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courtney-deserved-better · 6 months

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I’m curious about your writing process. Like do make outlines from start to finish, or plan things out as you go. I love how your writing feels so well written and planned out, like everything you write has some sort of payoff. Anyways sorry for rambling😅, have a good day❤️❤️❤️❤️

ooo this is such a great question! my long fics generally tend to be pretty planned out. but ive been learning recently that having less of a plan and just jumping into a story is actually better for my motivation and for plot points happening organically. part of the reason i tend to write competition fics as opposed to other settings is that the structure of total drama allows me to do less planning and rely on what comes up spontaneously because i already have a framework im operating within. so i tend to plan out elimination orders and general arcs for characters.

i would say of my long fics, slippery slopes is the most planned out, amicus curiae is somewhere in the middle, and reprised and the courtney time travel au are the least planned out. i had very specific scenes i wanted to have happen each chapter of slippery slopes and i think part of why it's a strong fic is because a lot was planned out in advance (like, months and months in advance). but there were still moments that surprised me (alejandro and courtney's friendship was never meant to happen) and caused me to deviate from my plan for the better.

i started writing amicus curiae on a whim and i got 40k words in before i realized that the courtnemma relationship would work way better if they actually knew each other before the fic started (originally they met on the show). it was a really good discovery but unfortunately meant i had to rewrite ~20 chapters to fit that which was a pain in the ass but ultimately for the better. amicus curiae was a fic where i was really figuring things out as they went along (i changed who the winners would be 3 times) but i still had a clear idea of the personal journeys i wanted the characters to go through that weren't necessarily reliant on the competition/structure (ask me about this more once im able to talk without spoiling it!!)

the courtney time travel au is a serious experiment in that its very focused on interpersonal relationship and yet almost no eliminations are planned out in advance. everything is very spontaneous despite being a rewrite of the first season both for me and for courtney in the fic. which i think helps it not become too rote! but i also have no idea how things are going to go from point a (the basic straining chapters, which i just finished) to point b (the post finale chapters).

im writing reprised for fun as something low stakes and silly (because i love amicus curiae but its angsty enough that writing it can be emotionally exhausting sometimes) and i have the elimination order decided and very basic arcs/plot points for some of the characters but its open ended enough that i can have fun with it! and it probably wont end being one of my more narratively strong fics but that's okay <3

one of my more recent struggles with amicus curiae has been spending so much time developing the alenoah and courtnemma relationships that i find myself going aaaaa!! how am i gonna get these two together before the fic is over?? its really taught me to have a clear idea of when character dynamics shift, especially for romantic ones that are going to get together sometime throughout the fic. i love pining but i find pining for almost the whole fic and then only having the characters get together and be in a relationship for like two seconds at the end to be somewhat narratively unsatisfying.

so yeah i would say i try to plan out the character & character relationship arcs and i use the structure of competition fics for framework, but i don't plan out many details/specific scenes before i write them unless they pop into my head and then ill write the idea down and come back to it when its time to write the scene. i find that not planning out conversations/interactions can make dialogue much more organic when i write it on the spot and can lead to new discoveries about the characters.

as for payoff, i tend to go for the general rule of chekhov's gun: if there's a gun in the first act, it has to go off in the third act. basically, i try not to introduce any narrative threads if i don't intend to resolve them in some way later on in the fic. for example in slippery slopes, i introduced my version of alejandro's family issues with him alluding to his oldest brother carlos distancing himself from his family, and in the last chapter i have carlos showing up for alejandro and helping him get away from his family as well. pretty much as soon as i started writing alejandro thinking about carlos, i knew carlos would be there for him in the end.

planning things out can be super helpful and i certainly couldn't start writing a long fic without having any kind of plan, but ive found that having suuuper detailed outlines and knowing every little thing that's going to happen in advance is personally stifling for me as a writer and kills my motivation. so im learning to strike a healthy balance.

thank you so much for this ask! i love talking about writing!

#literally anyone can feel free to send me writing questions whenever you want!!#i love talking about writing!!#ask #anon #slippery slopes #amicus curiae #writing advice

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anthonycoffeemaster · 2 years

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Week 13: Traction and MVP

As we approach our final week, I tend to contemplate a lot about the possibility of the remaining activities to be more difficult than what came before and I was right. Week 13’s tasks were considerably a lot to take in, with tasks such as designing the type of application you would want to have, we looked into designing its profile page, dashboard, log-in and sign-up screen and other designs. Other than that we had to tackle the top three kind of traction channels by using a bullseye framework. In this weekly activity, I wanted to swap with Ryan’s role and be interim designer considering I was more experienced in designing applications, I had Kennah to assist me in this part and we used the tool FIGMA to make that happen. As per usual, we divided the tasks fairly and as I’ve previously explained, Kennah and I were on designing duty while Ryan and Xandra focused on identifying the other variables.

Due to the fact that I had a considerable background in designing applications because of the subject I took in my previous semesters in college, I developed an interest, or you could even say love for designing because of the tool FIGMA. FIGMA is a vector graphics editor and prototyping tool which is primarily web-based, with additional offline features enabled by desktop applications for macOS and Windows. We respectively made the type of Landing Page that was close to what we can imagine our application would be and we were really impressed with the grind we took to design it, we spent around 3-4 hours completing the task and were successful and had the team view it upon finishing. The methods we used we were based and guided by FIGMA.

Since we decided from the very beginning that I would be designing the application along side Kennah, Ryan and Xandra focused more on the traction channels through the bullseye framework, and we did not question a lot after it was done because the team was reliable. The decisions that followed after agreeing who would take what responsibility were effortlessly met with less fuss and problems. I was and still am satisfied with how this activity went.

In regards to the designing team, we had a lot of options to choose from in designing the profile, dashboard, log-in and sign-up screen because of Pinterest and Google. They served as our guide in most cases, we looked into how other applications were designed and we adapted our own version by imagining a different way of showing that we are SNAHPS. Other than that, we followed the necessary icons that were needed for an application to function or, in lay man’s terms, make sense.

While doing this week’s activity, we’ve learned that there are different channels which we can consider when launching and sustaining the application or the business and in making the landing page design, we thought of our MVP and possible features to include so that it will be user-friendly for both the regular clients and the professionals. I had a lot of fun doing this activity with the people I’m with, I’ve learned in this stage of the activity that I wouldn’t be in this position (mind you, it’s good) if it weren’t for the combined efforts of this team and for me I think that is the best lesson so far.

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absolutebl · 2 years

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This Week in BL

Dec 2021 Wk 5

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Bad Buddy (YouTube) Ep 10 - Didn’t drop, presumably because it is New Years. I’m live blogging it here.

Gen Y 2 (grey) Ep 2 - not much progression in the plot, to sum up: everyone is a chaotic mess. I’m trash watching and live blogging it here.

Paint with Love (Gaga) Ep 6 - whatever

Loveless Society Ep 4 fin - the work trip was used as an excuse for there’s only one bed and well executed high heat content but... don’t watch this one. In the end it’s an abysmal pulp could have been used to explore some interesting and mature concepts of trust, player reputation, losing the v-card, and the nature of friendship versus affection, but truly terrible production and script rendered that impossible. Perhaps if the captioning had been better some of this might have been mitigated because the actors tried hard and the chemistry was good, but combined with a sad ending I can’t in good conscious suggest anyone actually watch this. NOT RECOMMENDED, FATALLY FLAWED

Not Me (YouTube) Ep 3 - not to make this serious social cometary about me or anything, but speaking for the bisexuals of a certain age, I can’t tell you how happy I am to watch a bunch of super hot Thai dudes run around dressed like every sexy lesbian I had a mad crush on in uni. Meanwhile, White has had a seed change, they threw “there’s ONLY one bed” at us and I still like the side couple better. Oddly, I’m less into the SeanWhite, as it feels like their romance is being shoe-horned into he plot, rather than the other way around (which is how BL normally goes). I’m still engaged, but it’s interesting to note that I watch all the Vietnamese BL first on Sundays - this show is clearly not a priority or me.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Tinted With You (Korea - Viki) Ep 3 & 4 - I’m mostly confused about the plot but everyone is very pretty. 4 has not been subbed yet, and it’s feeling short and moving a bit too quickly for comprehension. Might make mroe sense if you wait and binge.

Behind Cut (Korea - Viki) Ep 1 & 2 - the sub team on this one is really slow but they both landed by Friday. I like it, I like the fashion world and I like the meet cute, not wild about the love triangle. Seems to be sunshine boy who’s lost his way is ex of top model now dating sullen designer who meets sunshine and decides he’s his muse. Interesting take.

The Next Door Crush (Vietnam - YouTube) Ep 1-2 - Reality TV lockdown style project that includes flashback retellings of first loves. It’s very cute, and more importantly DIFFERENT. It’s using an epistolary framework to tell a plot with an epistolary element, which is pretty sophisticated and quite clever. I’m was intrigued by the first ep, but the second was much slower and a bit bogged down. Certainly this is no Mr. Cinderella, speaking of...

Mr Cinderella (Vietnam - YouTube) Ep 5 - usually Vietnamese BL doesn’t go over 6 episodes, so Sunday could be out last. YAY! We got all the good things in this episode: communication, discussion of prep + safe sex, matched Love Sick shirts, a sad sack pity party, childhood pining addressed & realized, couple of fun tropes, and while I’m not wild about the side couple, they did give VERY good kiss.

In Case You Missed It

Love Stage (delayed from 2019) does seem to be finally happening. Thai BL remake, staring Kaownah & Turbo (Nitiman), adapted from the Japanese yaoi manga (and live action BL drama Love Stage!!) and anime of the same name. This is a GOOD story but Japan’s BL wasn’t successful and did not highlight the crossdressing prevalent in the original manga, I wonder if Thailand has the guts to do the original yaoi justice? I’m nervous about this one. I really want it to be a more honest adaptation than the Japanese live action, and I don’t think Thailand is that bold. Really only Korea and Vietnam seem to be handing crossdressing well at all. Starts Jan 29 on Amarin TV, reruns on AISPLAY. No news on international platform.

Korean BL Cherry Blossoms After Winter - high school set, cohabitation, hurt comfort + friends to lovers completed filming late Nov 2021, set to drop Feb 2022 on Viki. Based on a webtoon of the same name by Bamwoo.

New Year's eve, My Love Mix-Up released a special episode focusing on Akkun and Hashimo, plus some behind the scene and an interview with Meguro Ren and Shunsuke Michieda on Viki.

This bonus content for Utsukushii Kare is SO CUTE!!!

The Love of Winter new Thai BL from 28 MDP Studio to be released in January. Story of Kinn and his 2 friends traveling to Northern Thailand for a vacation. When his phone gets broken and plans ruined, he meets North. Kinn asked him to be their tour guide. Looks like a standard pulp.

THREE new V-BLs (thanks to @heretherebedork for the assist):

The Next Door Crush - just started, very cute beginning, see above for description as I’ll be following it in the weeklies

Beef, Cupcakes, and Him is a completed 50 minute movie about the restaurant world featuring a relationship between 2 chefs.

You Are My Sunshine (not to be confused with existing 2021 V-BL Follow My Sunshine). is a micro series “complete” at 2 episodes. It featured an out gay nerd getting bullied and the jock (puppy) who falls deep into crush. It has VERY low production values and it reminds me a bit of recent Taiwanese offering My Type. I like a jock/nerd dynamic and this one included tropes like gifts, baby is a messy eater, pillow clutch, faen fatalle, and supportive bestie. It did have a tiny bit of a cliff hanger 4th wall breaking end. It also continued what is now a grand Vietnamese and Pinoy trope of alluding to Thai BL in their BLs.

2021 Round Up & Awards Posts

Best Kisses in Thai BL 2021

Best Kisses in Taiwanese BL 2021

BL 2021 STATS & TRENDS BY COUNTRY

TOP 10 BL TRENDS OF 2021

2021 BL Trope Awards

More awards to come

Gossip

K-BL Love in Spring looks shaping up to be The King’s Affection but MAKE IT GAY YOU COWARDS and I am very excited about it. Announced idol star Youngjae (B.A.P.) in the lead.

Upcoming K-BL Ocean Like Me (starring Kpop’s best known out gay singer Holland) now rumored to possibly co-star the return of Han Gi Chan (Where Your Eyes Linger).

NOTE: TUMBLR’s REGRETABLE BUNT PANNING #

You know what I mean. I rarely used many of these tags anyway. But among the accused are:

BL (I’ll just use yaoi if needed)

boys love (see above)

GL drama (I’ll just use yuri)

long post (whatever, all my posts are long, if you follow me, I guess you’ll just have to get used to it)

So far as I can tell Thai BL and tags that are similar are not getting banned or whited out. Also, so far, if you put a period after, it gets through the filter.

Adventures in Miss-captions

Today in, drop that article = handing AbsoluteBL a meme.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Love Area Part 2 starts on GaGa tomorrow. A trailer dropped but it’s mostly just part 1 recaps. Mr Cinderella and Not Me drop on Sunday.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here. I keep a full record there of everything I announce in the weekly updates.

This week’s best moments?

Look, we have never gotten a scene like this before, I have to give Vietnam a million props for it.

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testudoaubrei-blog · 3 years

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“I’m loyal, that’s my whole thing.” - Scorpia, Season 4 Episode 6, Princess Scorpia

“Everything they taught us in the Horde about loyalty is meaningless” - Lonnie, Season 4 Episode 5, Protocol

Rewatching Season 4, I just finished Princess Scorpia. This is an episode that has always stuck with me, especially the A plot of Scorpia realizing how badly Catra has treated her and everyone else and deciding to leave. One thing I’ve been thinking about since I finished the series, though, is what this episode is telling us on a larger level. Looking beyond the character arcs and more at this show’s larger themes and message. Because this show is very much a show that says things, made by people who believe them. That earnestness and depth is one reason I keep coming back to it.

In the pull-quote above, and throughout the episode and before it, Scorpia defines herself in terms of loyalty. It is her identity - as she says, that’s what Scorpions do, they’re loyal. Her actions for three and a half seasons bear this out. When she first shows up, she tries to position herself as Catra’s new best friend, the one who won’t leave her and will stick by her no matter what. And that’s what she does, until this episode. She sticks by Catra through Catra’s increasingly villainous plots and erratic behavior. But she doesn’t just stick around. Until the portal, she barely contradicts Catra, and even afterwards, does so only furtively and immediately backs away as soon as Catra pushes back. For more than a year of show time, Scorpia has not just stood by Catra, or supported her, she’s actively assisted her in her most villainous and destructive acts. Scorpia is fighting by Catra’s side, eagerly carrying out her orders, and doing her utmost to see that Catra succeeds. But her loyalty goes beyond this practical help. Because for all that Catra loudly declares that she doesn’t need a new best friend, she consistently seeks out connection throughout the show, even when she’s at her most isolated in season 4. She needs moral support, and connection, and to know that she isn’t alone. Scorpia provides that, and keeps Catra going. Though Scropia isn’t initiating Catra’s various misdeeds, she’s assisting and supporting Catra throughout. On a personal, psychological level, the only word that seems adequate for this is ‘ennabling’ - Scorpia, sweet as she is, is Catra’s enabler. We see in the next few episodes what happens when Catra doesn’t have Scorpia’s support - she breaks down, and realizes that her actions really do have consequences, and that the affection she took for granted for so many years is something she can’t live without. But as long as Scorpia’s still around, Catra can’t make that realization.

Now I’m not going to say that Scorpia is morally culpable for Catra’s own actions. She’s not. Catra is solely responsible for her various betrayals, manipulations, violent outbursts and assorted murder attempts against...most of the rest of the cast (though being raised by Shadow Weaver sure as shit is a mitigating factor). But while Catra is obviously being a bad friend to Scorpia throughout, Scorpia isn’t actually being as supportive or helpful to Catra as she thinks, because Catra doesn’t actually need unconditional support, she needs people to be honest with her and express to her how she’s hurting them. She needs people who will stand up for themselves just as she needs to take responsibility for her own actions. This is part of why she and Adora have such a healthy dynamic in season 5 - Adora doesn’t take her crap, and Catra takes responsibility for her crap.

However, Scorpia -is- responsible for her own actions. And as I said above, she’s been with Catra every step of the way as Catra has attacked just about everyone and made war on Etheria. On a larger, political level, Scorpia is a willing participant in upholding the Horde’s oppressive system, and executing a war of aggression and colonization against innocent people. Speaking of colonization, perversely, she’s loyal to the very organization that dispossessed her and literally stole her birthright, then discarded it like a useless trinket when it was no longer useful to them. No one ever suggests ‘why don’t we let Scorpia connect with ~her runestone~’ until Glimmer does (and Glimmer’s motivations and arguments aren’t exactly forthright). Scorpia’s loyalty makes her an accomplice in her own oppression (like a bunch of the themes in this show there’s some interesting post-colonial stuff that the show doesn’t fully explore, probably because Noelle and the crew felt self-conscious about telling a post colonial story, or just didn’t know where to go with it). Interestingly, Scorpia’s loyalty to the Horde here parallels her loyalty to Catra, which has made her completely disregard her own wellbeing, which is the most obvious take away from the episode.

But I would argue that everything above shows that for Scorpia loyalty has been a way of avoiding developing her own moral compass. Scorpia repeatedly shoves aside questions of right or wrong in favor of being loyal to her friends and to the Horde. Loyalty has made Scorpia not only willing to accept her own mistreatment, but to willingly mistreat others, and to keep herself from asking any hard questions about what she’s doing or why. This is despite the fact that Scorpia is, by inclination, an incredibly gentle, kind and compassionate person. She’s willing to silence the best parts of her nature out of loyalty to Catra and the Horde. In the end, she also commits acts of violence and perpetuates the oppression of Etheria. And this is so insightful, because we see this sort of thing in our world all the time. So many oppressive institutions depend upon the loyalty of their members to keep them ‘just following orders’; so many abusive systems depend upon loyalty to stifle dissent and silence potential whistleblowers before they even speak. We see this in some of the most oppressive institutions and the worst scandals in our own society, and looking back through human history we see it in some of our nation’s and our species' most infamous crimes.

And when we look at the Horde as a system that Hordak has built in imitation of his elder brother’s empire, we see just how central loyalty is an ethos. Hordak himself is motivated entirely by loyalty to Prime - being a former clone, he spends the entire series not fully capable of accepting himself as an autonomous being (even when he acts like one and enjoys it, there’s some fucked up religious shit there that I won’t get into). He seems to have instilled this in his followers. The Horde Trio, Catra and Scorpia all hold loyalty as one of their highest values. Catra clings to it as her biggest accusation against Adora - that she was disloyal, as expressed in Catra’s perception that Adora broke her promise and abandoned her. Loyalty keeps the Horde Trio together and fighting for the Horde, and Scorpia with Catra. I think we can read between the lines and say the Horde runs on loyalty (as well as fear) and this is a very insightful portrayal of oppressive military and paramilitary institutions like armies of conquest and occupation and other instruments of state violence.

There’s another, related way of looking at how a sole reliance on loyalty as a moral framework has stunted Scorpia’s moral growth, and I think that brings together both the ways that it makes Scorpia willing to accept her mistreatment and participate in the mistreatment of others. Namely, loyalty in the Horde style isn’t just sticking with someone or something, but subsuming your own will into theirs. Following orders. Supporting your friend in what they do no matter what. Whatever you call it, it’s about turning off your own self - your self preservation, your self respect, your conscience, whatever other things you value - and just going along with what the person or institution you are loyal to wants you to do. And this is where Horde loyalty goes full circle, back to its origin - Horde Prime, the narcissistic self-made god who wishes to control or destroy everything that is not himself. Loyalty as Hordak conceived of it and as the Horde believes in it is a reflection of Prime's absolute control over all his domain.

In a way, self-determination is one of this show’s highest values (together with love). It’s at the heart of Adora’s 5-season, 3 year struggle to become her own woman and her own hero as she shrugs off one imposed destiny and then another and finally embraces what she wants. In a more negative form, it’s at the heart of Catra’s arc, as she finally accepts responsibility for her own actions and their consequences and starts working to make a world that she actually wants to live in, as well as admit to herself that what she really wants is love. And I could go on. This self-determination is existentially, obviously threatened by Prime chipping people, but it is also stunted by horde-style loyalty that demands unquestioning support and obedience.

Both the Horde Trio and Scorpia reject the Horde’s ideal of loyalty and walk away, but I think it’s interesting how they do it. Neither rejects loyalty entirely (not on the way Adora does) - the Trio, realistically, remain loyal to each other and simply walk away and walk out of the war (this might save their lives), joining the other disillusioned cynics in the Crimson Wastes. They reject loyalty to the horde and embrace a more supportive and respectful form of loyalty to each other. Scorpia leaves, but she actually comes to her crisis and makes her decision out of loyalty, and because it’s clear that her loyalty isn’t returned. The immediate situation - loyalty to Emily and Entrapta’s memory on one hand and Catra’s orders on the others - creates the conflict between loyalties that forces Scorpia to actually make her own choice rather than deferring to Catra. But she also reflects how Catra betrayed her loyalty to Entrapta, and thus how all of her friends’ loyalty to Catra is not returned.This is another point about horde-style loyalty - it’s one way - Hordak or Catra will demand your loyalty, but they feel no obligation to return it, which reflects Prime’s view of every other being in the universe as disposable. It’s only when she’s with the Princesses that Scorpia starts to find a new moral center, though sticking up for and protecting her friends remains important to her. In neither case, though, are these kinds of loyalty coming at the cost of either the Trio or Scorpia’s autonomy or ability to make moral choices of their own. In the very next episode, she says she wants to 'be A good friend' which is how the Princesses typically describe sticking together, which is a much more active and holistic concept than 'loyalty'. Scorpia confesses that she doesn't even know how, but she wants to learn and thinks the princesses can teach her.

There's another interesting counterexample to Horde Loyalty. Adora repeatedly breaks with the people around her to do what is right. First she leaves the Horde, then walks away from Catra by stages when it is clear that Catra is going to continue to harm other people and Etheria. Then she walks away from Glimmer, defies Light Hope and breaks loyalty with her supposed destiny and purposes as well as loyalty to the homelans she has never known. By season 5, Adora is loyal only to herself and the people she cares about, but she isn't constraining her will to anyone else's. For all that she seems like a rule follower Adora has a rebellious streak a mile wide, and she will do what is right, no matter what. This is what allows her to save the universe 3 times.

So the show’s argument is that loyalty is not a good moral framework to base all of our actions around. I don’t think it goes so far as saying that loyalty has no place in our ethics (being a good friend, which is such a huge part of the show, certainly includes loyalty, especially sticking with people when the going gets tough), but the show stresses time and again that being loyal to something or someone shouldn’t make you disregard yourself and what you think is right. Because it’s only by living out our own values and taking responsibility for our own actions that we can come into our own as moral beings. Moreover, if we insist on maintaining loyalty to institutions that oppress us and others, we can’t dismantle the systems of oppression that are holding us and other people down. (Yes, this is a pretty radical message, but I suspect that Noelle is some kind of anarchist? Anyway, it’s a thing.)

Okay, so that’s what I, a 35 year old, get from this kids show. I think it’s also worth pointing out that this lesson applies to younger viewers too, in their most immediate lives. Younger viewers will have had friends who didn’t treat them well, or might not have treated other people well, and who might have pressured them into participating in the mistreatment of others (this is kind of how bullying works a lot of the time). I think it’s important that younger viewers see how being a good friend never means disrespecting yourself or other people and it means a lot to me that She-Ra shows this in such a nuanced and realistic way.

#she ra #she ra spoilers #spop #she ra netflix #she ra and the princesses of power #meta #analysis #scorpia

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vizowrites · 3 years

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“We” vs “Me”| or “Why BlitzStrike Works So Well For Me But Stolitz [as of episode 6].....Doesn’t”

Alright my Loves, so I said that I was going to talk in further detail about my feelings regarding Stolas and the multi-layered portrayal of his relationship with Blitz in the new episode, and today’s the day where that happens!! First of all, though, before I really get into my feelings about things, I want to just make it ABUNDANTLY clear that I’m not trying to sway anyone from one side to the other, or trying to shame anyone for shipping two fictional characters. I’m fully in the boat that you are completely entitled to ship whoever you want, but I also think it’s wise to at least be able to recognize the faults and flaws in a pairing--and especially to be able to recognize them in the context of an IRL relationship. In this analysis in particular, I’m specifically focusing on these two relationships within the realm of the Helluva Boss universe [......Hell] and within the specific context of their characters as they’ve been portrayed in the show thus far. And, my biggest disclaimer of all: I’m doing this for no other reason than I felt like putting my jumbled thoughts together into a cohesive post so that they don’t have to stay bouncing and buzzing around in my head. Please keep that in mind that this is just pure personal opinion and interpretation before anyone comes at me with torches and pitchforks. <3 <3

SO WITH THAT LONG ASS DISCLAIMER OUT OF THE WAY

Let’s finally get to the good stuff. And the not so good stuff. :D

So I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone who follows me here that I’m a huge BlitzStrike fan. What I think fewer people know is that when I first entered the fandom a few months ago, I actually was on board the Stolitz train like so many others that I’ve met here in the fandom. Naturally Stolitz was the first major pairing I was introduced to, and I did find both the characters of Blitz and Stolas incredibly interesting and compelling in their own rights AND saw the potential in how they could really come to grow into one hell of a relationshp over time. I was honestly really excited to see it happen, too.

And then I watched Episode 5 [still my favorite episode, btw] for the first time and had this sudden question hit me like a truck that even now is still relentlessly burning in the back of my mind because I still haven’t found a legitimate answer for it: Why in the FUCK wasn’t Blitz falling head-over-heels in attraction to Striker throughout this fucking episode??

And I don’t mean that in a “They’re so hot and I ship them now why didn’t they get together?? DX DX” kind of way--I mean that in the genuinely perplexed “I don’t understand based on what has been presented to me thus far about Blitz as a character and the storyline overall why he’s reacting so nonchalantly to this whole thing”. To Note: This is me wondering this from the context of what’s in the show itself, not from any extra fan materials like the Instas or Twitter or just straight up knowing that the most likely answer is that there are people on the creative team that ship Stolitz really hard and realistically wouldn’t have probably written Blitz as being attracted to Striker because that would just be--to quote Jack Sparrow--blowing holes in their own ship. No, this is me disregarding ALL of that and trying to rationalize this with myself from the perspective of a fan whose entire knowledge of the show and its characters comes exclusively from what’s in the episodes themselves. .....And that’s where I just can’t find my answer, except for the Stolitz positive “He’s not attracted to Striker because he’s in love with Stolas” answer. Which really doesn’t even feel like a satisfying answer, because the entire vibe I’ve gotten from Stolitz in the show has just felt.....strangely.....off. Like, the framework is there and the elements are there, but I’d felt as though they had so far to go still that it would be entire SEASONS before they got there.

And THEN the new episode [Episode 6] came out and I’d heard a handful of fans going crazy because the show was finally addressing Stolitz in full, and I thought to myself, “Well, maybe if the show really is going to go with saying that the reason Blitz wasn’t interested in Striker is because he’s in love with Stolas.....sure. I’m curious to see how they finally establish it in an episode, especially since there’s only two more episodes left in the entire first season.” And then I watched the episode. And then it hit me why Stolitz just does not do a damn thing for me but BlitzStrike does despite the fact that we’ve had 4/6 episodes [5/7 if you count the Pilot] of Stolitz but only 1/6 [1/7] of potential--not even canonical--BlitzStrike:

When Striker talks about Blitz, or interacts with Blitz, he always talks about them as a “we”. As a team. A partnership. OR he just straight up puts the entire focus on Blitz and his accomplishments and keeps himself out of it entirely.

When Stolas talks about Blitz, he always talks about them within the context of “me”--of himself--of what Blitz does or should do for him. Even here in episode 6, in the most “selfless” instance we’ve seen yet, where he does ask about Blitz’s safety first BEFORE going right back into how Blitz’s actions affect him and what Blitz should be doing in response for him. Stolas’s focus is always automatically set to himself--and even when it comes to the people he supposedly loves the most.

To explain what I mean here, let me give some examples directly from the show itself, starting with the Stolas side of things:

Episode 1

Blitz, in the middle of trying to hide so much that he actually clamps both of his hands over his mouth just to muffle the sound of his own breathing, knowing damn well that this psychotic bitch who already shot him once won’t hesitate to do it again if she finds him.....gets a call from Stolas. Stolas, who we clearly see from his leisurely hang out time in his bubble bath, is literally watching this happen and is fully aware that calling Blitz right then was potentially putting him in danger. But what does he say when he gets Blitz on the phone? He offers--not help--but Blitz the use of his book in exchange for monthly sex. Stolas literally uses Blitz’s peril as leverage here--consciously or not, though given the fact that he knows the situation at hand, I’d find it very hard to argue that he didn’t do this on purpose--just to get him to agree to be his bootycall until further notice.

Stolas not only doesn’t lift a finger to help Blitz once in all of this--even at the moment where he and Millie are about to be shot in the face--but instead continues to stay on the phone talking about all of the things he wants for their upcoming future rendezvous. He already got exactly what he wanted out of this and he still just continues to go for more for himself.

Episode 2

.....There are honestly so many fucked up things that happen here as far as Stolas and his relationship with Blitz goes but honestly the thing I want to draw the MOST attention to is actually Stolas’s storyline with his daughter, Octavia. I know it’s a little left field, but bear with me--this is actually something I want to use as comparison for Stolas’s relationship to Blitz as we go along:

When Stolas first decides that he’s going to take his daughter to Loo Loo Land, he does so while completey setting aside the fact that she doesn’t want to go. He just offers her assurances that it’s going to be so much fun because he remembers that she loved it so much when she was a little girl--effectively putting his memory above her wishes even as she’s sitting right there and telling him that she doesn’t enjoy the idea of going now.

Stolas doesn’t actually notice just how uncomfortable he’s making Octavia throuhought their entire trip by spending his time sexually harassing paying more attention to Blitz than he is trying to cheer her up. This tells me that Stolas--though I do believe he genuinely wanted to do something to make her happy--still wasn’t able to completely overcome his own self-centered tendencies at first even when it’s for her. And this is the person that Stolas loves more than anyone or anything else in the entire world. It still wasn’t enough.

It’s only when Octavia runs off and completely breaks down that Stolas finally gets the much needed slap-to-the-face of reality to understand just what he’s putting his daughter through--and, for the first time in the entire show, he actually puts someone else’s needs and well being above himself. It’s the one solid honest display of love that we see from Stolas in the entire show--and it’s how we as the audience come to learn that that’s how Stolas shows that he loves someone: When he puts their needs above his own with no strings attached or expectations of something in return. A true selfless act just because he loves them. **Keep in mind the parallel of Stolas carrying Octavia out of Loo Loo Land at the end, and how it compares to Stolas carrying Blitz out of D.H.O.R.K.S headquarters.

Episode 5

The. Fucking. Cigarette. I had no idea that something so small and quick would be able to infuriate me as much as it did, but the fact that Blitz used the post sex cigarette to free Stolas from his wrist bondage but then Stolas turned around and put the cigarette out on Blitz’s horn which is literally a part of Blitz’s body just.....honestly it sums up exactly what I’m trying to get across in this entire huge ass post: Stolas only ever thinks of himself first and anything pertaining to anyone else just doesn’t cross his mind at all unless you blatantly put it there in front of his face. And the fact that he’s still at this point with Blitz all the way here in Episode 5 is not.....promising for their relationship.

The fact that Stolas literally cannot stop himself from calling Blitz “Blitzy” or talking to him in such a condescending way no matter how frustrated Blitz gets and how many times he asks him to stop. I just--how is that supposed to be interpreted as someone talking to a person that they love? There’s no respect or dignity given to Blitz at all on Stolas’s part, and the fact that it seems to be presented as a “Oh teehee it’s just their cute couple thing” is just.....I really, really don’t like that. It also doesn’t match with the Stolas in the very next episode which I quite frankly think is because the creators have been listening to the feedback from fans and were like “We need to SHOW THEM that Stolas actually does speak to Blitz respectfully!!” but that’s just my personal opinion there and, also, it still didn’t happen.

Episode 6

Keeping in mind that THIS is finally the episode where we see Stolas actually save Blitz from danger and demonstrate even the slightest inclination towards his well-being.....I think that honestly makes the next few things here even more fucked up

First and foremost: “WE”. The second after Stolas asks if Blitz is alright and gets the assurance that he is, he roughly grabs his cheek and points out that “If you get in trouble, I get in trouble! WE don’t want that”. The fact that this is the first time that Stolas ever talks about Blitz in the context of “we”--when really what he’s really saying is that him [Stolas] getting in trouble is going to be a bad thing for all of them--is just.....so, so disappointing. At least with this I could hope that perhaps the idea here is that Stolas is genuinely afraid that if he gets in trouble, he won’t be able to protect Blitz from the undoubtedly much worse trouble that he would be in as an imp, but still. The fact that Stolas immediately reverts back to his self-centered perspective so quickly after supposedly being so worried about Blitz’s wellbeing, really makes it seem as though it’s just his own ass that he’s trying to protect. And that.....isn’t exactly what I’d been expecting from “the episode that confirms Stolitz is canon” feedback I’d been hearing.

"Am I going to get ANY thank you for the rescue Bltizy?” This for me was kind of what actually lead to me having this whole epiphany over Stolas’s selfish perspective in the first place. I realized that even here--even when he’s just been the most “romantic” towards Blitz that he’s ever been in any previous episodes up until now [and yes this shift in his character was incredibly jarring for me because of that]--Stolas still goes right back to thinking about what he’s going to get out of this now that he knows Blitz is safe. Let’s take this back to that thing I was saying about Episode 2 and comparing how Stolas rescued Octavia and how he rescues Blitz. Obviously they’re going to be different because it’s Stolas’s daughter vs his hook up BUT just think about where the focus is for Stolas in both of these scenes. With Octavia, Stolas is entirely focused on making things up to her--taking her to do something she wants to do--even if it’s something that he himself doesn’t fully understand or isn’t fully into. That doesn’t matter though, because the entire point is that he’s doing something just for her. It doesn’t have to be about him. But now go back to the scene where Stolas is carrying Blitz out of the room. What does he do? Ask what Blitz is going to do for him. That just takes the idea that this scene was a confirmation of their love and throws it right out the window. Stolas--as we’ve been shown before--would never ask for something in return from someone that he actually loves.

Now let’s take a look at the one and only episode we have of Striker and Blitz interacting together, with an honorary shout out at hallucination!Striker’s appearance in Episode 6:

Episode 5:

Striker knows Blitz’s name.....and he uses it. He’s literally the ONLY other character that we’ve seen so far refer to Blitz as “Blitz” instead of “Blitzo” or “Blitzy” by someone who wasn’t a member of I.M.P.. Aka someone who wasn’t a member of Blitz’s family. He shows Blitz respect at that basest level, and only builds on that from there going forward.

Striker first recognizes Blitz for being “the bold imp that started his own killin’ biz”. Not his hotness, not his skills in the Harvest Moon games because at that point he hasn’t seen them yet.....but for his accomplishment in starting up his own successful business down in Hell. He treats it as an accomplishment. With the kind of respect that comes with acknowledging another person for their accomplishments. Right there, within two seconds of meeting him, Striker demonstrates more respect for Blitz than Stolas has yet to do in the entire show.

The Harvest Moon Festival Games. Now this is something I find fascinating to think about from Striker’s perspective in particular. We as the audience are shown pretty early on that Striker has a strong desire to be the one who comes out on top. He likes the idea of being superior and he openly relishes in the praise and attention he gets for being better than everybody else. ....Except Blitz. When they tie in the games, Striker doesn’t seem bothered with sharing the spotlight with him at all. If anything, he--again--respects just how skilled Blitz is in rightfully earning his place beside him on the stage. That, to me, is HUGE. I’m not going to go so far as to say that Striker necessarily sees them as equals because I think that might be going a bit too far for his ego but he does still fully acknowledge that Blitz is in the same general class as him: that is to say, better than most. Worthy of the same kind of acknowledgement and praise that Striker gets. I literally can’t get over just how big of a thing that is for what we’ve been shown of Striker’s character, and I think it’s unfortunately something that’s incredibly easy to miss or gloss over. :(

And now--for what I personally think is the most significant thing of all--we have: “We”. How many times does Striker suggest during that final scene between them that he really wants Blitz to join forces with him as equals? He never demands that Blitz join up with him, he doesn’t threaten him into joining up with him--Striker barely even hurts Blitz at all during their fight scene compared to how he tried to straight up murder Moxxie--and, most of all, Striker continues to acknowledge that Blitz deserves better than his current arrangement with Stolas. And he’s right. But instead of putting it as “I’M right and this is why you should do this”, he always puts his focus on Blitz himself, or the two of them together as a partnership: “You are so above sucking on a a digusting rich pompous Goetia” | “We could be the most dangerous beings in Hell, Blitz” | “You could partner up with me and klll the unkillable--starting with the one that treats you like a plaything”. It’s just--I honestly can’t believe it’s taken me this long to put together why Striker appeals so much more to me as a romantic interest for Blitz, but really breaking it down episode by episode and comparing the differences in wording between Striker and Stolas’s dialogue when it comes to Blitz is just.....holy shit.

Honorary ShoutOut of Episode 6:

The fact that the only thing hallucination Striker has to say to him is “But you don’t want to do things alone Blitzo!” is really, really interesting to me in the fact that he’s.....not......wrong?? Like, To be fair, Striker, RoboFizz, and Verosika all spill their harsh truths, but the thing is.....Striker’s is markedly different in that his wording really isn’t harsh or aggressive at all the way the other two are. He’s just kinda stating a fact in an overexaggerated way because tripping balls hallucination sequence. It’s very interesting to me that that’s the worst that Blitz can imagine him to say--as well as the fact that halluci!Striker calls him “Blitzo”, which is really weird considering that Striker’s never called him “Blitzo” once in the entire show. Makes me kinda wonder where that came from tbh.

Alright so, in conclusion of this very long and rambly styie post: I want to take things back to where I started by reiterating that this is not me trying to convince anyone that BlitzStrike is “right” and Stolitz is “wrong”, or that you should stop shipping what you’re shipping in the fandom. This was just me honestly getting way more excited than I should’ve been over having my “Eureka!” moment for realizing why this new episode didn’t put me back on the Stolitz train like it did for so many other people--and why, in fact, it actually made me think even more favorably of the idea of Blitz and Striker being together.

Thanks for sticking around with me for this very long read, I hope you found it interesting, and I really really hope that it didn’t piss anyone off or rub too many people the wrong way. Like I said at the beginning, ship who you want to ship!! That’s part of the fun of being in a fandom. I’m just hoping that this might help make it easier to understand at least one perspective on why Stolitz is seen as being so problematic as a ship [as of where they are right now].

Here’s to seeing where things go from here!!

#vizowritesthoughts #BlitzStrike #Stolitz #Helluva Boss #hahahahaha I've been dreading posting this because I know it's going to lead to shit even though it's all just personal opinion :'D #but since I went to the trouble of writing this entire thing up I figure what the hell #might as well post it now #anti Stolitz

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maaruin · 4 years

Text

The Institutional Problems of the Jedi Order

Preface

I think it is time to finally write this post. These ideas have been going through my head for some time after reading some Jedi discourse. But I should preface this with: even though the Jedi made mistakes, this does not mean Palpatine’s genocide of them was justified. It only means that he saw certain flaws in the Order that he could exploit. I suspect that without these flaws, he probably still would have managed to take over and persecute the Jedi, but much more of the Order would have survived.

For this post, I am mostly using the prequel movies with a bit of lore added from the old Expanded Universe. I’m not using The Clone Wars, because its depiction of Anakin’s fall to the dark side is different from the movies. And I’m not using the new Disney Canon, because I don’t know what has been retconned so far and what hasn’t.

Depending on how we count, I think there were either two or four major flaws. I’ll number them as four, but the first three could be grouped together.

1. The Jedi Order is a religion but isn’t organized like one

The Jedi are a religion. They are a group that believes certain things about the universe and practices a way of life that fits with these beliefs. But they are also entirely organized as “Jedi Knights” who are “guardians of peace and justice in the [old] republic”. This is… odd. The entire religion is basically made up of full-time professionals. Or rather, monastics.

If you want to study the Force and use it, you have to become a monk, basically. And more than that, to be accepted you need to already have a special talent in using the Force. Actually, you can’t even do that, they only take toddlers, so your parents have to decide if you should join this religion and become a monk. (Or maybe the Jedi Order just takes all Force sensitive children no matter what the parents think, it’s not entirely clear.)

A normal religion isn’t organized like that. Normally most members of a religion are normal people with normal jobs with varying levels of devotion. They participate in the practices of the religion in a way that fits into their daily life. Then there are religious professionals like priests who work to make it possible for the normal followers to practice this religion. And then, in some religions, there are monastics who dedicate their life to practicing the religion, generally apart from the normal believers. The Jedi only have the last group.

That alone would make them much easier to target and wipe out. But it is even more like that. The entire Jedi Order is integrated into the institutional framework of the Republic. All of the higher ranked Jedi (we will talk about the lower ranked later) basically work as special police and special diplomats for the Republic. “and” not “or”, all of them must fulfill both roles. And, when the Clone Wars start, they all become officers in the Republic military.

Now, in principle I don’t think religious institutions working closely with the state and fulfilling important roles for it is necessarily a problem. But if this is the only way this religion can be practiced, the practice of this religion will become poor in variety and closed off to most people who would be interested in participating.

2. Slavery in the Galaxy

There is slavery in the Galaxy Far Far Away. It is illegal in the Galactic Republic, but it is widely practiced in the planets of the Outer Rim, which might or might not be members of the Republic. The Jedi know that slavery is bad. What should they do?

Well, as much as a like the image of a hundred Jedi waltzing into the Hutt Cartel and killing/arresting them all, that probably wouldn’t be the best idea and cause much more chaos and harm than it solves, at least in the short run. But there are alternatives besides doing that and mostly ignoring it. For a start, here are two:

Establish underground railroads to smuggle slaves to freedom or assist on already established ones. Jedi mind-reading and precognition abilities will be very helpful in such endeavors.

Assist in organizing and fighting in slave revolts. One Jedi can turn the tide on the battlefield and if they are respected diplomats, the can help the slaves in finding supporters.

But this isn’t what the Jedi do because they are preoccupied with their role in the Republic. Qui-Gon says to Anakin that he didn’t come to Tatooine to free slaves. Which is true, he was sent to assist the government of Naboo against the Trade Federation, not the slaves on Tatooine against the Hutts. And why was he sent to Naboo and not Tatooine? Because Chancellor Valorum decided that resisting the Trade Federation was in the interest of the Republic, but freeing slaves wasn’t.

As mentioned in part 1 the number of members of the Jedi religion is smaller than it should be and integrated into the Republic in a way that leaves little room for it to act independently.

3. The Clone Army

Suddenly, an army for the Republic conveniently appears in time when the Republic is about to go to war after centuries of peace. This army is made up of, for all intents and purposes, slaves. Slaves that have been bred to be especially obedient. The Republic is expecting the Jedi to serve as officers in this army. What should the Jedi do?

Serve as officers, because the clones would suffer more without them?

Refuse to serve because that would mean supporting the introduction of slavery into the Republic?

Throw their political weight around and demand the clone troopers be freed and given Republic citizenship and in addition demand an end of the clone production in return for serving in the war?

Serve on both sides of the clone wars because the Republic obviously doesn’t have the moral high ground anymore and if their service in the Republic army leads to less suffering, their service in the Separatist army will do so as well?

There are probably more options. The Jedi decided to pick the one that reduced the suffering of the clones in the short term, but by doing that squandered the opportunity to take a stance against the creation of the clone army. And we don’t even see meaningful discussion within the order about this choice. This is, I suspect, because the Jedi are so used to their role as enforcers in the Galactic Republic that the alternatives weren’t really on the table.

(Palpatine’s plan was counting on the Jedi to behave this way when he planned Order 66.)

4. Dealing with emotions (the problem with Anakin)

While the Jedi Order may not demand it’s members to be emotionless, it does demand that they keep their emotions under very strict control. Nonetheless, almost all the Jedi we see do seem to be emotionally well adjusted. Obi-Wan, Yoda, Qui-Gon, Mace Windu, all of them seem to have little trouble with this demand.

Anakin, on the other hand, has a lot of trouble with it. He often has emotional outbursts through Episode II and III, then shortly afterwards walks back and apologizes. Curiously, this isn’t the case in Episode I. There he is actually quite good in dealing with his emotions. In other words, his time in the Jedi Order made his ability to handle his own emotions worse. Much worse, actually.

I think the reason for this is that whenever he feels something, other Jedi tell him that this is not right. It starts with Yoda in Episode I. “Afraid are you? […] Fear is the path to the dark side... fear leads to anger... anger leads to hate.. hate leads to suffering.” Criticisms like this no doubt continued all the way through his training until, by the time of Episode II, every time he feels an emotion he is angry at himself for feeling that emotion, which leads to more emotional instability, not less.

But why is this a problem Anakin has and not for the other Jedi we see. Maybe it is because he started his training later than is normal for a Jedi. But I suspect it is something slightly different: The Jedi who go through their training either find a way to handle their emotions in a way the order approves of, or they are sorted out. In the Expanded Universe there is a so called Jedi Service Corps where Jedi who fail their training go to work as farmers, explorers, educators or medical assistants. These jobs are, however, seen as lesser and going there is considered a failure. This is unfortunate, I think the Jedi could do much more good in the galaxy if the best of them were able to work in different fields instead of all being stuck with warrior-diplomat. Nonetheless, the Service Corps actually mitigates one of the flaws the Order has to some extend, if it works like I suspect. If the Jedi don’t have a way of dealing with emotions that works for everyone, the next best thing is to only pick the ones that can handle it and put the rest somewhere where they are useful and can’t do damage. Certainly not ideal, but an understandable adjustment.

But anyways, Anakin wasn’t sorted out. It is never confirmed in the movies, but I would suspect they made an exception for him. Yoda already made an exception for him when they decided to train him at all. And because he was the chosen one, I think they thought that his potential would be wasted if he only got to be in the Service Corps. If we ignore the Service Corps and only go off the movies, my criticism still stands: Yoda recognized that Anakin might not handle Jedi training well and he should have stuck to his guns and refuse Anakin to be trained within the Jedi Order.

Why are the Jedi like this?

Personally, I like to explain these flaws of the Jedi Order historically. Now, the EU doesn’t really fit with the theory I have. Because in games like KotOR and SWtOR the Order seems very similar to the Order in the Prequels. On the other hand, other sources say that this structure of the Jedi Order is a product of the Ruusan Reformation which happened after the end of the last Sith War a thousand years before Episode I.

To defeat the Sith at the end of that war, all Jedi were brought together as one army, no matter what they had done before. They didn’t really defeat the Sith (the Sith were deceived by Darth Bane to destroy themselves), but they thought they did. They thought they almost single-handedly saved the Republic from destruction.

Because of this, they rebuilt the Jedi Order in a way that was explicitly integrated into the institutions of the Republic. They built it in a way that made the fighting Jedi the core of the Order, other forms of being a Jedi were downgraded to the Service Corps. Because many Jedi had fallen to the dark side in that war, they taught a very strict form of emotional control and only trained force-sensitives from birth. And because they were so linked to their role as enforcers for the Republic, the neglected many other things Jedi should do, like helping slaves free themselves.

A better Jedi Order

No matter if this is how it happened, I do think the Jedi Order could be different (better). Here is how I would change it:

A Jedi Laity: Every living being is connected to the Force, so let them participate in practices that serve this connection like Jedi meditation. They may never be able to move things with their mind, but that’s not the point.

Jedi who serve the people should live among them: Jedi priests, Jedi healers, and yes, even Jedi knights should not form their own community but instead be in the same community as the Jedi laity.

Monasteries for the monks: Jedi who fully want to focus on their connection with the Force could still live in monastic communities.

Don’t completely integrate into the state: Working with the Galactic Republic could still be a thing, but the Republic should never depend on the Jedi and only a minority of Jedi should serve the Republic directly.

Help people everywhere: Because they are not completely bound to the Republic, many Jedi can decide how they will serve the people in the galaxy. Some might decide to help the slaves in the Outer Rim.

A Variety of Emotion: Not every Jedi will be as capable of controlling their emotions as the others. If there is a large variety of ways to be a Jedi, I suspect that most of them could still find their place to fit into the Order.

Allow adults to join: With adults it is much easier to determine if they would make a good Jedi and what way of being a Jedi would suit them. If there is a Jedi laity, they can be trained as children to some degree before they decide if they want to join.

Would this Jedi Order have fallen to Palpatine’s manipulation? I don’t know. But I think it would have been harder for him. If most Jedi didn’t serve in the Republic military and weren’t in a small number of Jedi temples, Order 66 would have claimed much less of the Order. (Probably 10%-20% instead of >90%.) Jedi would find it much more easy to hide in the population and the laity could help carry on the Jedi traditions in secret. Anakin might have been more emotionally well adjusted and not fall for Palpatine’s manipulations. (On the other hand, in a more open Jedi Order like this, there might be more people who could be turned, so who knows.)

Well, this is my contribution the Jedi discourse. The Jedi aren’t evil, and they certainly didn’t deserve genocide because of this. But as the Prequels depict them, they have certain tragic flaws in the way they are organized that Palpatine could exploit.

(Maybe I’ll make a shorter Part 2 about how Luke deals with this.)

#star wars #prequel trilogy #jedi #jedi order #order 66 #there is no emotion #jedi service corps #fictional slavery #jedi critical #galactic republic #anakin skywalker #palpatine

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natromanxoff · 3 years

Text

An Exclusive Interview With Queen!

Music Life September 1975 issue

By Kaoruko Togo and Keiko Miyasaka

[Original text in Japanese, translation by deathtoming]

Around noon on July 14th, we left the hotel by car, and around two hours later we arrived at the beautiful Ridge Farm, surrounded by trees. We were blessed with clear skies on this day, and the blue sky and the greenery of the farm were almost blindingly beautiful. It was a bit past 2 o’clock. When we arrived in the main building, we were first greeted by a large dog, followed by a familiar voice from a room in the back. It was a large food hall, with Freddie, Brian, Roger, and John present.

When they see us, the four of them say, “Hello! You’re from Music Life, right? Welcome!” and greet us with handshakes. The four of them rented this Ridge Farm to focus solely on rehearsing for their next album. “We’re about to have lunch. Want to join us?” We knew we couldn’t work while hungry, so we accepted their offer with thanks. When the meal finished, we could begin our interview at last….

Music Life (ML): Are you in the middle of recording now?

Roger: No, we’re not recording yet. We’re all practising our new songs together. Once we practise them, we get an idea of how we should record them, I think.

ML: When do you think you’ll start recording?

Roger Maybe in about 3 weeks…

John: We might use Rockfield Studios in Wales.

ML: Do you always record there?

Roger: No, not really, although we did a bit of recording there for our third album, Sheer Heart Attack.

Freddie. We used around five studios to record that one. We’ll probably use several studios this time around, too.

ML: You’ll do a bit of recording in London, too, right?

Roger: Probably a little bit, yeah. We usually do our mixing in London.

Brian: But when we first record the backing track, it’s better to do it somewhere where we’re nice and settled, so it’s good to do it while we’re holed out in the studio. By doing that, we’re able to relax and do the recording.

ML: Can you tell us something about your upcoming album?

Freddie: Yeah, well we only have the rough framework at this point, but I think it will be our best work so far. We’re in the middle of creating the songs now.

Roger: Nothing has really come together yet, so it’s difficult to explain.

John: When we first came here we presented what songs we had written so far to each other, and we had about two albums’ worth, haha.

ML: I hear you’re heading to the US on tour soon.

John: Probably. Our manager is in the US now, and he’s apparently in talks with a bunch of people.

Freddie: We have to decide whether to record the album or go on tour in the US like we had decided during our previous tour.

ML: How long have you been working with your producer?

Freddie: His name is Roy Thomas Baker, and he’s been with us since our debut album.

Roger: We’re co-producing the album with him. Our next album will be with him, too.

ML: This Ridge Farm is such a beautiful place. How did you find it?

Roger: Our mixer, John Harris, found it. The owner often rents out this place to rock groups, apparently.

ML: When you write your songs, do you do it individually?

Freddie: Yes, that’s right. Everyone writes their own songs in their own homes, and then brings it to places like this and we all work on it.

ML: How many songs will be on this album?

Freddie: I don’t know yet. Maybe around 12.

ML: When will it be released?

Freddie: That depends on a lot of things. But I want it out some time this year. It will probably be by the end of this year.

ML: What have you been up to since you came back from Japan?

Freddie: For several weeks, we kept on talking about our time in Japan, haha. We’d unwrap the presents we got from Japan. Please pass along our thanks to our fans in Japan, because we were really treated so kindly.

ML: Is there anything that stands out in particular from your time in Japan?

Roger: Aside from the people we met, probably our final show in Tokyo. Something felt special. It was also our final show in Japan. The atmosphere was wonderful.

John: I also remember appearing in a kimono on stage for the first time in that concert.

ML: What about Japanese food?

Freddie: Like, tempura, haha. We went to a Japanese restaurant with our bodyguards in Japan. Oh that’s right, please send our regards to those bodyguards; we owe them a lot.

ML: What do you want to do the most the next time you’re in Japan?

Roger: I’m going to go shopping for sure, haha! Things like tape recorders and other things. Last time, Freddie bought lots of ceramics, and Brian and John bought cameras.

ML: Brian, you like cameras, don’t you?

Brian: Yeah, I do photography sometimes, and I have lots of other hobbies. Right now I’m really into audio.

ML: Since when have you been taking pictures?

Brian: Since quite a long time ago. But I only recently got a good camera. In England, cameras are so expensive.

ML: This is especially the case in Japan, but you have a lot of young girls for fans. What do you think about that?

Roger: It’s outstanding, haha! Japanese fans in particular give us lots of presents. We don’t get too many gifts from other countries, but it seems to be a part of the Japanese tradition.

ML: Among your young, female Japanese fans, there are some who say that Queen is their first encounter with rock music.

Roger: Great!

Freddie: That’s a good thing. It was really exciting when we were in Japan, and I think it was probably the same kind of atmosphere as it was for the Beatles in the ‘60s.

ML: Were there any interesting gifts from Japan?

Brian: I received a lot of birthday gifts, so thank you very much to all of you for those presents. I received many works of art, and also things like dolls and traditional balls wrapped with beautiful string. We got lots of toys, too.

Roger: That ball with the string was hand-made, right? I got one, too.

ML: In your free time, what kind of music do you listen to?

Roger: I’ve been listening to Led Zeppelin's first album.

Freddie: Lately, classical. Like, Chopin. Also things like Led Zeppelin and John Lennon.

ML: Freddie, you have a broad range of interests.

Freddie: Of course. I’ll listen to anything that I like. That said, there’s no artist whose album I’d buy as soon as it was released.

ML: Brian, what about you?

Brian: Pretty much the same as everyone else. I often listen to Led Zeppelin.

ML: There’s a place called “Rhye” in the lyrics for Lily of the Valley, but is that a real place in England?

Freddie: No, it’s a land from my imagination. It’s also mentioned in Seven Seas of Rhye, and I guess it’s like a fairy tale.

Roger: There is a place called “Rye” in England, although the spelling is different.

ML: Your songs’ lyrics seem to be influenced by classical poets.

Freddie: You’re referring to lyric poetry. I don’t think we’re influenced by that too much. Truthfully, I don’t have time to read. I just like expressing myself in that way. Those kinds of expressions are easier.

ML: Do the really passionate lyrics for love songs come from your personal experiences?

Roger: Ahhhh--!! Haha, yeah right! But I guess there’s, uh, a little bit of something in there.<Grinning> But Brian sometimes writes really passionate ones.

ML: She Makes Me is quite the song, isn’t it?

Brian: No, it’s not like that at all. <Acting quite bashfully> Although there are times when my personal experiences are expressed in song lyrics.

ML: The band does a good job recreating the sound from your records live on stage, don’t you?

Roger: We’re not trying to reproduce what you hear on the record exactly, though. Of course we want to produce a good sound, but on stage we also need to add an exciting mood to the quality of the sound. So that’s why it needs to be a little different from the album.

ML: Which do you like better, recording or performing live?

Freddie: I like both. They’re both interesting in their own ways.

ML: Do you use any special equipment on stage?

Roger: No, although Brian uses echo machines and such.

ML: Do you have a lighting technician?

Freddie: We do have one, but the band comes up with the idea, and our lighting guy -- his name is James Dann -- takes care of the rest. We’ve already come up with our next stage design and it’s going to be interesting.

ML: Killer Queen was a big hit single; are hit singles important to you?

Roger: It’s not absolutely necessary. But we’ll keep on releasing singles. Of course we’ll only release ones we like, though.

ML: Which do you like better, singles or albums?

Freddie: Definitely albums! I think our music is geared more towards albums rather than singles.

Roger: Rather than releasing single after single, it’s better if there happens to be a song in the album that works well as a single, and we release it if the timing is right. It’s not good if we start thinking we need to release a single every 3 months.

John: On this upcoming album as well, we will record everything first, and then release something if it works well as a single. But we don’t particularly record only songs that would work as singles.

ML: Does it seem like you’ll have another song like Killer Queen?

Freddie: No, when Seven Seas of Rhye became a hit in England, the people at the record company wanted our next song to be like that, but we couldn’t do it. We go in the studio and record what we’re feeling at that time, and only after everything is finished do we decide as a group what to release as a single.

ML: So, you’re always looking for a new sound?

Freddie: It’s more interesting that way.

Roger: That’s why we come to places like this, and while we’re rehearsing we make a bunch of noise and form songs from that.

ML: Did someone serve as an inspiration for Killer Queen?

Roger: Freddie’s mom.

ML: Do you have plans for a British tour?

Roger: Yeah. Probably by the end of this year.

John: But first we need to record our album, and we don’t know what will come after.

ML: Which country’s fans do you like?

John: Japan’s, of course, haha!

Brian: <Speaking seriously> We were really surprised by the reaction of our Japanese fans. Honestly speaking, we didn’t realize it was at that level.

Roger: We thought there would be difficulties because of the language difference, but rock fans are the same around the world, in the end.

ML: Did you have a break after you came back from Japan?

John: Just a little. But we had lots of preparation to do, so it’s like we didn’t have a break.

ML: And uhh… now I’d like to ask about things outside of the music. It’s something Japanese fans want to know: when did you fall in love for the first time? What kind of person were they?

Freddie: Err… our first love is, of course, music, haha.

ML: Do you have any memories from when you were going to school?

Roger: I haaaaated school!

ML: What about you, Brian?

Brian: I went to an all boys school. I had no idea what girls were like, right up to when I graduated when I was 18. It was really a shock when I first got to know girls. But that’s the British school system for you. I was raised away from girls for so long that I was afraid to meet them.

Freddie: You’re still afraid of them, aren’t you? Haha. <This was a tough joke>

ML: Freddie, what subjects did you like in school?

Roger Oh, I know! ”Needlework”! <Everyone bursts out laughing>

Freddie: Art. I studied graphics and illustration at an art school for 3 years.

ML: What about sports?

Freddie: I did everything. Cricket, tennis…

ML: Do you still meet up with your friends from school?

Freddie: I often meet with around two of them.

ML: And, finally, are you married?

Roger: Japanese fans often want to know things like that, but I won’t say. <Roger winks mischievously.>

Freddie: We’re all single! But the Japanese girls have to find that out for themselves.

ML: Let’s get a message from each one of you to our readers…

And with that, the friendly interview came to an end. We were fortunate that the band talked to us in a relaxed mood while bathing in the bright sun.

#queen #queen band #roger taylor #freddie mercury #brian may #john deacon

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oldshrewsburyian · 4 years

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if u ever wanna dump an essay about edward fairfax rochester to me...I’m here!

Ahh, you must know how dangerous such an invitation is to an enthusiast! It’s a rainy Sunday evening, I’ve poured myself a glass of wine, and I’m ready to do this. I think Charlotte Brontë is doing and exploring some really interesting things in the character of Rochester, which sometimes get flattened/left out in adaptations. To be fair to the adaptations: he’s still compelling as a Brooding Gothic Protagonist.™

Prolegomenon I: I haven’t read the scholarship on Jane Eyre since undergrad, and I haven’t read The Wide Sargasso Sea since graduate school. I make no claims to particular originality here. And of course, literature can and does hold multiple meanings, etc. etc.; this is my take on Edward Fairfax “Self-Delusion” Rochester. The subfields of Jane Eyre criticism I’m most familiar with/informed by are “Jane Eyre + feminist theory” and “Jane Eyre + ‘early 19th-century debates within Anglicanism, pretty wild, right?’” This should surprise exactly no one who follows this blog.

Prolegomenon II: when I get caught up in my Rochester Feelings in conversation, there is inevitably a point where one of my English-major or -professor friends will shout me down and say “He kept a WIFE in the ATTIC” and I know. I know. It’s inexcusable and I’m not trying to excuse it, and everyone should read Jean Rhys. What I am really interested in doing, though, is exploring Rochester as three-dimensional character, not “man whose bad behavior gets hand-waved aside because reasons.”

First off: Rochester is a man of contradictions. He is a man who is generous to his retainers and his tenants. He is a man who shoulders even social responsibilities that are not strictly his, as we see in the education of Adèle (who might otherwise have died in an uncharitable charitable institution, or become a laundress, or become a courtesan.) True, we meet him as an extremely awkward and fumbling and sometimes resentful figure in loco parentis. But he is trying. I think this is perhaps the key thing about Rochester: what we see him doing for most of the novel, almost always badly, is trying to achieve better (more just, more humane, more equitable) results within a system (patriarchal, economic, colonial) that is rotten at its core. It is not everyone who has the moral fiber of a Jane Eyre, to say “this system is rotten at its core and it is better to starve on the moors or live forever unhappy than to be complicit in it.” The second thing we see Rochester doing, almost always badly, and this is where the contradiction comes in, is trying to avoid his own pain. I’ve intentionally said pain rather than guilt. I think that gets closer to the heart of the matter.

I’m going to get back to my essay in a minute, but an interjection of sorts, before I put the rest of it under a cut: I think it is vital to the novel that Rochester genuinely changes. Justification of this argument and More Emotions below.

For contemporary readers, the concept of repentance as a process may feel unfamiliar, trite, irreversibly sullied by hypocrites. But even if we take it out of Brontë’s extremely Anglican framework, I read Rochester’s profound, unconditional acceptance of his own sin (wrong, if you prefer) against Bertha and the losses which he sees as divine punishment for it as absolutely key to his having a chance at a future with Jane. The concept of divine retribution is surely stranger to us even than that of repentance, but having Thornfield, Rochester’s inheritance, sign and symbol and engine of his patriarchal wealth, built on colonial exploitation, literally go up in flames like the wicked cities of the Old Testament, is Not Exactly Subtle. And, of course, he loses his sight: “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.” His sight has been, in the most fundamental spiritual sense, diseased. He has been incapable of accurately seeing his own guilt (which is to say, seeing it in proportion to all other things, the other facts of Bertha’s madness, the duplicity of his family and that of the Masons, etc. etc.) So he loses his sight. And then he gains a much richer understanding of, well, everything. Gradually. Not all at once. I have Feelings about the psychological realism of those final chapters, but let me rewind, as it were. [N.B. I’m not arguing that Charlotte Brontë presents all this as a straightforward Divine Smiting. It matters that Bertha gets the freedom to bring all this crashing down (literally), and that she chooses her own end. But I do think that Rochester reads it as Smiting; I think we need to take that final assertion of his seriously. It’s entirely possible to read the Elm Tree Incident, and indeed that bizarre wedding morning, as Rochester waiting, waiting with pounding heart, for the bolt of lightning.]

I believe passionately in Rochester and Jane as a couple for a number of reasons (so many reasons, all the reasons), but perhaps chief among them is that they are both, bless them, raging romantics who have had very little outlet for their rich emotional life or for their unconventional, erudite, intelligent, exploratory spiritualities. OR (sorry, I forgot one) for their intellectual life, come to that! Rochester with his library full of science and his feelings about moths and Jane who becomes a teacher and genuinely loves nurturing young minds. *sobs* I love them so much. But Rochester is far too ready to manipulate others as he has been manipulated, and as others seek to manipulate him. His treatment of Blanche Ingram, for instance, I read as being several things, in shifting proportion 1) an effort to distract himself from Jane; he has few if any scruples about involving the unscrupulous and mercenary Miss Ingram in bigamy 2) an effort to distract the neighborhood and its gossip from Jane; why, after all, has he been at Thornfield so long without entertaining anyone?? very suspicious 3) an effort to find out what Jane’s feelings for him are. We see her ready to sting him into jealousy at the end too, a nice little bit of symmetry. Rochester is, yes, high-handed in the extreme. But I read the conversation under the elm tree not as a cynical test, but a genuine and painfully awkward attempt to figure out what Jane’s feelings for him really are. Yes, they’ve been having High Spiritual Communion and intellectual discussions and mutual teasing and borderline flirting for however many weeks it’s been. But also: he’s her employer. He’s at least 15 years older than she is (I forget the details on this. 15? 20? anyway, point stands.) He is not and never has been handsome, and he knows exactly how little his wealth counts for with Jane. He’s deeply weird and his house is weird and he comes with a French ward and a mysterious attic and a wife. But does she love him anyway? She does! *cries about it*

Of course, none of this excuses the inexcusable. The proposal-to-wedding sequence shows us Rochester at his moral nadir, in relation to both Bertha and Jane. It also shows him on the knife edge of losing control over his integrity in other ways, now that he has violated this one. (Remember when Jane comes back to Thornfield and says “Reader, I had feared worse; I had feared he was mad”? Yeah, there’s a reason for that.) Anyway, allow me to present excerpts from Chapter 27, which lives in paraphrase in my head at all times:

[W]hile he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. "Oh, comply!" it said. "Think of his misery; think of his danger—look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the recklessness following on despair—soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his.

Whew! Anyway, she decides not to despite the fact that she and Rochester feel exactly the same way in this moment:

I am insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.

*sobs harder* I think it is vitally important to point out that Jane is not cold or even, in this moment, convinced by her own arguments. She and Rochester are, moments after this, in each other’s arms, the language of fire and flame used for them both, and Rochester releases her first because he wants her influenced by nothing but her own will; not their shared passion, and certainly not his own force.

...Where was I before I got caught up with the unbearable sexual and emotional tension? Oh yes, Rochester after Jane leaves. He embraces an extremely thorough program of self-punishment. The most obvious course of action for him -- the one that Jane, the person who knows him best in all the world, assumes he has taken -- is to run away from his pain again, to leave England. He does not do that. He does the opposite of that. He refuses to so much as leave Thornfield itself except to roam the grounds at night. I love this book so much. Then, after the fire, which happens only 2 months after Jane leaves, he goes to Ferndean. Now! The only thing we have learned about Ferndean previously is that Rochester refused to have Bertha live there because its bad climate would have (or at least might have) killed her. We learn from Jane-as-narrator that literally no one will rent it, again, because of its “ineligible and insalubrious site.” Rochester has, with heartbreaking obviousness, given up on life. He has, by his own account, been “doing nothing, expecting nothing,” in “ceaseless sorrow... [and] delirium of desire.”

...Edward Fairfax Rochester has never heard of chill. Also, as we learn, though he is worried about his disabilities because he is worried that Jane will mind, and because they make him a less eligible potential husband in his own estimation (*sniffle*), what he has been chiefly preoccupied with for the last year is worrying about where Jane is and if she’s all right. Again: the man has never heard of chill. But his impulses are generous. He is the heir to a rotten and a poisoned inheritance, and he begins by blaming this inheritance -- his external circumstances, both his privilege and the choices that he is pushed into by his father and brother -- for his own injuries and the ways in which he has injured others. But I (obviously) vigorously cling to the belief that he genuinely turns away from this, that he confronts his own sins and repents and accepts that he will not, cannot, be reunited with Jane in this life. But then he is. *cries about it* Moreover, in a key reorientation from his earlier avoidance-and-denial coping strategy, he accepts Jane’s services “without painful shame or damping humiliation.” He un-hermits himself! He and Jane travel to see friends and family! They receive visitors! These romantic-hearted science nerds proceed to be shockingly normal... for their own given value of that. I’m also convinced that they have the kinkiest sex in nineteenth-century English literature, and I support them. And part of their happiness is the happiness of others; it’s the opposite of Rochester’s globe-trotting, radically individualistic conduct in the first part of the novel. Of course it’s more than he deserves; he knows that, and he needs to know it. But it’s narratively elegant, and (I think) deeply satisfying. And I love it. And, obviously, him... again, more than he deserves.

#jane eyre #edward fairfax rochester #was recently reminded of how hard i ship jane/rochester #is a tag that i have #asks and answers #emilydickinsonapologist

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jesus-christ-super-ace · 3 years

Text

Self indulgent Haikyuu x debate!reader hcs because debate season is over and i suddenly have nothing to do

A/n: Idk the type of debate that they do in Japan so I'm gonna use the PF debate structure. (I heard about parlament style debate in Korea, I watched a video and it scared the fuck out of me) Also I don't know how to do the whole read more thing on mobile tumblr so ✨yikes✨

Characters: Hinata, Sugawara,

Warnings: Swearing, caps, mentions of death

Hinata

He has no idea what debate is, his thoughts only consists of volleyball and meat so when you bring up being on the debate team to him he's just kinda "👁👄👁 what's debate like?"

Since debate is hard to explain you decide to bring him along to one of your debate practices to watch.

A quick explanation of public forum (pf) debate: two teams of two take a pro and con stance on a resolution. (Example: Resolved: Sugawara is not the mom friend) Debaters work in pairs to make a pro and con case that they will present at their debate, for PF they usually have a month to prep their case. The case will usually be written in the style of an essay and will be read out as a speech to begin the debate. Debaters work in pairs so there's a speaker one and speaker two. Speaker one is in charge of laying out the topic and what grounds the team wins the debate on, and speaker two dishes out most of the arguments against the other sides. (Kind of like speaker one is defense while speaker two is offense) Basically pro gives their opening speech, con gives their opening speech, and the they ask each other questions and try to degrade the other side's case. Then the speaker twos give speeches on why their speaker one did better, then they butt heads. After that comes the speaker ones saying why they won, and finally comes the ultimate showdown, the final crossfire. The final crossfire is essentially just a big cat fight where we yell each other about morals. (Sorry Amanda but murder is worse than kidnapping 🙄) Then the speaker twos give a speech about why they're better. Your fate relies on the judge who has no idea what they're doing.

Did you get all of that? You probably didn't. TLDR: Four children scream about why their moral compass is better for about one hour.

You try to explain it to Hinata in volleyball terms and it's ✨hard✨

"Okay so the speaker one is kinda like the setter, they set up the attack on the other side by controlling the grounds that they win on-"

"But controlling the grounds is what Noya does-"

"Hinata it's a metaphor"

"What's a metaphor?"

😃 why

So you decide to bring him to your practice debates, during a normal debate you move around from classroom to classroom debating other kids from other schools carrying your case in a big ass box in stuffy casual formal wear at like 8 in the morning.

Practice debates are a lot chiller and there's a lot less yelling.

You were judging debates that day while the gym was having an inspection so he tagged along with you to watch the debates. He kinda gets lost after the con speech and you're like "yeah it can be like that sometimes".

He admires you for being able to do the whole debate thing (and win)

Since the winners of any debate comp are decided by judges (who usually have no experience) most teams value process over result. Even if you debate better they can still pick the other team because of a dumb reason like them liking the other team's shirt.

After every debate he takes you out to get snacks at Ukai's store, and he lets you rant about whatever unfair judge caused you to loose.

"oKAY BUT LIKE I TOTALLY WON, THE OTHER TEAM DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THEIR CASE TOGETHER" he just kinda smiles and nods, he doesn't get your debate terms but he still hypes you up

He makes sure to text you before he sleeps reminding you to not stay up too late researching your case.

Smth like 'i'm going to bed now :) pls don't stay up too late' smh hypocrite, he probably stays up till like 3 thinking abt becoming the tiny giant

One time your debate clothes (black dress pants, white dress shirt, blazer) got dirty and so did your school uniform so he gave you his clothes. He's kinda small so it's a tight fit but it works.

HE BRAGS ABOUT YOU TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE

"hEy look at my super smart s/o who does dEBATE!"

"we know y/n does debate"

Best ray of sunshine 🥺

Suga

ohohoho,,, im a certified suga simp

Now we all know that Suga is pretty smart, he's not a super genius or anything but he's got good grades and he can probably manage his time.

Which means that he's good at helping your research and revise your case. Whenever you can't come up with any contentions he's always there to help you come up with some.

"Kōshi what're the benefits of the urbanization of West Africa?" (I can't find anything on the debate topics in Japan so I'm using stuff from my previous debates)

"Lessening of poverty, standards of health can be raised, and it benefits the world."

HES PERFECT OK

He's probably even joined you for a debate once when your partner couldn't make it to the competition, he makes a pretty good speaker one but he's definitely a speaker two.

His framework for every case is just 🤌🤌🤌

Research dates with him are just 🥺

You guys are sprawled out on his bed just scrolling through resources trying to put together a case.

You go to all of his games and he goes to support you during your debates. Before every speech you give he sends you a small thumbs up to boost your spirits.

He's super observant and can tell when the judge is full of shit.

Tbh if the other team wins because the judge was stupid even though you

He's too good for us smh

Yachi

PLS

YACHI I LOVE HER

okokok

here's the thing with yachi, she's great at writing cases and she'd honestly be a good asset to the team however,,,

she can't do public speaking for shit

so she cheers you on from the sidelines and helps you out with your case

she can't really do public speaking herself because of her nerves but she knows how to convince an audience so she lets you practice her speeches

she once volunteered to help the team for a mock debate by subbing in for someone who couldn't make practice that day due to getting sick, she got scared during her speech and panicked.

weekly study dates are a must, whether it be for debate or just school in general weekly study dates at a local café or at a library

she brought hinata and yams to watch you debate once and now they're both scared of you (look final crossfire is scary as hell)

i think she'd be a (slightly less than) decent cook bUT she's good at baking, so she always offers to stop by before practice to drop off snacks

the team loves her and half of them join the yachi protection squad (started by noya and tanaka probably)

im just v 🥺🥺🥺 rn lmao

a/n,,, lmao i havent written in a while, if u need a better explanation of how debate works then feel free to ask !

#haikyuu #haikyuu!!#hq #hinata #hinata x reader #hinata shoyo #sugawara #sugawara x reader #sugawara koshi #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu x gender neutral reader #haikyuu x reader #yachi #yachi haikyuu #yachi hitoka #haikyuu fluff

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creta5164 · 3 years

Text

[Second week of 2021.6] White Spirit devlog - Organizing feedback

Hi, there!

In this week, I worked on a system to create a character that can run with the player in race content, and went through a process of tweaking the controls and level design with simple polishing and feedback.

youtube

I've created a system that records and replays inputs to create a character to race with on a race course I've previously created. However, there was a problem that the results of shooting and replaying were different.

The reason was simple.

There was a problem that a device that has a physical influence, for example, 'Magic Wind', arrives first or later due to the positional interpolation created to respond to the refresh rate, resulting in different results. So, the elements that need to be physically processed could be resolved by processing them separately.

youtube

Now it works even playing around with the time scale well. Now that the test verification is over, so I started shooting replays to finalize the framework of the race content.

youtube

The 17 second record was recorded to see how far I can push with this game.

youtube

So I finished to drafting race content temporarily using Poi. (Note that after record that video, I made it game is not over even if the opponent arrives first)

Now I've been working on a visualization so that player can see the remaining distance player can fly with some concise polishing again.

In addition to that, I also added particle effects for each motion.

- Flying start: small downward-facing effect - Begin flight: small particle effect - End flight : Big burst effect - Wall bounce : Large particle effect

Afterwards, I brought our CREFFECT team members to play it once, and took time to organize problems I need to watch and feedback from those who played the game. (The play test was done by _COUNTER, BladeSides, Jaemin Park, and Aro!)

First of all, it was pointed out that flying is forced for attack the enemy.

So, after discussion, I decided to use the current flying attack method as an additional attack method, and considering the below attack methods when not in flight.

1. Shooting projectile

This is based on the assumption that the attack method of the original 2014 Colorless Spirit will be inherited. However, at the time, there was nothing player could do other than push enemies away, so I think if I put this in, I might create more things that can interact with enemies and devices.

2. Attack = attack

Literally, the attack button does an attack that affects the enemy by attacking. Whatever it is, it's a way of swinging it to attack.

The former is a case of using magic as a concept, and the latter is a case of using the wand of the supporting role 'Horu', which will be released later.

When using this method, I would like to add more action such as turning forward and attacking when attacking while flying.

However, in the case of the former, elements that attack with light often overlap with Ori, so I am worried about it...

3. Jump and stomping

It's a classic way that doesn't require long words. Jump and stomping on the enemy.

I'm still debating which of these three to do, but it seems likely sooner or later.

Second, it is related to the level design of the puzzle course I created earlier. I had the people who did the playtest play the game first without any explanation. This is a course in which player have to bring a box where the wind blows, which pushes player when player shine a light on it. It also had to take advantage of the platform that attracted player in the same way.

It was at this point that I realized that it was difficult to understand that 'all anchors affect you at once'.

So, I decided to place the anchors of different property so that they are not close together.

In addition to this, I also worked to improve the problems with the control-feeling.

Originally I was supposed to make a collectible item this week, but I wanted to focus on the exploration, so I decided to think a little bit more by going beyond the goal of collecting it and giving it a hint as to where to go next.

See you in next week.

#gamedev #indiedev #devlog #game development #unity3d

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jkflesh · 3 years

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Interview with jesu January 2021 New Noise magazine #56

Read the interview by Antoine "Neredude" Duprez below:

The “Terminus” Bandcamp page states that the album was done between 2016 and 2020. That's a long period in your standards! Did you get some sort of writer's block with Jesu? Or was it because you were so busy with your numerous projects?

— I never get writers block, I just simply move on to the next thing if I’m not currently inspired to work on a specific project. Most my records, for many years, have been written and recorded over extended periods of time; I work when inspiration strikes, when it doesn’t I move onto the next thing; there’s never a block for me with creation generally, maybe just specific areas. i take large breaks for my music so as to afford some sort of distance, gone are the times when an album would be hammered out in a month!

''When I Was Small'' has kind of a Radiohead thing in the vocals, whereas ''Alone'' reminds me a lot of Sigur Rós. Are those bands part of your background?

— Ok, interesting observation, but no Radiohead is not an influence on this song, the biggest influences on the vocals were Liam Gallagher from Oasis, and subconsciously "White Flag" by Godflesh (which I only discovered after the album was complete). I do love some Radiohead though, as I do Sigur Rós, but neither band is a direct or conscious influence. Musically “When I was Small” was mostly influenced by trying to recreate a vibe of early Neil Young mixed with Oasis, in a jesu fashion, coupled with a demo production; intentionally underproduced. I’m not sure where a lot of the influence on “Alone” came from, electronic pop music for sure, short and sweet was the intention, driven entirely by the voice sample.

Regarding “Terminus,” did you set yourself a framework or musical approach beforehand like you did for “Every Day I Get Closer to the Light From Which I Came?“

— Not really no, generally when I work on a bunch of songs things will fall into place naturally, the songs become a whole and then collectively the songs will become conceptual as i write, they build their own logic, so to speak, I don’t force anything, I let things happen organically as I write and record.

I think around 2013, you said “Every Day I Get Closer to the Light From Which I Came” was going to set a precedent for the next album. Now that it's out, do you still think so? Personally, even though both records are different, I can definitely hear a connection.

— Yeah, shame it took 7 years to come to fruition! And many things changed over those 7 years, as ever. Jesu certainly documents my personal journey in life, it’s ultra personal, Godflesh is much more external comparatively. A lot to the solo jesu work took a backseat when I worked on the collaborations with Sun Kil Moon, but that was very refreshing and inspired me to take jesu further, I had notions of discontinuing the project at some point, but the collabs with Sun Kil Moon inspired me to keep pursuing jesu.

"Every Day I Get Closer to the Light From Which I Came” was inspired in great part by you becoming a father. Can you tell us a bit about what was on your mind when you wrote “Terminus?”

— That’s very true, especially the initial journey of bringing life into the/our world. everything is there in the lyrics and artwork for "Terminus" so of course, like a lot of my work, depends on the listeners perspectives, they can make it their own, make it personal. But it’s essentially about endings, and my obsession with finality, my sensitivity to it and my fear of it. There’s a line in the title song that says “my end, our end, the end, the end”, which pretty much sums it up.

The EP “Never” you released before “Terminus” is quite different and more focused on electronics. I remember you telling me that you liked going experimental on EPs, doing stuff you wouldn't do on a full length. So I figure that's still the case?

— Yeah, I like experimenting with everything, I like satisfying myself with different ideas, obviously that doesn’t suit my listeners too much, but I make this music for myself, and I’m always trying to do better. I still don’t know why I put myself through the trial and hell of releasing music, I often think about just recording for myself and not bothering with an audience, but I’m not really capable of earning money in other ways, so I have to finish music and release it, let it go. For me "Never" was just another way of interpreting the jesu mood, nothing deviates too much from the original intention of the project. It’s weird, critically, it was perceived as this big electronic departure, whereas jesu has sounded pretty much like this most of it’s lifetime! “Pale Sketches", "Lifeline" even "Silver” is all mostly electronic, save a real drum loop in the song "Silver", but this EP seemed to get this thing that its all electronic, whereas it;’s no more electronically oriented than any other jesu record I have made. jesu is a mood that can be explored and experimented with, I’m not making the first album over and over, some can’t get over that, but that was a different moment in my life which I captured, and as an artist who challenges oneself besides the audience you can never win, and one will generally never win hah. This is a new jesu, it comes with age, transitions. "Never" was intentionally idiosyncratic and deliberately fvcked up sounding, and I think by and large critically the subtleties were lost on people.

“Never” features two version of ''Never There for You'', one of them described as the ''original vision''. Can you explained how you ended up releasing two version of this song?

— The “original vision” existed like that since around 2010, I shelved it, it was to be a Pale Sketcher song, I had an album’s worth of similar songs, I still do, couldn’t decide if they should be jesu or Pale Sketcher. I sent them to Aphex Twin / Richard James because he was a huge fan of the Pale Sketcher EP “Seventh Heaven”, we were talking about a release on his label Rephlex, I had all these songs that were floating between jesu and Pale Sketcher. But then he folded Rephlex for good, a real shame, so I was left with all these songs in limbo, I still am, but at that period I shelved them all. I returned to them around 2018 and started adding guitars and vocals, thinking that they will now definitely be jesu songs. “Never There for You” was one of them, so I wanted the listener to hear what it was originally before I added more of organic me. I’m working on finalising all those songs for Rephlex into future jesu, probably an album that I hope to release late 2021, it’s not a "Terminus" though, and probably most ppl will hate it hah.

“Terminus” is the first album to feature Ted Parsons in a long while. Did you invite him because you felt these songs needed his touch?

— I wanted some live drums, 3 songs only. I was going to play them myself, like on "Opiate Sun". "Infinity" etc, but I really wanted Ted involved and see how he interpreted my drum parts, he always swings something and makes it interesting. he’s a very real drummer, and a very real human being.

When touring is possible again, would you like to tour with Jesu, with Ted on drums?

— I may tour solo, with electronics and projections. The band thing is tiresome and always just sounds like a band, bands bore me these days because of the constraints of the instruments, rock records also bore me these days; same productions, etc, very little actual aesthetic, but its popular and what do I know. But I’d rather jesu now sound hugely expansive live, not just like a rock band. But i’m still unsure. Live drums swallow my voice live, I can’t sing above them, and jesu is a tiny project, can’t play big venues with stage separation and screens around the drums, and 8 guys diving around onstage, it’s not affordable. I stopped performing as jesu for some time due to all those reasons.

You said “Silver” is probably your favourite Jesu record. Are there other Jesu albums that stand out in your mind?

— Did I say that?! Haha. I don’t recall, and that opinion changes every day I feel. I like how concise and all encompassing "Silver" is; it covers most of the ground that I feel the project should cover. But "Terminus" is my favourite jesu album, and it should be, otherwise I would not feel I was moving forward, and I feel I am, it is the best jesu album I have made.

Last year, you told Olivier ''Zoltar'' Badin that the next Zonal album would probably go in the direction of it's title track ''Wrecked''. Is it still true to this day and what can you tell us about that upcoming album?

— Well, a lot of time has passed since, but I think Kevin and I are still quite struck on that song as a template for future recordings, although everything changes all the time, of course, and time is passing fast once again, we haven’t discussed Zonal in some time.

I know you don't actually consider yourself as a guitarist. With you focusing on your electronic projects like JK Flesh and Zonal lately, do you ever get tired of guitar? I'm asking this because I recently discussed the subject with Steven Wilson. He basically told me that after 30 years writing and doing gigs with guitar, he's feeling more creative and excited when writing music on other instruments and I wondered if you ever felt something similar.

— All instruments are just a means to an end for me; a tool for the bigger job, I don’t really wish to be overly proficient at any instrument, I liked that about punk, and it’s what I’m not that fond of about overly progressive music, it’s like it’s for show, I don’t do anything for show, I’d rather be shit than great, it’s more interesting, it reflects the human condition, imperfection. I don’t wish for things to sound perfect, whatever that is, people should not come to my music for that, they probably don’t and it’s probably why my audience is so small haha.

I recently discovered that you worked with Josh Eustis with the mastering of the JK Flesh / Orphx live album and was a bit surprised. How did that happen?

— Josh is a very good friend of Dominick Fernow’s (Prurient / Vatican Shadow / Hospital Productions, etc), and Dominick is a very close friend of mine. I was aware that Josh does very good mastering besides being an extremely talented artist, so Dominick suggested josh master that collaboration, and it sounds excellent!

I interviewed Lee Dorrian some time ago and we were talking about the impact Napalm Death had, not just the band itself but all the bands who were formed after playing in that band: Godflesh, Carcass, Cathedral, Scorn... Lee thought this legacy had a lot to do with John Peel broadcasting a wide array of music on young aspiring musicians. How would you explain such creativity and versatility from musicians who all played in Napalm Death at one point?

— Lee is absolutely correct, a lot of very young kids listened to John Peel, most generations did, his taste exposed music to many of us who were already enquiring at a young age that we would not have heard anywhere else and of course back then this centralised things, not fragmented them like the internet does; a kid now can absorb an artist entire catalog in an hour, speed listen to it all, then have an opinion, but it’s informed, no context, no history, no experience. We heard music then on Peel and then hunted it down. It took work, valuable work that paid dividends. Peel’s broad appreciation of eternally subversive music and otherwise told us that music didnt need to exist in such strict compartments, that’s it’s all part of a greater whole, so when groups of musicians collaborated even at such young ages, our tastes were informed and wide, very rarely singular.

Can you tell us a bit about you latest remixing output? What were the tracks that you enjoyed the most remixing? Those are the names I could find: Full of Hell, Oathbreaker and a lot of projects I've never heard of.

— I always and love to remix, I love the fact that I didn’t create this music but can make something new from someone else’s work. Music is endless, for me, it’s just when you wish to end it, but ultimately it can never end. I have some remixes that I love moire than others, but only over time, I never let a remix go unless I am as happy as can be with it. Sometimes I would’ve loved to have done more, my Killing Joke remix is a good example of that, I wanted to go further, but Youth of Killing Joke told me they were happy with where I was at, I think I could’ve made it much better. The Oathbreaker remix you mentioned is a favourite of mine from the last years worth of my remixes. I’ll remix anyone, if they can afford my fee and I have the time!

I'm curious, since you released some of your music with your own label with Godflesh, Jesu and other projects, did it have an impact on the revenue you got from streaming platforms like Spotify, compared to albums released on Earache or Hydra Head? I'm asking this in the light of the neverending controversy regarding streaming revenue for musicians.

— On my own label more money can be earned from these services due to no split with another label, which usually would be 50/50, but streaming is very small as is common knowledge. I never see any royalties from Earache so can’t compare their rates etc since Godflesh is constantly recouping an advance from Columbia / Sony for the "Selfless" album that Earache, contractually, can recoup from, even though they didn’t give the advance, so they’re making money from the band and from an advance they never paid, which these days you would think that besides being unethical that it would be criminal, but such were the contracts in the 80’s / 90’s. So I’ve never seen a single penny from streaming with Earache!

I know it might be pointless to ask you, since someone's mind can change with time but do you still think “Post Self” may be your last album with Godflesh? Your told us last year that you weren't sure if you had enough in you creatively to do another album and also that the constant screaming was a bit harder to do.

— Hah, the shouting/screaming live now takes its toll, it does with age, I’m unsure due to not performing for so long thanks to the pandemic how my voice would be for Godflesh now in a live setting, I’d have very little problem in the studio. I’m still struck on the fact that there may not be another full length studio album from Godflesh, I haven’t been inspired to initiate one for numerous reasons, and I don’t wish for us to repeat ourselves in any way, I do have a lot of interesting old material though, some good rare stuff, demos, “Us and Them in Dub” which is also in the works, but I work on that sporadically, when I feel inspired to do so. So there’s a lot of good stuff coming.

Last time I interviewed you in 2014, Aphex Twin was making his grand return with “Syro”. I remember you telling me that the album was still shrinkwrapped on your desk. Knowing you're a big Aphex fan, I wanted to know if you liked that album, especially knowing that a lot of fans were disappointed by it.

— Ahh it was such a long time ago now that we spoke last! I love "Syro”, but I love Aphex, and since I first heard "Didgeridoo" when it was released and then "Quoth", he will always be a favourite, "Syro" may not be an Aphex favourite for me, but it’s still amazing, he is amazing; creative, subversive and doesn’t give a fvck ultimately, he’d also never release anything if he didnt really have to, he does this for himself, for me the best art is entirely selfish and should consider no one. People are always disappointed, a lot of people just can’t live with the fact that an artist strays from their own personal conception of what an artist should be, it’s some sort of misguided entitlement, I lost that when II was around 14, a lot of people don’t lose it and now these people have the internet. No artist owes me anything, if they gave me one thing in my life then i will always respect their art, regardless of whether it works for me or not, and if I don’t like it much, I won’t be peddling that opinion on the internet in an entitled egotistical manner, I’m glad I did not know that a lot of people were disappointed, haha.

Thank you very much! Best JKB, Jan 2021

#jesu #justin broadrick #interview

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dsoe-masteroftheheavenlyyard · 4 years

Text

Chapter 6–Not Eve; Scene 3

master of the heavenly yard pages 139-151

--Gumillia had only told Allen that she was “searching for the Deadly Sin Contractors who had escaped from hell”, leaving out the details from the “meeting of the three worlds”. That had been Sickle’s decision.

…Don’t like it.

Gumillia thought to herself as she walked through the Hellish Yard, carrying two women in her arms.

Sickle…Everything was dressed up in pretty words…but the facts are full of contradictions.

The idea was to erase the “influence of the Second Period”—but if so, didn’t she, Michaela, and Sickle also fall under that “influence”?

In the end, she didn’t like that Sickle wasn’t going along with their own line of thinking.

Sickle values protecting the “Rules” above all other things—that’s what Michaela told me.

But if that were the case…why hand the world over to a being like Allen who was outside the Rules?

Or rather…”Because” he’s outside of the rules. Perhaps Sickle is trying to restore things to that framework by putting them under the management of an “Irregular”—

--Riliane was still struggling in her grip.

“Put me down already! You brute!”

They were already in the center of the Hellish Yard. There was no longer any need to restrain her further.

Gumillia released her, and Riliane then fell face-first onto the ground.

“…. You could have put me down more gently!”

“Nothing but complaints, as usual.”

“…? Do I…know you? –Take off that mask and show me your face!”

“No. You wouldn’t recognize me, by my face anyhow.”

Under the mask—her true face was different from the one that Riliane knew.

The crewmembers that had been on the spaceship “Climb One”…among their number had been a female researcher named Gumillia.

She had returned now to the face she had back then.

“I’ll tell you my name. I—am Gumillia. I was once the apprentice of the sorceress Elluka.”

“…Ah, I remember. You were there back then. Though you didn’t talk much.”

“Let’s go quickly. Others are waiting.”

Gumillia pushed on ahead, pulling Riliane forcibly by the arm.

--“The Judgment Door”.

When the souls of the dead passed through it, they would head off to either Heaven or Hell.

She could see three people standing before it. They were still a ways off, so she couldn’t clearly see their faces.

“And those are?” Riliane asked Gumillia.

“’Deadly Sin Contractors’—to be accurate, the people with best ‘compatibility’ with the ‘Demons of Deadly Sin’.”

“…What a roundabout way of speaking.”

“In these three, two of them didn’t actually contract with a demon. So calling them ‘Deadly Sin Contractors’ itself, is incorrect.”

“If they’re not contractors then wouldn’t there be no need to lock them up here?”

“But, the fact remains they are sinful people, with deep connection to the demons—Just like you and Prim.”

“…”

The people before the door appeared to have noticed them. A woman in a red kimono raced over.

Upon seeing that face for herself, Riliane unthinkingly let out a scream.

“Gah! Y-you’re…Sudou Kayo!”

Hearing her name called, Kayo curiously looked at Riliane.

“Dear me…You know of me, young foreign miss?”

“Ch, don’t play dumb—Oh, that’s right. You wouldn’t know me looking like this.”

Riliane employed her imagination, and instantaneously changed her clothes.

--From her princess dress to the kimono of a town girl.

And as she did, she altered her manner of speaking to match.

“Look. Surely you remember now, with me in this outfit?”

“…My my! Are you Rin-chan of the Miroku family!?”

“So you finally remember. …Though my face hasn’t changed a bit.”

“Long time no see. Are you well?”

“Of course I’m not well! That you even have the gall to ask! –You killed me.”

“That’s true…I’m sorry,” Kayo said, deeply bowing her head.

“…”

She said her apology with such sincerity that Riliane was unable to come up with any more words of reproach.

In place of Riliane’s retorts, Gumillia spoke up to Kayo. “Are you, feeling better?”

“Yes, ‘Master of the Hellish Yard’. I think the air aboveground didn’t agree with me, and it made me a little confused…But I’m much calmer now.”

“I see, that’s good. …Are the other two behaving?”

“Yes…For now. Though I’m a little bothered by the Duke-sama’s constant attempts to talk to me.”

“…Venomania’s not changed. The gall, to make passes at his own descendant.”

The two remaining by the door slowly started to walk their way.

Riliane was shocked once more.

“My beloved Kyle!? –Wait, no.”

They looked alike, but they were different people.

He was the Dark Star Bureau Director Gallerian Marlon.

“…What is this—One acquaintance after another.”

Having come close enough, Gallerian saw Riliane and gave her a curious expression. “—You there. Have we met somewhere? You look familiar…”

“…Sigh.”

After Riliane sighed she once more changed clothes.

This time she was in a red coat and a red cap.

“--! You’re—‘Postman’!”

“Exactly. It’s been a while, Gallerian.”

“So you…were a girl. And you can talk?”

“I became able to talk. After you died.”

“…Where is Ma now?”

“Don’t know.”

--The other man, Duke Venomania, looked to Riliane first. Then he saw Prim, still unmoving in Gumillia’s arms, and he snickered.

“Two women this time, huh. We don’t need any more men here, but women’ll get a warm welcome from me.”

Riliane had never met him directly, but she had caught his name in history books.

So this is Duke Venomania. He’s exactly the lech history says he was. …Let’s keep from getting close to him.

Gumillia conjured up a humble chair with her imagination and sat Prim down in it.

“This makes five. Next—Banica Conchita,” she muttered, then turning to Kayo.

“Kayo. I trust you, to take over watching after them.”

“As you like.”

After seeing Kayo nod in agreement, Gumillia looked up.

“—Wait a second, Master of the Hellish Yard.”

The one who moved to stop her was Gallerian.

“You need something, Gallerian?”

“Why are you capturing ‘Deadly Sin Contractors’?”

“That’s self-evident. To capture those who escape from hell—is my role.”

“Oh? Leaving aside Venomania and that black-haired woman sitting over there, I’ve never seen these other two in hell.”

“…Very well, I’ll tell you the truth. It was what the Sun God decided. He ordered me, to watch over you so you don’t do anything rash.”

“God…Hey now. I didn’t take you for the type to obediently follow along with what that bat tells you to do.” Gallerian glowered at Gumillia. “It’s no use trying to pull the wool over a judge’s eyes, Master of the Hellish Yard. You—are trying to protect us, aren’t you?”

“…”

“But in my opinion…this is a lukewarm attempt.”

At some point, Gallerian had been clutching a gavel in his hand.

“Do you think they’ll give up just by tossing us into the Hellish Yard? They’ll chase us down here—Just like this!” he shouted.

Then, he struck the earth hard with the gavel.

The ground cracked open in a radiating fissure starting from that point.

“Wh-what did you do!?”

The answer to Riliane’s question became clear soon enough.

A green-haired girl floated out from within the crack.

Upon seeing her, Gumillia’s face twisted under the mask.

“Tch. So you’ve already gotten in. ‘Sleep Princess’—Eve Moonlit!”

Appearing to have judged this was an emergency situation, Kayo conjured up two pairs of scissors in her hands.

She wielded them like weapons, and leaped at the Sleep Princess.

--However.

Someone flew up before the Sleep Princess and stood in the way to shield her.

…It was Prim, who should have stopped being able to move with her time frozen.

She tightly grasped both of Kayo’s arms.

“Ghk…She’s too strong.”

Prim’s eyes were open, but they seemed devoid of consciousness.

Gumillia reasoned that she must have been controlled by the Sleep Princess’ “hypnosis” ability.

…Not good. One false move and everyone here, may end up being controlled—

Behind the Sleep Princess, Gallerian folded his arms and grinned boldly.

“Hmph, you’re quite unprepared, Master of the Hellish Yard. –And, it seems you’re somewhat mistaken.”

“…?”

“She—is not Eve.”

“--!? Then who—”

“She is my beloved daughter. Michelle has borrowed Eve’s power and made it her own.”

“And here I thought you’d say something useful…It seems you’re already, caught up in Eve’s spell.”

“It makes no difference to me if you don’t believe. But—that doesn’t change the trouble you’re all in!”

Gallerian conjured a gun in his hand, then started firing it at Gumillia and the others.

“Eek!”

Riliane fell to the ground, cowering.

“…”

Gumillia assessed their gap in battle potential with the current situation as she dodged the bullets.

…Riliane probably won’t be much use. She did contract with the demon of ‘Pride’, but she never used its power in life. Kayo…has her hands full with Prim.

Kayo had thrown off Prim’s hands and was slashing at her over and over. But Prim deftly dodged each time.

Thinking on the difference in physical ability between them when they were alive, Kayo should have been much stronger than Prim. But right now the two of them were mere souls—Perhaps Prim had been released from her mental limiters by the Sleep Princess’ power.

Then I should leave Gallerian to Venomania, and take on Eve myself—

Just then, Venomania evaded the bullets with a grin and approached Prim.

“You’re in my way, Duke-sama! Please step aside!”

“Come now, it’s not nice for a woman to be swiping those things around. …Even a married woman like yourself,” Venomania said, seizing Prim’s arms. “I don’t like to see women fight each other.”

His eyes began to bewitchingly shine.

“Let’s—stop now.”

“…Okay.”

Prim’s cheeks reddened, and she dashed into Venomania’s embrace.

Gumillia watched this go on with amazement.

He controlled Prim with his “Lust” magic!? Good grief…

So, the Sleep Princess’ hypnosis could be counteracted by Venomania’s lust spell—

Gallerian appeared to notice this as well.

“…Michelle. Enough with the hypnosis. Use ‘gift’.”

“Got it, Papa.”

A mist began to emit from the Sleep Princess. A deadly green poison that would put everything to sleep.

However—

“…Papa, it’s no good. My mind is…turning to Eve…”

“What!?”

“I—I am…the Sleep Princess…I am…”

The Sleep Princess crouched on the spot, and at the same time the mist disappeared.

Gallerian ran to her.

“That’s enough. Don’t overdo it. Any more and you’ll lose yourself.”

“Okay…I’m sorry.”

“…Seems we’re at a disadvantage.” Gallerian looked around them. “Michelle, let’s draw back for now. Are you…able to destroy the barrier?”

“…Yeah. It’ll just take one more.”

Thunder suddenly boomed through the Hellish Yard.

There was a flash blindingly bright—and when it had cleared, Gallerian and the Sleep Princess were gone.

“--They got away,” Gumillia muttered, annoyed.

When she did, the mask that she was wearing suddenly started to laugh.

“Ha ha hah, they broke the barrier so easily. It was improvised after all, so I suppose there’s nothing for it.”

“This isn’t a laughing matter, Seth. –That damned Gallerian. So he was in league with Gammon.”

“Looks that way. Well then…What do you intend to do now?”

“It’s obvious. I have to bring him back here again.”

“And the other ‘Deadly Sin Contractors’ with him.”

“…?”

Gumillia abruptly looked around her.

…Venomania, Kayo, Prim, and Riliane. She finally realized that all of them had vanished.

Seth laughed again.

“They must have been pulled back up to the ground world by gravity. Bound to happen, now that the barrier’s been destroyed.”

“…Sigh. I guess I’ll, start over again.”

“We’ll have to fix the barrier first. Otherwise we have no place to lock them up.”

“…We don’t have much time.”

“I know. So let’s get started.”

<<prev------directory------next>>

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facelessoldgargoyle · 4 years

Text

Reading @cipheramnesia’s fantastic analysis of transmedicalism reminded me about a period of my own gender discovery adventure. The general structure went like:

1. Yay, I’ve finally figured out my sexuality! I love consuming content from queer people! Oh, a lot of queer people are trans?

2. Intense fascination with ✨transgenderism ✨

3. Haha I’m cis tho. Wait but how do I know? What is gender and how do you know what gender you are?

4. Excited investigation

5. Exhausted, confused, uncertain, and anxious investigation.

6. Fuck it, I think I’m some flavor of nonbinary and I won’t ever tell anyone and I’ll live my whole life like that and it will be FINE.

7. Wait, if other people are able to so precisely describe their gender, and have such a strong internal sense of their own gender, and I’m only [assigned gender at birth] because other people have assigned it to me, then I’m probably not that gender. I’m going to gently tell people that I don’t have a gender, and if they insist on giving me a label, I guess they can understand me as agender.

8. Hey fuck you, you don’t get to tell me that I have a gender! Fuck off! Pronouns? Never heard of her! Use whatever makes you the most uncomfortable!

It took me about 2 and a half years to get through this, because I’m nothing if not thorough, unable to give up on something I’ve started thinking about, and bullheaded as shit. However, I spent a while in phase 5, the part where being trans was no longer a new concept, I had seen the same five thinkpieces and posts over and over, and I was sick of being so uncertain. I just wanted to be able to have a conclusion, but no one could give me a framework for gender that met my epistemic standards (oh the joy of being a philosopher) and so I had no framework within which to evaluate myself.

This is when I encountered transmedicalism, and frankly, the certainty it professed was very attractive. It had simple rules and simple diagnostic criteria and simple consequences: have dysphoria, be trans, get HRT etc.

While I was still uncertain if I was cis, I started evaluating myself along these lines, and I started giving myself dysphoria because I didn’t want to be cis (even though I couldn’t admit that to myself yet.)

Here’s why I didn’t commit to transmedicalism, and decided I was trans for point 7 (above) instead.

A) I didn’t really want any of the medical treatments though. If I could change my body with a video game character design screen, I’d definitely do some customizing, but I didn’t want to become another binary gender.

B) I was pretty sure I wasn’t the [opposite gender assigned to me at birth]. But I was starting to think I wasn’t cis because I was also seeing opinions like “the number one symptom of being trans is wanting to be trans,” and “it’s normal for everyone to wonder about gender but obsessing over it and being anxious that you’re not really trans is not a thing cis people do.” And reader, this described me to a T. Transmedicalism didn’t account for wanting to be trans, it only described hating being trans.

C) Given point (b) where I was pretty sure I was neither male nor female, I was thinking I might be nonbinary. Transmedicalism has nonbinary people, but they’re lower caste, suspected of lying (either that they’re on a stepping stone to being binary trans or that they’re not trans at all), or outright excluded and mocked. You know the one comic about the “real” binary trans man and the “transtrender” man with blue hair? Major riparino, my dude. That shit HURTED.

D) Transmedicalism didn’t really have a good way to account for post-transition trans people. They could discount pre-transition trans people who didn’t have dysphoria as not being really trans, but what about trans people who started out with dysphoria, had transitioned fully, and were no longer dysphoric? If the diagnostic criteria is only being dysphoric, then were those people no longer trans?

The two biggest reason I fell away from it was that it didn’t actually relieve any of my gender anxiety and I could see the harm it caused. It restricts resources (as cipher explained very thoroughly) and caused harm through that. It’s a framework full of policing, and you’re always worried about not being really trans, or pushing away other uncertain, anxious people.

#please read cipher’s post it’s so good I just didn’t want to reblog with this post because I knew it would be so fuckin long #gender trouble #nonbinary #trans rights

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serendipitous-magic · 3 years

Note

what's your writing process like? do you plot things out beforehand? or do you sort of write it as it comes? a mix of both?

Depends on what I'm writing!

In general I'm a planner. I can't write from a blank page, unless I'm just like... really really captivated by whatever I'm writing, which was what happened with the first chapters of both The Art of Living Your (Second) Life and The Partnership Plan.

a) In general, if it's a fanfiction I'm writing, I tend to build the plan as I write - meaning, oftentimes I'll be inspired to write the first chapter, and I'll write that with little idea what the rest of it will be. Or, even if I have an idea what the rest will be, it's more of a vague skeleton than a full plan. And then, as I continue to write, I think more about where the story is going and I continuously add to and refine my plan kind of alongside the actual writing. In this way, the plan grows at the same time that the actual chapters do - but because the chapters take significantly longer to write than planning does, the plan outpaces the "real" writing and I usually know the basic story arc from fairly early on. Then it's just a matter of fleshing it out, adding detail, writing down scenes I thought of, etc. And then when I get to that point in the actual writing, I have a framework in place already.

-_-_-

b) Sometimes for fanfic, I have a more complete plan upfront - although I use "complete" here to mean "from beginning to end," not "completely detailed." So, more like a full skeleton than a full body, if that makes sense. I did that with Roll for Strength. What usually happens is that my plan will look something like...

...

Chapter One

-Will suspects Mike has a girlfriend and is kind of put out about it but thinks he's over Mike so he tells himself he doesn't care

-Will walks in on Mike and his BF (name??) and has a crisis (they don't see Will, so Will knows about Mike but Mike doesn't know that Will knows)

-Will might get off to that later, guiltily? (Or move to chapter two)

Chapter Two

-Do Mike's POV to tell about how he ended up dating a guy, how he got very disillusioned with the world after canon events and got into a "fuck it, the rules don't matter and I hate them anyway" mentality, which eventually snowballed into him kind of realizing and accepting his sexuality earlier than usual fanon

-Also introduce BF (name??) in a scene

-Set time and place - season should set the mood if not already mentioned in Ch 1

-Maybe also do BF's POV briefly to introduce him?? Or leave that for later

...

Etc.

And that's the original skeleton plan. And then it gets expanded upon more and more and more as I continue to think about the story, sometimes even with full pages' worth of unbroken text blocks as I get inspired and start basically thought-vomiting an entire scene. So by the time I get around to actually writing it, it might look like the above, or it might be a few steps shy of an actual draft already, depending on how much I've thought about / worked on that part.

See #5 in this writing advice post to see what I mean about a "thought vomit" draft.

-_-_-

c) Here's the thing - the above was for fanfic, or for short stories, or stories that I'm just kind of having fun with.

For original stuff, I adhere much more tightly to the "rules," because the guidelines for original work (that you might try to publish in the actual publishing market) are much stricter - and for good reason! Fanfiction is a sandbox, and we're all invested in the characters and worlds and settings already. We're all reading and writing fanfic because we already love these characters and this world, and we just want to play in it.

It's a different situation with original novels that you hope to publish. The plot, pacing, tension, and story beats have to be much, much tighter and more polished. Because people reading original work have no prior reason to be invested in it or care what happens - that's work that you have to do. For fanfic, that work was done for you by the original thing. Not to mention, the publishing world is so absolutely choked with competition, and the emphasis lies so heavily on sales, that if your book isn't fucking top-tier compelling, no publisher or agent will take a second look at it. Which is kind of unfortunate, because there's value in slower, more relaxed, more reflective storytelling, too - it's just not what capitalism has decided to value, which is sad.

But anyway.

When writing an original thing, I basically need a full plan - beginning to end, covering all plot points. Not necessarily all the details, just all the plot points - I need a skeleton and I need connective tissue. The rest comes later. But to start, I need to know what happens, why, and how the characters get from event to event. I need to know the physical story events, the emotional beats, and how those things logically flow throughout the story.

Some people can write without this and it still turns into a compelling story, tight narrative, etc. I envy these people. I have all respect for these people. I cannot do this. If I write original work with no plan, and especially without at least like 50-75% of a plan, I end up with something slow, meandering, and kind of limp. No bueno.

So, I usually use a beat sheet.

What's a beat sheet?

It's a 15-beat plotting structure used by screenwriters. And, yeah, technically it's for movies / screenplays. But storytelling is storytelling. And it's highly flexible. (And my favorite professor ever taught it to me in college so you can pry it out of my cold dead hands.)

Google it. It's what I use to make sure my (original work) plots are tight, have momentum, have a satisfying character arc, etc.

Okay, okay, I'll paste the basic structure below just so you can see wtf I'm talking about:

-_-_-

-Act I:

1) The First Frame

-What is the first thing we see? This should be a snapshot of the main character’s problem, before the story begins

-Ex: the Star Destroyer in A New Hope

2) The World Around Us

-What is the main character’s world like at the beginning of the story?

-What is missing in the main character’s life?

3) State the Theme (sneak this into The World Around Us)

-What is the story secretly about? This should happen during The World Around Us

4) Inciting Incident (smol tentpole)

-What happens to put the hero on the road? This is where the hero’s life changes forever.

5) The Hero Questions

-1st introspective moment

-Can the hero really do this? Should the hero chicken out?

-Oftentimes the hero fails at something

-Ex: Luke gets his ass beat by the raiders

-Act II:

6) Crossing the Threshold / The Emotional Hurdle (big tentpole)

-The main character makes a choice

-Beginning of Act II

7) The B Story / The Love Story

-Introduced here

-Often but not always a love story

8) Promise of the Premise

-Fun and games in the world you promised

-Horror movie? Creeps here!

-Sci fi? Space battles!

-Animation? Shenanigans!

9) Midpoint (big tentpole)

-The hero finds out that what they want is not what they need

-Luke rescues the princess - turns out that’s not really what the story was about

10) Bad Guys Close In / Throwing Rocks

-Events conspire to tear the hero’s goal to shreds

-Wesley is mostly dead, Inego is drunk, Fezzick is part of the brute squad

-This is the other side of the fun and games coin where things are no longer fun

11) All is Lost

-Something super bad happens, and that goal is impossible

-If someone important is gonna die, it’s probably now

12) The Pit of Despair (smol tentpole)

-The hero mourns the death (if someone died) and wallows in his/her lowest point

13) Inspiration

-A fresh idea

-Act III:

14) Come and Get Some / Final Confrontation (big tentpole)

-The final confrontation - the final showdown

-A and B stories wrapping up at the same time

-The theme makes sense and the battle is engaged

15) Final Frame

-Opposite of the first frame

-The hero is changed

-_-_-

It's what I use. But hey, you don't have to. What works for me might not work for you.

I'll finish this off by pasting in a section of actual real-ass planning I have open in a document for one of my novels at this moment (it's giving me the evil eye, I swear) so you can see what I kind of mean by "thought vomiting." Also note that in my actual document, the bullet points are indented incrementally to be kind of "nestled" underneath the relevant points, if that makes sense, and that it's a whole eye-watering mess of different colors. But for Tumblr, it's this:

-_-_-

-You have to be rescued by the rest of the team, because you fell down that hole - and you are, eventually, after screaming yourself hoarse some more (plus it’s been like an hour or more now, so they have since noticed that you were missing)

-I could gloss over this, like end the chapter when you run away, and open the next one with “It takes another half hour of screaming your throat nearly bloody before the team finds you,” or something

-They berate you for chasing after ghosts - you say you didn’t find anyone down there, because you know for damn sure nobody’s gonna believe what you think you saw, and you don’t even think you believe it

-This leads to a trip to the local doctor (a clinic, probs, akin to UrgentCare), which you’re not happy with because that’s more people taking notice of you

-However, you’re also going through the change in mindset here - see below

-Note: I as the writer don’t have to worry about the paperwork or whatever that you’d normally have to fill out, getting hurt on the job, because you weren’t officially hired - however, it would be a good “humanity is okay” moment if the guy who hired you came in and helped you with the medical expenses because he felt bad - he’d also probably be a little nervous about you suing or something, but you assure him that you have zero interest in that

-I could include a funny line where the guy says he’ll pay for your doctor bill and you try to say no (being indebted to someone is bad news for you) but he insists, because he says he feels responsible, and you just kind of stare at him and then blurt, “Do you need me to kill anyone for you?” (Something you probably regret as soon as you say it, not because you expect him to accept but because you abruptly remember what happened two days ago.) (Would it be too much to also add like “You want me to murder anyone for you? You want a blowjob? I will do anything,” and he gets flustered and bats it off like “Nah, nah, nah, chill out. You’re crazy, man.” And insists that you don’t need to pay him back)

-Here’s a decision I have to make - does the guy pay for your doctor bills as well as paying for your work today (leaving you enough money to potentially split town, but you decide not to), or do you have to pay the $2,500+ in doctor bills with no insurance for the injury, which raises the stakes by depleting all your money?

-I think I like Option A best, because it gives Sam more agency as a character if they decide to stay despite having the option to leave, versus them just being stuck completely - plus I don’t know how else I’d be able to explain away you having money for the hotel

-The guy who hired you pays you for the work day here - and maybe, just maybe, that gives you barely enough to buy that used car (although, why would it? It couldn’t have been more than like $200 for 8 hours of work, maybe $300 if he was really really desperate - if it was a really cheap used car, that might give you barely enough to buy the car but literally nothing left over)

-Point being, maybe you have enough money to bolt now, if you chose to - and you have to make the choice not to

-The car you found might be a $1,500 Honda Civic (or Jeep or whatever) with a dead battery, and the guy selling it says it should run fine with a new battery, which you Google (apparently it would be somewhere in the range of $100-$200) - maybe you think of how nice the mechanic was for you and wonder if you could cut a bit of a deal with him, if you get this car - and if the guy pays for your trip to the doctor and pays you for the temp work, this could just tip you into the margin of being able to afford the car, if you haggle with the seller

-_-_-

Or another example, with more actual sentences:

-_-_-

-As you approach the trailer you start to register a smell that turns your stomach - something like a porta potty and something like the sharp tang of rusting metal. It makes you pause - maybe there really is someone in there, using the place to live whether there’s a sewage hookup or not - it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing you’ve heard of. But after standing for a bit, silent and listening, and then hiding behind a large tree to chuck a rock at the vehicle to no response, you continue forward. You’ll just have to be cautious. Your spirits lift when you see the door. It’s completely grown over. (Leafy vines lace over it, tangling in the handle, yellowing and unbroken. If someone is living in there, they’ve been using the window to come and go, and that doesn’t seem all too likely. Bolstered by a new swell of confidence, and picturing the unlikely riches you might find stashed away in a cabinet or a glove compartment, you cross the last few feet towards the shape.

-You find the body and recognize it as one of the two obnoxious vlogging dudes from the motel

-I’m kind of imagining the moment of discovery like the wardrobe moment in Narnia where, during your nice forest trek, there’s been some pleasant acoustic music playing (like All the Pretty Girls by Kaleo maybe) and then it just stops abruptly in the middle of a phrase, maybe echoing slightly, when you see the body, and all at once everything is sickly silent.

-Oh dude, maybe you continue thinking it’s a duffel bag (possibly feeling pretty upbeat, though cautious until you’re literally about to step over it, and then you happen to glance down and get a sickening, chest-slamming shock when an empty human face is staring up at you

-Note: there should be mushrooms growing in, on and around the RV, because mushrooms are Creepy

-You go to investigate the RV

-Maybe you recognized the body as one of the vloggers and you’re trying to see if his friend is around - or maybe, in a kind of sick daze, you short circuit and find yourself doing the only thing you can think to do: continuing along your trajectory, stumbling towards the RV and tearing the rusted-out door free from the lattice of brittle vines that held it in place (this is what alerts The Dude that someone has been here), like if you just get to your original goal that’ll fix everything - somehow, if you just keep moving forward on the track you set out on, that thing won’t be real anymore - at the very least you have to get inside, to put a door between you and the body, like you’re pulling the blankets over your head to shield yourself from the boogeyman. Just as long as you’re not out there with, with...

-_-_-

Anywho, I'll stop.

I apologize again for... (scrolls up for a million miles) all of that, but you asked me about my passion and now you pay the price, lmao.

#asks #anon #writing #writing advice #i guess?#my writing #thought vomit draft #also you get a sneak peek at The Vanishing Day I guess lmao

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tripstaysnoided · 4 years

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Flow Just Like Water

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Story and writing-related transparency update and my many shames...

The Question on Everyone’s Mind

“Hey you haven’t updated No Stars over Uptown in almost a year...”

Hmm, I hate it when you’re right. (This section has been rewritten ad-nauseam to curb back the bitchiness by the way)

So back in early/mid 2018, the idea was to divorce Uptown from a person who influenced it (and myself) heavily. She was my most important audience member, the closest friend I ever had, and unfortunately someone who used her power to bully, ostracize, and hurt others with my help. I cut contact when the hurt + some self-awareness finally reached me. Apologies were made and I feel like my work will never be done with it, but there was still Uptown.

Between censored comments, entirely recasting Axel’s save, different plot threads, and a load of disclaimers, there was nothing that would scrub her influence from the story. There was no way to cleanly drop everything because of how deep her influence went. It disgusted me to look back at it, and I had to private the blog because I feared what it endorsed, even if just in the past.

I pulled back from that sims writing community. I had its main thread on the Official Forums removed too (I guess if that was a mystery to anyone). It was a surrender that I never wanted to do, but I had it in my mind that if I was gone, then she wouldn’t be there either. Uptown became this cursed item, and as I quietly retired it, I noticed that she went quieter too. Not gone, but enough to make me sleep easier at night and even occasionally say hello to old friends.

And I hope deep in my heart that no one else is getting hurt in my place, but now this is gonna haunt me all day huh!

The two paths forward...

1) Complete Uptown rewrite that I’ve been threatening everyone with all year. While it won’t ever be clean because I can’t undo time, I do have a sound outline for a story that is much more true to my actual vision and how I’ve evolved, with a few necessary boundaries in place that are going to be there for all stories moving forward: no more casting calls and no more collaborative efforts. I am not going to open myself up to this happening again, even if the people have changed.

2) Same as above, but I continue the original Uptown as a favor to loyal readers alongside the rewrite. I would try to put the effort into it that I initially did, but with no promises on an update schedule and no advertising. I did ask myself “is there Patreon but without pledging money, just the private posts function” but it could operate as part of a private forum, a members-only part of a website, etc.

Also readers of the original would be beholden to a rule of “don’t spoil the rewrite for new readers, c’mon guys”. I mean, not really, but it is a good courtesy to extend to people.

Priority on this isn’t high but you at least will see what is!

I will probably make the blog public again either way due to the many broken links on my Tumblr but we’ll see. There are other things to deal with as I shall list!

Where Life’s Been Regardless

Been spending more time with my grandpa every weekend. Life’s pretty good and he’s warming up to my dogs.

Shiny New Webbed Site

Cucumber Fields Forever is a site I own now. We have a full domain, cucumberfieldsforever.com, a blog with one post, and the framework needed to host stories the way I want to and still through WordPress. The functionality of likes, comments, and following should still be the same but you know...I’ll take feedback too...

The main blog still has an undefined purpose though I do have drafts sitting around about:

The maybe/maybe not hoax band that was on the Metal Archives and the history of Funeral Doom Metal.

The curious case of when Sims 4 babies get their genetics and my only collaboration (read: was talking about it with a friend and might quote her if needed, it’s actually a bit of a doozy)

Amazon.com’s fake dried udon noodles, an actual issue by the way.

Things I’m reading! (This’d be a monthly feature if so)

For the sake of unity, I am thinking of solutions for hosting old and shameful content there including Uptown and for the real fans in my followers feed, Eight Cicadas...a world I totally have plans for too (not really). I don’t want them to be front-and-center, and that’s why I mentioned forums/members-only content. I finally have that power! Maybe.

Ooooh but what are the costs? Not too much to handle, that’s what. 😉 (Like really, I don’t need any hand-wringing about this, I can manage my finances)

Project Queue (In Order of Confirmedness)

Outrun the Scythe: have you seen me post out-of-context Sims 3 pictures? Did you want more? Did you hope it was Linda in Custody? If the answers are yes, yes, and “meh, whatever you want”, then you’re in luck.

Outrun the Scythe is a Sims 3-based tale of a young gay man and his zombie grandma, as they are both offered separate roles of being the undying intermediaries between the world of humans and the influence of a race of space daemons. It’s pretty familiar if you’ve been following me pre-Uptown, taking some cues from stories I’ve kept under lock and key like Eight Cicadas, The Chains of Lyra, and the not-so-locked-up Ironstar Immortals (of which Outrun is just the direct sequel to sans any retconning...ah the smell of early 2013 and performative heterosexuality)

Ah, back to my roots.

It’s a hybrid of gameplay, story, and lore about my little race of daemons with a lot of my own idiosyncrasies that I’m not really ashamed of: basing it off a super-polarizing Sims 3 challenge from a site I moderate, using a lot of EA’s pre-made townies and their genes, lots of unnecessary posemaking, stupid references. It’s a comfort to have in my roster.

While the first few chapters are in the middle of revision, I have around six in the queue and will be making this public when I have ten. I’m guessing December then?

Undocumented Black Widow Challenge: I just did this for fun/forum kudos (yes, in fact I have joined many forums), there was going to be a short story but it was quickly becoming something against my code of ethics. I mean, sims die and all. (read: I had to choose between “heterosexual widow” and “widow with some same-sex marriages that still end in tragedy, reinforcing negative stereotypes to the public for the sake of me not getting bored and detached during gameplay” so there were no good choices. Except for her affair with the mailwoman, 10/10) I hope to finish this before October ends and get my medal on Boolprop, I’m pretty far through it all. I might upload the sims involved anyways. This is for TS4.

I mentioned it because it’s keeping me busy. But not for long!

NaNoWriMo 2020: Dipping my toes into that again! It’s not sims-related, just a tale of lesbians, nosy neighbors, a haunted beach house, and some light murder and kidnapping. And I actually got my brother to scout out locations for me this weekend. If there’s any demand, I can share chapters as the rough drafts are finished, especially for the sake of proofreading.

Not saying I’m publishable, but wouldn’t it be nice? Will keep me occupied for much of November.

Untitled “Dear Diary” Challenge: Tired of feeling left out of the fun on the Boolprop forums, their “Dear Diary” challenge was the one that appealed to me the most on first glance. Why? Probably once I found an idea that let it be set in the early/mid-2000′s to begin with and explore some interesting characters through diary entries (which I have mixed feelings on as a literary device but I think that’s just me saying “well I didn’t like Dracula”, yes you get bonus points for writing it like a diary)

Also writing is the one skill I’m good at across multiple games. Wanna hear me bitch about the cooking skill tree in TS4 or riding in TS3? I’ll spare you.

I guess I could have included “spending time on Boolprop with old and new friends” in where my life has been. It’s a nice lil community if also a place with its own idiosyncrasies as well. So it doesn’t feel like I’m promoting another community if/when I make a thread there for Outrun the Scythe, I want to have a couple chapters of this ready to go by Outrun’s release, though it’s not gonna be the highest priority compared to it nor as long because I think I can blast through the gameplay quickly.

This one will be played in TS4 due to it having the easiest writing skill/I dunno variety is the spice of life. And hopefully another December release.

Defunded or Forgotten?: Oh shit I actually released stuff in 2020 and told no one? I do have a “mortifying ordeal of being known” sinking feeling whenever I get a site hit because it’s not my best work (but good enough) and veered sharply into issues I may be over my head in, though I try to be a good noodle with research and listening. Maybe hiding is bad after all.

Being based off a very flawed and incomplete Sims 3 challenge I found in the annals of the Official Forums, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work just making sense of things. And I’m scared of working on reconstructing the house but I haven’t abandoned the project yet. The story has eight chapters so far and is pretty game-based with some additions here and there. Scared of how long it could be though!

Date for this unknown.

Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty: another year-long abandoned TS3 project with a much stupider reason why. Last update was about Hua getting ready for her wedding, and I wanted to do some poses for a bait-and-switch wedding chapter because to put it mildly, her real one was an absolute disaster.

Blender decided to fuck up its interface again, I got discouraged (this probably does account for some of the Uptown delays too), and when I decided to plow forward, it was for other projects instead.

Meanwhile I played all the way to Gen 5′s teenhood and the only thing stopping me is time (it takes almost 30 minutes to load the file right now, though they’ll be looking at moving towns in a couple gens) and maybe fear of the Logic skill.

Date for this also unknown but it’s easy to pump out updates once I’m in the groove for it. My third heir had a difficult life so maybe I’m just trying to bury it.

Also I just noticed the view count there was really good and probably because I linked it here on Tumblr last year. Thank you so much guys. I can’t really fret over views on Carl’s forum these days thanks to the years-long death spiral pretty much every forum anywhere has been riding on. But it’s a nice surprise. And it’s an alright little challenge recap to read during your lunch break or whatever.

The Wawas

I figured I’d end on the real news everyone wants! Both the chihuahuas are a year and a half now and reached their adult size around a year ago. For the most part, they are happy and healthy dogs.

#state of the uwunion #long post

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