#but even without that kind of formatting. this is still a concept i'm turning over in my head.. we'll see if anything comes of it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dduane · 1 month

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What are your thoughts on companies like this that offer 'coaching services' for hopeful unpublished novelists?

This smells of scam to me but maybe I'm just a cynic:

Publishing Your Book

Query Letter Coaching/Editing – $550 per book (this includes two passes)

Synopsis Coaching & Editing – $750 per book (this includes two passes)

Proposal Coaching & Editing – $1,500 per book

Traditional Publishing Coaching – $200/hour (finding an agent, crafting your proposal, etc.)

Indie Publishing – $1000 (distribution to all platforms for optimal international exposure, guidance on pricing, blurb-writing, logistics, and keywords)

ISBNs for Indie Publishing – $150 per book format. Free if publishing through [the company selling these coaching services]

Briefly: before I got involved with any such operation, I'd want to talk to (multiple) people they'd worked with previously and find out what kinds of experiences they'd had. And in line with this, I'd be extremely cautious about any operation that wasn't run by professionals with a verifiable track record, and which wouldn't offer verifiable examples of feedback from people whose reality as non-sockpuppets could also be confirmed. And whom you could contact without having to go through the company in question.

On other issues: I'm looking kind of askance at some of those prices. (Here adding the disclaimer: I know people who do this kind of work out of a grounding of significant expertise and in good faith, and I'm not clear on what they're charging because I haven't really looked into it... not particularly needing it myself at this late stage in the game.)

At least part of the problem I'm having with the prices being charged in your example is based on the knowledge of how very much information of this kind is available free online. And yeah, there's the old chestnut about "The advice is worth what you've paid for it"... but that has sort of an unspoken negative corollary: "Except when you've paid for it and it nonetheless turns out not to have been worth much."

The trouble with the non-independent-publishing suggestions is that all of them deal with imponderables. Even if all the advice you purchase from those people at all those varied prices is absolutely right on the money, there's still no way to guarantee that any of it is going to lead to success in getting query letters, synopses or proposals actually looked at. Which puts this whole concept squarely in the nature of a gamble.

Not that luck doesn't have a role to play in a professional writing career. Sometimes you're just standing in the right place at the right time with a manuscript in your hands. But getting the idea that you can depend on that luck for any reason is unwise... as divine Fortuna is anciently famous for wandering all over the room, blowing on other folks' dice. (And if this makes me sound like I fall well down on the "Fortune Favors The Prepared" end of the spectrum: yeah, that.)

My advice would be to spend a good long while online, thoroughly researching all the free sites that have info to offer on all the traditional-publishing-facing topics. Then, after exhausting the available possibilities, if you still think you need to engage paid professional assistance... make inquiries among as many verifiable professionals as you can non-invasively query, before parting with any money at all.

As regards the indie-oriented fees: I'm finding those pretty steep. The prices for ISBNs in particular bother me. (Especially since in many places you can routinely buy packages of ten for about what these folks would charge you for two.) Yes, they're free if you publish with them: that sounds lovely. But publishers would normally buy many of those packages of ten. Or packages of a hundred: the more ISBNs you buy at once, the cheaper they get. And if you're paying the company for other services, who cares about the ISBNs? They're making money off you in different ways. Possibly equally overpriced ones.

So to finish: this is very much caveat emptor territory. There will inevitably be scammers out there, claiming their rates to be less than "bigger companies" are charging, but still too much. Therefore... advance only with utmost care.

...And adding this: @petermorwood glanced at the price list over my shoulder and said, "I wouldn't touch any of those with a barge pole."

At any rate: HTH!

...And now a word regarding our regrettably fickle non-sponsor, via Ol' Blue Eyes. :)

#writing #writing advice #paying for breaking-in coaching #writing meta

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grey-gteam · 1 year

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GreyG: the formation of the group

Chenny:

We were still in the training room, all together, chatting, calmly. Jin Sol and Yerin were laughing like crazy, while Iji was judging them loudly right behind. Ara and Heni were in the middle of a discussion, adorable. Gabi was stretching with Mio, on the floor, except that's when Jin Sol fell backwards because she was laughing way too much, rolling backwards, bumping into Mio and Gabi.

Gabi: Soli!!! What's your problem ?

Mio: Ouch! I am in pain.

Jin-Sol: Sorry! It's Yerin's fault.

Yerin: Don't accuse me!

Jin Sol clasped his hands in apology.

Jin Sol: Sorry girls.

Iji: Are you bilingual?

Jin Sol: Of course!

Because of Jin Sol's burst accent, we all laugh our hearts out, making fun of her.

Chenny: You are the least serious here… Finally after Yerin. Nobody beats his stupidity.

Yerin: Chenny!!!!! How dare you ?!

Yerin then does her drama queen which makes us laugh even more.

Akane:

We had fun together, it was great. But it was still a long time that we were there waiting.

Akane: What have we been waiting for all this time actually?

Lynn: Yes, it's true we've been here for over an hour.

Ara: One hour?! Only I feel like I've been here for a whole day

Mio: I no longer have the notion of time since I left Japan, me, apparently you too Ara.

Ara: Is that supposed to be nice?

Mio: No.

We all laugh even more. It's weird our humor.

We were still making fun of Ara, when suddenly someone walks into the training room. We all get up in panic and line up, a reflex of our years as a trainee. It was a woman, very beautiful, probably in her twenties, accompanied by a man. Looks like a couple, the gentleman was also in his twenties, that's for sure.

_Hello girls !

Enthusiastic lady.

Us: Hello.

Without emotion, because in my opinion, we were a little scared.

_Hey ! Get a little excited girls, you've been chosen to be part of a group.

Ara: REALLY?!

_ That's the kind of reaction I want. Anyway, my name is Heo Erin, and from today I'm your appointed art director. Me and my colleague here, we have chosen you and propose a project for a new girl group to the management of SM. This is Mr Parker, your manager. We will take care of you as it should be.

Mr. Parker: Hello.

Ara:

We listen carefully to what they tell us.

Ara: We will then be in a group every 10?!

Ms. Erin: Yes, all 10.

Chenny: Since when do 10-member groups work, especially in SM?

Ms. Erin: That's the challenge we gave ourselves, me and Parker.

Mr. Parker: Don't call me Parker.

Mrs. Erin: Shut up.

We all prevent ourselves from laughing before being reprimanded, it looks like a couple.

Iji: Excuse me but we're still too young, me, Ara and Heni, no. Are you going to start us off like this?

Ms. Erin: The project still needs to take some time to properly train the group. Your debut will be scheduled for 2023.

JinSol:

Ah ok, so we still have time to improve before starting, I can't wait to start.

Jin Sol: So what do we do now?

Ms. Erin: It's Parker's turn to speak, isn't it Parker?

Mr. Parker: Shut up, Erin! Okay, you're going to move into your dorm, together. Then we will give you time to settle in. Tomorrow we will start to establish the bases of your group, the positions and all, with time, we will talk about the concept with the other madwoman there, and the rest will be communicated to you.

Jin Sol: Wow, that's crazy!

Mr Parker: By the way, we will also give you new stages names. Not all of them, it will depend on your choices too.

Yerin:

I didn't say anything from the start, I was so stunned, it's crazy, it's the start of a new experience, I don't believe it.

Yerin: Do we have a name?

Ms. Erin: Patience, you will be soon. Now go get your things together, a car will pick you up in two hours.

Then they leave, leaving us like potatoes in a field.

Chenny: In 2023?

Gabi: Are we going to start in 2 years?

We all look each other in the eye without saying anything, suddenly I explode with joy.

Chenny: Ugh! why are you screaming?

Yerin: WE'RE GETTING STARTED!! In 2 years but that's already it.

Iji: She has the right to be happy, I think we all are.

Ara: You're kidding me, Iji. Come, let's redo our handshake!

Heni: Uh...yes, let's celebrate, our...uh, new group ?!

Gabi: Let's go! 1,2,3

Together: dont'you know !!! we !!

Jin Sol: Woohoo!!!!

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dreamcrow · 2 years

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This is slightly more than 500 words but there was an Attempt;

Before she can say anything, though, he's already walking over, setting his stuff down lightly on the counter. Then, he reaches for a pocket—she thinks it's a pocket, anyway; his hand moves too quick to see exactly where—before producing a pristine, ice-blue, very new iPhone.

She is, suddenly, stupidly conscious of her ancient little dinged-up Moto. She definitely doesn't scoot it away behind the register, wtf. If Little Mx. Hipster-Possibly-Kidnapper has something to say about it, he can say it to her face.

But after just a few seconds rifling around in his messages—he only turns the phone around to her.

Most of the screen is taken up by a photo. A selfie, showing a tall punk-type boy—oh, definitely cute—standing behind a girl, teeny-tiny, who's gleefully taking the picture in front of what looks like a bathroom mirror. These two are definitely festival crowd; she knows the rennfaire type, she is the rennfaire type, she's pretty sure she's seen that exact green hair/deer makeup/fairycore combo in Phoenix last year. She realizes, with a pang: oh, no, these kids actually look kind of cool.

There's a message attached. The guy wants her to read it, evidently, scrolling down for her after letting the photo sink in. It immediately makes her feel roughly eight thousand years old; it's spelled so haphazardly, chock full of dumb fancy alternate characters that aren't even ~aesthetique.~ She half has to sound it out to make any sense of it.

There, your proof. Nari ſays to tell you ſhe's a Legende at babysittinge, actually, & also to ſtop worryinge; because we are fine, thou greate nuiſance (her wordes, not myne).

She ſends also this meſsage, that I'm pretty sure can't be put in letters, but whiche after manye obſcenities (also hers, honeſt) ſeems to ſound roughly like—

The messages continue on for some time like this—mildly irritated, definitely written by a teenager (seriously, who spells that badly on purpose?), way too personal for her to want to keep reading. But she has to admit: they don't seem entirely antagonistic.

Something still nags at her. Wanting first to protect the girl, and her weirdly familiar-looking kid chaperone. But...

Jasmine thinks back, suddenly, to when she was eighteen. To when she'd made it all the way to Bakersfield, sniffling and red-eyed and panicked but still, somehow, scraping together the bus fare, foolish gay heart stuck like a fishbone in her throat. Her mom had kept texting all through the night, no matter how hard Jasmine had ignored her, terrified at the imagined contents of all those unread messages.

She remembers, too, when her mom finally caught up to her. How good it had felt, when she'd finally let herself crumple into those strong brown arms.

Oh, she thinks. Oh, God dammit.

She takes a deep breath. "Alright," she huffs. More to herself than to him. "I—okay. Alright. Whatever. Say I believe you." She tries to make her voice stern, as if her decision hasn't already been made. "What makes you think they passed this way?"

(On an unrelated note: it is so nice to have text formatting options in asks now!)

ikr!! what a time to be alive 😂 and ooo, what a juicy snippet to start us off. and from a fic i never expected to become so fond of!

the entire premise of a sip from the devil's cup is "how can i make the stupidest concept imaginable (dread ancient ice jerkass unconsciously grooving to britney spears in a 7-eleven) actually kind of tender," so it gave me quite a lot of room to play with character and detail (two of my favorite things). the first of these, at least to me, is why does skrael have an iphone? well: the easy answer is that he can't get annoying texts from douxie without one, and my priorities are impeccable. 😂

the slightly more complicated answer is: phones are a really powerful signifier. of course he has an iphone, because he's not paying for it and these are the species of device most loudly touted as The Best. of course he has a blue one, because it's got to Match. (would bellroc have a red one? ah...) once he's had it for more than a few months, you bet your ass he's going to have a perfectly normal number of phone charms. he keeps it in hammerspace because that's where he keeps all of the little things he needs to hand, or at least all the things that don't fit on the little chatelaine i imagine him with; he's trying to pretend to be a normie in this obviously human store, but not, like, very hard, so even though the magic isn't ostentatious he definitely still uses just straight-up magic to bring it out. jasmine can't quite see it clearly for what it is because she doesn't quite realize, yet, that such magic exists, let alone right under her nose. ╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭

a lot of the fun i had writing jasmine, tbh, comes from being on the cusp of—but not yet slipping over into—that realization. it's very close to the fun i have writing barbara, tbh. she's—i actually had a lot of trouble trying to hold myself back from inventing jasmine's backstory, as you can see from the bit about her being a gay teen runaway! this aspect of her in particular resonates very strongly i think with some advice you gave me once about foils and complements. but again, also: so, so much of what i love about characters like this is looking at how reasonable, average people react to…decidedly un-average circumstances! even before jasmine catches True Sight in the mirror, she can tell something is up. but even if the guy is weird…she can tell, too, he's trying not to cause too much trouble. and then the incomprehensible ancient divine/monster meets the everyman modern mundane/human in the middle and alchemy happens.

…or something like that, anyway. 😂 there's also a lot to be said about humanizing the divine/monster in this—of course jasmine feels how he misses nari, how soft he is about bellroc, all of that after he unequivocally burnt down the apple store, god—but also about making the mundane exceptional? jasmine knows she's taking a risk by helping this stranger. she works among The Public, in a very specific field! but at the same time, she remembers what it was to have run from her own family. while she knows it's not the same for everyone who does so—i think i did a decent job showing her hesitation, here—she chooses to believe the best of this very strange and frankly offputting person she's never met before. one of my absolute favorite brands.

(there's probably a whole separate commentary track for whatever's happening with douxie and nari here, but unless someone's curious, i'll just say: i had a TOTALLY NORMAL amount of fun figuring out where all those long esses should go. 😏)

#ask games #wip tag #long post #ever since eva said she wanted to see jasmine meet the reunited order... no promises but i have not known peace #i've also not known peace ever since i realized quite how fanon divergent my douxie and nari are #but that's in a much more >:) way

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drabbletale · 2 years

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Okay, I'mma ask... Edgeberry (my beloved ♥) with the prompt exes! In which Edge and Blue used to date but broke up (up to you as to why). Only if you're still accepting those, of course!! ♥♥♥ (I might come up with a few more if you want!)

((Bro, I started this list within the ask rather than a word document, hoping that would solve the formatting issues I've been having and now it's not letting me add anything without the bullet lmao... ))

EDGEBERRY Angst with a happy ending!

These are going from headcanons to drabbles real quick... I need to reign that in or I'm never going to get these done haha. Still, this was fun. :)

They broke up two years ago and for two years they had not seen each other.

The whole reason for the break up was Edge's inability to soften his heart.

As much and as deeply as he loved Blue, the relationship was one-sided in most aspects.

Edge wants control. Wants Blue to be soft with him and only him.

But not too soft!!

They are both incredibly loyal. Neither would cheat or even think about it, no matter who they were dating.

Blue is a very tactile, caring person and he desperately loves to show it. He's deeply loving.

Edge just couldn't let him in, in that way. His heart is far too guarded. Even kisses and softness have a limit because Edge believes that not only does he not deserve such kindness but....

Accepting it would make him weak. Reciprocating would make him desperate. Pathetic.

In the end, Blue broke up with him. He needs more softness in his life. The harsh reality of Edge's life was too much for him and Edge refused therapy. Was repulsed by the concept of compromise.

Red can't understand how Blue could end things, when Edge and Blue's relationship had been so good otherwise. Similar interests (cooking and fitness and cats and walks on quiet forest paths), similar passion, similar energies, and an intense love for each other.

Despite how cordial their relationship had been, Red turns venomous when Blue breaks up with his brother.

Red hates seeing how much pain Edge is in and yes, he is in immense pain, even if he struggles showing it. And having similar trauma as Edge, he has problems processing all emotions, good and bad, into coherent thoughts and words.

All in all, things ended poorly, despite Blue's best attempts at keeping things calm.

In the two years since then, they hadn't spoken once. Blue blocked both the brothers on everything.

It had felt like his life had ended and he was forced to start completely over.

His tired oaf of a brother was little help with his, as he was bad with words and words of love were exactly what Blue had needed in that moment.

Despite sort of berating Edge for refusing to get therapy... Blue refuses to get therapy. He discovers that it's easier to pretend it doesn't effect him, how much his soul aches...

How much he regrets the break up and knows he can never go back.

He is absolutely certain Red would kill him for trying. Or at least tell his brother to run. To not bother trusting Blue ever again.

So Blue just avoids them at all costs and chokes down his depression with fake smiles and over working himself.

Despite all of this, a little over two years after their break up, Blue runs into the brothers on the sidewalk of a random city street. The busy roads seem to melt away and all Blue feels is a painful emptiness.

Blue noticed Red first, before Edge turns the street corner into view. They make eye contact and Red, awkward as ever, pulls his hood closer around his face and stares at the ground as he is quick to walk by.

If he notices his brother isn't following him, he doesn't show it. Continuing to walk on despite lacking the towering Edge stomping behind him.

When Blue turns back around his soul sinks in his chest. Edge isn't running past him or cursing him or throwing any heart-wrenching insults at him. He's just staring him down.

Blue finds it hard to breathe, staring up at the man who cheekbones he would pepper with kisses while he slept, because he couldn't do it any other time. The man who he would spend hours admiring from the sidelines at his work, or as they worked out, or did anything together. Edge was so incredibly talented at so many things and Blue had been so proud-

Until he fucked it all up.

Because he wanted the perfect relationship.

And now he had none. Because he felt unworthy of another persons trust and....

He couldn't fool himself, there was only one person he could be happy with.

A person who stood still as a mountain in front of him.

Despite the sharpness of his face, Blue could read his expressions perfectly still. Edge was sad.

It made Blue want to cry - but historically, Edge would only see crying as an attempt at manipulating him and always completely disingenuous.

It made Blue want to fall to his knees and beg for him to come back, that he'd do anything and be any sort of person if he would just... come back....

But Edge wasn't fond of begging either and Blue was sure if he begged, the emotions he had been swallowing for the past two years would flood his bones - his soul - and he'd end up sobbing and unable to speak anyway.

As he's sitting contemplating all the things he wants to do, but cannot, Edge sighs a large sigh and looks away from Blue to the path that Red had taken behind Blue.

Blue is certain that Red hadn't stopped, or he would have been hurling insults and demanding that his brother follow him, by now.

For one scary second, Blue thinks that Edge is just going to walk on by him, as though his soul isn't bleeding between them.

Edge speaks up, voice softer than Blue had ever heard it with a simple 'I'm in therapy now.'

Blue is shocked out of his stupor and can't stop himself from lurching forward into Edge's arms. He wraps himself around Edge's large ribcage and buries himself into the front of his scarf as he softly cried.

Edge slowly puts his arms around Blue, then squeezes him tight, so tight that Blue almost can't breathe again, but neither of them are willing to break away.

Blue looks up at him, watery eyes and all and realizes that Edge has a small tear of his own that has already made its way to his chin.

Suddenly, Blue feels very childish for grabbing at Edge, but now he couldn't let go if he wanted to. "I still love you. I'm sorry... I'm so sorry......"

Edge's breathing hitches and he sounds shocked when he replies again "Is this... do you want... Can we try again? I swear I can be better... I've worked hard on myself, with the hope of bringing you back... is this... I can do whatever..."

Blue stops him from rambling by unwrapping his arms and pulling Edge down by his scarf into a kiss, which is returned with such vigor that Blue's soul feels as though it wants to burst out of his chest.

When they're done Blue feels like he's in a daze, elated but terrified of his own feelings... Could this be real and even if it was, could they possibly make it work again?

Edge just seems elated, holding tight to Blue, afraid to let him go again.

Edge begins to ramble about dates and plans for their future, about how he understands that they are starting from scratch and he's willing to put in the work to be a better lover, though it still may take time and -....

Blue stops listening, is overwhelmed with everything. He trusts Edge. Knew from the beginning of their very first date, many moons ago, that Edge would never hurt him. He just needed to be careful not to hurt himself again...

If Edge was willing to finally change for him.... perhaps they really could work out and the past two years of wishing he wasn't so incredibly selfish and stupid might just wash away with this outpour of love.

#Angst with a happy edgeberry ending because I'm sorry but i can't do that lmao #edgeberry #fontcest #sorry if anything doesn't make sense im still on meds from the surgery and can't really edit rn #god i hope the formatting doesn't fuck up #sin-cognito

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antique-traveler · 2 years

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i think the softest idea ever is the concept of matt being a single dad (an absolute complete mess) and foggy being his kids’ elementary teacher. like foggy doesn’t even get to meet matt until halfway through the year bc matt always has claire or jessica or luke pick his kid up, and now that matt started picking the kid up, he’s always late. mf is a disaster and foggy finds that endearing

okay i'm gonna switch things up a little bit and try a different format here >:-)

so i imagine the kid is like 6-7 years old, and foggy is their first grade social studies teacher

here lemme make it a little sappier and say it's his son and his name is jack

jack's a super sweet kid, talks about his dad a lot in class, as well as some other people who look after him a lot, but never a mom

foggy's worked with kids of single parents before, it's chill, but what he finds weird is that he still hasn't actually met jack's dad yet

jack always gets picked up by either a really mean looking lady in a leather jacket or a huge guy with the body of a greek god

jack's dad couldn't make it to first semester parent-teacher conferences, and there's never really been a reason for foggy to call him about jack's behavior at school, so he somehow went the entire semester without meeting the mysterious mr. murdock even once

then at the end of the semester, the school is putting on a production of annie or something, with the older kids making up most of the cast, and the younger ones being background orphans

foggy watches and cheers on all of his students, including little jack who had a whole one line (which he acted the hell out of)

after the show, foggy's waiting around and saying hi to his students, when he finds himself next to this really, really hot guy that he's never seen before

he's blind, with these dark red glasses that only add to how attractive he is, he's clearly ripped beneath the suit he's wearing, and he's got this 1000-watt smile that nearly knocks foggy out the first time he sees it

foggy makes some small talk about the show, the other guy, matt, makes some truly horrendous blind jokes when foggy mentions the costumes

then all of a sudden foggy hear jack call out as he runs up to him, and matt scoops jack up into his arms, and jack calls him dad and

shit

foggy kind of sputters through an introduction, and matt mentions that he's been swamped with cases (he must be smart, too, if he's a lawyer) in the last few months, but he'll be able to pick jack up himself once the new semester starts

in january, matt definitely tries to be on time picking jack up, but still jack's usually the last kid at the school when matt comes by, and they always have a couple minutes to just chat

if foggy was at all intimidated by matt being a super sexy lawyer when they first met, that completely dissolves into a sort of hopeless adoration when he finds out what a mess matt is, showing up at the school with his tie loose and his hair a mess

pickup is the same on february 14th, and foggy sits with jack on the steps of the school while he goes through his red and pink shoebox filled with valentines from his classmates and starts cataloguing all the candy he got

when matt shows up to pick up jack, they do their usual chatting, but matt seems sort of reserved for some reason

right before they leave, matt turns to foggy and says: "god, i really hope this isn't inappropriate, but would you want to grab dinner with me this weekend? jack's gonna be at a friend's house on saturday, maybe you could come over and give me a chance to cook something other than kraft mac and cheese?"

foggy feels his entire body blush and he just kind of gapes for a second before nervously agreeing

matt smiles at him and squeezes his arm a little before leaving, and foggy just keeps standing on the steps with his jaw on the floor for another, like, five minutes after they're gone

#anon #request #daredevil #mattfoggy #matt murdock #foggy nelson #nmcu #netflix daredevil

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fuckyeahisawthat · 4 years

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I'm just curious (still learning) at what point after 1100 AD would Joe and Nicky been in actual danger due to homophobia? At what point would they have to start lying to people about the nature of their amazing relationship, just to stay safe? Thanks!

(This is in reference to this post, in which I skimmed over like 900 years of sociological changes in identity formation in very very broad strokes.)

So. Here’s the thing. As “western” queer people in the modern world, I think we highly associate safety with being able to be out of the closet. Can I kiss my partner in public or walk down the street holding hands without fear of encountering hate speech or physical violence? Can I tell my friends, family and coworkers about my relationship without fear of social ostracization or economic consequences?

But that’s a very modern perspective. Between “pride parade!!” and “we will definitely be murdered if anyone finds out we are lovers,” there is...A LOT of space for different kinds of historical queer experience.

So it’s not so much that Yusuf and Nicolò could be safely “out of the closet” in 12th century Baghdad but not in 19th century London. It’s not quite as far from that as you might think. But they wouldn’t have thought about it that way.

In the first few hundred years of their existence, the Islamic world was...full of contradictions when it came to homosexuality. You had a strong taboo against adult men being the receptive partner in penetrative sex, but you also had poets--like, the most famous poets of their times--writing tons of homoerotic poetry about desiring young men and boys, and that was normal and even celebrated. (If you’re familiar with the sexual mores of ancient Greece...lots of similarities here.) You had clerics writing about how there should be harsh punishments for “sodomy,” but in practice in everyday life very, very few people were ever actually disciplined in the legal system for something like that. And other forms of sexual activity between men, like kissing and various forms of non-penetrative sex, were just...not a big deal. At the same time there was kind of an unspoken “don’t ask, don’t tell” social contract around sex between men. Like, we know this thing is definitely happening, and we’re not going to talk about it, and that’s what makes it socially acceptable to continue happening. So you can have a society that in the written, religious record looks fairly intolerant toward sex between men; in practice is actually quite tolerant; where everyone sort of knows things about certain people, but where no one is really “out” in the modern sense of the terms.

At the same time, pretty much everywhere in the world at this time but definitely in the Middle East, casual touch between men was much more normalized. Two men holding hands or linking arms when walking down the street, sitting pressed up next to each other, falling asleep with your head on your male companion’s shoulder...a whole range of things that look decidedly snuggly to our modern gaze would have been totally acceptable between friends of the same gender, and would not have been considered sexual in any way. (This is still true in much of the Middle East today.)

So you can easily imagine a scenario where, like, Nicolò is lounging with his head on Yusuf’s shoulder, eating dates and listening to some saucy Abu Nuwas poem being recited, and then they go back to their private quarters and they have as much sex as they want. Are they “out”? Not really. Is anyone bothering them about how they’re living their lives? Not in the slightest. Do some people in that room see them and know? Probably, but that’s their private business and we’re not gonna talk about it. Frankly that sounds like a pretty sweet existence for a 12th century queer.

To be fair, they have a few advantages. They’re men, which means no one will really question them traveling together, without wives or families. They can easily say they’re friends or business partners and no one will really give it a second thought. I’m sure having to break off contact with their families was sad, but it’s also the case that there’s no one around asking when they’re going to get married to a woman and have children so we have someone to inherit the family business. It gives them a kind of freedom that a lot of other queer people around them wouldn’t have had.

I think once they meet up with Andy and Quynh, they do do things like pretending to be two married couples traveling together. But that’s more because of sexism, because two unmarried women traveling with two men who were not their husbands would turn some heads.

In Europe at the time, Christian theology is pretty not-into all kinds of non-procreative sex, but sex between men is not necessarily viewed as a worse sin than, say, masturbation, or sex between men and women out of wedlock. And it’s like, a category of sin that a lot of people are doing all the time, so if you were to confess such a thing to your local priest, you would be told to do penance but the consequences would be fairly mild. And many of the same things regarding casual touch hold true. Various rituals of kissing, including men kissing men on the mouth, are used as greetings, to seal contracts, and as part of mass.

Medieval Europe also had a concept variously called passionate, romantic, or chivalric friendship--close relationships between two people of the same gender that could be long-lasting, physically affectionate, emotionally intense in a way we would today read as romantic, and (allegedly) celibate. Were some of these passionate friendships actually queer relationships with a sexual component that just wasn’t talked about? Probably. Were some of them what we would define as queerplatonic or homoromantic asexual relationships today? Probably. Is it even useful to try to stuff these experiences into modern relationship categories? Debatable. The point is...the borders between what was defined as friendship, romance and love were different. Two men who traveled together, slept in the same bed, shared resources, were emotionally intimate with each other, and otherwise entwined their lives would not necessarily have been assumed to be sex partners in medieval Europe. And (I think this is the important part) Yusuf and Nicolò would not necessarily have seen being perceived as passionate friends as “hiding” the true nature of their relationship or as assigning some lesser value to it.

In terms of how they are perceived in public, I think things really don’t start to change until the early 20th century. It’s a gradual process, but over the first half of the 20th century, more or less, affectionate touch between men becomes defined as “gay” and a mainstream (straight) masculinity that is concerned with defining itself as “not gay” emerges. Affectionate touch, and then any show of loving emotion between men, gradually becomes less and less acceptable, to a degree that probably seems absurd to two 900-year-old Mediterraneans. (The absurdity is really well-expressed in the van scene, which is literally like “Bro is it gay to [checks notes]...express concern about the well-being of the person you were just violently kidnapped with?”)

Like, on the one hand, you have queer people talking openly about their sexuality in ways that were not an option at earlier times in their lives. But at the same time you have to be careful holding hands walking down the high street now because someone might chuck an empty beer bottle at you. Must’ve been a real wild transition for them.

#the old guard #long post #joe x nicky #nicolò di genova #yusuf al kaysani #queers through the ages #asks answered #graceundersunshine

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zv5x · 3 years

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What if I,,,, gave you another yan!pico idea.... haha jk!,,,, unless-

Okbutreally- I'm not sure if it's canon or not but I've read somewhere that apparently, pico was the 'popular kid' in his school.

So imagine (almost) EVERYONE in the school likes him... until Y/N comes along, and while pico is enamored with them on the spot... pico makes their skin crawl. They can't quite say why. They get on just fine with just about anyone else. Hell, even his friends are alright- lovely people, really. But, something about the popular kid just makes y/n want to turn tail and run anytime those paralyzing white eyes meet theirs. No matter how many times Nene or Darnell (or any other classmate) has tried to ease the new student's worries about the ginger, they can't get over the feeling that they'd be skinned alive if left alone with him for too long. Of course, pico doesn't MEAN to have his obsession love to come off as such- but some things can't be helped (especially when the person in question is genuinely crazy about you, just not in the 'skin you and wear you' type of crazy)

Hello, Anon! Okay so, I absolutely love this concept! I believe I remember reading somewhere too that Pico was more of a "popular" kid! And I feel like this who scenero would work SO well! If you don't mind, I wrote this in a headcanon format, since it's always wayyy easier for me to ramble on and on about things, teehee ^^ Hope you enjoy these! Mwah!

( :̲̅:̲̅:̲̅[̲̅:♡:]̲̅:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅)

From the moment the two of you locked eyes, you knew he couldn't be trusted. Something about him seemed...off. Incredibly so. That feeling of uneasiness only seemed to increase as you spent more time in that school

Gradually, you made more friends, even became close with some of his friends, specifically two of them, Nene and Darnell. They knew him extremely well, better than anyone else he knew that is

Soon, you started seeing Pico (as you learned he was named)...coming around a lot more often. Those sickeningly sweet smiles and paralyzing eyes that looked at you with such adoration as he asked you if you needed someone to walk you to class, everything just seemed so...wrong

And, while you knew that something was wrong, you had no way of knowing the truly disturbing things occuring behind closed curtains

Pico's walls became littered with you, photos taken all without your knowledge (it's not like you'd say yes to him though anyways), and with some even taped into his schoolbooks with cute heart stickers accompanying them on the inner cover pages, the way he'd so sneakily record your voice as you read your answer to an open-ended question in class, just so he could add it to his collection later

You had no way of knowing, and that made Pico's job so much easier on him

His and your peers, especially Nene and Darnell, genuinely didn't have a clue as to why you're so terrified of the boy. They tried telling you how kind and sweet he was, even going as far as to share personal stories of how Pico has helped them

For every story of how Pico helped someone pick up their books in the hallway, you were haunted by that memory of when he stopped you as the two of you walked in an isolated hall, smiling oh-so sweetly as he proposed the two of you trade blood. So the two of you could be closer. "Together forever, (Y/N)~" You remembered the sick fuck telling you in a low (but still almost cutesy) tone, giggling and giving you a half-assed "I'm kidding" as you teared up

For every ramble of how Pico helped someone approach a crush they had, you couldn't help but think of how Pico always seemed to be around. No matter what, he was always so...persistent in wanting to spend as much time with you as possible. He'd always want to sit next to you at lunch, ignoring the way your eyes widened and your hands trembled as he settled himself down. You didn't want to send him away, especially considering how his two closest friends seemed to sit themselves down soon afterwards. Rejecting Pico would be like rejecting them. You were trapped

Everything about Pico terrified you. The time he'd spend gazing into your eyes, the way he'd twirl his gun around like it was a toy every time he observed you with another boy through the shadows, those "mysterious" love letters that would be taped onto your locker, always signed by a "secret admirer", everything about him just made you want to be sick and you hated it

You hated how vulnerable and helpless he made you feel. But he probably bathed in it. You hated how everyone seemed to think of Pico as your stereotypical schoolboy angel. His persona was playing right into his hands, he had all the right cards that ensured nobody would believe you if you came out with this story of torture and obsession

Not that anything you say mattered anyways. You've just been so helplessly starved of affection and love, that it must just be so overwhelming and scary to you! Don't worry though, Pico'll get you used to this in no time. Soon instead of running from him, you'll be running right to him

It's only a matter of time, love

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gingermintpepper · 3 years

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After thinking it over for a bit, I've decided that I might as well do a proper underrated 3DS game rec list. I'm a bit of an ATLUS junkie and that's gonna be pretty disgustingly apparent in this list, but it's not my fault that they released hit after hit and all of them were duly ignored.

Due to tumblr's 10 image limit (and my struggle to keep motivated to do one thing for more than three hours) I'm definitely gonna have to break this up into parts and I'm fairly certain one of these lists is just gonna be MegaTen games lmao but I'd like to let people know about these excellent titles and see if I can't at least get people interested in them so they can get more traction.

So, without further ado:

Some 3DS Games that were criminally slept on (part 1)

Monster Hunter Stories

God, where do I begin with this game. Well, the basics: It's a JRPG spinoff title of the now widely successful and popular Monster Hunter series featuring a different take on interacting with the varied and intricate monsters populating the world: Riders.

Yep, instead of hunting the beasties, you play as a young rider who's completed their intiation ritual and can now bond with 'Monsties' as they've cutely labelled the usually ferocious monsters of the wilds. The great thing is that you still fight Monsters--tons of them in fact but this isn't a paid review and in my humble opinion, the most impressive thing about this game is the visual style. The landscapes, the armour, the way they redesigned and 3DS-ified the classically hyper realistic and monstrous beasts to not only be absolutely adorable but still capable of being intimidating when the time calls for it, the stellar animation of special moves and combination attacks--it's delicious, nutritious, stupendous, I can and will consume it like it's part of my recommended caloric intake.

It's very akin to Pokemon in the way its basic gameplay premise is set up, however, instead of catching--or even indeed befriending--the Monsties in the game, you rummage through their nests and steal their eggs, later hatching them and getting yourself a brand new lightly kidnapped monster pal!

Other general things about the game:

Pros:

The armour and weapon sets for both male and female characters slap along with the general character customisation options. They're incredibly diverse (though limited in body type) and you can switch around traits and features whenever you want from your house.

The POGS--these porkers are everywhere and they serve as tiny little achievements for exploring every odd and end of the world. Also they have little outfits. They're so cute. 🥺🥺

You can actually ride the Monsties. All of em. Or, at least the ones that you have available to be your buddies. They all have exploration skills and traits that not only make exploring much more interesting but encourage you to swap out your active Monstie and play around with your options a bit.

Y'all breeding Monsties is complicated and I live for just how intense and ridiculous you can get with optimal builds for these things.

The story is really competently put together! The characters, character designs and even the internal conflict with your starting trio of characters is really compelling along with the mystery of the blight that's infecting Monsters across the world. It's not anything worth awards but it's compelling and it makes you care about the characters if that's what you're in the market for.

Amazing sound design, expansive world, everything about the presentation of this game oozes that Monster Hunter charm even if the art is cutesier than usual. You'll never get bored of its stellar visual presentation!

Available for around twenty quid on the Google Play store, so if you want, you could actually get the full game on your smartphone or tablet. Note though that it would be a battery nuker.

Cons:

If you're on a regular 3DS, frame rate drops are a given. This game kinda pushes the visual capabilities of the 3DS to its absolute limit--a lot like Okamiden did back on the DS.

One save file :( It's pretty much for the same reason as above but still.

If you're playing as the girl, you can't get male armour and vice versa. Since there's only one save file, you'll never be able to have all of the armour sets in a single playthrough and that's criminal because both of the sets for the genders are absolutely breath-taking, thank you.

I 👏can't 👏make👏my👏 own 👏Palico👏

Multi-player for this game is pretty dead seeing as it's almost five years old by now and never got much press or traction. Usually this wouldn't be an issue - this game is 99% singleplayer and you don't really need to fuss about with multi-player to have fun, but if you want to collect all the Monsties, you'll need it since the only way to get Glavenus is through pvp achievements. :/

Final thoughts: Play it if you find yourself getting tired or disappointed with 3DS Pokemon games but still want something that feels as fantastical as Pokemon. It outshines the 3DS Pokemon games at every turn and I will never be over just how thoughtfully put together and fully realised these games are. Of course, if you've ever played Monster Hunter, then you know just how intensive these games are with the lore, biology, cultures and world of their Monsters but seeing that translated into JRPG format was just very sobering and it's a game that, to this day, continues to awe me with just how much love and attention went into it.

Last note: If you're still unsure about it, there's a demo available on the e-shop of the 3DS that allows you to play through the entire initial area of the game. Your data does carry through to the full release and to give you an idea of how much I've been able to squeeze out of it - my playtime for that demo is currently sitting at 22 hours. Make sure to get a hold of that Cyan-Kut-Ku!

7th Dragon III Code: VFD

The title may sound intimidating but the premise is not! A mysterious disease called Dragon Sickness spread by the Dragonsbane flowers that have cropped up all around the world. You and your team are recruited by the Nodens game company after you display extraordinary prowess in their hit virtual reality game 7th Encount. As you go through the adventure, you are tasked with finding out the truth behind the Dragon Sickness and asked to stop both it and the Dragons that are destroying the world.

This game is fun. It's another turn-based JRPG however, in this game you create all of your characters yourself from the myriad of classes available to you from the jump. Different classes of course have very different specialisations - Samurai focus on high powered cutting damage with their swords, Duelists are summoners who can influence the element of the battlefield as well as summon monsters from each element, Agents can hack into your enemies and inflict a barrage of nasty ailments, just to name a few - and you are given three teams of three characters each to experiment with different team comps and find the balance that works for you. There's also a wide variety of Dragons to hunt and kill in the game, which directly affects how infected your world is with the Dragon Sickness causing Dragonsbane. Along the way you will also come into contact with many interesting characters, concepts and confrontations that will make the task of saving the world all the more imperative.

Pros

1. The character creator and differing classes give way for tons of experimenting and playing around with your own unique approach to combat and carrying out your missions. Granted, 'character creation' is generous, it's little more than palatte swaps but the classes are really where VFD shines. Eight main classes may not sound like a lot, but the expaniveness of the character skills, their synergy with their fellow classes and the uniqueness of some of the classes in and of itself allows for so much flexibility and creativity in approaches to even tougher bosses. It also encourages the switching about of your party members to really finagle with the options available to you.

2. God this game is pretty. The locations, the character art, the creature design - all of it is gorgeous and this game capitalises on every bit of the 3DS's presentation limitations as it can.

3. You can romance anything and everyone - yes, you can even be gay/lesbian/poly in this game. In fact, one of the main characters - Julietta - is gnc and he's a constant source of joy as well one of my personal favourite characters, right behind Yuma.

4. Exploration is very very forgiving as the game has healing spots and teleport nodes all over the world to allow for quick, seamless travel between quest points without feeling like anything is too much of a hassle. There are also special enemies that allow for quick grinding as well as quick farming of money. In general, the game does a really good job of making sure that the grind is never unbearable or inconsiderate of your time.

Cons:

1. This is the fourth game in a series the West has never seen any other title for, and from the looks of it, will probably never see any other titles for. Because of that, there are some elements that may seem confusing or revelations in the plot that may seem to come out of nowhere.

2. While the visuals are great, the OST of this one is pretty short making for a lot of reused soundtracks that can get really annoying if you're like me and need your audio to be interesting or consistent so it doesn't distract you too much.

3. This one isn't really a con but it is divisive: This game gets pretty difficult at times. A few of the main dragon enemies including and especially the final boss can give you a serious run for your money in the annoy-o-meter in terms of the kind of absolute JRPG fuckery they can pull out of their magic bag of bullshit movesets and while I generally enjoy that kind of thing, I know it's not for everyone. Most regular combat shouldn't be too tricky once you have a team comp that works well together but you also need to pay attention since the same team that carries you to victory one time might be worth beans against another dragon.

Final thoughts: This is... a really good game. Interesting story, really interesting characters, pretty world and a battle system that really makes you sit down and think. There's also a demo for this available in the e-shop and while your data doesn't carry over - you do receive multiple perks for carrying over your demo data including some exclusive items that, while not game breaking, do help a ton in the early stages of the game.

This isn't a final list by any stretch of the word; I only have the energy to do these two right now, but the next games up for coverage are Ever Oasis and Stella Glow! If you're interested in my full plan of games I want to cover here then my current lineup includes: Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, Project Mirai: Deluxe, Culdecept Revolt, Alliance Alive, Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, Etrian Odyssey V, Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse.

Finally, if anyone has played any of the games I mention, cover or plan to cover PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME, I AM SO LONELY IN MY FORTRESS OF SAND. On a serious note, I'd love to hear what other people who've played these games think!

Thanks for reading,

-Ginger

PS: @feralpeacock Because a million years ago, on my first underrated games post, you asked that I remember you. :D

#ginger rambles #ginger talks about video games #monster hunter stories #monster hunter #code dragon iii vfd #video games #3ds #underrated games #These take so much energy to make holy shit #There are so many more amazing 3ds games I could talk about #But I legit just don't have the braincells for #Also I know Apocalypse probably has the biggest audience that played it out of all the games listed #But it's criminally underrated because it was different #So it's probably going to get it's own little review thing #Yeehaw

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retphienix · 3 years

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There are so many fucking games I want to play for the blog and I hypothetically have the time, but the energy, the attention span, the drive?

In more positive terms here are some various titles I plan to give a shot for the blog.

Let's do a 5am state of the blog kind of thing to clear some thoughts, eh?

Morrowind (Current Game ramble)

For the moment the blog is more or less on break with me playing Morrowind ""For the blog"" but mostly for me, because that's just a game I've wanted to explore. Not that every other game on the blog isn't that, just that I looked at Morrowind and said "That'll be a terrible game to present naturally. That's a stream game, or a condensed video, not a liveblog" and then did it anyway.

I'm loving Morrowind! Honestly the sense of mystery, fantasy, and adventure is just chef kiss levels of perfect to me.

But it's terrible in a photoset, I'm not particularly interested in doing another format for the game, and it's a game with less 'intense narrative themes!' and more 'Incredibly different game design compared to modern Bethesda' in terms of discussion material and let's all be real here:

We're all fucking tired of that conversation lol.

So there ain't much to talk on in depth, it's more of a "Here's a newbie seeing new things!" playthrough with nothing to talk about after the fact, which ain't a strong point for the blog- again- that's a stream/video kind of thing.

ANYWHO- Morrowind fun, about the only news I can offer on that series is that it might abruptly end and become a 'for me' series because I'm not particularly interested in beating the game nearly as much as I'm interested in exploring aimlessly and seeing what happens.

I'm not playing Morrowind for the end goal of beating the main quest, or beating the DLCs. I'm playing it to wander into caves and find new pants, so if I reach a point where I'm satisfied with what I've shared and my motivation has not borne a new end goal then I'll end the live blog and move on to a new game :P

Backlog

The short statement I'll make is that this blog is a hell for my backlog.

Even without infinite money on hand I've ended up with so many physical and digital games just sitting here waiting to be played either because they caught my eye or because of recommendations by various people over the years.

I keep sitting down, cataloguing my backlog, realizing it's pointless to catalog, deleting it all, and then starting over yet again.

The fact is, if anyone recommended it it's probably still sitting in a text document somewhere, or physically on my shelf, and I don't remotely know when I'll get to it.

I've yet to hit the point where I decide to turn this blog into work, so I have never sat down and gone "Well, Retphienix NEEDS to post! Sit down, 8-12 hours minimum, let's play the next game!"

And part of me wishes I'd do that, but the fact is this isn't a job. There's no money here, there's the opposite even! I don't remotely see it that way, but if you squint and tilt your head I've spent a lot of money on this blog over the years.

Capture devices (a lot of them!), consoles specifically bought for the blog, controllers out the wazoo, I've gone through multiple computers for this thing, and the games, my lord the games- so many games.

And that's fiscally, what about manpower? So many hours have gone into this blog, so many hours poured into the background of making all this work, researching shit, putting my all into formulating my opinions clearly for posts, writing, hell video shit even though it's mostly clips as my one step into edited content became an impromptu awkward hiatus from doing more lol.

What was I on about.

Despite all that nonsense, Retphienix is a passion project. Not a job.

If I lack the passion in some sense then the work doesn't get done "just for the sake of the work". And I don't mean lost passion as much as "No motivation on x day; tired on y day; interested in doing something else on z day" etc.

If things aren't clickin' I don't force it, so the blog has all this backlog and isn't put together in a way that facilitates burning through it quickly.

I do sometimes wish things were different though, I know I'd still enjoy such a playstyle, but I can't justify "faking it til you make it" in a format that literally isn't built to pay and was never intended to.

I can't work myself for nothin'.

Hypothetical "Next" games

While the backlog is a wild wasteland of titles, there are some that just kinda guarantee their spots sooner rather than later.

Yakuza 6 and 7 along with Judgment, obviously. The series is one of my all time favorites and I generally have some of my absolute most fun on the blog side of things with those games, so it's a winner on two fronts. It's just fun to react to, post out of context things for, and talk with other fans about and for whatever reason tumblr has a healthy enough fanbase for the series that my meager blog gets some attention there.

Dragon Quest has a strangely weighted chance all things considered. DQ has many of the same advantages as Yakuza- it's a series I adore, it's fun to talk about in this format, and the fandom is big enough to occasionally spill my way making the blogging experience a bit more fun. It's also a series where I don't know what'd come next to be fair. Probably DQ4? I mean, might as well continue on from that point since I have 1-3 done. I can't exactly justify replaying the entirety of DQ11 no matter how much I want to! Turning on the games above gave me DQ goosebumps which kinda settled how likely it is to show up sooner rather than later, lol.

Jeez. I looked at one of my surviving lists and that's like all that's popping out at me.

Other series feel like giant leaps with no gas in the tank, like do I want to start playing Kingdom Hearts? Not really, not right now. Do I finally play Lisa? Eeeeeeh. Persona? Hmmmm.

I haven't the fuzziest. There are so many one off interesting titles, but if the drive ain't there they might as well be textbooks.

Perhaps instead of any major next game I'll just do some afternoons exploring random titles for a bit here and there with no intention of beating em.

The idea is enticing as hell, but the feeling of not giving the game's a "real shake" feels bad.

We'll see. The only certainties seem to be Yakuza and DQ, as much as I'd prefer far more.

Side project hypotheticals

Outside of the basic live blog stuff I'm still interested in exploring scripted stuff. Mostly to prove to myself that I can overcome some anxieties and break from the meandering pace the last effort gave- I can write! That much I know! So just gotta trick myself into writing for a video and then make the video after the fact lol.

Current thoughts are on a video exploring the monster taming sub-genre. It's a genre near and dear to my heart, and one I know some weird things about as is- but mostly it's a genre I KNOW I know very little about despite that, so I'd like to give it an overall look, or perhaps just explore some random entries, I haven't a clue lol. I'd mostly like an opportunity to talk about some interesting entries in the genre, things like explaining my adoration for DWM while explaining how the flaws make it really rough today, or the interesting mash of genres that is Lost Magic, or the more modern take that mashes idle-like mechanics with Siralim Ultimate.

Won't lie, playing the demo for Monster Hunter Stories 2 threw a wrench in that plan because it made me want to talk about it and how the genre might have a new breath of life after really grinding to a halt as pokemon became what it is today, but all to be seen or not lol.

As far as other things like streams? Not really.

The concept of writing a bit more on games is tickling the back of my head lately, but that mostly just means "more posts that aren't live-blogging" as I haven't the fuzziest where I'd share such nonsense.

Really it's all up in the air as far as retphienix content is concerned, beyond the live blogging obviously.

5am closing

It's fun to explore what games have to offer, both on the individual level, the personal level, and as a whole- as a medium.

So I like Retphienix.

And I like all I've made here.

I hope to continue for a long, long time- no matter what future formats might look like.

#Retphienix

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aj-anime-blog · 3 years

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To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts - Review!

First review here we go!!

So, after being completely and utterly obsessed with Jujutsu Kaisen and AOT season 4, I decided to check out MAPPA studios and watch a bunch of stuff from their roster. My so-called "MAPPA binge" included this strange and unknown piece: Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi e, or in English, To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts. An adaption of a manga originally released in Bessatsu Shounen (you might recognize this as the magazine that released Attack on Titan!), it looked pretty promising. I do have to admit that I didn't read a page of this anime's manga, though the art style on it looks gorgeous!!

The concept behind the show: A war has torn two halves of a nation apart, split into the North and the South. The Northerners, who were previously greatly outnumbered in battle, created a half-human, half-beast species known as "Incarnates" because of their God-like abilities. But the Incarnates begin having some issues when their beast forms take over their bodies, turning them into monsters. When the war ends, our protagonist, Hugh Hank, an Incarnate and previous captain of the Incarnate squad, swears to kill all of his mutating Incarnate buddies before they can destroy the world.

This review will not contain spoilers until the labeled "Spoiler" section at the bottom.

In general, what do I think?: 4/10, this show kinda sucked. Ouch! I hate being that blunt! Especially on my first review here! But To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts (let's call it TTASB from here on out!) had glaring flaws that, while it did hold up as a show, made it uninteresting and hard to love. Not only were the characters mediocre and boring, but the show seemed to contradict itself and its own opinion of the Incarnates all the time! Are they bloodthirsty monsters that need to be killed? Are they misunderstood humans who should be given peace? I don't know! Our main characters don't seem to either! Other than the "war bad" motif that gets shoved down your throat from episode one, the show felt stagnant in what it was trying to make the audience feel.

I hate being so cynical about it, though, because it does still earn those 4 points! Even though a lot of it falls flat, as a whole, it's still an ok show! Hank and Schaal have good concepts and their dilemmas are interesting in certain parts when the writers manage to nail pits and pieces of their development! The fight scenes were cool and I think that the concept for the world was neat! And the show does have a pretty cool title. Let's be honest, To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts sounds super metal.

So what about those characters?: 5/10! Hugh Hank and Schaal are our two main protags for the show, and they both have pretty interesting concepts! Hank is an Incarnate, he used to be the leader of the other Incarnates, and he made a vow with them that when they lost their minds, he would kill them himself. Schaal is the daughter of one of these Incarnates that fought under Hank. Interesting, right?! How could these two opposing characters get along with one another?

TTASB tries to give the two of them a sort of grumpy-old-mentor-teaches-a-cheery-youngster relationship (which, admittedly, is one of my favorite tropes) and manages to forget everything good about having this kind of relationship. To start, it feels like Schaal has next to no reason to be tolerating Hank, and vice versa. She follows him around because *insert some excuse about understanding the Incarnates?* and Hank lets her because *insert I really don't know*. It really feels like Schaal doesn't need to be there, and she's just a plot device to move along Hank's character development.

Then, the two of them never really interact in ways that really moved me. It never felt like they made a deeper connection that meant something to the plot. They interacted, sure. They spoke about their issues, yeah. But it never felt like Hank needed Schaal, or that Schaal was emotionally tied to Hank, until the show spoonfed it to you that they were.

In the end, neither of their developments felt compelling or interesting. There were a few scenes that maybe, if you squinted, hinted towards them growing as people, but for a 12 episode anime, it was very menial. It also felt like said scenes were fairly forced, with their development not really leading them to the point that they ended up at. Again, TTASB has a bit of an issue with contradicting itself.

The villain was so meh. He has a motive, yeah. It's pretty lame. He's not compelling at all. Nothing about him is interesting or kept me hooked on him. The show probably could've existed without him, to be entirely honest. I don't really have much else to say about him! I just did not really care about him at all.

The best characters in the show are hands-down the supporting cast of Incarnates. Each one has fairly interesting motivations, and even though they're only given an episode or so to tell their stories, they feel the most genuine. My biggest qualm with them is that the show doesn't build their connection to Hugh Hank at all, so when he gets emotional over them, you're kind of like "uhhh u know this guy??". More about this down in our spoilers section, as I'll go over a scene where this is prominent.

So characters were meh, but what about the story itself?: 4/10, just as meh. Again, very interesting! Lots of potential! But it fell flat where it mattered. To be clear, just before we dig deeper: the 12 episodes of TTASB isn't the entire story. It's clearly intended to be continued, though, as of writing this, I haven't been able to dig up any news about a potential season 2.

I don't really mind if animes aren't completely original, as long as they're fun, but TTASB didn't really do that. A lot of the episodes felt boring and reused like it was a watered-down copy-paste of other material. Some episodes were repetitive and seemed to be trying to hammer in the same themes, only to be later contradicted by other episodes. TTASB will spend a few episodes showing you how misunderstood and sweet the Incarnates are and then have an episode where an Incarnate murders a bunch of people. I would love it if it was, in any way, shape, or form, sarcastic, but it is not. TTASB just thinks it can get away with the blatant disregarding of its own morals. It only ends up feeling disconnecting and frustrating.

It follows an almost monster-of-the-week style format for introducing the Incarnates, which does them a bit of a disservice, in my opinion. I really would have liked it if there was a bit more overlap between the Incarnates and their stories! We know that they're all very close (or, at least, the show tells us that they are without really showing us) so seeing them interact with one another outside of their respective episode would've been fun!

The story tries to be darker and grimier than it actually is. I didn't end up caring much for the nation itself and much of the politics that the show tried to utilize felt boring and, again, watered-down. It felt like the show wanted to make it a political drama about war and human rights and only ended up shying away from what makes those genres impactful. Again, this isn't to say that TTASB's story is bad, it's just not as good as it could've been.

But it's MAPPA, so the art has to be good, right?: Yeah! Art was cool! Nothing golden, like MAPPA's newer stuff, but a solid 7/10! The fight scenes were nice, and even though a lot of them felt redundant to watch, they were still smooth! I have some qualms about a few of the Incarnates' beast forms (especially Hank's) looking like they belong back in 2001, but they still looked cool nonetheless.

I don't really have much to say on this front! Nothing really blew me away, but I never looked at the screen and winced away.

Ok and finally, pacing!: 4/10. 12 episode animes always have tricky pacing to them. I like to think about the show being pretty much only 5 hours long, which isn't that much time to cram in as much story and plot as they might want to. Overall, TTASB actually had pretty decent pacing, with a long enough build-up that led to a final showdown. If you ask me, I do think there was a pacing problem in the second half, as it felt far too stretched out, but that could've just been my perception of it.

My biggest issue with pacing loops back to the characters again. They're never really given time to explore or build up relationships. Especially not Hank and his prior team of Incarnates. I think that there should've been more screen time dedicated to their time in the army, to better explain the emotional distress that he's going through as he's forced to hunt them down. Instead, TTASB relies on a throwaway line or scene to deliver this emotional blow, and it nearly always falls flat.

Music!!!!: 6/10, The soundtrack in this anime really wasn't memorable and I don't remember much from it. Whoops!

I did like the opening a bit! It was done by Mafumafu, who I think has done a Pokemon intro song? Either way, it was energetic and fit the theme of the show well! The ending is also a bop, now that I'm thinking about it! It manages to be nostalgic and sad without being too slow! So good music on both fronts!!

OK, now we're in spoiler territory! Be warned!

I don't have too much to say regarding spoilers. Nothing in the show really feels important enough that I have to mention it under a spoiler tag. A few small notes, I suppose.

The show treats Hank like the more important character but then throws him away in his "death" to focus on Schaal, which was a very frustrating episode. Schaal felt so bland and useless in it, even when she faced her father again. Bringing him back to life felt like a sad excuse to force her into character development. I did like it when she found the courage to shoot him, but I also thought that it wasn't really as emotional as the show wanted it to be.

Hank's connection with Schaal, particularly in the second half, feels completely unnatural and forced. When she gets kidnapped, he has some sort of mental breakdown over her and it, if anything, felt creepy. It was undeserved and was forced down your throat rather than built.

Beatrice was the best character in the show and I think that if they stuck to ideas like hers (misunderstood creatures who just want to go back to their old lives), the story would have been much better. Instead, you switch to characters like the Gargoyle Incarnate, who just goes on a murder spree, and it ruins a lot of the development that Beatrice brought to the table.

& our deep deep look at one part: Forgive me if I get this screwed up a bit, it's been a weekish since I finished the show and my brain dumped out all details of it already.

Hugh Hank goes to the mountains and fights the Garmr Incarnate, Rex (Roy? I'm a bit confused on his name), in an epic show-down. Obviously, at the end of it, Hank wins, killing Rex. Now, if you're like me, you sat there for most of the fight going "who tf is Rex and why is this battle important?" and only at the very END, when he's dying, do you see a clip that you might remember from the very beginning of the anime, with Rex talking about Schaal. You go "oohhh I know who he is!" but you wished that you remembered this ten minutes ago when the fight started because it would've been so much more impactful. The show didn't remind you of this scene. It didn't tell you that Rex was this same person that you already met. It expected you to remember, and I didn't. This scene sums up a lot of the character problems with the show, where even if something does have emotional weight, the show doesn't act on it.

Now we're done!: Sorry if this was harsh, but that's my full review on To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts! I'd love to hear if you agree with me or think that I'm totally wrong! If you've read the manga, tell me if it's better or worth a read! And thanks for reading!

(The crossed-out "Hugh"s are all of the times that I got Hank's name wrong! I'm not super great with character names, but I always take it as a bad sign when I screw up the name. )

#anime #mappa #studio mappa #to the abandoned sacred beasts #to the abandoned sacred beasts anime #review #anime review

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21secondsofchristoph · 5 years

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Here is a full translation of the interview with the FAZ:

Mr Waltz, statistically you're a rarity. Only five percent of all actors in Los Angeles manage to get enough jobs to get accepted into the SAG. And out of that group, only about five percent earn enough to make a living out of their art.

Becoming an actor is like becoming a father: really easy. Being and staying an actor is much harder.

We're meeting today, because you're not playing the villain for once, but some kind of action-hero in James Cameron's Manga movie "Alita: Battle Angel"

As a futuristic doctor you revive a cyborg from Mars, so you're basically working on the interface of human and machine

Haha, you could put it like that! I like that!

When the story was published as a comic in 1990 it was considered Science-fiction. Today, people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos actually work on brain implants and dream of colonies on Mars. Have you dealt with such things as preperation?

I don't take Elon Musk seriously. His behavior strikes me as ridiculous and you can't forget that he has a commercial interest in the topic's sensation. I've already watched moon landing's and flights into space as a child. Is it really necessary to introduce billionaires into space tourism? Well, we will see what happens. I am interested in new technologies but it's difficult to seperate them from journalism of sensation, even if it's dressed seriously.

In time, a lot of things might be possible that I can't even imagine right now. But there is another question: the question of necessity.

The market economy drives our world into an orgy of uselessness. It damages our planet and our lives on it. Who wants to live on Mars? That we will all be unemployed and the environment destroyed is in no relation to any use.

Can one stop the progress if it's useless?

Not as long as someone benefits from it.

What about the desire for disruption?

Disrupting something is an easy action, replacing it with something useful is not.

I'm always ready to disrupt something if there is a useful counterproposal. Not necessarily until then.

A lot of things are turned upside down in film industry. Netflix not only revolutionized the concept of television, it also produces exciting movies. And Youtube even has its own celebrities among the new generation.

Over the past few months I've watched some movies which hadn't been produced without Netlflix. For example the winner of the Venice Film Festival "Roma". Movies like that wouldn't run longer than 3 weeks in theaters. Through the premiers and prices it now receives the attention it deserves. And after that it's on Netflix. As superficial as I can see that, it's not the worst thing.

In contrast to that, I don't have a hard time with not watching Youtube. It's probably a cultural matter and depends on how we want to shape our lives. Of course it's also a generational matter. But why is that? Just because someone is younger, it doesn't mean they are predestined for entertainment through videoclips.

You have 4 children. You have to be familiar with this world. Where do you see the difference to your generation?

In school we were always confronted with things we didn't like, but which we couldn't dispose of.

That's where the wonderful word "Bildung" comes from, which doesn't exist in English. Education refers to an information value. "Bildung" goes further than education through its cultural formation. When I was in school I also didn't understand why I had to study Latin. But not wanting to learn Latin would have never occured to me. Just because no one speaks it anymore and learning it seemed uncomfortable.

And did you like it?

It created connections within a language, trained precise phrasing, as well as logic and discipline. It's certainly more challenging to learn an abstract language than watching a funny Youtube video.

About for or five years ago you warned Facebook might be a breeding ground for the fast growth of terror organisations. Are you surprised that it also seems to threaten western democracies now?

Not at all. History has taught us that medium and structure can be more dangerous than the message, because it's easier to handle the problematic movement than the well oiled machine that keeps it going. Especially when algorithms control the dynamics in the networks, those networks can become independent.

Some hope that societies might improve through a "Wutbürger"-culture and a crazy government.

At best, all of that just has entertainment value.

So maybe not anyone should always add their opinions?

If you don't have anything clever to say you should shut your mouth. But actually it's the other way around. Apart from this choir of stupidity being really annoying, people who haven't developed the resistance and sensors might fall for the noise. Whoever shouts the loudest ends up being heard.

You are known for keeping your private life private. How does that match marketing's and fan's expectations?

Fame is an unsolved problem, not only for me.

You either remain an anonymous observer without a bigger platform to present your realizations. That is an unfortunate paradox because the people who get the chance to move in public have to deal with growing fame while they also distance themselves from the influences and experiences of real life.

Studies have shown that introverts would handle most jobs better. But they tend to get cast out by the loudmouths.

I can imagine that. Self- and foreign perception are a tricky thing. I can remember the first Loveparades in Berlin which I saw on TV. I always avoided the event myself. In the interviews, people were saying things like: "We celebrate our individuality!" And there were one million people that all looked the same. The music was a monotonous bum-bum-bum and I always tried to spot a moment of individuality.

You've been living in the centre of individuality for a while now. Do you still consider the United States of America governable?

Maybe not as a federation. The question I'm interested in is whether the USA as a federation are still worthy of governance. California alone is the fifth largest economy in the world.

In an interview from 2003 you talked about posing, about film makers who eroticise themselves and about how to stand yourself

Oh God, I remember.

Are you currently able to stand yourself?

Sometimes. But it's not easy.

At that time you weren't a Hollywood star and you made yourself very clear in interviews.

"Schindler's list" is mendacious because Spielberg might have thought "that type of movie still lacks from my collection of movies about dinosaurs and UFOs

Or that Roberto Benigni's "Life is Beautiful" is "crap" because it communicates that it's alright to laugh about concentration camps. "when it's a tender laugh"

Do you still dare to say such things now that you constantly meet other Hollywood stars?

In Germany, yes. In America, no.

Do you believe it's better to become famous later in life? And does aging feel better when you're at least famous while you're aging?

Hopefully both, right? As a young man you often experience the world through tunnel vision, because you impatiently want to experience everything, even though you can't sort a lot of things right. If the attention hits you at that point in life, you get in danger of stirring towards a dead end where you don't develop well.

Do you believe you became more careful and more lenient over the years and success?

You're becoming more careful and more lenient. I never thought of that before. I thought: Now I suddenly step back a little. You become more lenient when you connect yourself to it. In a strict German way you could call it cowardice, because you gain another point of view, the insight. And apart from the experience and the success it might be due to the abrasion of the testosterone-related edges.

#christoph waltz #alitabattleangel

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the-firebird69 · 3 years

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Did you hear them shortly and 5,000 horsepower it should be easily able to go about a few thousand miles an hour at least and it should be able to keep up and the style and design at those fees it should be able to handle enough to stay in a straight line so we're off to the desert hot flats salt flats sorry is it salt flats and we thought Vegas but he's thinking the salt last but his rethinking it back to Vegas which are the hot flats and I was right and you didn't know to call the hot plants it's a lot of things he's not aware of because he's deceptive to you you always fall for it and he goes around making fun of you because you correct his words but his concepts are way better and they are they make fun of you too cuz you missed the concept for your stupid word hot versus salt and now corky hasn't missed it but he's got it wrong salt is not you in this case but okay. No you don't you don't have my permission it's a man and a woman they deserve their car but I want you to try and copy one cuz I'm tired of hearing from you that you're the balls if you can't copy one of those including the engine then you're fired. Okay well you have to try and will and Bill want to so finally the engine to be curious but he said was to have a pressure release valve on the intake because your motor will blow if they don't have control over the pressure and it's so much pressure and doesn't look like the regular well enough that they probably should do that and they did and they don't blow the motor anymore. Billy I'm like you guys want to work with you you have a class act you came up with the whole car and it's very high-tech and a new motor which is very impressive to them and after your secrets but they want to know what you'd want to work on with them and secrets and stuff okay yeah you're going to say about transformers so the laughing so who's going to come down here the devil color or the Devil himself is an out so if you unless he's out by the time we have the race it would be I think Mephastopheles and it's the first son of the Devil and Lilith off planet.

We accept the race they say of course and we want to see who this fella is or what he is or what he looks like and we see a picture of him and it's been circulated around and he has been seen and he is evil as hell you've seen him crush people as a skinny guy without any trouble but he's not there to crush us he says and he's under my directive if you don't try and harm them and capturing then you'll be fine is there for the race just as we are out there in Las Vegas even though it's not a true gentleman's area it is an area where the race is valid and as a race and then we will vacate the process we appreciate that it's the word and we won't do anything and you guys home and it usually works out even with that massive massive idiotic race with the Hard knock kicker people which was crazy as hell but they are a group and they're not aggressive to each other and it was fun to watch it was amazing to watch amazing so we should probably do that afterwards to cover our tracks have a Harley versus Hard knock race all classes you can pick the day you said Saturday and we agree I'll give you time to prep and test and blow a few stacks laugh yeah Billium and they're going to find you and they want to help out if they can they accept and we will be there. Mac wants to fund you and they accept and what Las Vegas and you guys to get together and come up with a name for the type of race because it is a momentous race there's hasn't been one like this for quite a while it was with the fly cars I think yes no they say with long cars and other odd cars that couldn't do it so it's kind of a romantic because it's in the right format it's the right type of motor and it's right type of car for the race and we are in that LeMans class race these days and your car would make it into it with just a few races like this and this will probably get it in with no questions asked and ours as well cuz this is a new car that he's wanted to race and it's a challenge and if we could of course get Jesus there to sing where the champions and you can say it's you and we'll see it's us but it is my brother and he says no not him then he says what about Brian Gerard he's always considered himself to be a brother and he says we think so but we'll strive to get JC out for it and Max says we will and he's getting loose now like a loose tooth and he shows hasn't show an image and it's gross he laughs he's still a young man be nice if I have something to go down there with like a city I can fly out rent a fitty. But I don't know if I'd stay in Vegas because there's so many gangland shootings but really I added all of the month throughout the whole entire soprano series and watch it all at once it was a bit much we agree for crying out loud.

We accept and we're hoping this guy has a place because I'd like to see you with a house goes because this is intense they're losing the Midwest and it's too an Angel and it's one of him and he's the guy that we've been struggling against and we thought it was Ken we thought it was his dad George or Tommy F maybe no. Tommy F says no and tell me that you have a casino that you can easily put me up in and I can rent a fitty there. Who are you there renting a fitty why the hell are you a jailer. No it's just that we should move you around it causes problems for us not really fix things in the past but okay we will sit here and take it like a man okay Tommy you've had enough so they know you taught me off Tommy f... And yes I raise Mr Chris and I'm pretty good at so I'm going to have to try and figure out how their motor is made and the car too because it's intense and you say that all they did was make it an actual high performance car that you have motorcycle that are in ships and so forth that's true so I'm going to go ahead and work on one and it's not open class it's going to be gas and certain type of gas motor per the requirements of LeMans and really to me now the man sounds like some sort of lounge chair and laid back and slow compared to maybe Indy which sounds like Indiana Jones it's true too LeMans is about the same speed that sounds weird I seen your cars they go flying off the road to go so fast and I don't stay down very well but if they did they might crush the stuff so we're going to make hours out of titanium and they're going to too they say and it's all it's going to be a huge race and we're wondering if other people in virus can make it down there and maybe make it into an event Salazar has a car and says he has a new one now and has Goddess Wife has one too that's new. All of us are going to be there now and I think you're going to have company devel... I appreciate it and I'm getting respect too and I'm getting funding which I need doesn't support really they have facilities they support me with them and their test facilities and they're also supply and repair and storage and protection all that is important you're trying to do something like this and they're going to have their own cars too but they're really interested in the motor and I see how it is I should patent it and sell it is what he says and I might go ahead and do that and hold the patent as well because they're going to find out a scanning and so forth so I think I might do that and also make some conditions because they'll make it for resale this is smart guy and it'll probably work maybe 50% or better or who knows what a percentage is better than nothing and being mad and turning into Infinity the Chuck beef head person that everybody thinks of doing all the time it's a great idea and I can also try and sell the car on the open market and I have offers already and he says it's really easy you can sell the car for enough to build several factories already a lot of people want to have and you can build a fly conversion it's nothing illegal about it because you can copy us and he says well that's great so he's going to have to do that and Sebastian still has his plants

Thor Freya

You said most of it but he got a little tired

Hera Zues

Olympus

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stagedelight · 7 years

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Hi, I'm a big fan! As an aspiring actor, I was very interested to read your post about portraying different castes. Since I don't really have the resources to go to acting school right now, could you recommend some media where they get it right? Maybe also some examples of particularly funny ways actors get things wrong about playing other castes?

It would be my pleasure! :)

For good portrayals, if I had to pick three (and keeping myself to things which should be relatively easy to obtain), I think I’d choose:

1. If I Could Fly(You want the original, not the remake; they’re frequently mislabeled online, but if any of the reviews describe it as “heartwarming,” you’ve got the wrong one.)

The story centers around three women, each of whom has lost an infant – the yellow was a surrogate, the blue’s baby died, and the gray’s was taken away because she didn’t have a credit. It’s intended as a gentle exploration of variations in the grieving process, and while the different kinds of loss are central to that, there’s also thoughtful and sensitive portrayals of how caste plays into the nature and expression of grief.

This one is my top choice, both for its quality as a work of art, and for the threefold structure, which offers good opportunities to do the sort of comparing and contrasting I’ve talked about in previous posts.

2. Future Imperfect

Fair warning on this one: it’s not, as a TV show, very good.

It’s not painfully bad, either; just mediocre. I wouldn’t usually recommend it, but I wouldn’t feel compelled to go turn it off if I walked into a room where it was playing in the background. (I’m sure there are people who very much like it, and that’s fine; I’m terribly picky about TV and movies.)

Nevertheless, it has to make the list here. For some reason, while the producers couldn’t be bothered to come up with a halfway original concept (“poor hardworking purple and rich lazy blue fall in love at first sight”) or any kind of character development (no one ever changes) or more than the one plot they use in every single episode (they’re finally ready to tell the world about their love! oh no hilarious misunderstanding will they break up? no wait they made up in the last five minutes) – despite all that, for some inscrutable reason, they insisted on absolute realism in the portrayal of castes and of intercaste relationships.

So do your best to tune out the plot, and pay careful attention to the little details. Watch different people ordering coffee in the intro to the first episode: yes, of course you’ll be able to see Rich Lazy Blue is the love interest from a mile away, but the way he orders coffee compared to the orange before him or the green before her is absolutely impeccable. Similarly, you’ll want to pay attention to the episode in the second season where the two leads get lost in a yellow neighborhood. And there are a number of episodes in which the two families have to interact for one reason or another, all of which are worth watching.

3. After the Beep

This one’s a radio show, for a change of pace! Old episodes go up free online after thirty days, so there’s an archive of about a hundred now which anyone can access. It won’t help you with anything visual, of course, but it’s excellent material for studying speech patterns (which are easily overlooked – actors get careless and rely on the scriptwriters. But even the best scriptwriter can’t do your accent and intonation for you.)

The episodes are entirely composed of fictive messages left on the characters’ answering machines (hence the title). It’s a lovely twist on an epistolary format that makes brilliant use of the medium, and creates a mysterious, surreal atmosphere which is perfect for a narrative set in an eerie postapocalyptic world. (Do listen to the episodes in order; there aren’t big twists, exactly, but there’s a definite accumulation of information about the setting.)

Like If I Could Fly, this show would merit a recommendation if you were just looking for pleasure listening; but it also features excellent examples of different dialects and registers, including some belonging to demographics which are shamefully underrepresented in most media (rich rural purples! yellows in healthcare!) And because it’s so low-budget, and by nature features a lot of brief cameos, they were able to get actual members of the appropriate demographics for many of the briefer appearances; they weren’t going to reach anyone’s income cap.

Finally: bad portrayals are harder to avoid than come by, of course, but if you want something which had me giggling the entire time from the sheer magnitude of catastrophe, I’d recommend:

4. Adrift: First Fall

As the title suggests, it was meant to be the first movie in a quatrology; but (thankfully) that never came to pass, because literally no one has ever watched Adrift and come away thinking “gosh, we should make a sequel to that.” Also, hardly anyone has in fact watched Adrift; you’re most likely to recognize it from that one reaction gif of a cardboard tree falling over and hitting a blue on the head while he’s in the middle of proposing marriage. (Yes, that was in the final cut. No, it wasn’t intentional.)

I genuinely cannot describe what a catastrophe this movie is from beginning to end; exactly one actor who appears in it ever got hired for anything else, and that was the director’s daughter who was half a season old and appeared in one scene where they needed a baby. (She actually went on to a perfectly respectable career; I assume she doesn’t list Adrift on her resume.) The entire animation team quit the moment their contracts were up, and went off and started a rock band together. (It’s not a great band, but their music is still better than Adrift.)

Besides all the other ways Adrift is a disaster (the lead wore bunny slippers for all the filming, and they didn’t always manage to keep them off camera! the plot ends with half an hour left and so a new and completely unconnected plot starts and then after half an hour the movie ends without any kind of attempt to resolve it!), the attempts to portray different castes leave you wondering if the entire cast was composed of blind aliens who got “castes” confused with “ice cream flavors.” Words genuinely fail me; you’ll have to watch it for yourself. (Or, more prudently: don’t.)

#amenta rp #standard boilerplate: this is an in-character blog set in a fictional universe; it is filled with lies

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spicycreativity · 3 years

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Soft-Shoe Shuffle - Ch 3

Chapter: 3/12 Additional Notes: See Ch 1 for more information. Read on AO3 under "WizardGlick." Any formatting/italics errors are holdovers from AO3 that I was too lazy to fix. Chapter Content Warnings: N/A; ask to tag Excerpt: "Oh, you know." Janus waved a hand like he'd thought about this a thousand times before and was merely playing the conversation out as light entertainment. "Does a person have a 'true' identity?" "As opposed to a false identity?" Patton laughed weakly. Janus smiled at him without showing his teeth. Talk about being out of one's depth. It wasn't endearing. "Actually? Yes." "Oh," Patton said, recoiling in surprise. "Really?"

When you are born, you're afraid of the darkness And then you're afraid of the light But I'm not afraid when I dance with my shadow This time I'm gonna get it right

Janus woke up to the feeling of rough, low pile carpet against his face. He lay still for a moment, waiting for the buzzing in his head to die down so he could work out exactly what had happened.

That was easier said than done. He couldn’t stop shaking, nor could he feel his lips or fingertips, and a persistent brain fog made it difficult to concentrate.

Ah.

He’d fainted.

He opened his eyes to find Logan crouched next to him, one hand extended as though he’d hesitated in the process of reaching out to touch him.

“Janus?” Logan said, slowly and clearly. “Are you alright?”

“No, I’m dying.”

“Good to hear, I suppose.” Logan sat back on his heels. “Is telling the truth ordinarily so taxing on you?”

Janus wasn’t sure he wanted to answer that. “How did you know I was telling the truth?” he demanded, a little offended that Logan hadn’t even suspected that Janus might be manipulating him. He was the gatekeeper, the chessmaster; people were supposed to accuse him of lying.

“You hesitated,” Logan said.

“I hesitated,” Janus repeated, considering the implication of this. It made him want to hide his face. Perhaps he could implement a masquerade mask into his daily wear, something gold with Swarovski crystals.

“You don’t normally hesitate when you speak,” Logan said. “One might call you ‘glib.’”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “Why would they call me ‘glib’ when my name is Janus?”

“I believe spending time with Patton has begun to influence you."

A stab of panic did not squeeze Janus’ heart. “Don’t tell him I fainted.”

“I hadn’t planned on it. By the way, if you feel like you can sit up, you should drink something. I suspect you're dehydrated. The fainting spell was the biggest indicator, but your lips are also chapped. I was going to check your pulse, but I wasn’t sure if you would be comfortable with that.”

When he had processed what Logan had said, Janus nodded and sat up slowly, leaning on his second set of arms. Logan handed him a plastic cup with a bendy straw sticking out of it. Janus accepted it and examined the deep blue liquid. “What is it?”

“It’s Gatorade. Blue Cherry."

Janus took a tentative sip, then drained half the glass in one long swallow. He wasn’t embarrassed nor in any rush to leave, he just-- He was exhausted, that was all. He picked up his hat with his free hand and put it back on, pleased to see that his hands were steady. "It's been a hectic few days," he said, half to Logan and half to himself.

"You forgot to eat," Logan surmised. "I would have expected Patton to remind you."

Janus couldn't suppress an irritated twitch. "He might have mentioned it in passing…"

"Ah." Logan smiled: a cautious, tight-lipped thing. "That's why you didn't want me to tell him."

"Yes, well." Janus finished the Gatorade and took a moment to self-assess. He felt less dizzy now. What else? "Logan?"

The bruises stood out against Logan's skin, blue-purple and sickly. Janus suddenly couldn't tear his eyes away from them. They even mimicked the shape of his crook.

"I'll talk to the others," Logan said. "I… I'm new to the idea of talking about, or even acknowledging feelings, but… You're right."

"Do tell."

The look Logan gave him was pointed indeed. "Refusing to acknowledge a weakness does not negate that weakness. It only makes things harder in the long run.”

"I'll keep that in mind, should I ever suspect I'm developing a weakness." Janus vanished the glass, since Logan had given no indication he wanted it back, and got to his feet. His head gave a little pulse of protest, but he forced himself to stay still until the room stopped spinning.

"I am curious," Logan said. "Did you actually have a question for me, or was that just a lie so I would let you in?"

"Why," said Janus, "is a raven like a writing desk?"

Logan's reply was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Logan? It's Patton. Again."

Janus held his index finger up to his lips.

Logan nodded.

Janus tipped his hat and sank out. He appeared in the living room and chanced a glance into the hallway. From this angle, he could only just see Logan as he opened his bedroom door to Patton. Janus quickly ducked back around the corner. He was a little too far away to make out words, but could hear the sound of conversation, then the sound of the door closing, then silence.

Janus smiled and sank down on the couch, knowing full well he would fall asleep if he allowed himself to close his eyes.

He knew he shouldn't. Even now, a small part of his brain screamed at him that he was in danger, that he was making a mistake with this show of vulnerability.

But exhaustion smothered him like a blanket, dampened the noise, pressed him down, down, down.

Janus closed his eyes.

Gentle noises emanated from the kitchen, the sound of quiet conversation.

Janus realized that he was now horizontal on the couch. Someone had draped a throw blanket over him. How… revolting . He wasn't a child; he didn't need--

He sat up and ripped the blanket off, cheeks blazing with heat. What was he doing ?

The idea that Patton and Logan had seen him sleeping was mortifying. Obviously Patton had been the one to cover him up, but the glass of Gatorade (complete with bendy straw) on the coffee table was obviously from Logan.

Janus took in a few slow, deep breaths. Then he picked up the glass and took a few equally slow, measured sips. There was no need to work himself up (even if his hammering pulse said otherwise). He was still in control. He was just a little shaky, which made sense, as the only things to enter his system in the past few hours had been coffee and Gatorade.

"Ah, Janus." Logan sounded far happier than he had when Janus had last spoken to him. Janus turned to look at him as Logan came around the side of the couch and perched on the very edge of an armchair.

"Logan." Janus inclined his head. Where was his hat? He spied it on the edge of the coffee table and put it on with a great show of nonchalance. "I take it you and Patton made up?"

"We had a conversation that greatly eased the tension between us, yes. He told me what happened between you and Roman."

Janus did not make a face, nor did he twitch irritably. "It was nothing, really. I'm sure he'll be over it soon."

"That's very optimistic of you, if a little unrealistic." Logan stood up. "Anyway. I came out to tell you that lunch is ready. I told Patton I was craving chicken soup. Coincidentally, chicken broth is high in sodium, fatty acids, and vitamins which contribute to cardiovascular health and recovery after instances of illness."

Janus couldn't help the smile that crossed his face, though he was quick to suppress it. Logan had lied for him.

If Janus swayed a little when he stood up, Logan was kind enough not to mention it.

It was warm in the dining room. Janus fussed with his gloves, trailing behind Logan. Just the idea of facing Patton made his heart flutter. How delightful. Remus may have been on to something after all.

But the moment couldn't be delayed forever, and soon Janus found himself seated at Patton's right elbow, trying not to be grumpy that he had set the table for five. It was an uncomfortable reminder of Virgil and Roman's animosity toward him, nothing more.

"Morning, Janus! Are you feline more alert after your cat-nap?" Patton asked.

Janus was spared having to come up with a response by Logan's interjection, "It's afternoon."

"Aw, it's barely a hair after 12:00!"

Patton laughed at his own joke and Janus realized with a heart-stopping stab of definitely-not-fear that he was out of his depth. As arbitrary as the line between 'good' and 'evil' was, the line had been drawn nonetheless and Patton had been the one to draw it. The curtain was still there, the tangible reminder that Janus had been seen and judged and sorted.

Now he stood in the light, in the space he had claimed for himself, and he had no idea who to be.

It was pure instinct to play along, to say whatever he thought Patton and Logan wanted to hear in order to draw them closer to serving his own ends. But what were they, now? What version of himself would Patton and Logan like best? Who was he, really?

His breath came fast and frantic, and he forced himself to swallow a few spoonfuls of soup in case it was his blood sugar making him so panicky.

"Janus?" Patton waved a hand in front of Janus' eyes. "You in there?"

Logan said nothing, but the furrow of his brow spoke volumes as he leaned in to get a better look at Janus.

"I'm," Janus said, "purrfectly fine." The next thing that slipped past his tongue would have been a mistake, except that Janus didn't make mistakes. "I was just thinking about the concept of self."

Patton didn't say anything, but he frowned thoughtfully. Probably trying to come up with a good philosophical cat pun.

Logan said, "Self?"

"Oh, you know." Janus waved a hand like he'd thought about this a thousand times before and was merely playing the conversation out as light entertainment. "Does a person have a 'true' identity?"

"As opposed to a false identity?" Patton laughed weakly.

Janus smiled at him without showing his teeth. Talk about being out of one's depth. It wasn't endearing. "Actually? Yes."

"Oh," Patton said, recoiling in surprise. "Really?"

"Per American philosopher Daniel Dennett," Logan said, and stopped with an abortive exhale. Janus tilted his head at him and Logan continued as though he had never hesitated, "there is no self. The entire concept of 'self' is a fiction invented by humans to help them make sense of their world."

Janus tensed his jaw. That was not what he had been getting at when he had broached the subject (had he been getting at anything?), but it seemed rude to derail Logan now, especially when he was in such an emotionally fragile state.

Well, if it meant not undoing all his hard work, Janus supposed he could approach the matter with (metaphorical) kid gloves.

"How can there be a false self if there is no self?" Patton asked, glancing between Logan and Janus with a frown.

"Dennett isn't the sole authority on the matter," Janus said, forcing himself to speak plainly.

Patton cocked his head like a confused puppy. For an unrelated reason, Janus' mouth went dry. "Then who is?" Patton asked.

"Often in philosophy, there are no objectively correct answers," Logan said.

Patton's look of befuddlement was a sight to behold. Janus wanted to reach over and ruffle his hair. It wasn't Patton's fault, after all, he had never had cause to engage with anything more morally complex than 'murder is wrong.'

Well, until recently.

"What about in terms of the static and the dynamic?" Janus said. Interrupted. It had been during a lull, yes, but compared to his usual push-pull approach, this was more akin to a sledgehammer.

His face heated up and he quickly slipped on a mask to cover what was no doubt an obvious blush. Pain pulsed behind his eyebrow, a relic of the headache he'd mostly left behind.

"What do you mean?" Logan asked.

"Better answer quick, before you sta-tick us off," Patton added.

Janus glanced down at his gloves, pretending to inspect the fingertips. "Is there a permanent state of the self?" He hastily added, "Assuming that the self does exist," to assure Logan that he had been listening earlier.

"If you asked David Hume--"

Janus pretended to look around in confusion. "That's funny, I don't remember asking for David Hume's opinion."

"Be nice," Patton chided.

Janus squinted at Patton, who developed a sudden fascination with the tablecloth until Janus looked away again.

"So, Logan," Janus prompted. "What do you think?"

"I think that there is not an objective correct answer. Were it necessary to have a working definition, then I suppose I would agree with Dennett's assertion that the self is an invention."

"I suppose that's why you brought it up first."

"On the contrary, it's because 'Dennett' comes alphabetically before 'Hume.'"

Janus couldn't help the laughter that exploded from his chest, couldn't even play it off. The joke was unexpected, nothing more. "And you, Patton?"

"Oh, um." Patton pushed his glasses up. "I don't really know if I'm qualified to talk about philosophy."

"Even if we promise not to judge you?" Janus purred, taking care to look Patton in the eye.

"Okay, um." Patton fidgeted with his spoon. "I guess the self is like a river?"

"Go on, Patton," Logan encouraged.

"It's always water, but sometimes it changes directions or does different things. The same river that floods a town can also provide drinking water."

Janus raised an eyebrow. "How insightful."

"Interesting," Logan said. "So in your interpretation, the self is both static and dynamic."

"I guess?" Patton said. "I'm still kind of confused."

"If you'd like, I could recommend you some reading on the topic. A surprising amount of Thomas' schooling included references to philosophy and critical thought."

"Oh, um. I don't know about reading, but maybe you could explain it to me sometime?" Patton glanced over at Janus like he'd just remembered he was there. "And you too, Janus, if… that sounds like a good use of your time."

"I'd have to check my schedule, but I'm sure I could reschedule my plans for world domination."

"I wasn't trying--" Patton put up his hands. "Was that mean? You just seem so busy all the time."

Janus only shrugged, wondering where this regard for his free time had been when Patton had made him play cards until 4:00 in the morning.

"Patton." Logan summoned his flashcards. "I believe Janus was ribbing you. 'Rib, verb, to poke fun at.'"

Janus nodded.

"Which reminds me," Logan said. "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

"Oh!" Patton raised his hand. "Because they both have inky quills."

For a moment, Janus and Logan just stared at him.

"Get it?" Patton said.

"That's clever," Janus said, still staring at Patton.

"Also because they both produce flat notes," Patton said, unperturbed. "And Poe wrote on both, but I don't know what the Teletubbies have to do with anything." He laughed at his own joke.

After the wave of pun-induced exasperation passed, Janus was left only with a deep, warm fondness glowing gently in his chest.

In the three seconds before he realized what the feeling was, he quite enjoyed it. Then realization struck, and terror and shame with it, and he looked at his wrist despite the fact that he never wore a watch.

"I do still have work to do today," he said apropos of seemingly nothing. He didn't glance at Patton in a tacit request for permission before standing up.

"Oh," Patton said, the smile fading from his face. "Um, okay. See you later."

Janus nodded and strode off.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #moceit #spicywrites #spicywrites soft-shoe shuffle #song featured: taste of india - aerosmith

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