imagination. It’s like how we were talking earlier, about children, and the profundity of animation to them. The first film I saw in a theatre was Walt Disney’s Peter Pan. I was five and had no question that those characters were real. To such an extent that when they took the posters down at the cinema, I got upset. I was like, “But where’s Peter? Where’s he gone?” Because I thought Peter lived in the cinema. I still get absorbed into great pieces of animation, when the artistry is powerful, and it’s part of my attraction to doing animated work. And this show, Castlevania, is particularly beautiful.

How were you introduced to the project, and did you have expectations going in?

I knew it was going to be great. I was recording Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when the Voice and Casting Director, Meredith Layne, pulled me aside. She said she was on a project and couldn’t tell me much, but she thought I’d be a fit, and would I like to be considered? Meredith has great taste, so I said “Of course” and sent in a tape. And when I heard that Warren Ellis was the writer, that was a huge attraction. I love his comic book work, and fiction as well. The Crooked Little Vein is one of my favorite books. Really, it couldn’t not be great, and the more I learned of the creative team behind it, the more sure I was. Everything put into the show - the casting, directing, producing, animation - elevates it so hugely above anything comparable. I love that it occupies this unique space.

What do you feel Castlevania’s Dracula uniquely brings to the character?

It’s his being human that makes it so interesting. When I portrayed Dracula onstage, there was no suggestion that that version of him felt love, or experienced empathy. But in this production, a woman, Lisa, takes him by surprise. She makes him feel, and turns his life around. I love that, because everybody can relate. You think your life is one way, then you meet someone who changes everything, opens your life up, makes you think about it differently - and makes it more enjoyable to be alive. And since Dracula is essentially dead, that irony is very clever.

Do you have a favorite representation of vampires in Media?

I'm a little biased, but I love the portrayal of Cassidy by Joe Gilgun in Preacher. It’s so unconventional. Herzog’s Nosferatu springs to mind, just incredible. Gary Oldman’s Dracula is wonderful. And I loved Let the Right One In, the original Swedish version. It’s genius. It took something familiar as a vampire story and gave it a whole new spin.

You work so much in the fantasy genre - is that purposeful?

Oh yeah. I love the variety. I've been a Viking, a Roman - twice - after always dreaming of playing one, I got to be one for a whole year. Growing up in the UK, you never imagine yourself getting to be a cowboy. On the first season of Preacher, there was a scene I rode into a western town: the whole duster coat with the Stetson guns, surrounded by horses and wagon trains, all the paraphernalia. I had to look cool and unbothered. I wanted to jump up and down in excitement. I was so, pathetically excited. I did a season of 24, and I’d been a huge fan. Every day I’d go up to the producers telling them I was a huge fan. After a while, they’d say, “Yeah, great, we get it. You like the show. You’re in it now, so if you could just be the character that’d be great.”

And I still get a pathetically childish enjoyment out of playing Dracula. What kid doesn’t want to play Dracula?! I once talked to Lance Henriksen, and he said one of the reasons he went into acting was to be thousands of people. You get to be a cowboy and a vampire and a dog musher and a Highlander in the 18th century and a dwarf in Middle Earth. I'd definitely rather do any of that than put on a suit and do a courtroom scene. Not that I wouldn’t! I’ve just never been asked. No one’s ever looked at me and said, “Let’s cast him as The Dad.”

Have you ever played a “Castlevania” game?

I am a terrible game player.

But, but - your voice is in like every game of the past decade!

Yes, I have done loads of video games. I did a franchise called “Uncharted”. Award-winning; incredibly popular. Never played them. I played one game years ago with my friend, called “Gears of War”. I was so bad at it. I'm the guy that shoots in a circle around his feet. I’m useless at them.

Your character's bad-assery makes up for it. Anything to say to fans of the show, in advance of season two?

I just really hope you enjoy it and get carried along with the story and and want to see more. That’s always the greatest thing, if you can get the fans to clamor for more ❀

Follow Graham on Twitter and Instagram

Thank you for the interview Graham! Without a doubt, you’re the kindest chronic bad guy I’ve come across. 

- Cooper ❀

(Craving another CV interview? Read Richard Armitage’s here.)

#The Frederator Interview #graham mctavish #castlevania #castlevania netflix #dracula #outlander #preacher #24 #uncharted #the hobbit #interview #actor #netflix #season 2 #frederator

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Reader Viewer Gamer Spy

Ok, maybe not that last one, but anyway...

If you've hung around this blog long enough, you've likely noticed that I tend to talk about "stories" more often than books, and that I use games, manga, and movies as well as written works to discuss writing concepts. This is because I think all those stories, in whatever medium, have something interesting to say, or something worth examining. Yet there exists no decent word for a person such as myself, a lover of stories, if you will.

Labels and Categories

I'm not one to say "I don't like labels", but I do find them lacking sometimes, usually because there aren't enough of them, or they're not broad enough

For example, I'm obviously a nerd and a geek, in that I like nerdy, geeky things. I enjoy learning and research and school, which I would put under the "nerd" category, and I like superheroes and fantasy/sci-fi and comics, which are decidedly "geek". But these don't include my love of books—not all nerds are bookworms—nor my obsessive devotion to anime and manga in particular. I guess “weeb” might be a subsection of geek? I don’t know. Whatever the case, neither nerd nor geek are satisfactory to my quest for the perfect word to describe myself.

And what would you call someone who loves movies as much as a bookworm loves books? A filmworm? (Can we please just make this a thing?). There are terms like “film enthusiast” and “cinephile”, but I think these imply a knowledge of movie-making or a love of niche and cult films that I don’t necessarily have. At the same time, though, I’m not just a casual movie-goer. I really like movies, and thinking about movies, and talking about movies. Why isn’t there a word for that?

Stereotypes from Without

Perhaps the reason there isn’t a word specifically for someone who’s into movies or comics the way there is for those who love books is due to stereotyping. There are people who look down on us movie-watching, game-playing plebeians, so people have been trained to think that liking comics is dorky, or that liking movies is for filthy casuals.

Geeks, I think, have been fighting against this, reclaiming the word for themselves, so to speak. They’ve done a fairly good job at making geekery mainstream, and yet large numbers of people still aren't onboard. For example, the writers of The Big Bang Theory have long labored under the impression that liking Star Wars is a geeky, niche interest. Star Wars! Was that ever niche, even when it came out in the 70s? Even if it was then, it certainly isn’t now. Yet this stupid idea that Star Wars was only for geeks, specifically geek men, is how we ended up with the debacle that is Disney’s new trilogy aimed at a “larger” audience—by which they meant all seven people in the world who didn’t already like Star Wars.

A subsection of geeks fighting the good fight for more recognition is the gamers, and yet this group is not without its stereotypes. Sometimes, this is through innocent ignorance: my sister and I were geeking out over the plot of Okami in the break room of a Catholic school were she worked and one of the nuns asked, tentatively, “Video games have stories?”. She seemed happy to learn that they do, but this illustrates the point that not every non-gamer knows what video games have to offer, so of course they might not consider games in the same category as books or films.

Then there are worse stereotypes. A coworker of mine pooh-poohed video games because, amongst other things, they “don’t promote social interaction”. My coworker, remember, is a librarian... in a library... full of books. When you read a book, that’s six or more hours of being by yourself, reading. You might choose to go to a bookclub or talk to a friend about it, but that is hardly part of the reading experience. Games, on the other hand, often have two-player or online mode. My younger brother is constantly playing games and constantly talking to his friends over Discord while doing so. One time, he was playing a single player game while his friend from out of state was playing the same single player game, and they were talking to each other about it over headphones. Obviously, this isn’t true for all games and gamers (I myself like single-player, offline games), but to act as if games are socially isolating in comparison to books is just inaccurate.

Stereotypes from Within

Speaking of books, the label with the most baggage, in my opinion, is bookworm. It’s not non-bookworms who are the ones responsible for this stereotyping, but the book lovers themselves.

What stereotypes am I talking about? For starters, the stereotype that in order to be a bookworm, you should sneer at other types of media. “The book was better” is something often lobbed at movies. I usually agree with that; the movies of Harry Potter, Something Wicked this Way Comes, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Phantom of the Opera, Public Enemies, and every iteration of Sherlock Holmes pale in comparison to their source material. But some movies are just as good as the book they are based on. This may be because the movie captures the essence of the book, like The Princess Bride, Anne of Green Gables,  or Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (the 1951 version), or it may be due to the movie deviating from the book but still being equally enjoyable, as is the case with The Secret of NIMH / Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and most of Disney's fairytale adaptations. And some movies—and I know my bookworm card might get revoked for saying this—are better than the books, including The Great Mouse Detective, Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Last Unicorn, and And Then There Were None.

“Heresy!” cry the bookworms, but why? Aren’t people allowed to like and dislike whatever stories they want? And that’s stereotype number two, which is never encountering a book you don’t like. I usually find this with English majors, some librarians and library patrons, and bookstagramers who take pretty pictures of objectively bad books (I know I just said people can like what they want, but let’s be honest, nobody liked The Casual Vacancy, probably not even J.K. Rowling). It’s almost like, to be a bookworm, you can’t have a taste for certain books and not others. Or rather, you can’t act as if some books are just, you know, not good. Such bookworms fret about libraries weeding books from their collections, but as someone who used to do that as a volunteer, I can tell you, some books are bad. They might be badly written, or boring, or cringey, or whatever (and that’s why they don’t circulate for years on end, and that’s why they get weeded). The point is, it’s okay to not like certain books, and doing so should not make one any less of a bookworm.

The stereotypes go on and on, and I can’t relate to any of them. “Books are better than clothes”; but I really like fashion. “I can’t resist buying new books when I’m in a bookstore”; it’s nice that you have all that disposable income, but I’ll settle for borrowing books and scouring the free shelf. “I remember staying up late at night as a child with a flashlight under my covers”; I wasn’t a big reader as a kid, but that didn’t make me less into stories. And, of course, “I’d rather be reading,” not daydreaming, or watching movies, or getting lost in the world of a game, because you can apparently only get lost in a book.

I know I sound bitter, and that’s because I am. I love books, but books are not the height of human storytelling, nor its primordial form. Poems, songs, and plays all predated writing, and as for novels, those didn't come about until the 11th century in Asia and the 1400s in Europe. Sure, movies and video games are a lot younger, but that doesn't make them any less valuable, unless you believe that books are less valuable than plays and poems.

Let me say it again, in case my non-bookwormish statements have made any of you doubt: I love books. But I also love games. And movies. And comics. Basically, I love stories. I’m a story enthusiast. Why isn’t there a word for that? Daydreamer? Fantast? Storyworm?

I suppose the word isn’t as important as the concept I’m trying to explain. Books and movies and games and plays are all amazing, each in different ways. So why do we have to denigrate some forms of storytelling or act like some are better than others? I can see personally preferring one type of media to another, but if you totally eschew one of them because of some silly stereotype, I think you’ll miss out on a lot of amazing stories.

Thus, in the next few weeks, I’m going to try to convince you, dear reader, or viewer, or gamer, (or spy?) that each of the four main storytelling media—books, plays and television, comics, and video games—each have something unique to offer, and are worthy of a place in the hearts and minds of all story-loving people. Stay tuned!

#bookworms #geek #nerd #labels #bookworm #geeks #nerds #stereotypes #stereotyping #stereotype #gamer #gamers #geekery #self-identity #self-identification

[theinquisitivej]

‘Secret Rooms’ Definitive Edition – A New Century Review

Available on Kindle on Amazon.

Available as an audio series on Bandcamp.

When I first reviewed the original edition of Secret Rooms back in early 2017, I thought it was a solid instalment in this alternate history series of fictional stories. I enjoyed the mix of genres, the variety of conflicts the characters found themselves in, and the balance of humour and more intimate moments where characters went into their experiences with grief. At the time, I saw it as an enjoyable story that is somewhat overshadowed by some of the later instalments in the series which were getting better and better with each book. Having said that, my review for Secret Rooms is still full of the many positives I found in the original edition of the book which make it a great read and/or listen. I stand by everything I said back then, and you can read all of it here.

         But things sure have changed since that review. New Century has had two new entries with The Christmas Thieves and Let Them Go, and Secret Rooms has been bolstered with a brand-new Definitive Edition. This new edition adds extra chapters, some re-recorded lines, and just more content that helps this early story in the series stand up with the rest of the impressive entries in New Century. It’s not a radical transformation, but this expansion on the original story makes the narrative feel more complete, more thematically resonant, and just as polished as the other standouts of New Century like Arlington, Tiger’s Eye, and Let Them Go. If you’ve been following me, you’ll know that I’ve been writing up each of the new chapters of this edition which have been collected into a new short-storyline called Weirwood. You can read my detailed thoughts on these chapters here, here, here, and here. What I aim to do with this review is to lay down a string of observations that I noticed while listening to this Definitive Edition and re-experiencing the story of Secret Rooms. If you want a spoiler-free review of the story, the original review absolutely has you covered. If the story sounds like your cup of tea, check out the Definitive Edition, and once you’ve enjoyed it, and you will enjoy it, come back here and we can sit down and talk about the book together.

         As I’ve mentioned before, there are moments in this story which seem to take influence from Mass Effect. Encounters are self-contained and varied, making the world of the Reunified States of America feel more alive and unpredictable. There’s also a sense with each of them that, whatever our protagonists decide to do, there are half a dozen other possible outcomes that might have occurred if they had gone left instead of right. Characters discuss their options, and the different suggestions will rarely be unreasonable or entirely without merit. There’s no clear answer to how each of the problems they’re confronted with ought to be resolved, so the story of Secret Rooms is very much about a group of people trying their best to do the right thing and help as many people as possible. A lot of the time, that means making choices that aren’t guaranteed to lead to the best outcome. A lot of the time, they simply have to take a leap of faith and hope that it will be for the best.

         Speaking of Mass Effect, you could summarise parts of Secret Rooms as a charismatic badass female leader recruiting a number of striking personalities in order to accomplish a seemingly impossible task. Yes, I am comparing Annie Oakley in New Century to FemShep, and I find her sentiment that the world isn’t going to get any better unless we step outside and make it better inspiring. In contrast to how Arlington pitches Annie against unpredictable and overwhelming forces that render her practically powerless, Secret Rooms shows Annie in her most impressive light. What makes the story of this book as compelling as it is then is that, after Annie is established to be the ideal image of a Cartographer, she passes the responsibility of decision-making to Abigail for the duration of their excursion together which makes up a good portion of the narrative. At first, this is done to give Abigail a taste of what it’s like to be confronted with a difficult situation so that she can appreciate what is required of being a Cartographer. Once they arrive at the House of Versteckt, however, Annie is forced to leave James and Abigail to fend for themselves as she rides to gather reinforcements. This is James and Abigail’s greatest test, and after making it through, they’re changed forever. Secret Rooms is the story of these two capable yet inexperienced characters and their journey to find their own way as they set out from their familiar home and are cast into completely uncharted territory. Having Annie play an important supporting role as this accomplished Cartographer supervising these two new recruits provides a safety blanket for the first part of the story, but once we enter the final act and the two are left alone, our protagonists seem unbearably vulnerable.

         I’ve already discussed the accomplishments of the additional chapters as an emotionally affecting story-thread within this new edition of the book, but it must be stressed that these chapters aren’t just a tacked-on short story. The new chapters are integrated into the existing structure of Secret Rooms seamlessly, and they even reinforce some of the key story-beats and themes of the original text. After we’ve seen half of the people of New Athens leave for dangerous lands in spite of Abigail’s best efforts to convince them against this course of action, we transition back to the story of James and Abigail’s past at Weirwood. The first part of this section has James relate a memory he had had of Nathan telling him that the best way to convince a wondering chicken to come to you was to pretend you weren’t interested in it and didn’t want it. By placing this immediately after the chapter where we see that Abigail couldn’t get these wandering civilians to come with them, the audience is invited to form a connection between the two moments separated by time. Is it possible that Abigail would have found more success if she had not made it clear that she really wanted the people of New Athens to come with them, as Nathan suggests you avoid coming on too strongly with the chickens? Or could it just be that there really is no way to convince something out of your control to be tamed when their mind is set against it, so all you can do is steer into it and act like you never even wanted it in the first place? Either way, I appreciate how the added chapters reinforce moments from the original story in little ways like this.

         One theme in particular that becomes much more pronounced in this newer edition is the concept of human relationships between a group of three people who love each other. Abigail and James both share a personal connection with Lucy and with each other. For a time, they are content as this group of three that has somehow found a happy balance. Even when things get messy and complicated, the individual pairings we see, first with James and Lucy, then Lucy and Abigail, is presented as something sweet and beautiful, even if it does lead to the third member of the group feeling hurt in each case. It’s compelling drama that takes this situation seriously – you certainly couldn’t accuse this plot thread of being a clichéd love triangle, as it’s much too well-observed for that. It taps into a very human experience, and while part of you wants to blame someone when things go wrong, the writing ensures that you understand why things happen as they do, making it an intensely bittersweet story, even before the tragic ending reveals itself. As I listened through the Definitive Edition and reached Part Four, I realised some of the parallels that can be drawn between these three and the story of Krieger, Greta, and Charlotte. The Definitive Edition presents us with two groups of three, each of them being made up of two female members and one male member, and each group is made up of people who share a romantic love for one another. All of these people are in love with not just one person, but two people. And, sadly, the two groups are also alike in that they have each lost one of its members, and each group mourns the loss of the sensitive soul that they so dearly miss.

         It could be that these similarities are there to make us notice the connection and then ask what makes the two trios different from one another. While Lucy, James, and Abigail were young, practically children when they felt this love for multiple people and were struggling to process these feelings, we see evidence that Krieger, Charlotte, and Gretta managed to maintain a polyamorous relationship for an extended time as adults. This makes me wonder what might have been if Lucy was still alive; could the three of them have worked things out and still be close? Is there one reality where Lucy is still alive and the three of them enjoy a long-term polyamorous relationship with one another? Then again, the trio from the House of Versteckt certainly isn’t a wholly perfect example of a healthy polyamorous relationship, at least in respect to the awful thing that Krieger does to Charlotte. The final chapter does a brilliant job at getting you to be sympathetic towards Krieger even as he discusses the process of killing one of the women he loves and his reasoning for doing so. His logic for why it’s too dangerous for Charlotte to continue as she is does seem sound, and you can tell from the words and Matt Wardle’s emotional performance that this is killing Krieger. Even so, in comparison with Abigail and James allowing Lucy to be free and go out into the open world as they let go of her, Krieger sealing Charlotte away and making the decision for her that her life needed to end is a horrifying violation. If you’re looking for evidence that Krieger’s actions have had lasting negative consequences that Charlotte herself did not want, look no further than the fact she appears to Abigail as a ghost, her spirit being trapped by what Krieger did. The dynamic and interconnecting relationships of each trio is touching, heartbreaking, and fascinating to see unfold as the narrative progresses, and the Definitive Edition makes this one of my favourite aspects of Secret Rooms.

         There’s also a point of connection between Lucy and Krieger due to them both having conversations with the main characters about the cosmological and their place in the wider universe. When Krieger delivers his lecture about Pandora’s Box and the theory of multiple realities, I couldn’t help but think of Lucy and James sitting together looking at the stars all those years ago at Weirwood. A crucial difference, however, is that while Krieger sees the scope of reality and the potential Lovecraftian horrors out there and thinks of the fearful implications of that (despite his insistence that he would still open many boxes and explore many realities), when Lucy considers her small stature in the scale of the infinitely greater universe, she sees the hopeful side of things. If nothing matters, then everything matters, as she says. I appreciate having these two moments of introspection from different characters and seeing their different conclusions on, more-or-less, the same subject. It opens things up, and makes me even more contemplative than the original edition had already made me.

         On a similar topic, the starry eyes, both those that Gretta is revealed to have and those that Abigail and James acquire after touching the orb, made me think of Lucy and her stars, especially as James describes looking into Gretta’s eyes like looking up into the starry sky at night. Perhaps this would be the only way to describe such a concept, but it nevertheless felt like a deliberate connection between the eyes and this important memory of Lucy. My interpretation is that this connection is there to make what Abigail and James see when Krieger and Gretta leave through the Wind Door and Gretta’s eyes are revealed feel even more like something beyond their world. This memory of Lucy and the stars is like an ethereal moment which is forever out of reach for James, so the connection between this moment and seeing Gretta’s eyes makes it feel like we’ve stepped beyond what we can understand or touch in the physical world that we know.

         Listening to Secret Rooms this time around, I realised how much of a blow it is for James to lose one of his eyes. The original draft already did an effective job at conveying how much the loss of their eyes will affect James and Abigail through the writing. But because we get that added time with the two of them at the start of the Definitive Edition that shows us these characters from an early age, I feel the magnitude of how much of what James relies on to get by will be irreversibly affected by what he’s lost. We know how much he needs his powers of observation to get by in his day-to-day interactions with people and his duties as a doctor. So much of his identity has been built around his sharp eye and his close attention to detail. Now that his sight is less than what it was, these parts of his identity are affected considerably, and you can imagine how that would make James feel unsure of who he is now that he’s no longer that version of himself.

         The Definitive Edition of Secret Rooms is a terrific success. I enjoyed this story before, but with the added content that this new edition brings, there’s more time with the characters which makes the later sections of the story more meaningful, and the themes are bolstered by the story thread with Lucy which invites us to draw parallels between what happened in the past and what we see in the present. On top of that, the story of Lucy and Weirwood is just a really emotionally affecting story about past regrets, achingly beautiful memories, and the deep connections between three people who loved each other. Maya Santandrea is a wonderful Katherine Holloway and I’m sure there are dozens of little audio adjustments and small technical edits throughout the audiobook which make the whole thing even more polished than it already was. Tiger’s Eye and Arlington are still at the top of my list of New Century stories, but through a combination of coming to appreciate it even more on a second listen and some really well-implemented additions to the text, Secret Rooms has climbed up high to be yet another of the really close favourites that the series has in spades. Depending on my mood, I could very well see myself saying that Let Them Go, The Princess Thieves, or yes, Secret Rooms is my favourite New Century story.

Final Ranking: Gold.

Striking an impressive balance between a fun spirit, nail-biting tension, and emotional drama, Secret Rooms takes you through a remarkable number of different genres and tones, and it makes all of them work. This was already a good story. Now it’s even better.

Join me in the new year as we dive into all-new territory with New Century’s most ambitious story yet, SteamHeart.

#The Inquisitive J #review #critic #narrative #narrative analysis #fiction #audiobook #audio drama #fictional podcast #books #alternate universe #alternate history #alternate history fiction #new century #new century multiverse #the new century multiverse #secret rooms #secret rooms definitive edition #the inquisitive j reviews

[riboku]

How do you feel about Voltron's new season?

christ why would you ask this lmao it’s not like i post my opinions on here on a regular basis??? anyway this gives me a good opportunity to rant tho so

1. HAHA okay let’s just get the big fucking issue out right here but i was absolutely mad with how they marketed this season based on lgbt rep! this has been said before (and probably better lmao) by other people, but what they did was in extremely poor taste and is pretty low tbh. they hyped up and marketed that voltron would have lgbt rep in this season, and hyped up adam as a character, then were so incredibly vague about it and didn’t confirm anything on screen and killed adam off lmao.

anywAY this ended up fucking long and i threw in some positives i enjoyed from the season at the end of this post, but this is 95% a big fucking long rant about the issues i have with this season so it’s going under a read more!!

and like, before i get into this more i’ve also seen people mad about people getting mad which is ??? but the most common things i’m seeing people saying are ‘stop being mad your ship didn’t happen!!!,’ ‘it doesn’t matter what happened shiro is still gay so there is still rep,’ ‘this is NOT queerbaiting guys! -insert screenshot of dictionary definition-,’ and 'they’re at WAR guys people die during a war’

okay. one lmao how tf did this get to a point where people think it is a ship issue because it’s not. idgaf about shipping or who ends up with who, i will likely be indifferent regardless! do not give a shit! not about shipping! nobody is talking about shipping??? also this could have LITERALLY been avoided mostly by the insertion of a few words. they could have gone with something as simple as 'if you do this, the wedding’s off. i won’t be here when you get back’ bam. insta confirmation! no vagueness there! and then like, not unecessarily kill a gay character off for no reason lol. what happened here is an issue with largely how this was marketed vs how they delivered. they marketed the fact they’d have lgbt rep pretty extensively. and adam! they talked about how we were going to meet adam this season. hyped him and him and shiro’s former relationship up in their promo materials and posters. like, this doesn’t happen on its own lmao. this was a conscious marketing decision that they went with beforehand knowing that they were not going to confirm anything on screen and knowing that they were going to kill adam off. and like, if you need an analogy to get this??? let’s say some fast food place does a whole campaign on how their burgers are made of REAL beef. maybe they don’t specifically say 100% beef, maybe they do, w/e, but they hype the fact that their burgers are real beef and not fake stuff like crazy and their consumers hop on that. then you get there and it’s like. 35% beef. people are mad! is it still made of beef? well, yeah. but they have misrepresented themselves a bit here and probably should have never said anything in the first place. bad business move. and as far as hyping up adam??? that’s like coming up with a new product line and deciding to axe it. BUT ADVERTISING IT ANYWAY. lol. and then people are upset with the company when they go to buy it. literally does not make sense. like, regardless of what you expected to go down with these characters or how you feel about them or literally anything, this was a conscious decision on their part and they should have not marketed it like this.

as far as shiro still being confirmed gay, yes that is true and great! but it still wasn’t confirmed on screen and not the issue at hand here! the issue is still how they marketed lgbt rep for this season without really delivering and killed off a gay character without reason. if your issue is the use of the word queerbaiting then lmao okay, whatever, maybe it’s not the most 100% accurate use of the word idc but that is a semantics issue and is deflecting the issue at hand here. like if you wanted to sum up the issue with all this in one fucking word that would be pretty accurate and the closest thing to describe what happened! like come on guys i work in advertising but this??? is not that hard of a concept to understand. they utilized lgbt rep in their marketing for this season. if you’re marketing something, that content has to be targeted towards a certain audience. if you are marketing lgbt rep, your target audience is likely going to be - shocker - the lgbt community lmao. AND FINALLY if you’re going with the 'people die in war’ thing like. okay. yup. that happens. from a marketing perspective though, it’s still dumb to advertise a character and then kill them off. like, if you’re using a cHARACTER in your ads you uh. generally expect people to feel something for that character lmao otherwise there is no point, and seeing as how many fanfics and fanart and shit popped up of adam before the season even aired??? def a lot of attachment there. so literally if they had done this with any other character it would have been stupid? but doing this to a gay character is a whole other mess of worms and is in very poor taste! fucking stop killing off gay characters for no good reason, it’s a gross trope with a long history behind it! also unless something is plot related and done well, there is literally no point for killing off your characters lmao. doesn’t matter if it’s war, it’s just shock value at that point. that scene was a couple of seconds at most, and literally nothing about the season would have changed without it. moot point. this is not a case of character death that has moved the plot significantly or significantly affected the story or the character.

like, as a queer person i’m mad and very disappointed. do i still like the show and its characters? yeah. did i enjoy the season? yeah. will i still watch it? yeah. but this whole thing was still a fucking mess lol. that being said, some positives:

2. lmao ok that gameshow episode gave me serious ergo proxy flashbacks to when they did the whole 'i’m suddenly and inexplicably on a magical gameshow hosted by a weird entity with my life on the line??’ deal

3. hunk development???? good and it’s about time, star of the season tbh. i really hope they continue with the diplomat angle for him!

4. pleasantly surprised by ezor and zethrid, now let’s hope they’re not fucking dead lmao

5. atlas was uh. weird? weird.

6. granted i stayed up all night to watch this so my perception by the point i got there was uhhhh but the finale was odd and kinda fell flat, especially in comparison to how much of an impact last season’s had. that being said, the season overall was pretty enjoyable?

7. sorry but during the whole time they were drifting through space in their lions i just kept thinking 'where is kaltenecker tho’ and then at first i thought acxa had went with them so then i was wondering where tf she was too and my sleep deprived brain’s beautiful answer to that question was 'wait what if acxa is with kaltenecker???’ yeah.

8. matt’s new design looks gr8 but it looked pretty familiar and again, sleep deprived brain was like 'oh my god he looks like discount space judeau’ so hope you know that

9. V E R O N I C A also i really super enjoyed the earth team!!! like idk how i feel about james yet because they went pretty hard on painting him as a jackass as a child lmao so i’m positive but also on the fence about him, but i adored the others and i hope we see more of all of them!! ALSO ROMELLE loved her to death too. and the cosmic wolf. yes.

10. okay so as soon as shiro got his new arm my first thought was 'i bet him and sendak are going to have a floaty arm showdown’ and i was very glad to be right

#dumb text post #voltron spoilers #i'm sorry if you have the voltron tag specifically blocked lol but i'm not putting this in the main tag #Anonymous

[ookamikasumi-writer]

Just say NO to Author Intrusion

The Fourth Wall is the Audience. -- Every time the writer addresses their story's audience --their Readers-- they are violating the fourth dimension, or wall, of that story's Reality.

These violations are known as: Author Intrusions.

Author Intrusions show up as little comments that express the author's personal feelings on what's happening in their story, or heavily hint at things to come during the story.

Author Intrusions are a Bad Idea.

----------- DISCLAIMER: This is how I was taught to write for publication purposes by my professional editors. If you don't want to do it this way -- Don't. (Less competition for me.)

WHY Author Intrusions are a Bad Idea.

Author Intrusions jar the Reader out of the mental movie they've generated while reading because the Author keeps rudely shoving them out of the story to remind them that They know something the Reader doesn't.Compare it to watching a movie you haven't seen before with a friend that won't shut up about how cool the next scene is.

See this shit? This is Author Intrusion.

Identifying Author Intrusions:

The most common form of Author Intrusion is when the writer plants overly-obvious hints of things to come addressed directly to the Reader.

Examples:

In hindsight, he would be thankful for his overreaction.

Unfortunately, his choices had truly never been his own.

If only they'd realized how wrong they were.

These are normally found at the end of a chapter, or book, but I've also seen them posted smack in the middle of a scene in progress.They had no idea what consequences their choice would bring.

I have been told that these particular intrusions are meant to be a form of Foreshadowing.

This shit is NOT Foreshadowing.

True Foreshadowing symbolically hints at things to come. It Does Not point-blank TELL the Reader that something is coming.

More on actual Foreshadowing: TV Tropes: Foreshadowing

I have also been told that this form of Author Intrusion is supposed to create suspense and entice the Reader to read the next installment.

This shit does NOT create Suspense either.

The truth is, this sort of cheap-assed teaser-spoiler Does Not add suspense because it entirely Removes the surprise factor of what is coming.

Suspense is about Anticipation. It's about waiting for 'the other shoe to fall'. When an author point-blank announces that there's another shoe, all that lovely anticipation is halved because the Reader now knows for a fact that this shoe WILL fall -- that something IS going to happen.

THINK: How can anyone be surprised if they're already expecting a surprise?

If you want to create Suspense, don't TELL the Reader outright that something is going to happen. Instead, SHOW IT by planting Clues; the butcher knife was missing from the kitchen drawer, and give Hints through ominous Sounds, creeping Shadows, character Body Language, and stilted Dialogue that something is going to happen.

Authors: Keep Your Opinions to Yourself!

The next most common form of Author Intrusion happens when the writer just can't keep their personal comments about certain characters, or what's happening in their story to themselves.

This is particularly virulent in fan-fics written by new writers who get over-excited about what they're writing.

Cut that shit out!

Literally, cut all that shit Out of your work.

Us readers do not want anyone interrupting our stories with their opinions, feelings, or comments about the story we're reading. That includes comments from the Author. Save that crap for the Author Notes.

However...

"Lines like those (in my fan fiction anyway) are actually meant as red flags; a sort of, "Hey, pay attention, I'm doing something over here!" This is because, in the...years I've been writing fan fiction, I've noticed that the majority of 'new readers' (i.e. those new to fan fiction,) will not pay attention [to what they're reading] and will inundate me with questions that are easily answered if they did. With lines like those thrown in, the questions are fewer and I don't have to waste time explaining things that don't need explanations." -- Annoyed FF Writer

While all that might sound like a good excuse -- it really Isn't.

When the author inserts comments about a character or situation happening right there in the middle of the story just to make it easier for lazy-assed readers to figure out what's going on, those comments are nothing more than Spoilers for the rest of us.

Spoiling the Story for Lazy-Assed Readers -- is a BAD IDEA.

While some readers love to be babied like that, the rest of us readers don't. The rest of us are paying close attention and we love ferreting out the author's little hints exposed by the plot's progression and character reveals. We are reading specifically to discover what the heck is going on.

Spoilers strip all the suspense and discovery --the most enjoyable parts of the story-- right out.

I don't know about you, but once all the surprises are gone from a story, I have no reason to keep reading that story.

Fixing Spoilers

If the Reader doesn't get what happened and the information to set them straight IS NOT actually present in the story, then yeah, the Writer messed up.

To fix this, they should REWRITE and REPOST the Relevant Chapter ASAP! NOT answer their reader's query with any comment beyond, "Oh crap! Let me fix that real quick!"

If the Reader doesn't get what happened and the information to set them straight IS actually present in the story, meaning; the Reader simply missed it the first time around, then the Reader messed up -- not the Writer.

When this happens, the Writer should answer their query by politely telling that reader to Read the Chapter Again a little more carefully. NOT by giving them Spoilers!

Seriously, professional authors don't cater to that crap, neither should fan-fic writers.

The only thing catering to lazy-assed readers does is encourage those readers to bug other writers for spoilers -- and us other writers don't appreciate it.

As for Breaking the Fourth wall...

Or is he?

Deadpool: Not actually Breaking the Fourth Wall. He is Narrating his own story.

Yes, Deadpool does address his audience throughout his comic books and movies. In his comics he even comments on the textboxes around him.

Deadpool also freely admits that he's not exactly Sane.

However, addressing his readers, or watchers, or even his text boxes doesn't change the fact that Deadpool is The Point of View Character in both his comics and his movies. He's the one telling the tale. He's expected to comment on everything and everyone around him because that's what POV Characters do.

Deadpool just happens to be narrating his story out loud to the voices, and text boxes, in his own head. That there happens to actually be an audience of readers and movie watchers is entirely incidental.

Now if Stan Lee; the main author of Marvel Comics, popped into Deadpool's story, that would be Author Intrusion--

Oh, wait... He did.

A...tasteful example of Author Intrusion. AKA: The Cameo.

Narration is Not Author Intrusion

The Narrator is The Point of View Character observing --and commenting on-- their part of the tale. If done Right, what is narrated is colored by that POV Character's thoughts, opinions, and comments about what is happening around them.

Breaking the 4th Wall? Nope, just 1st Person POV.

Narration is not Author Intrusion because the author isn't telling the story, the POV Character is.

Deadpool, in both the comics and in his movies, uses First Person Point of View Narration. First Person POV can look like the character is Breaking the Fourth Wall, but they really aren't because Narration is supposed to address the audience. Think in terms of diary entries, or in Deadpool's case, a massive Selfie Video.

The only time Narration should ever be colored by the author's opinions is in a Self-Insert story where the author is the POV character--

-- or in a Fairy Tale.

Fairy Tales were originally told Orally. They were spoken and acted out by a storyteller directly to their audience. The storyteller's opinions of what was happening were part of the act, rather like the Master of Ceremony for a play. When these tales were eventually written down by collectors, such as the Brothers Grimm, they wrote them in the oral style --author intrusions included-- simply because that's how they were told to the collectors.

Later writers, like Hans Christian Anderson, wanted their tales to be labelled Fairy Tales, so they used this oral style specifically so their stories would blend in with the much older collected Grimm's stories.

However, if the story is not a Fairy Tale--

Don't Interrupt Your Readers!

Written stories are viewed in the imagination like a movie. So when the author pops in a comment to make their personal opinions known, it throws the reader out of the movie they're watching in their imaginations because someone is talking to them.

"But the whole story is the author's opinion!"

That's right, a writers has their whole story to express their personal opinions, so there is absolutely No Need for the author to interrupt their readers with additional comments on anything at all during the story.

If a writer absolutely positively must comment on what's happening in their story, an Author Note is where that shit belongs --or their personal blog, or whatever social media floats their boat-- nowhere else.

Author Intrusions: -- If you're Not writing a Fairy Tale -- Don't Do It.

Unless you're Stan Lee. (He can intrude wherever he likes.)

#writing fiction #writing tips #writing tricks