#fandom maps vol 2

[faint-kitten]

So about Solid Snake being in Fortnite...

by Faint_Kitten

I got into Fortnite in December 2023 for the first time. I just unlocked Snake and I have so many thoughts on it I can't completely break them all down. But I think I've done my best.

But the #1 thing I think I want everyone to know is: Despite shaving off his ass. Despite being artistically bankrupt and pushed out by Konami and Epic as a means to make money and promote the MGS Vol 2 collection.

Despite artistically, and Narratively being antithetical to Metal Gear Solid…

Snake being in Fortnite feels mechanically and tonally consistent with his legacy.

There is so much inherent "Kojima" in Metal Gear Solid. This weird blend of hyper realism, mixed with anime siliness, mixed with philosophy mixed with trying way too hard to be sombre while also mechanically being silly and then you spin around three times to puke, or Johnny does a big poop fart and all of it adds to the weird just Kojima-esque nature of the series. It extends to the love, the fandom and the humor around Metal Gear Solid. So many memes around Snake, between fan art, in jokes, and original Animations and gifs that it doesn't feel THAT weird to see him do like a...Naruto Run emote. So much of Metal Gear Solid* was a very serious drama taking place in a game that mechanically is silly and lets you do goofy shit and has elaborate bro fist handshakes played deadly serious. And Fortnite is a game where you have these characters doing goofy shit that doesn't mesh with who they are or the universe they came from all the fucking time.

You also have to realize the Battle Royale mode has big locations full of NPC's and Bosses you can kill for loot.

The "narrative" as it is of Fortnite Chapter 5: Season 1 is (near as I can tell) that Peely the Banana has been kidnapped by the Society (who serve as the current skins for this season and AI controlled bosses and NPC's on locations of the map.) And the map is littered with their fortresses with Jonesy (I guess the main character?) Going up against them to get his friend back. Which means there are a handful of locations in the current Fortnite Map that are just Boss bases. These are bunkers, and huge mansions and little outposts that you have to be careful around because once they know you're there they will just start spawning endless enemies to try and kill you, and the attention WILL draw enemy players. So you're shooting out cameras for XP and to keep them from beeping, avoiding turrets to keep from alerting guards and keep them from chewing up your health.

Guards already had the "?" and "!" system for showing if they detected you, despite having no inherent stealth mechanics in the game or any intention of introducing MGS. They didn't do this FOR an MGS tie in. There are recruitable companions and they can't speak so a way for players and enemies to detect if their companion "senses" an enemy player is to use the "?" and "!" system. While it doesn't mean that much without him. This is very clearly taken from Metal Gear, and as a result the alert system feels very natural around Snake.

In game modes where you have teams of two three or Four players, you get downed like Gears of War or Apex, and have to be revived. You can crawl and move. But players who are on their feet can pick you up and sling you over their back, or even yeet you to safety.

Enemy Players can do this too.

When I play Team modes by myself (I am alone, everyone else is in a team) I frequently pick enemies who wandered off of their pack and pick them off, tossing them somewhere their team mates can't get to or won't find them specifically to draw them in to their rescue.

Additionally there IS wildlife to hunt: Chickens, Frogs and Fish which give you medium effect healing items.

The game has items you can put on to "disguise yourself" like bushes, or snowmen during christmas that work EXACTLY like the card board boxes in MGS (though it's debatable if players are convinced by anything but the bush)

All of this was going on BEFORE Snake was unlockable. (I don't know if the camera's and bosses stuff existed before this season)

Which means that MECHANICALLY. Snake doesn't feel out of place at all in Fortnite.

It's super weird when a Xenomorph, or Spiderman, or a Ninja Turtle, or Goku, or a teen from My hero Academia, or Eleven from stranger things comes in and starts mowing people down with an assault rifle. The disconnect is part of the charm for better or worse, and it's both amusing and horrifyingly upsetting when you think about these characters sold as nothing but IP to get rich off of being so taken out of context from their character's intended art, themes and meaning.

It's just weird to see bright bubbly Mina from My Hero shooting people dead. Spiderman doesn't kill people, that's the Punisher, it's fucking weird to have Spiderman just gunning people down, if you get my gist.

It's super fucking weird to see these characters handle a fire arm and move around in a shooter. They feel less like themselves and more like what they are: A skin of a popular thing, plugged into a world to please fans and rake in money. It's fucking weird to see Spider-man holding a firearm.

It is NOT weird to watch Solid Snake do it. As a result of this, Snake kind of slips into the absurd world of Fortnite rather well.

It feels kind of cool strip snake of all like falling trail effects and just watch him super-hero sky dive toward a giant compound full of NPC's and land on the roof (It looks cooler in the dead of night but I didn't get a screenshot of it)

It's not weird to experience Snake in Fortnite's world handling Fortnite's mechanics. Because so many of the mechanics and the tone feels distinctly normal for Metal Gear Solid. This is not the first time Snake has been pawned out as a mascott to other properties.

It's weird as hell to watch Kratos blow a car up with a rocket launcher. That is not a part of his world, you see. It's NOT weird to watch Snake fire an RPG at anything. It's not weird to watch Snake do a bulk of the things he can do in Fortnite.

It's not weird to watch Snake run around a forest and shoot a frog or hunt a chicken for it's meat because we've played Snake Eater

It's not weird to hide in a bush as Snake:

It's not weird to watch snake shoot someone or Reload a fire-arm. The Snowy Mountains bases, the outposts, the big mansions and small cities the open world all feel like places Snake has been at home in, from Shadow Moses, to the Middle East, it's not unusual to see Snake* surrounded by girders and steps and concrete and cabins and tents and forrests etc. It's not weird to watch Snake pick someone up who's downed and carry them over his shoulder, or chuck them into a closet: We've seen this in MGS V: The Phantom Pain. Metal Gear Solid kind of invented a lot of these mechanics.

There isn't that much about Snake in the following footage seems out of place for Metal Gear Solid:

Snake doesn't feel out of place in fortnite. It might feel sacriligious for the biggest thing in gaming adding snake (with no cheeks I might add) to it's roster to be eyerolling or cringe. But Snake doesn't feel "too good" for fortnite. But he also doesn't feel like a total shill in fortnite either. A lot of the gear and missions and challengees to unlock him felt like a someone was asked to put together activities at a Metal Gear Solid themed birthday party (Use hiding spots. Shoot out 2 cameras. Fire an RPG, shoot silenced weapons, uses the disguise mechanics, travel in the disguise items. hack Trains or Vaults) the Emote could have easily been just the alert noise over Snake's head, but they put it on a freaking stick, Wile E Coyote style.

There's a weird Fortnite blend of "Lets make something as cheaply as possible in some places and yet give some things the love and attention that comes from making 5billion in revenue a year affords you." that shows up in everything they do. And they clearly put a lot more effort into this promotion than they did the Family guy stuff (not that I care one way or the other about Family guy I'm just calling it like I see it.) To be honest Snake has been shilled out to so many other games for cross promotion over the years this is hardly his first.

Snake has been blended with many things like Ape Escape, Smash Bros, and Monster Hunter. Seeing him along other games and even other characteres not of MGS's worldbuilding doesn't feel that odd. Snake has kind of left his "world" behind many times. Which is...kind of in keeping with Snake being this cipher? This character the player slips on. Snake is a character an icon but he's also this THING puppeted by us. A lot of games work to break this illusion to make us forget we're not Kratos, or We're not Nathan Drake but ever since Metal Gear Solid 1 Kojima's writing has been pretty clear there's "something" that drives snake. Not motivationally, but literally piloting him giving him what he needed to succeed (us). To put it simply. Snake has always been a bit Meta as a character. And it's hard to see liscenced characters (sold for up to 15 dollars a pop) as themselves when we're piloting them telling them to drink slurp juice out of jars, or swing a pickaxe or or sing "The Real Slim Shady" or do cutesy Jpop dances. All of this is to say, having played MGS 1 through TPP: nothing about this gameplay feels that out of character for Metal Gear aside from the cartoony art style. The look and feel of Fortnite naturally lends itself to having Snake as a Playable character in it. Narratively, Thematically, Fortnite is almost antithetical to Metal Gear Solid. But tonally, and mechanically, it feels in keeping with the series.

Part of this is just the fact that Kojima's games have always been ahead of the curve when it comes to what you can do in gameplay and so many of these things were adopted by gaming later that slotting Snake back into mechanics his games inspired just doesn't feel disjointed. So many games have copied Metal Gear Solid over the years and became main stream. MGS has also had it's own unique air owing to both Kojima's own unique style and the weirdness/humor brought about as the game tries very seriously to balance it's story and themes against poop jokes, and mechanics that are often very silly but very fun and a total detachment from the poe faced somberness snake goes for or is possibly trying to mock. This, overall is a chunk of what makes metal gear feel like metal gear. The mechanics of Fortnite feel eerily comparable to the mechanics of later Metal Gear games (especially MGS V) .

And the tonal disconnect between what Metal Gear games are doing as a plot, and the inherent nonsense the mechanics provide contrasting it, have always been a part of MGS and it's charm, and that's kind of what makes Fortnite the thing it is today? You have a very serious plot about war and the military and a gravely voiced man and then in the corner a Vampire man does a big dance, and large bi-pedal mechs moo like cows. It's why any time any popular thing is announced in fortnite it kind of becomes a joke. Very serious Rapper Eminem is in Fortnite, and has his personal OC Slim Shady as a playable skin, and he's shoving his hand in Pinata's and chugging slurp juice, it's kind of weird to see someone who takes themself so seriously dancing at the whims of whoever controls him. But that's been a core part of Metal Gear and the Metal Gear Solid Franchise, and the fandom forever. I dunno. I'm not trying to defend the fact that Fortnite is a center for companies to strip their IP of all love and meaning and sell it to us as pure nostalgia and profit. I'm just trying to say I was surprised by how weirdly normal (and to be honest kind fun) it felt to run around RPing Solid Snake in fortnite and I've been at it all day. As someone who originally didn't care one way or the other, and felt kind of cynical about such a beloved character being absorbed into this mess: I'm kinda glad he's here now.

*I know Snake and Big Boss (and by extension Venom/Punished Snake/Boss) are all different characters. But for the sake of this discussion I dipped in and out of talking about Solid Snake and "Snake" (any) as a whole in Metal Gear as a whole

#solid snake #metal gear solid #I've been editing and adding to this for hours I'm just going to push it out or I'll never post it #if it has errors grammatical or lore I'm not going to worry about it you get the gist

[weaselbeaselpants]

If I were a cartoon review youtuber, some of my videos would definitely be:

Underrated Animated films you should see vol. 1 - ongoing

Complete look at Skunk Fu! and all it's episodes

What's ACTUALLY wrong with Illumination films (spoiler: it's not the designs). And that video would probably have a sequel ironically unironically accusing Chris Meladandri of being a White Walker who rips out movies' souls.

Disturbing Animated Film Iceberg.

A calming, sweet short retrospective on The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends.

Killing off the idea of "endgame". Tho, tbf, I'm definitely going to be writing that thesis statement down someday. I guess in video format it'd be a big "did this series REALLY fall off cuz the creator catered to fans?" breakdown of a few shows.

A video about 9. Because of course I'd make something about 9.

Politically heavy (but not horror) animated films.

An essay explaining the difference between what I want to see in a story vs what's actually good in a story; and likewise the difference between what I personally do/don't find offensive and what's objectively offensive as a viewer.

The dichotomy and standards between different talking animal films.

A review about Mary and Max and why I like it but it's okay if other autists don't. which would be a broader video about how to listen to the opinions of demographics and minorities and not to treat any one as a hivemind.

Movies that I dislike but aren't actually bad.

Movies I love that aren't really all that good.

A deeper dive on my take that Steven Universe was always deeply flawed but having an otherwise working ending; where Star vs was a well-written show that utterly biffed it on the ending.

The Swan Princess is secret conservative propaganda.

The 31 dumbest things in Oogies Revenge.

Zero's Journey is the only good TNBC continuation.

13 Horror animated Feature Films. For Halloween, of course...

My issue with Dreamworks' stans and why I dislike How to Train You Dragon 2.

My issues with Anti v Proshipping. Def would be a multi part series explaining why I think most of the problem is just people really aggresively bulling one another -AND THEN, getting into heinous fandom shit that no one talks about and the ethics of children online and freedom of expression.

Prolly then would make an exclusive (cuz it's dirty) review abt the rights of r34 and adult artists and what they had to/have to put up with both from peers and websites banning explicit material.

What absolutely doesn't work about Pocahontas and Anastasia.

I'd do a series called "Spitball Re-haul" wherein I go through a revisioned show's premise and then explain all the reasons for the changes. I'd make:

How I'd rewrite The Owl House season 3.

How I'd rewrite Star vs the Forces of Evil "Cleaved".

How I'd rewrite Strange Magic.

How I'd rewrite Raya and the Last Dragon.

How I'd rewrite Seasons 4-8 of Friendship is Magic.

My tinfoil hat video on Disney trying to profit so much off of fans is hurting their bases.

Mapping out and analyzing different types of crossover fiction, their merits and their issues with story-keeping.

Mythological and cultural animated films.

and finally, for when I'd muster up the strength:

an HBomberGuy-type callout/deepdive into MysteriousMrEnter and Lily Orchard and how they've made cartoon reviews worse.

#cartoon #cartoon criticism #animation criticism #cartoon reviewers #animation review #critical fandom #the owl house critical #svtfoe critical #Steven Universe critical #mysteriousmrenter #mr enter #lily orchard

[bluepoodle7]

#Saban #Pinocchio #TheAdventuresofPinocchio #Anime #Figures #AnimeModel

Thinking about this Saban The Adventures of Pinocchio figure and how well detailed this is. I might check out this anime. Seems like something you see in the Walmart bargain bin for like $5 dollars. I like his design and reminds me of MortisFox's art style for Pinocchio. There is even a Miitopia Mii of the lad and I would put him in my team. There's a plush of this lad too and that's pretty cool.

Apparently the figure came out in Oct. 2008 and Japan is getting a Blueray DVD.

I like this figure but you have to paint it yourself or maybe commission someone who is good at painting figures.

Gives me gachapon figure vibes.

Images not mine but links are there.

Anime Model Pinocchio 樫の木モック Kashi no... - Super Robot Museum | Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

I've tried make Mokku from Kashi No Ki Mokku ( Aka Anime Pinocchio) because why not : Miitopia (reddit.com)

Pinocchio: The Series - Wikipedia

Nakajima seisakusho oak tree mock standard size so... | Trampt Library

樫の木モック | Sumally

Anime Model Pinocchio 樫の木モック Kashi no Ki Mokku - Resin Kit by SRM ! | eBay

Plush puppet Poupee Plush THE NEW EVENTS OF PINOCCHIO Banpresto 27 cm | eBay

Oak Tree Mock / Oak Tree Mock Statue / Domestic Anime & Comics / Earth Defense Force Secret Base Headquarters - Movies, American comics, games Figures, Goods, T-shirts (mamegyorai.jp)

TC Entertainment Reveals ‘Kashi no Ki Mokku’ Blu-ray Anime Box Set Cover | The Fandom Post

Tatsunoko Pro Collection Oak Tree Mock Painted Finished Statue -amiami.jp-Amiami Online Main Store-

Learn Japanese by playing games! Gain exp points, level up, and get ranked! (japaneseclass.jp)

【Rakuten Ichiba】Oak Tree Mock 【Memories Anime Library Vol. 109】 [Blu-ray]: Gold Map Rakuten Ichiba Store

【楽天市場】全巻セット【送料無料】【中古】DVD▼樫の木モック セレクション(3枚セット)1、2、3▽レンタル落ち：遊ＩＮＧ浜町店 (rakuten.co.jp)

MASAMI SUDA AL ROMA CARTOON FESTIVAL (REVIU') - TOKYOTIGER

Think Mokku think! You think that setting yourself on fire to keep yourself from freezing is a good idea? YOU'RE MADE OF WOOD! YOU'D DIE! How many times I have to remind you that you're an idiot and you need my magic to get literally anything done! You dumb pinehead! And I'm your mom for God's sake. : Thinkmarkthink (reddit.com)

#Saban #Pinocchio #The Adventures of Pinocchio #Anime #Figures #Anime Model #Plush

[bestkeptsecretreferences]

BEST KEPT SECRET References

Digital reproduction of Melanasian children. "The Fascinating History Of Black People With Naturally Blonde Hair" by Yewande, 12 Feb. https://historyofyesterday.com/the-fascinating-history-of-black-people-with-naturally-blonde-hair-c36b0b58d99e 

Map of both intercontinental and transatlantic slave trade in Africa. "Map 1 from Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New Haven 2010)" by KuroNekoNiyah, 15 Feb. 2021. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Slave_Trade.png 

Digital copy of a 1769 advertisement of the sale of 94 African-Americans in Charleston, SC. "South Carolina Slavery - Buying And Selling Human Beings" by SCIWAY. https://www.sciway.net/afam/slavery/flesh.html 

Digital copy of An Intriguing Narragansett & Wampanoag Image from 1925 by Laurie Coleman (HISTORIC PICRURES), 14 March. 2015. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/312085449155397027/ 

Digital reproduction of the Ohlone Indians of California. "Legends of America" by Kathy Weiser-Alexander, 12 Nov. https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ohlone-indians/ 

Digital reproduction of Indigenous South Americans. "history" by Anael Raawban. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/501307002273388237/ 

 Ivan Van Sertima, The African Presence in Early Europe, 1985. 

Digital reproduction of Jan Mostaert's Portrait of a Moor (1520-1530). "Jan Mostaert's Portrait of a Moor (1520-1530)" by John K. Brackett (BLACKPAST), 23 Aug. 2011 https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/perspectives-global-african-history/jan-mostaert-s-portrait-moor-1520-1530/ 

Digital reproduction of the Castelo dos Mouros (Castle of the Moors) Sintra. "HD wallpaper: Castle, View, Air, Architecture, Moors, holiday, sintra, mountain"

Ivan Van Sertima, They Came Before Columbus, 1976.

Frank Joseph, The Evidence of Africans in America before Columbus, 25 Mar. 2003.

Alex Abad-Santos (vox.com), Hollywood likes to pretend that Ancient Egypt was full of white people, 4 Aug. 2014. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/8/4/5955253/Hollywood-egypt-white-people-exodus-gods-and-kings 

James O'Byrne (nola.com), Egypt whitewashed by European history, 15 Aug. 1993. https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_3c188202-3a5c-5d8d-926b-c6f259179c32.html 

Digital picture of the head of the sphinx. "Head of the Sphinx" by Vincent Brown, 15 Apr. 2006. https://www.flickr.com/photos/pyramidtexts/39741616383/in/photostream 

Digital image of the Gizah Pyramids. "File: All Gizah Pyramids.jpg" by Ricardo Liberato, 19 Jun. 2006. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_Gizah_Pyramids.jpg 

Digitally reproducted image of Heru. "Tasting Life Twice" by Joan Lansberry, 30 Jul. 2015. Heru 

Digital image of a painting representing Jesus. "Healing of the Paralytic, Dura Europos (c.235 AD) by Fr Silouan Thompson, 26 Nov. 2008. https://silouanthompson.net/2008/11/healing-of-the-paralytic-dura-europos/ 

Digital image of a Ramesses III statue. "Ramesses III" by Ancient Egypt Wiki (Fandom), https://ancientegypt.fandom.com/wiki/Ramesses_III 

Acts 1:9, English Standard Version. (2004-2021). Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/acts/1-9.htm 

2 Kings 2:11, New International Version. (2004-2021). Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/2_kings/2-11.htm 

A digital picture of wheels used in Mesopotamia. "Digging into Mesopotamia" by https://pmsancientmesopotamia.weebly.com/the-wheel.html 

Digital reproduction of the asteroid belt. "The asteroid belt: Wreckage of a destroyed planet or something else?" by Joshua Rapp Learn, 9 Mar. 2021. https://astronomy.com/news/2021/03/the-asteroid-belt-wreckage-of-a-destroyed-planet-or-something-else 

Reed Business Information. "Comets tell of planet that exploded into asteroids."   NewScientist (Vol. 81 No. 1135) 4 Jan. 1979. p.22 New Scientist

Tom Van Flandern (1993). Dark Matter Missing Planets and New Comets. Berkeley California: North Atlantic books, pp 155-236.

Digital reproduction of an Anunnaki tablet. "File:Anunnaki-gods-on-Earth.jpg" by Wikimedia Commons, 21 Oct. 2019. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anunnaki-gods-on-Earth.jpg 

Digital reproduction of a picture of Osiris. "Atlantis and Osiris" by Cihangir Gener (thewisemag), 2012. https://www.thewisemag.com/mystery/atlantis-and-osiris/ 

Digital image of native woman from India. "Original woman of India (Dravidian)" by Curtis Huggins (Pinterest)https://www.pinterest.com/pin/631137335258276098/ 

Digital image of Khoudia Diop. "This model is taking the world by storm with her incredibly dark skin." by indiatoday.in https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/lifestyle/photo/melanin-goddess-khoudia-diop-senegal-darkest-fashion-model-unique-beauty-lifest-20401-2016-10-03 

[slimetutorialanalysis]

Works Cited

Booth, Paul. Digital Fandom : New Media Studies. Peter Lang, 2010.

Chandler, Clare and Scheuber‐Rush, Simeon. “‘Does Anybody Have A Map?’: The Impact of ‘Virtual Broadway’ on Musical Theater Composition.” Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 54, no. 2, 2021, pp. 276–300, https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.13013

Doherty, Bethany. “‘Tap, Tap, Tapping on the Glass’: Generation Z, Social Media and Dear Evan Hansen.” Arts (Basel), vol. 9, no. 2, 2020, pp. 68-, https://doi.org/10.3390/arts9020068.

Hills, Matt. “Implicit Fandom in the Fields of Theatre, Art, and Literature: Studying “Fans” Beyond Fan Discourses.” A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119237211.ch30.

Hills, Matt. “Popular Theatre and Its ›Invisible‹ Fans: Fandom as External/Internal to the Theatrical Field.” LiLi, Zeitschrift Für Literaturwissenschaft Und Linguistik, vol. 47, no. 4, 2017, pp. 487–503, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41244-017-0074-2.

Kunze, Peter C. “Bootlegs over Broadway: Musical Theatre (Re)Productions, Digital Circulation, and the Informal Media Economy.” Creative Industries Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, 2023, pp. 204–21, https://doi.org/10.1080/17510694.2021.1996984.

Reside, Douglas L. “Bootlegging the Musical.” Fixing the Musical, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190073718.003.0006.

[the-book-ferret]

What fictional world map would you display in your home?

#thebookferret #books #booklr #book worm #book nerd #book pets #book addict #book photography #bibliophile #ferret #ferrets of tumblr #pets of tumblr #wasabi #book beau #lord of the rings #middle earth #fandom maps vol 2 #the high king #chronicles of prydain #lloyd alexander

[dialovers-translations]

Diabolik Lovers Zero Vol. 12 Azusa Mukami [Track 1]

Original title: 串刺しの蝶たち

Source: Diabolik Lovers Zero Vol. 12 Azusa Mukami [CD not owned by me]

Audio: Here

Seiyuu: Kishio Daisuke

Translator’s note: The second to last Zero CD I have to translate before completing the entire series, wooh~! I know Azusa isn’t a very popular character within the fandom, but I actually have a huge soft spot for him after translating his Eternal Blood CD. ;w; He is just such a cutie at times, it warms my heart. Hearing his ‘clone’ talk regularly completely threw me off though! He sounds so different, but in a good way! I kind of wish Azusa would start talking a little faster himself but I suppose that’s part of the charm of his character?

Track 1 ll Track 2 ll Track 3 ll Track 4 ll Track 5

→  LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!

Track 1: Pinned Butterflies

*Creaaaaak*

*THUD*

The two of you step inside the museum.

“It’s really...pouring outside, huh?”

You nod.

“I’m glad we just so happened...to pass by a place where we can take shelter from the rain...If not, we might have ended up...wandering through the forest while sopping wet...However, if we return home late...Ruki and the others will...get worried. I wonder if we should have just...headed straight home after finishing our errand?”

You frown. 

“It has been a while since we visited the Demon World...So we just wanted to make a little detour, right...?”

*CRASH*

You flinch at the thunder.

“...Oh. It struck closeby...With the weather like this...It seems smart to stay here...until the rain lifts...”

You agree.

“We’ll end up returning home late but...Let’s stay here just a little longer? Then after we’re back...We can apologize to everyone. I’m sure they’ll understand...If we explain.”

You nod.

“Mmh. I suppose we can kill some time...inside this building?”

Azusa starts looking around.

“Hm...But...I didn’t expect to find a museum around here...Seems like we are the only visitors though...Furthermore...Oh. What an impressive amount of portraits...Several people are portrayed...Seeing them all lined up next to each other like this...makes me a little anxious.”

You tell him it’s a little creepy.

“Mmh. I’m sure they would have made for nice paintings...if only their expressions were a little more bright...But they all seem to be suffering. ...That large canvas over there...The man on it looks sad, don’t you think? I wonder if he...went through a painful experience? ...This museum is kinda...weird.”

*CRASH*

“Ah...! ...Ah, are you okay? ...The thunder is a little scary here, don’t you think? It said on the guide map that there’s a basement floor as well...So should we move there?”

*TIMESKIP*

You have arrived in the basement.

“Just as I thought...We can’t hear the thunder down here...It’s less illuminated than the earlier floor but...It seems comfortable to stay at.”

Azusa comes to a halt.

“Oh. A door. I wonder what room this is...?”

He opens the door.

*Creaaaak*

“Woah...It’s so spacious...There’s a bunch of glass cases...Are they exhibiting something, perhaps...? ...Oh! There’s a lot of...insects. They all look like...specimen.”

You get scared, hiding behind Azusa.

*Rustle*

“Oh? What’s wrong...? No need to hide...They can’t move, so it’s fine...”

You still seem worried.

“Hm...There’s a lot of species from the Demon World but...I can spot some insects which exist in the human world as well...Ah! This! These are the bugs which devastated Yuma’s garden in the past...They ate the vegetables Yuma had been carefully growing...It was quite the fiasco...Me and Kou had to help him get rid of the bugs as well...Fufu~ Brings back memories...”

The two of you continue looking around.

“...Oh. Now that I got a better look, they’re displayed all over the walls as well. I wonder if that...large insect the size of a cushion is...real?”

You get scared again.

“...Oh. Ah...Huh? Your complexion looks...pale?”

You explain. 

“Ah...I’m sorry. I guess these are scary to you...even if they can’t move? Yet I failed to notice...Shall we leave this room now?”

You try and act tough. 

“You don’t look okay...No need to push yourself...Okay?”

*Rustle*

“Your body is...shaking. Hey, come here.”

Azusa pulls you close.

*Rustle rustle*

“I’m sure you’ll calm down in my embrace...In no time...”

He starts stroking your head.

“There, there...Everything will be okay...I’m with you...after all...”

You smile. 

“Mmh. I’m glad you seem a little more...relaxed. Ah...But you’re still a little tense...I wonder if we should touch each other more...?”

He cups your cheek.

“Whenever you do this to me...I always feel really relieved...So I figured you might feel the same...How is it?”

You tell him it feels nice.

“Fufu~ I’m glad...Then, next up...Mmh.”

*Smooch*

You get flustered.

“Hehe~ You twitched just now...Hm. Seems like you’re gradually relaxing...Also the scent of your blood...has grown sweeter. Does it feel...good, perhaps? Oh. Right. If you feel good, you’ll no longer be bothered by the specimen, right...?”

*Rustle*

“Say...I’ll suck your blood. If I do that, you don’t have to worry about a thing...”

You seem a little worried. 

“Don’t worry...Leave it to me. Mmh...”

Azusa bites you.

*Gulp*

*Sluuuurp*

“Haah...Mmh...Your blood is...extremely delicious. Say, do you feel good now?”

You don’t respond.

“What’s the matter? Was this...simply not enough? Hm...Hehe. However, you’re enraptured. Your cheeks are flushed and...you’ve got that dreamy look in your eyes. Haah...I wonder why you are this cute?”

You quickly cover your face with both hands.

“Oh...Why would you hide your face? I want to...see it.”

You explain.

“It’s...embarrassing? Hm...There’s really no reason to conceal it though. But...If you don’t want to, I won’t force you...You can keep your hands there, okay? I’ll suck your blood from here...”

He bites you again.

*Sluuuuurp*

“...Haah...Such sweet noises...Even though you said it’s embarrassing...You actually wanted me to do this...right? Hehe. I’ll bite other places too...”

*Sluuuuurp*

*Gulp gulp*

“Mmh...Hah...Haah...Oh. You no longer...need to hide your face? Has your mind...gone blank?”

You nod.

“Fufu~ I’m glad that’s the case. ...Your body has...stopped shivering as well, it seems...I wanted to do this for your sake but...I ended up getting a little too into it as well. Hm...The wounds aren’t deep so I’m sure the bleeding has stopped already...”

Azusa takes a deep breath.

“The whole room’s filled with the scent of blood now, huh...? It might be good that there’s...no other Vampires here. If someone else was around, it might have lead to trouーー”

A sudden gust of wind can be heard.

“O-Oh...? Ah...What was that just now...? The sound of the wind...? It kind of sounded like someone...crying?”

You tell Azusa you don’t like being here.

“...M-Mmh...Guess we should take our leave soon...? It might have...stopped raining by now. Let’s head back up.”

*TIMESKIP*

*Creaaaak*

“Ugh...Oh? Huh? We ended up in a...different room? Did we take...a wrong turn?”

Azusa steps into the room.

“It’s better lit than the other rooms...There’s a canvas and art supplies...Everything’s all over the place. ...Seems like this isn’t an exhibition room. There’s no specimen either, so don’t worry. Say...This might be a working space? Oh...If that’s the case...We might get scolded for entering without permission, right? Let’s quickly leave. It’d be troublesome if...we were to stain something important...”

He bumps into something while turning around.

*Thud*

*Flip*

“...Aah! Oh...I dropped them...S-Sorry...!”

Azusa kneels down to pick up the papers and so do you.

“Ah...Thank you for helping me...”

The two of you pick up the drawings.

“I guess we’ve got them all now...?”

*Flip*

“Oh...These were drawn with...pencil, I suppose? What a beautiful person...It’s the same woman portrayed on all of them. I’m sure she was...someone very important.”

T/N: From this point onwards, I will be putting fake Azusa’s dialogue between ( ) and changing the font to bolded italics. This CD has both the real and the fake Azusa interacting with you and each other, so hopefully that will make it a bit easier to tell them apart.

( Exactly. She was important. )

“...E-Eh?”

( To me, she was irreplaceable.... )

“...!? W-Who are you...? Where are you...!?”

( Right here. Look at the wall. )

“Oh? ...Huh? My...portrait? Are you the one...who talked just now?”

( That’s right. Nice to meet you, dear visitors. Ah. I suppose it would be rude to introduce myself from within the canvas. )

The fake Azusa steps out of the frame.

( ...Uhm, let me greet you one more time. Nice to meet you, dear visitors. Welcome to the museum. )

ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー

#diabolik lovers #dialovers #azusa mukami #diabolik lovers zero #diabolik lovers translation #diabolik lovers drama cd #drama cd

[thelinkyouneed]

Week 4: Digital Community and Fandom

Reality TV is an unscripted program including ‘ordinary people engaged in unscripted action and interaction’ (Nabi 2007), leading to ‘hypervisibility, coalescing over-the-top emotions with behavioral transgressions that promise the thrill of unpredictability within the security of televisual contrivance’ (Kavka 2018). Unlike other traditional television formats, reality shows are immensely welcomed thanks to its wide presence in various media platforms and its communal values. Indeed, due to the advancement of social media, contemporary reality television present various digital publics resulted from their online fandoms, where fans freely discuss about their preferred topics and sometimes, talk about political issues which might leads to political changes.

However, in Vietnam, due to the lack of forum using habits, digital publics are hardly be formed within the Vietnamese digital community. This writing will discuss about the wannabe digital publics of Vietnamese reality TV.

1.     Political discussion from a reality show: Controversial opinion in Hanh Ly Tinh Yeu

Although Vietnamese Reality TV doesn’t have that many micro publics like forums and blogs, we still have a big public, the whole internet community, aka the netizens. The whole social media in Vietnam is already a public itself, and whenever something controversial happens, in recent years, very active political discussion among the Vietnamese users is perceived.

It is the case of the dating reality show Hanh Ly Tinh Yeu, regarding the broadcasting, a male participant from Hue had shared some very subjective and sexist perspective of ‘willing to get divorced if his wife cannot give birth to a boy’. The statement had been widely discussed on social media, a lot of dispute and criticism had been occurred. Later on, both the director of the show and the participant himself has had to publicly apologise (Thanh Nien 2021).

Overall, a political discussion has been presented under the topic of gender equality.

2.     How does social media affect the Reality TV industry in Vietnam?

Vietnamese audience has been long familiar with the free-to-air television products, which resulted a very interesting case in terms of program broadcasting. Regarding the booming of social media, TV producers are demanded to quickly adapt and broadcast their programs in up-to-date platforms

In most of other markets, if a TV show was the household and leading program in the industry, the producer would likely to acquire viewers to pay for the online access of the given show through their SVOD or streaming services.

However, citing the case of Rap Viet, the recent leading TV show in Vietnam still had to publish their programs not just on TV but also on social media, which is Youtube, and its own application service, all for free. Nonetheless, Rap Viet even produced numerous mini-series on Youtube about the exclusive vlogs of the contest journey and daily life of their contestants.

In other words, Vietnamese audience seems to financially benefit a lot from their media consumption habit, which is surely an immense obstacle for local distributors.

References:

- Kavka, M 2018, ‘Reality TV: its contents and discontents’, Critical Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 4, pp. 5–18.

- Nabi, RL 2007, ‘Determining Dimensions of Reality: A Concept Mapping of the Reality TV Landscape’, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 371–390.

- Thanh Nien 2021, Du xin loi nguoi dan Hue, chang trai trong ‘Hanh ly tinh yeu’ van bi ‘nem da’, Thanh Nien, 04 December, viewed 8 April 2022, <https://thanhnien.vn/du-xin-loi-nguoi-dan-hue-chang-trai-trong-hanh-ly-tinh-yeu-van-bi-nem-da-post1407740.html>.

#mda20009 #discussion post #reality tv #tv show #digital publics

[kengalvin-blog]

The collective nature of the crowd

Crowdfunding has become a bit of a buzzword over recent years, so firstly let's look at what is crowdfunding? It's a fundraising practice that utilises connections much like networked publics to gather funding in support of a specific project (Doan & Toledana 2017, p. 38). To put this practice into a fun pop-culture perspective we can look at a successful crowdfunding campaign instigated by Kevin Roberts in 2013. Veronica Mars, a detective drama following the adventures of a high school/college student by day and teen detective by night was revitalised as a feature-length film through networked crowdfunding seven years after the series was cancelled from network television (Yahr 2014). Roberts employed the help of Kickstart.com, a website dedicated to helping raise funds for creative projects. Roberts initially requested $2 million dollars for the project but by the end of the crowdfunding campaign, he had raised a staggering $5,702,153 (Hills 2015, p. 2). If you consider that this project targeted a very specific niche demographic it highlights the impact and possibilities of using networked publics to generate connections by utilising the affordance of spreadability to link dispersed individuals who can come together to fund a common goal, it also tells me that teen detective dramas are wildly more popular and I may be missing out on quality television.

Veronica Mars (Shellstropaljamil 2016)

If it’s possible to not just generate involvement but to exceed expectations for the value of entertainment, can we take the same basic principle of using online networks collective nature and converge in collective democratic action? This is exactly what the developers of Ushahidi proceed to do in the aftermath of the 2007 Kenyan elections. Post-election protests turned into widespread violence, which leads Kenyan blogger Ory Okolloh to make a public appeal to her followers asking for ideas of how it may be possible to collect information regarding the names of Kenyan citizens who lost their lives in the violence throughout this turbulent period. Approximately twenty develops came to the aid and offered their time and labour to develop a tracking system via SMS and an online platform, and in a week Ushahidi was born (Ford 2012 p. 33-34). Ushahidi was developed through the collective nature of crowdsourcing, crowdsourcing goes beyond the collective funding, crowdsourcing commodity is people power, its a collective of individuals and their skills sets brought together to create and find solutions to a task or problem (Shepherd 2012, p. 11).

Crisis Mapping Japan (Ushahidi 2011)

Ushahidi’s success is its ability to utilize networked publics affordances of direct participation, as Henry Jenkins eloquently states, “crowdsourcing is about shifting the power relations between audience and producers” (2013 p. 248). The collective nature of Ushahidi promotes the co-creative involvement of collective groups establishing a bottom-up networks (Zorina 2016, p. 85). Since the turbulent Kenyan election of 2007, countless Ushahidi maps have been developed in over 159 countries (Hyman 2014, p. 28) to track an abundance of social, political and environmental issues. Ushahidi is a constantly evolving platform with users embracing the affordance of crowdsourcing collaborative nature helping to stimulate a worldwide social consciousness “to help improve the bottom-up flow of information” (Ushahidi 2018).

Ushahidi's Crisis Mapping in 40 seconds (99 Faces TV 2011)

Reference List

Aljona, Z 2016, ‘From a competing to a collaborative crowd: Tactics for co-creation with innovative bottom-up communities: Tactics for co-creation with innovative bottom-up communities’, Organizational Dynamics, vol. 45, no. 2, pp.80-93.

Doan, M & Toledano, M 2018, ‘Beyond organization-centred public relations: Collective action through a civic crowdfunding campaign’, Public Relations Review, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 37-46.

Ford, H 2012, 'Crowd Wisdom', Index on Censorship, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 33-39.

Hills, M 2015, ‘Veronica Mars , fandom, and the ‘Affective Economics’ of crowdfunding poachers’, New Media & Society, vol. 17, no. 2, pp.183-197.

Hyman, P 2014, ‘Peace Technologies' Enable Eyewitness Reporting When Disasters Strike’, Communications of the ACM, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 27-29.

Jenkins, H,  Ford, S & Green, J 2013, Spreadable Media - Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, NYU Press, Ebook Central (ProQuest).

99 Faces TV 2011, Ushahidi's Crisis Mapping in 40 seconds, 24 March, viewed 17 May 2018, <https://youtu.be/SakTPDHs6iI>.

Shellstropaljamil 2016, ‘Veronica Mars Amazing’, [image], Tumblr, viewed 17 May 2018, <https://78.media.tumblr.com/9da1690a02ecc1f6ca8281bddd9588ae/tumblr_nmjn88Iuo11rohg16o3_250.gif>.

Shepherd, H 2012, ‘Crowdsourcing’, Contexts, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 10-11.

Ushahidi 2011, ‘ Crisis Mapping Japan’, [image], Ushahidi, viewed 17 May 2018, <https://2ee8a9b674d3b6a52133-b7785f8c6e03b0b67de30b88e1b0fcb9.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/2011/04/sinsai-500x348.png>.

Ushahidi 2018, About Ushahidi, Ushahidi, viewed 15 May 2018,<https://www.ushahidi.com/about>.

Yahr, E 2014, ‘Veronica Mars’ creator Rob Thomas explains how his canceled show rose from the ashes for a groundbreaking movie, The Washington Post, viewed 15 May 2018, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2014/03/13/veronica-mars-creator-rob-thomas-explains-how-his-canceled-show-rose-from-the-ashes-for-a-groundbreaking-movie/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d3b70ae07666>.

#mda20009 #crowdfunding #crowdsourcing #ushahidi #veronica mars

[mindfulmedia]

Digital Community and Fandom: Reality TV

Week 4 

Who are you if you haven't found yourself sucked into the dimension of reality TV replays? I sure am guilty, whether it be a little Survivor or The Bachelor. The thing is, they're often replayed with episode after episode, then all of a sudden there's no way out.

Why do we feel such a connection to this often overly scripted sense of someone else's 'reality'?

While some reality TV shows can be seen as entertaining, many of us only admit to watching it as our ‘guilty pleasure’. Reality TV is understood as “ordinary people engaged in unscripted action and interaction” (Nabi 2007). There is something fascinating as a human about seeing what we believe to be as ordinary people, going about their daily lives or being placed in a new life and having to interact with other seemingly ‘normal’ people.

With new romantic and competitive reality TV shows constantly being created, hitting multiple genres, the stars of these shows are increasingly in the spotlight, from not only the show, but also from social media. The growth of social media integration with reality TV has made these once ‘ordinary’ people into what we call reality TV ‘stars’. Reality TV participants are viewed as "expandable celetoids" with an often brief and fleeting look into the world of fame, constructed solely by the media's representation of them (Arcy 2018 p. 488). Reality TV producers often try to select diverse contestants, to show differing lifestyles in the hopes of producing a 'lively and exciting' series (Graham & Hajru 2011, p. 11). The main focus of these reality stars is to play the more intensified and improved versions of themselves (Arcy 2018, p. 488). And yet, we are so fascinated by them and their lives.

These reality stars are what keep us connected to the show and the drama, which is what they all want. I think that reality TV is less about the show and so much more about the people. The people, no matter who or how they are, are our connection.

Whether we feel a likeness to them at all, or just live for the tea and chaotic energy, reality TV is here for us when we want or need a fix.

~

References:

Arcy, J 2018, ‘The digital money shot: Twitter wars, The Real Housewives, and transmedia storytelling’, Celebrity Studies, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 487-502.

Graham, T & Hajru, A 2011, ‘Reality TV as a trigger of everyday political talk in the net-based public sphere’, European Journal of Communication, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 19-29.

Nabi, R L 2007, ‘Determining dimensions of reality: a concept mapping the reality of the TV landscape’, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 371-390.

#MDA20009 #MDA2000921 #digital communities #week 4 #reality tv #student blog #unilife

[daleisgreat]

Nintendo Quest

Somehow I went five years without hearing about the documentary that hit in 2015, Nintendo Quest (trailer). Upon hearing its premise, I immediately ordered a copy online and the DVD only sat in my backlog box for two days before I popped it in. The premise is simple, video game fanatic Jay Bartlett sets himself a goal to collect all 678 officially licensed NES games for North America within 30 days. All purchases must be done grass roots style on the road and in person, with no online ordering and all with his own personal funds and no fundraising assistance whatsoever. He maps out a journey from his home in Toronto all the way down to Florida to hit up hotspot retro game shops and personal collectors in hopes of achieving and documenting his journey. As a longtime fan and collector of video games going back to the Atari VCS/2600 and NES days I can relate to the experience of perusing never-ending racks of NES games at retro game shops, and buying lots of games from fellow collectors. I have never set out to collect the complete library of a major platform before, and then with the ambitious goal to do it within 30 days with no online ordering on top of that lofty destination. For what it is worth I do have all five Sega 32X CD games and all North American Power Pad games for the NES (that is if you count World Class Track Meet in place of Stadium Events, do not be silly now). As a fan of retro games, and retro game collecting, Nintendo Quest’s subject material is 1000% up my alley, and I have no idea why I did not hear of it for five years since its release.

Watching Bartlett start his quest off day one by buying games from local friends and retro shops did a good job establishing what I was in for with a running graphical tracker of key games purchased at each stop, and an especially useful top 20 chart of the rarest NES games that is updated throughout his travels. Shop owners, friends and even rivals that get in his way of purchases are interviewed throughout elaborating on their passion, and occasionally haggle back and forth with Jay on negotiations. I do appreciate that for most major purchases Jay makes he respects the dealer’s privacy and does not divulge how much he paid for games off his top 20 rare games list. The hour and a half documentary has welcomed breaks from Jay’s journey with scenes dedicated to NES culture, fandom and history. An early scene is a condensed two minute animated history of Nintendo leading up to the NES launch that is well done and hits all the appropriate bullet points in that duration. Another brief scene is interviewing a variety of veteran developers on the 101 of NES game design, and another interviews game composers about the perpetual love for 8-bit chiptune music. Two of my favorite scenes of this nature involve the early days of pro videogame competition with an interview with the self-proclaimed “first pro gamer,” Todd Rodgers and an interview NES box cover artist Marc Ericksen, who explains how he came up with the much talked about box art for Mega Man 2.

Any NES enthusiast can vouch for Stadium Events being the crowned jewel of officially released NES games to collect. Nintendo Quest does its research on justifying why that game is so sought after, and one of the primary over-arching themes of the documentary is Jay consistently exchanging calls with a collector in order to procure a copy. It is where Jay’s adventure undoubtedly gets the most dicey, and the movie had me reeled in for the ride as Jay tried to hammer out the fine details to get the coveted Stadium Events. Bartlett’s frequent revisiting to acquire the rarest of NES games and seeing how he succeeds or fails at it is easily the highlight of the film (no spoilers here). I was surprised at the complete lack of bonuses for the DVD. Almost all past documentaries I have covered here are usually loaded with unused interviews and cut footage, and that is a missed opportunity here. For what it is worth there are some nicely animated pixel-art menus, and for an indie film I always appreciate the implementation of subtitles. Regardless of that, if you are a retro game collector or just a fan of the NES itself, then Nintendo Quest is the perfect dose of 8-bit nostalgia that presents a feature unlike any other videogame documentary yet. Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Last Action Hero Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Not for Resale Payback (Director’s Cut) Pulp Fiction The Punisher (1989) The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Scott Pilgrim vs the World The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild The Wizard Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

#random movie #Nintendo Quest #nintendo #videogames #Jay Bartlett

[falling-through-lost-spaces]

Books Owned But Unread

Fiction:

Joe Hill - The Fireman

Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr Ripley

Emma Cline - Girls

Kirsty Logan - The Gracekeepers

Seth Patrick - Lost Souls

Slyvain Neuval - Waking Gods

Mark Z. Danielewski - The Familiar Vol 1

Graeme Macrae Burnet - His Bloody Project

Austin Wright - Tony & Susan

Patricia Highsmith - Carol

Darcie Wilder - Literally Show Me A Healthy Person

Tracy Chevalier - New Boy

Andy Weir - Artemis

Michelle Paver - Dark Matter

Robert Daws - The Posisoned Rock

Laura Lam - False Hearts

Italo Calvino - If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler

Megan Bradbury - Everyone Is Watching

Sunil Yapa - Your Heart Is A Muscle the Size of A Fist

George R.R. Martin - A Clash of Kings

Sarah Moss - The Tidal Zone

Matthew Blakstad - Lucky Ghost

Toni Morrison - Tar Baby

Jeff Vandermeer - Annihilation

Colson Whitehead - Zone One

Kathy Reichs - Death Du Jour

Ann Cleeves - The Crow Trap

Ward Moore - Bring the Jubilee

Lisa McInerney - The Glorious Heresies

Chuck Palahniuk - Haunted

Michael Crichton - State of Fear

Neil Gaiman - How the Marguis Got His Coat Back

Agatha Christie - The Double Clue

James Patterson - NYPD Red 2

Maud Pember Reeves - Round About A Pound A Week

Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing In the Yemen

Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Daniel H Wilson - Robopocalypse

Yann Martel - Life of Pi

David Wong - John Dies At the End

Lauren Weisberger - The Devil Wears Prada

James Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man

John Ajvide Lindquist - Let the Right One In

Gregory Maguire - Wicked

Richard Yates - Revolutionary Road

Paul Beatty - The Sellout

Jane Shemilt - Daughter

Jane Isaac - The Truth Will Out

Karin Slaughter - Genesis

S.K. Tremayne - The Fire Child

Isaac Marion - The Burning World

Adrien Bosc - Constellation

Laura Power - Air-Born

Laura Power - Earth-Bound

Keith DeCandido - House of Cards

Wayne Simmons - Flu

Harper Lee - Go Set A Watchman

Dean Koontz - The City

Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre

Ali Smith - The Accidental

John Burnside - Glister

Lauren Owen - The Quick

Tom McCarthy - Satin Island

Dave Eggers - The Circle

Donna Tartt - The Secret History

Robert Harris - The Ghost

Michel Faber - The Fire Gospel

Michel Faber - The Book of Strange New Things

James Patterson - Pop Goes the Weasel

Jeff Lindsay - Dexter’s Final Cut

Gaston Leroux - The Phantom of the Opera

Banana Yoshimoto - Kitchen

Sinclair Lewis - It Can’t Happen Here

Kurt Vonnegut - Cat’s Cradle

Joseph Heller - Catch 22

Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Bram Stoker - Dracula

Cory Doctorow - Makers

YA/Children's Fiction:

A.S. King - Still Life With Tornado

Patrick Ness - More Than This

Andrew Smith - Stand Off

Andrew Smith - The Alex Crow

Johan Harstad - 172 Hours on the Moon

Ernest Cline - Ready Player One

Tommy Wallach - We All Looked Up

Karen Thompson Walker - The Age of Miracles

Tess Sharpe - Far From You

Leila Sales - This Song Will Save Your Life

Darragh McManus - Shiver the Whole Night Through

Rachel Cohn & David Levithan - Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist

Laura Lam - Pantomime

Laura Lam - Shadowplay

Cassandra Clare - The Bane Chronicles

Cassandra Clare - Tales From the Shadowhunter Academy

Cassandra Clare - The Shadowhunters Codex

Cassandra Clare - Lady Midnight

Cassandra Clare - Lord of Shadows

Andrew Smith - 100 Sideways Miles

Karen Nesbitt - Subject To Change

Anna Day - The Fandom

Brendan Reichs - Nemesis

Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees

Nina LaCour - We Are Okay

Sarah Alexander - The Art of Not Breathing

Liz Kessler - Read Me Like A Book

Lisa Williamson - The Art of Being Normal

Laurie Halse Anderson - Wintergirls

Marie Lu - Legend

Eve Ainsworth - 7 Days

Lesley Walton - The Strange & Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

Malinda Lo - Ash

Larry Duplechan - Blackbird

Makina Lucier - A Death Struck Year

James Patterson - Witch & Wizard

Jandy Nelson - I’ll Give You the Sun

Nick Burd - The Vast Fields of Ordinary

Libba Bray - Beauty Queens

Jack Cheng - See You In the Cosmos

Jennifer Niven - Holding Up the Universe

Becky Albertalli - The Upside of Unrequieted

Lauren Oliver - Replica

Ken Catran - Deepwater Black

Will McIntosh - Burning Midnight

Tahereh Mafi - Shatter Me

Libba Bray - The Diviners

Emily M Danforth - The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Carolyn Jess-Cooke - The Boy Who Could See Demons

Bali Rai - Killing Honour

Gayle Forman - If I Stay

Andre Aciman - Call Me By Your Name

E. Lockhart - We Were Liars

Katie Coyle - Vivian Versus the Apocalypse

Leah Thomas - Because You’ll Never Meet Me

David Arnold - Mosquitoland

Laure Eve - The Graces

Lisa Heathfield - Paper Butterflies

Ransom Riggs - Hollow City

Em Bailey - Shift

Francesca Haig - The Map of Bones

Rainbow Rowell - Carry On

Bryony Pearce - Phoenix Rising

Lou Morgan - Sleepless

Graham Marks - Bad Bones

Jess Vallence - Birdy

Teri Terry - Slated

Non-Fiction:

Brian Cox - Human Universe

D’Arcy Jenish - The NHL: A Centennial History

Greg Oliver - Don’t Call Me Goon

Andrew Hodges - Alan Turing: The Enigma

Susan Cain - Quiet: The Power of Introverts

Carl Sagan - Cosmos

Rebecca Skloot - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Brian Cox - E = mc“?

Stacey Schiff - The Witches

Julian Sayarer - Interstate

404 Ink - Nasty Women

Lynn Povich - The Good Girls Revolt

Michael Finkel - The Stranger In the Woods

Kent Russell - I Am Sorry To Think That I Have Raised A Timid Son

Luke Harding - Snowden

Mary Roach - Stiff

Yuval Noah Harari - Homo Deus

Bill Bryson - The Lost Continent

Naomi Klein - No Is Not Enough

Dave Cullen - Columbine

Ian Nathan - Inside the Magic: The Making of Fantastic Beasts

Bob McCabe - Harry Potter Page To Screen

Adharanand Finn - Running With the Kenyans

Aurellien Ferenczi - Masters of Cinema: Tim Burton

Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner - Think Like A Freak

Olivia Lang - The Lonely City

Michelle Tea - The Chelsea Whistle

Simon  Singh - Big Bang

Tristan Taormino - The Feminist Porn Book

Kurt Vonnegut - A Man Without A Country

Nick Frost - Truths, Half Truths & Little White Lies

Russell Brand - Revolution

Robert M Pirsig - Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Francis Spufford - The Child That Books Built

Dominic Hibberd - Wilfred Owen

George Vecsey - Baseball

Richard Wiseman - Paranormality

Neil Gaiman - Adventures In the Dream Trade

Nicola Field - Over the Rainbow

Jaclyn Friedman & Jessica Valenti - Yes Means Yes

Elizabeth Kolbert - The Sixth Extinction

Eddie Izzard - Dress To Kill

Stephen Smith - Underground London

Plays/Poetry/Short Story Collections:

Tom Hanks - Uncommon Type

Joe Hill - Strange Weather

Dean Atta - I Am Nobody’s N*****

Amerlle - Because You Love To Hate Me

Roxanne Gay - Difficult Women

Mark Gatiss - Queers: Eight Monologues

Graphic Novels/Manga:

Tsugumi Ohba - Death Note Vol 6

Tsugumi Ohba - Death Note Vol 7

Tsugumi Ohba - Death Note Vol 8

#books #to be read

[pendragonfics]

But It Must Be Lived Forwards

Guilt Is a Rope That Wears Thin: Chapter One | Chapter Two

Paring: Peter Quill/Reader

Tags: female reader, female pronouns, alien abductions, set after Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 1 but before Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, baby Groot, mentions of fandoms, outer space, angst, fluff.

Summary: After agreeing to return, the team decides to dock on Terra, leaving the pair of you time to finally slow down enough to grieve for what was left behind on Earth.

Word Count: 2,309

Current Date: 2017-07-04

Your heart is racing even before the doors to the Milano open. It’s like you know this is it; after some convincing to the rest of the crew, and another Galaxy-saving gig later (and an asshole named Ego) you’re in the atmosphere of Earth. Peter and Rocket have landed the ship in the wilderness of upstate New York, in a place where nobody in their right mind would build anything. But still. It’s Earth, and it seems like years since you’ve been here. But the doors are opening, but instead of being greeted by the quiet whistling of wind, the swaying of trees, there are figures.

“Don’t shoot!” Peter raises his hands, the rest of the Guardians following his actions, including you.

But these figures are familiar from what you remember on TV, and taking your Quad Blaster from your belt, you lower it to the floor of the ship, and tentatively step forward. “Not to be a cliché, but we come in peace,” you tell the masked face of the Iron Man himself.

“Last time we had aliens, they didn’t speak English,” the guy with an arrow pointed at your head, Hawkeye notes. “Your accent, you’re from Ohio?”  

You nod. “Yeah, Cheviot, and he’s from Colorado.” You motion to Peter Quill. “But mostly from outer space,” you glance to Gamora, Drax, Groot and Rocket, who all looked a little odd in Earth terms.

Hawkeye nods, and lowers his arrow. “Yeah, they’re good. I grew up in Iowa.”

Captain America waves a hand, essentially shushing the archer from gushing about the glory and advantages of regional living. The blonde all-American cleared his voice, almost making you wonder if the next statement would be a declaration of independence or something, but it was a comment. Simple. “You’re not here for any sinister business?”

Iron Man’s face mask raised, revealing the face of the guy with a tower and a few billion dollars to his name. Rocket gave a laugh, and turning to shush him too, the raccoon strutted out beside you, cocky as always.

“If we were here to raise a little hell, we’d come in with a little more flair, don’t you think?” He snarked Stark.

The woman standing beside him opened her mouth, no words. It was then you realised that these people had never seen a raccoon talk, and that she was the redheaded super spy. Ms. Romanov. You give a wave to her, pushing past Rocket to diffuse the tension. “Hey! I’m a huge fan, I used to have your action figure.” You shoot Rocket a glare, and one to Gamora and Drax as if to say please shut him up before we’re under arrest for being illegal aliens! and add, “Captain Rogers, Mr. Stark, please. We only plan to be here a short while.”

“I am Groot,” Groot speaks up.

Gamora lowers her arms, and crosses them across her. “Yes, Groot, you can put your arms down. Mine are getting tired to, with all this surrender.” Captain America and Iron Man share a glance, not knowing what to make of what they’d just seen, with the green woman speaking to a tree. She motions to Drax, and the rest of the team. “We will take a short while here on your planet, we have many things we need to do in space.”

Drax nods. “We are the Guardians of The Galaxy, and if you do not allow my good friend _____ and Peter to grieve, I will resort to violence.” He stares down the Avengers, his warrior-race instincts taking over again.

“How about we let you off easy?” Iron Man gives an uneasy grin. It’s a somewhat good thing for his wellbeing, not fighting Drax on it. “Go take care of your business, have a holiday.”

Peter mouths some thanks, while you turn to Black Widow once again, “If you’ve got spare time, I’d love to learn some of your tricks!”

---

The Avengers lend you and Peter a Quinjet. Deciding it’s for the best, you leave Drax in charge of Rocket and Groot, and Gamora in charge of them all, staying behind in the Avengers base not too far from where the Milano landed. But you and Peter are flying in stealth mode with Clint manning the aircraft toward Peter’s hometown in Colorado. For the most of it, Hawkeye is silent, tremendously professional. But when Peter cracks a joke, the two of them get along like peanut butter and jelly, leaving you smiling at Star-Lord’s banter.

But before too long, you’re landing in Colorado, the ship landing quietly (a new sensation!) for a change, and following Peter out, to a small building a way out from town. The man who answers the door is elderly, with snow white, thinning hair. But his eyes, they looked just like Peter’s, and teared up at the sight of him.

“Pete?” Mr. Quill asks.

He nods, “Yeah, it’s me, Granpa.” Feeling like a sore thumb, you turn to leave the two by themselves, but Peter takes your hand, and shares a smile with you. “Granpa, this is _____. I ran away from home, and she helped me find my way back.”

The old man smiles, waving you all inside. His house is small, the décor still styled as if the 80’s had never gone and passed, with the La-Z-Boy thatched up in places where the material had worn away, some places worn down, and no patches in place yet. A radio was on the fireplace, playing an old Elvis song, and in the kitchen in the corner, a kettle was whistling.

“You disappeared,” Peter’s grandfather shakes his head, pouring coffee in four mugs. It’s been years since you’ve had a coffee, your mouth watering at the delicacy. Beside you, Clint is silent. “Nobody knew where you went. Had me worried sick for years…”

Peter nods. “Sorry, Granpa,” he looks like he hasn’t ever really thought about the people he left behind when Yondu abducted him. “I –,”

You move to help Mr. Quill with the coffee, pouring milk into Peter’s cup. “Your grandson can’t stay long, I’m sorry,” you tell him softly, making sure he can read your lips. “The stories that Meredith told about Peter’s father, they were true,” you tell him. “We fly among the stars and save people who were left without saviours,” you confess, adding sugar to your cup.

Mr. Quill nods. “I suppose Earth was never going to be enough for you, Pete. You were always fightin’ for good, before you even knew it. Your Mom would be proud of you.” As you all go to take the coffees outside to the front porch to drink on the chairs, Peter smiles. It’s a lovely smile, a true smile. “Love you, Pete.”

---

It’s hard to tear the Quill’s apart, especially from his mother’s urn on the mantelpiece (“Keep Ma safe, Granpa, I’ll come back, I promise,”) but in the afternoon before returning to the state of New York, there’s one more stop. You all land just out of Cincinnati, in the national park. From what intel Clint had on your parents, they were living not too far from your childhood home in Ohio, and all three of you were walking there. Unlike earlier in the day when you exited the Quinjet easily, your feet feel like lead, your stomach heavy, yet feeling empty, hollow.

“Hey,” Peter senses your uneasiness, interlocking his fingers with your own. “Nervous?”

You nod, and expelling a breath you’d been holding in, you whisper, “Did I tell you why he drowned?” Peter shakes his head. “I only got into medical school by scholarships, and all the money was spent on dad. We couldn’t afford to learn to swim,” you swallow, feeling small like a child once again. “There’s a creek down the way, and he’d been hanging with the wrong kind of people. The police I.D.’d the body as him, sure, but he’d been off his face with drugs…I was supposed to be looking out for him that night. He snuck out.”

“We’re here,” Clint beams, looking up from his phone’s map. “Want me to knock, or you?”

“I’ll knock,” Peter offers, releasing your hand to approach the door up the little path. It was nothing like you grew up in, but still, it was a nice place. Nicer than what you put up with. The moment his fingers land on the doorbell, it opens to an unfamiliar face. A woman. “Mrs. _____?”

She laughs. “Ha! I wish.” She flips her hair, her fake nails catching in the synthetic material, and yells, “Martin! Some people here for you!”

There’s a shout back, a thunder of footsteps. “What?”

You wince. You remember your father had a lot of people come through the door, and not all of them were friendly faces. The woman who looked like she owned the place (but probably didn’t) was most likely one of these people. Shouting was a huge part of your childhood, and probably why you strove to be better than your brother, who was never yelled at.

The screen door opens, revealing your father. He doesn’t seem to have aged a single day, despite the grey hairs by his ears, and the tattoo on his collar, peeking out from the singlet. At first, his eyes see Peter, and Clint, and frowns, but then he sees you. “_____?”

You nod.

You notice the crow’s feet on the corner of his eyes, the bags under them, the poor pallor to his skin. You might feel it inside your pitiful heart to offer to stay behind on Earth to make sure he keeps out of trouble. But you’re a Guardian of The Galaxy, and you tend to things greater than your old life, and the thought passes as soon as it comes.

“They said you’d died,” He frowns. “One day at medical school, next…gone.”

You nod once again. “I was abducted.” Deciding to leave the ‘by aliens’ part out, you add, “I didn’t want to come back to see you, but I had to. I keep thinking of Chip.”

His face softens, taking years off his appearance. “I haven’t been the greatest parent, I know. Ever since losing your Mom, I thought I’d never be straight again. Losing Chip almost killed me, but…thinking I lost you?” You’re not sure if there’s a hitch in his voice, or maybe you heard wrong, but he pauses. “Everyone I cared about was gone.”

You feel a tear escape despite your best wishes. “But it was my fault,” you whisper. “If I’d –,”

Your father shakes his head. “I’m a shit father, but one thing I know is you can’t blame yourself. I tried, Lord, I tried. Things happen, sweetie, and sometimes, they’re bad. But not everything is bad. You’re back,” he whispers. “Thank you, merciful Lord.”

You shake your head. “I can’t stay.”

Peter nods. “Your daughter works with me, on a team designed for operations to save civilian lives. She’s a pleasure to work with, sir.” He tells your father.

He raises an eyebrow at this, but doesn’t say a word on that matter. Instead, he turns to Clint, and asks, “You’re the arrows guy from the Avengers, aren’t you too important to be hanging around these ones?” He smiles, throwing you a wink. Your chest flutters, your brain screaming, oh my god my father is proud of me! on repeat.

Clint shakes his head. “No sir. I may be Hawkeye, but to these ones, I’m chauffeur.” He tips his imaginary hat, and adds to the pair of you, “I’ll be back at the bus when you’re ready.”

You smile. “Thank you, Clint.”

---

One day later, you’re off in the air, back on the way to the stratosphere and beyond to the interplanetary life you all led ahead. Drax makes no comment on the lack of outlaws on Earth (something he’s miffed about, since he didn’t get to meet John Stamos or Billy the Kid), and Groot has a potted pine tree beside him in his seat, a souvenir Rocket says he’ll “treasure forever or whatever”, and had made friends with a new Avenger named Wanda, who found him a delight. Gamora had sparred with your idol, and boasted that the redhead was in good form to defend her planet.

Peter and you were silent. He’s piloting, focused. You’re moseying around the record collection they’d shared, trying to find the right music for the team to fight to (it’s surprisingly good for morale). But as you’re flicking through the tapes of The Beatles and Van Halen, he places a hand on your knee.

“You okay?” He asks.

You nod. “Better than okay,” you admit. “Kind of…fantastic.”

Peter grins. “I wasn’t sure. Your thinking face kind of gives off other vibes.”

You laugh. “There’s a word for that on Earth, I think. I can’t remember it.” You pluck out a tape labelled The Clash in the handwriting of Tony Stark. “Play this. Chip always liked them.” He takes the tape, sliding it into the player. “How about you, you okay?”

Peter nods, just as London Calling begins to play. “She’s not just another grave in the ground. As long that I remember her, she’s not gone. She’ll always be in me.” He shakes his head, laughing at his wording. “Sounds pathetic.”

You shake your head. “No, it doesn’t. You’re human, Peter. It’s a part you.” You turn over your shoulder, seeing the other Guardians. Drax has a crossword book he picked up from somewhere, and seems to get the gist of what to do with it. Groot is smiling happily with his potted plant. Rocket is making sure that Groot doesn’t hurt himself, mothering the tiny flora colossus, as always. Gamora is tapping her foot to the beat of the tape. “It’s a part of all of us.”

<< PREVIOUS CHAPTER

#peter quill #star lord #starlord #starlord x reader #starlord/reader #peter quill/reader #peter quill x reader #guardians of the galaxy fanfic #guardians of the galaxy x reader #marvel x reader #marvel fanfic #chaotic--lovely #pendragonfics #Female reader

[whiteboxgems]

Why do you only pick apart the potential homo parts of translation. Even if they aren't canon, why can't you see how gross it is to pick that apart. Don't "I want people to understand the TRUE meaning", this pairing means a lot to a lot of people and dedicating your yoi fandom presence to trying to debunk it is extremely hurtful and cruel. It is offensive. I don't think you mean it or are cruel of heart, but intentionally or otherwise you really have become so.

I take it you’re referring mostly to my series of posts on “What Kubo actually said,” rather than my pledge to make sure all YOI interviews are translated?

Well, sure, there are probably debatable translations on other aspects of the series floating around. But since I rarely go out of my way to read translations that others have put up, much less try to compare them to the original Japanese text, I only learn about the ones that blow up in the fandom or that people directly ask me about. And those tend to be about what you have called “the potential homo parts.” As far as I can tell, this tendency exists because most of the fandom really pays attention to those parts of the interviews, which is also why other fan translators tend to focus on them.

But the real trigger for me was this:

For whatever reason, people in the English-speaking fandom were using those (debatable) translations to attack:

1. Kubo (in Feb, in relation the CREA and Febri interviews), and2. YOI fans who didn’t agree with the dominant view of Yuuri and Victor’s relationship.

If I hadn’t seen those attacks, I may have just stuck to translating. I’d been keeping track of whatever translation/interpretation issues I’d come across for months by then—I’d even started researching them, trying to find out the history of their impact in the fandom. But I didn’t really think I needed to do more than brief comments alongside whatever translations I posted. Even after a friend suggested that I address the issues created by mistranslations of one of the oldest interviews (Kubo in Spoon vol.18), the final trigger was definitely what happened in February.

There are other things that I have kept to myself for long periods because I know many YOI fans wouldn’t like them. For example, take what I posted recently about Kubo’s comments on “love (愛)” in figure skating. I originally took notes on that radio show back in December. But I didn’t even post it back in February, when people were attacking toraonice over how she translated Kubo interviews, though I warned people that I would if they kept it up.

And that’s why I’ve now posted it, because people were once again attacking me and friends of mine for our views.

(In hindsight, maybe that was a mistake. Perhaps I should have posted it back in December, when I first listened to the show. Well, lesson learnt.)

From my perspective, those “what Kubo actually said” editorials are for anyone who is being attacked for not holding the dominant view. They’re meant to be used for defense, which is why I have kept referring to what the creators have said about “everyone can interpret this show for themselves.”

In case you haven’t noticed, it applies BOTH ways. So if someone is directly attacking you for believing that Victor and Yuuri are, for example, engaged to be married, use it. As the creators keep saying, you are free to interpret the show however you wish. Just remember that the same applies to the rest of us.

Going back to the issue of translation:

If anyone has spotted other mistranslations they think I should address for whatever reason, let me know what they are. I’ll be happy to look into them when I have the time.

Let me also emphasise that I’ll be as fair as I can be. If the Japanese text is ambiguous, then I’m going to do my best to leave it as such in the translation. Even if you look at the most recent debate, the Japanese fans I saw commenting on it on Twitter have only pointed out that the Japanese usage of 惚れる does not map completely to that of the English phrase “fall in love.” That’s not to say that it CAN’T mean “fall in love”; it just doesn’t mean that it is a smoking gun, as some fans were apparently claiming. 

In other words, the shift in meaning is literally from “OMG it’s confirmed!” to “Actually, it’s not confirmed. It’s the same as it’s always been, so decide for yourself what you want it to be.” If you don’t believe me, please, go and find some Japanese fans and ask them yourself how 惚れる is used in Japan.

If you find any of this offensive, then as I’ve said before, don’t read what I translate or write. It’s not like I have a big YOI fandom presence anyway. 

#yuri on ice #yuri on ice translation notes #yuri on ice and lgbtiqa #yuri on ice fandom

[dialovers-translations]

DIABOLIK LOVERS Para-Selene Vol.2 Kino Animate Tokuten CD

Original title: DIABOLIK LOVERS Para-Selene Vol. 2 キノ アニメイト 各巻購入特典ドラマCD

Source: Diabolik Lovers Para-Selene Vol. 2 Kino Animate Tokuten CD [CD not owned by me]

Audio: Here

Seiyuu: Tomoaki Maeno

Translator’s note: I have been active on this blog for over one year, yet this is actually the first time I’ve translated a solo Kino CD! I don’t know much about him as a character at all, so I’d be lying if I said he is one of my favorites. That being said, I actually enjoyed this CD a lot! The setting is perfect for Kino and I could just imagine him with a huge grin on his face the whole way through. xD

→  LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!

The two of you walk around a game convention.

“Uwaaah! This is amazing! Look at that booth over there! Or that one! As far as my eyes can reach, there’s nothing but fun-looking games! As to be expected of a game convention! (1) I’ve never seen a scenery quite this beautiful!”

You sigh.

“...Hey, wait! Why do you look so troubled? I went out of my way to invite you along, so at least try and enjoy it a little!”

You tell Kino you never really asked to come here.

“Oh? I thought you said you wanted to go? Oh well, whatever. We’re here now, so might as well enjoy it, no? With this many games to choose from, I’m sure there’s at least one or two you’d liーー Ah! There’s a booth for beta releases!”

Kino suddenly dashes off.

*TIMESKIP*

“Amazing...There’s so many new games. Say, can I try this one?”

 He gets permission.

“Hooray! Hm?...Ah, sorry. I forgot about you. I’ll be here for a while, so you can go and play whichever game you want as well. I don’t have the time for you right now.”

You seem disappointed.

“Woah, that was close! I nearly died! ...You heard me, so bye bye! ...Uhm...How do I summon the magic? Uwah! They added this many new types? This game has a lot of potential for challenge runs. I’d really love to take my game playing this one!”

You walk away.

*TIMESKIP*

“Haah, I had a blast! In the end, I played through all of the demos at the booth. I guess about one hour has passed? Hey, youーー ...Wait, huh? She’s gone? Ah, right. I told her to leave, didn’t I? Then again, she actually left...what a dummy. Guess it can’t be helped. I’ll go look for her, I guess. ...Oh. That person over there...”

*SCENE SHIFT*

“...What are you doing here?”

You explain.

“Hah? This whole time, you’ve just been waiting for me, doing nothing?”

You nod.

“Haah...Listen up. Aren’t you a little too dumb for your own good? You could have just played around with your phone for a bit, enjoying yourself in your own way.”

You tell him you rather waited.

“I see. ...You really are a horrible masochist, aren’t you? Waiting for me like that...You’re almost like a dog.”

You protest.

“I’m only stating the truth, no? ...Come on, doggy. Paw! Your hand~ If you do a proper job, I’ll praise you.”

You place your hand in his.

“Good job! Well then...I’ll go on a walk with you like this. There’s a booth which caught my attention over on the other side. Let’s go?”

*TIMESKIP*

“Geh...!? What a crowd...Seems like VR games are still highly popular.”

You tilt your head to the side.

“You don’t even know that much? VR is short for ‘Virtual Reality.’ You can venture through an artificial reality by using a device.”

You still seem somewhat puzzled by the concept.

“Well, they say a picture is worth more than a thousand words, no? For now, go try it out!”

*Flip*

“Here! A ticket for the try-out section. I actually got it for me, but I’ll give it to you instead.”

Your eyes widen in surprise.

“What’s with that expression? Is it so strange for me to do something for you?”

You nod.

“I feel like spoiling you every once in a while as well, you know? Well, it’s an owner’s job to look after their pet after all. Heh~ Besides...I’m sure I’ll be able to witness something very interesting.”

The two of you walk towards the try-out corner.

“Miss, we would like to try out the VR simulation. Ah, not me, but this young lady over here. We don’t need any earphones.”

He receives the gear.

*Rustle rustle*

“Well then, go ahead and leap into the fascinating world of Virtual Reality~!”

*Beep*

You seem somewhat restless, looking around. 

“Hehe~ You should find yourself in an abandoned buildng right now. To tell the truth, this is a horror game, you see~”

You shriek in surprise.

“Apparently the zombies in it look super realistic! I can follow along through the screen so try your best not to die~ ...That being said, this really does feel authentic. I can imagine it must be really terrifying seeing it through the VR gear. You poor little thing~”

You ask to take off the device. 

“Oh come on, what are you getting cold feet for? Just standing there is no fun, is it? Come on, hold onto your gun.”

You have a hard time holding the gun properly.

“Geez...Guess I have no other choice~”

*Rustle*

“Don’t make a fuss just because I’m holding you from behind. I’ll teach you how to use this, so make sure to remember it.”

Your cheeks flush bright red.

“Say, what are you getting all red for? Did you get excited because I’m pressed up against you? ...Do you want me to help you?” 

You ask for help.

“Hmm~ But too bad~ I’m sure it’d look hilarious to see you get all scared, so I won’t play along with you.”

You pout as Kino steps away.

“...Hehe~ Well then, let’s see how far you can get without me.”

You hold your gun and start looking around.

“Ah...On your left! There’s a zombie in the distance!”

You scream.

“Ahaha~ Oh come on, don’t scream so loudly like that.”

You protest. 

“Fufu~ Are you sure you have the time to scold me now? ...See? The zombies are closing in on you!”

You start panicking.

“Hahaha, you suck! What’s your plan, cornering yourself against the wall like that? Now you have no other choice but to jump down through the window! You should probably open the menu once. You should be able to view the map from there.”

*Beep*

“Mmh. Take a look at that and think it through. ...Anyway, you really are a klutz, aren’t you? At least try and get your act together inside the game! I get irritated just from watching you.”

*Rustle*

“Aah...You actually upset me on purpose, didn’t you? ...So I would suck your blood~ That shameful side of yours is rather... (whispers) cute, you know?”

You flinch. 

“Fufufu~ Your shoulders twitched just now! ...You really are so easy~ I made the right choice letting you play this one. I’m having a blast! Honestly, I might be satisfied by just this sight. Hm...”

You call out for him. 

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

You ask to hold hands so you’d be less scared.

“Eh? But...You won’t be able to shoot if we hold hands, right?”

You tell Kino you will use your free hand.

“I don’t think you can pull it off with just one hand, do you? Or rather, why do you want to hold hands that badly?”

You explain.

“Haah...? What are you saying? Honestly, you’ve...surpassed the point of being stupid, this is just outright crazy. You’re well aware that I’m a Vampire, yet you feel safe around me...Well, I guess it doesn’t feel bad to have you rely on me. Fine. I’ll hold your hand. In return...”

Kino sneaks closer, grabbing your hand. 

*Rustle rustle*

“...I’ll be having my way with you later, okay?”

ーー THE END ーー

Translation notes

(1) Called ‘game show’ in Japanese, but when I looked up the ‘Tokyo Game Show’ and saw some pictures, it looked very similar or pretty much identical to what I would call a ‘gaming convention’. The latter seems more widely known in the Western fandom, hence why I used said word.

#diabolik lovers #dialovers #kino #diabolik lovers para-selene #diabolik lovers translation #diabolik lovers drama cd #drama cd

[kkatot]

Syllabus, Digital Cultures

Sharing is caring, vol 2. This is the syllabus for Digital Cultures (teaching it at Tallinn Uni for MA students starting November 1). I am grateful to everyone, who shared their syllabi with me, and to my guest lecturers for their recommendations. The component-logic of the digital culture experiment is based on an inspired auto-ethnographic exercise and its “building block system” that prof. Annette Markham has developed, and which I’ve had the privilege of implementing in the past couple of years at Aarhus University.

If you’re into PDF’s, this is for you

Digital Culture, BFR7004.FK, Tallinn University 

Katrin Tiidenberg, PhD

Course objectives: While an exhaustive overview of what counts as digital culture or how digital culture is researched is impossible to give, this course aims to introduce students to both a cultural studies (digital humanities) and social studies (media and communication research, media ethnography) approach to making sense of digital culture. Active participation in the course should leave the students with an adequate overview of current definitions and relevant concepts of, some excellent recent studies about, relevant scholarly debates regarding and approaches to studying digital culture. 

The course consists of lectures, seminars (reading discussion) and workshops (discussion and exercises / experiments). The course is taught by Katrin Tiidenberg and the following guest instructors: Indrek Ibrus, Mikhail Fiadotau, Maarja Ojamaa, Marek Tamm 

Learning outcomes: The student, who has passed this course will be able to discuss the following topics in an educated manner, well-situated in extant literature: • What is digital culture, how is it defined, how is it historically situated in the developments of communication technologies, how is it often studied, and what are the central concepts utilized to discuss it in academic debates? • How to make sense of on utilize key concepts in studying digital culture (i.e. intertextuality, remix, bricolage, virality, participation, collaboration, audiences etc)? • What are the implications and relevance of data and datafication on cultural life? • How are meanings made within culture(s) and how can it be studied?

Students will explore how digital culture phenomena (i.e. fandoms, gaming, selfies, influencers) are studied and what is being highlighted about them in relevant academic discussions, and be able to distinguish sensationalist, moral-panic driven interpretations of these phenomena from nuanced, educated ones.  The student will analyze how networked communication technologies impact cultural practices, and their own everyday life, interactions and identities, and develop a voice for addressing issues and controversies of digital culture. 

Assessment method: 

Grades. 30% participation and in-class engagement. 35% digital culture experiment – timely submission of 3 component tasks. 35% final write up of the digital culture experiment

The digital culture experiment is an auto-ethnographic independent experiment with digital culture engaged with for the duration of the class. Timely submission of 3-COMPONNENT TASKS is a pre-requisite to be able to submit the final write-up. The final write up functions as an exam.

COMPONENT TASKS: 1. Create an observation plan. You need to observe your own participation in a particular digital culture phenomenon (i.e. pick a practice, a group, a community, a game, a space that you have pre-existing experience with, or that you are super interested in). Focus on YOUR OWN participation - your own engagement, interactions, reactions, and practices are your research focus. You are your own subject. You will explore and explain this culture from the first-person perspective of a member. a. Create an observation plan – write out a plan of what, where and how you will observe. How often and for how long will you “do observation”? How will you take notes?  What is the best field-note taking system for you – do you need to combine notes, screenshots and brief spoken memos you dictate into your phone? Do you need to sometimes film yourself (and your screen) while you are participating? What are the important observations to include? (i.e. location, how you felt, what you were doing, how other people acted, what interactions were had, what you noticed about other people, patterns of use, intentions of participation, unintended consequences of participation etc). If you have never done observation-based, ethnographic research you need to read these pieces. These are in a folder called “Methods texts” on Moodle, within the “Mandatory readings” folder • James Spradley Step 2, Step 3, Step 4 • Nicholas Wolfinger, On writing fieldnotes • Annette Markham, Ethnography in the Digital Internet Era – From fields to flows, descriptions to interventionsb. Observe your chosen digital culture phenomenon for a week. Be honest, be thorough. Try different strategies for gathering data, logging data, taking notes.   c. Revise your observation plan based on your weeklong experience – adjust the plan so it serves you better. It is possible you will decide to significantly narrow your focus here. SUBMIT REVISED PLAN via MOODLE ON November 19 (this is component 1). Add brief (~ 200 words) commentary on how you adjusted your plan compared to its first version.

2. Observe your own participation in your chosen digital culture phenomenon for a month (Nov 19 –  Dec 19) a. Based on the revised plan observe and track your participation in the digital culture phenomenon during the period of 1 month. If you feel the need to, you can “interview” someone who shares the experience with you, or have them interview you, but your analytical focus should remain on your own experiences.  Keep taking detailed field-notes and logging your experience in various ways. b. Write at least three brain dumps during this period.  A brain dump is when you set a timer for 15 minutes, turn your ink white in your word processing software and just write whatever comes to mind about your particular experience and observations.  When you get stuck hit “enter” twice and keep writing.  If you have a hard time starting at the beginning of the 15 minutes, start with “I have to write this braindump, I am not sure what to write, etc until more interesting stuff starts pouring out of your brain. You will use these braindumps as data, you will later code the brain dumps to come up with your arguments. SUBMIT via MOODLE THE THREE BRAIN DUMPS ON DECEMBER 19. This is component # 2.

3. Start analyzing your digital culture experience a. Gather up everything you have so far that can serve as ‘data’. Is it in a format that allows coding (sorting the data to lift out relevant bits)? If it is video or audio, do you need to transcribe it? Organize it so you can code it. If you have never qualitatively coded material/data you need to read Sarah Tracy, Chapter 9 (Data Analysis Basics). It is in the “ Methods texts” subfolder on Moodle. If you need further help with coding, consult Johnny Saldana’s book The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers b. Start coding. Identify any gaps in the early patterns. Do you need to go back to the “fieldsite” to gather stuff to fill those gaps? Do you see any emerging patterns? Does it seem like if you look at these patterns through the lens of the class readings and theoretical or conceptual frameworks you can make an interesting argument? c. Write a short reflection piece (~ 1000 words) – reflect on your process of data collection, coding, thinking, your attempts at making arguments. It is fine if this is messy, you can include snippets of your “thinking” including images if you’ve been mapping, diagramming or coding by hand.   SUBMIT via MOODLE ON January 7 2019. This is component # 3 (this is also a dirty draft of the ‘c’ section of your final write up).   Final write-up of the experiment (submit via Moodle, due January 17).  This should be 8 – 10 pages font 12, 1.5 spaced without Appendixes and Bibliography. Feel free to add illustrator screengrabs, examples of coding,  quotes or other snippets of text etc. a. Title, author’s name, b. description of the central topic c. description of the auto-ethnographic process, description of your process of analyzing it d. explanation of your digital culture participation utilizing some concepts and theoretical frameworks covered in class (use at least three assigned or suggested texts here). Describe not only what happened, but also your feelings, shifts in your own perceptions. Include snippets from your braindumps or your field-notes, screengrabs, etc as illustrations e. discussion of your experience, make an argument f. Possible implications of your analysis (what does it contribute to ongoing discussions about digital culture) g. Bibliography h. Appendixes (the more Appendixes the better, add your braindumps, examples of coding, reflections etc).

Course schedule and description, week by week:

WEEK 1, A

Introduction to course and topic  (lecture + seminar)

What is culture? What is digital? What is digital culture? How is meaning made in the context of digital culture?

Culture of connectivity, mediatization of culture, visual culture, search culture, algorithmic culture, internet cultures etc

Introduction of the digital culture experiment and the building block system, division into A, B, C, D groups

WEEK 1, B

Digital archival and preservation (lecture + workshop), taught by Mikhail Fiadotau

The class will be structured as a short lecture followed by a workshop. The lecture will outline the key challenges in digital preservation, as exemplified by videogames: technological obsolescence, “bit rot” of storage media, and the logic of instant obscurity in the oversaturated media environment. The lecture will also introduce, and reflect on the work of some archival initiatives, from physical archives such as the National Videogame Arcade in the UK to online resources such as Archive.org’s Wayback Machine. The workshop following the lecture will be a group exercise inviting students to discuss and devise solutions for the archival and preservation of web games for discontinued platforms, with a particular focus on Macromedia/Adobe Flash.

WEEK 2, A

Making sense of digital culture from the perspective of Digital Humanities  (seminar + lecture), taught by Indrek Ibrus and Maarja Ojamaa

Introducing concepts: Remix, Bricolage, Intertextuality, Virality, Multimodality, Interactivity, Memory

Introducing cultural studies approaches: media archeology, (new/digital) materialism, software studies

Read: Irvine, M. (2014). REMIX AND THE DIALOGIC ENGINE OF CULTURE, A Model for Generative Combinatoriality.

WEEK 2 B

Historicizing the internet (lecture), taught by Indrek Ibrus

History of the internet and mobile communication. Temporality and materiality of communication technologies and networks. Milestones of computerizing the culture.

WEEK 3 A

Making sense of digital culture from the perspective of communication studies and audience research (lecture)

Introducing concepts: Participation, Collaboration, Audiences, Rules, Community, Belonging, Intimacy

Introducing communication and audience research approaches: ethnography, audience studies, platform and app studies

Introduce situational, relational and concept mapping

WEEK 3 B

Paratextuality and videogames [seminar], taught by Mikhail Fiadotau

The discussion will revolve around paratexts’ propensity for extending digital media, but also subverting their normative significations, both shaping the audience’s experience and offering creative and interpretive agency to fans. Suggested articles also touch upon the issues of materiality, interpretive communities, as well as fan practices and their ethics.

Read: Peters, I.M. (2014) Peril-sensitive sunglasses, superheroes in miniature, and pink polka-dot boxers: Artifact and collectible video game feelies, play, and the paratextual gaming experience. Transformative Works and Cultures, 16. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2014.0509

WEEK 4 A

Form, aesthetics, genre, materiality (lecture), taught by Indrek Ibrus

How can the digital be material?  Is the digital culture a material culture? What are the aesthetics, forms and genres of digital cultures? What is remediation? How can archeology help us make sense of the materialities and aesthetics of digital culture.

WEEK 4 B

Collaborative work on your digital culture experiment  (discuss what you have, what you are stuck with and what you are confused about with your colleagues in the small A, B, C, D groups. Help each other.

WEEK 5 A

Meaning making, groups, norms and digital objects (lecture + workshop)

How do digital objects gain meaning? What are the socio-cultural functions of digital objects? Online communities, groups, practices and emergent norms. Case: Selfies

WEEK 5 B

What is subculture, what are paralanguages? Identities, identifications and self-presentation (seminar)

Discussion: Antagonistic behavior and ambivalent internet (i.e. the subcultures of trolls and flamers).

Read (in pre-assigned groups, so every person reads one article)

Group A: Coleman, G. (2015). On Trolls, Tricksters, and the Lulz, in Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous. London: Verso books.

Group B: Massanari, A. (2015). "# Gamergate and The Fappening: How Reddit’s algorithm, governance, and culture support toxic technocultures."New Media & Society.

Group C: Seta, G. de. (2018). Trolling, and Other Problematic Social Media Practices. In J. Burgess, A. Marwick, & T. Poell (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Social Media (pp. 390–411).

Group D: Phillips, W. (2015). Dicks everywhere, in This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture. Cambridge: MIT Press.

WEEK 6 A

Attention, reputation, commodification (lecture + seminar)

How does attention work online?  Reputation as capital. Commodification of attention and reputation. Celebrity practices.

Discussion: Internet celebrity, influencers and microcelebrity

Read (in pre-assigned groups, so every person reads one article)

Group A: Abidin, C. 2016. “Visibility labour: Engaging with Influencers’ fashion brands and #OOTD advertorial campaigns on Instagram.” Media International Australia 161, 86-100.

Group B: Senft, T. (2014) Microcelebrity and the Branded Self. Companion to New Media Dynamics. Ed John Hartley, Jean Burgess, Axel Bruns. Blackwell.

Group C: Abidin, C. Communicative Intimacies: Influencers and Perceived Interconnectedness https://adanewmedia.org/2015/11/issue8-abidin/

Group D: Susie Khamis, Lawrence Ang & Raymond Welling (2016): Self- branding, ‘micro-celebrity’ and the rise of Social Media Influencers, Celebrity Studies.

WEEK 6 B

Participation, collaboration, production & consumption (lecture + workshop)

Participation and collaboration within digital cultures. “Spreadable media”. Sharing / collaborative economies.  Consumption, production, produsage. Case: fandom

WEEK 7 A

Data and culture, datafied culture, cultural analytics (lecture), taught by Marek Tamm

What are cultural data? What does the datafication of culture and society mean? What is cultural analytics? What is culturomics?

WEEK 7 B

Post-digital, post-internet, post-human culture? The non-human turn. (lecture + workshop)

Imagining a better internet.

**

RECOMMENDED READINGS 

What is digital culture?

Peters, B.  2016. “Introduction” in Digital Keywords, a Vocabulary of Information, Society and Culture.

Peters, B.  2016. “Digital” in Digital Keywords, a Vocabulary of Information, Society and Culture.

Striphas, T.  2016. “Culture” in Digital Keywords, a Vocabulary of Information, Society and Culture.

Dourish, P. (2016). Algorithms and their others: Algorithmic culture in context. Big Data & Society, 3(2), 205395171666512. 

Payne, Robert (2016) The Promiscuity of Network Culture. 

Van Dijck, J. (2013). Culture of Connectivity 

Geismar, H. (2013) Defining the Digital, Museum Anthropology Review 7(1-2) 

Bucher, T. (2012) Want to be on the top? Algorithmic power and the threat of invisibility on Facebook. New Media & Society, 14: 1164–1180.

Niederer, S. and van Dijck, J. (2010) Wisdom of the crowd or technicity of content? Wikipedia as a sociotechnical system. New Media & Society 12: 1368–1387

Seaver, N. (2012) Algorithmic Recommendations and Synaptic Function. Limn, issue 2.

Making sense of digital culture 

Langlois, G. 2014. Meaning in the Age of Social Media.

Deuze, M. (2006). Participation, Remediation, Bircolage: Considering Principle Components of Digital Culture. The Information Society, 22(2), 63–75.

Livingstone, S. (2013). The Participation Paradigm in Audience Research. Communication Review, 16(1–2), 21–30.

Silver, D. (2004). Internet/cyberculture/digital culture/new media/fill-in-the-blank studies. New Media and Society, 6(1), 55–64. 

Beer, D., & Burrows, R. (2013). Popular Culture, Digital Archives and the New Social Life of Data. Theory, Culture & Society, 30(4), 47–71. 

Glen, C., & Royston, M.  (2009). Digital Cultures understanding new media. 

If you read Estonian: “Kuidas uurida kultuuri, kultuuriteaduste metodoloogia” - https://www.tlu.ee/pood/home/227-kuidas-uurida-kultuuri-kultuuriteaduste-metodoloogia.html

Digital Archival and preservation:

Newman, J. (2009). Save the Videogame! The National Videogame Archive: Preservation, Supersession and Obsolescence. M/C Journal, 12(3). http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/167%EF%BF%BD%C3%9C/0

Lowood, H., Monnens, D., Vowell, Z., Ruggill, J.E., McAllister, K.S., & Armstrong, A. (2009). Before it's too late: a digital game preservation white paper. American Journal of Play, 2(2), 139-166. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1069232.pdf

Thomas, D., & Johnson, V. (2012). “New universes or black holes? Does digital change anything?” In Weller, T. (ed.) History in the Digital Age, pp.173-94. Abingdon: Routledge.

Historicizing the Internet: 

Abbate, J. (1999). Inventing the Internet. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Brügger, N. (Ed.). (2010). Web History. New York: Peter Lang.

Gere, C. (2002). Digital Culture. London: Reaktion Books.

Ibrus, Indrek. (2015). Histories of Ubiquitous Web Standardization. In A. Bechmann & S. Lomborg (Eds.), The Ubiquitous Internet: User and Industry Perspectives. London: Routledge.

Ibrus, Indrek. (2016). Web and mobile convergence: Continuities created by re-enactment of selected histories. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 22(2). 

Baym, N. (2015) Personal connections in the digital age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Chapter 1.

Chapman, C. (2009) The History and Evolution of social media

O’Reilly, T. (2005) ‘What Is Web 2.0’, O’Reilly Network, 30. September

Turner, F. (2005) Where the counterculture met the new economy: The WELL and the origins of virtual community. Technology and Culture 46 (28.s)

Form, aesthetics, genre, materiality 

Bolter, Jay David, & Grusin, Richard. (1999). Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Gottlieb, Baruch. (2018). Digital Materialism: Origins, Philosophies, Prospects. Bingley: Emerald.

Manovich, Lev. (2001). The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Parikka, Jussi. (2012). What is Media Archaeology. Cambridge: Polity.

Groups, practices, subcultures, paralanguages, identities

Tiidenberg, K. (2018). Selfies, why we love (and hate) them, Emerald. 

Steinberg, Neil. 2016. “The new science of 
cute.” theguardian.com. OA: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/19/kumam on-the-new-science-of-cute 

Dunbar-Hester, C. 2016. Geek , in Digital Keywords, a Vocabulary of Information, Society and Culture - http://culturedigitally.org/2014/05/geek-draftdigitalkeywords/  plus all my downloads

Allison, Anne. 2013. “Portable monsters and commodity cuteness: Pokemon as Japan’s new global power.” Postcolonial Studies 6(3): 381-395.

Kerr, H. (2016). Kawaii and the Cultural Rise of Cute. The Conversation.

Kelty, C.  (2005). Geeks, Social Imaginaries and Recursive Publics, Cultural Anthropology 

Timburg, S. (2016). “The Revenge of Monoculture: The Internet gave us more choices, but the mainstream won anyway.” Salon  https://www.salon.com/2016/07/30/the_revenge_of_monoculture_the_internet_gave_us_more_choices_but_the_mainstream_won_anyway/

Trolling, flaming, ambivalent internet 

Phillips, W., & Milner, R.M. (2017). The Ambivalent Internet: Mischief, Oddity, and Antagonism Online, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press

Phillips, W. (2016). This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture, MIT Press.

Bishop, J. (2014). Representations of “ trolls ” in mass media communication : a review of media-texts and moral panics relating to “ internet trolling ,” 10(1), 7–24.

Stein, J. (2016).“How Trolls are Ruining the Internet.”  http://time.com/4457110/internet-trolls/

Trolls haven’t ruined the internet https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/08/internet-trolls-avoidable/

Paralanguages, visuality and multimodality

Miltner, K. M., & Highfield, T. (2017). Never gonna GIF you up: Analyzing the cultural significance of the animated GIF. Social Media and Society, 3(3). 

Tiidenberg, K., & Whelan, A. (2017). Sick bunnies and pocket dumps: “Not-selfies” and the genre of self-representation. Popular Communication, 15(2), 141–153. 

Nissenbaum, A., & Shifman, L. (2017). Internet memes as contested cultural capital: The case of 4chan’s /b/ board. New Media and Society, 19(4), 483–501. 

Gal, N., & Shifman, L. (2016). “ It Gets Better ”: Internet memes and the construction of collective identity. New Media & Society, 18(8). 

Limor Shifman (2014) Memes in Digital Culture. The MIT Press. 

Highfield, T. (2016). “Waiving (hash)flags: Some thoughts on Twitter hashtag emoji.”Medium.com.  https://medium.com/dmrc-at-large/waiving-hash-flags-some-thoughts-on-twitter-hashtag-emoji-bfdcdc4ab9ad#.vczn6qfgl

Miltner, K M. 2014. “There’s no place for lulz on LOLCats: The role of genre, gender, and group identity in the interpretation and enjoyment of an Internet meme.” First Monday 19(8). 

Stark, L, and Crawford, K. (2015). The Conservatism of Emoji: Work, Affect, and Communication. Social Media + Society Journal 1(2). 

Willard, Lesley. 2016. “Tumblr’s Gif Economy: The Promotional Function of Industrially Gifted Gifsets.” Flowjournal.org.  http://www.flowjournal.org/2016/07/tumblrs-gif-economy/

Paratextuality and Metacommunication in videogames:

Consalvo, M. (2017). When paratexts become texts: de-centering the game-as-text. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 34(2), 177–183. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2017.1304648

Mäyrä, F. (2010). Gaming Culture at the Boundaries of Play. Game Studies, 10(1). http://gamestudies.org/1001/articles/mayra

Fan cultures

Bury, R. (2017). Television Viewing and Fan Practice in an Era of Multiple Screens. Sage Handbook of Social Media, Sage Publications. 


Gn, Joel. 2011. “Queer simulation: The practice, performance and pleasure of cosplay.”Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 25, 583-593. 

Gray, J. (2003). New Audiences, New Textualities: Anti-Fans and Non-Fans. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 6, 64–81. 

Black, R. W. (2009). Online Fan Fiction , Global Identities , and Imagination, 43(4), 397–425.

Wood, M. M., & Baughman, L. (2012). Fandom and Twitter: Something New, or More of the Same Old Thing? Communication Studies, 63, 328–344. 

Jenner, M. (2017). Binge-watching: Video-on-demand, quality TV and mainstreaming fandom. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 20, 304–320. 

Stanfill, M. (2013). “They’re Losers, but I Know Better”: Intra-Fandom Stereotyping and the Normalization of the Fan Subject. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 30, 117–134.

Harman, S., & Jones, B. (2013). Fifty shades of ghey: Snark fandom and the figure of the anti-fan. Sexualities, 16(8), 951–968. 

Hu, Kelly. 2016. “Chinese Subtitle Groups and the Neoliberal Work Ethic.” Pp. 207- 232 in Popular Culture Co-production and Collaborations in East and Southeast Asia, edited by Nissim Otmazgin and Eyal Ben Ari. Singapore: NUS Press Ltd. 

Internet celebrity

Abidin, Crystal 2018. Internet Celebrity

Marwick, A. (2015). “You May Know Me From YouTube: (Micro)-Celebrity in Social Media.” Pp. 333-350 in A Companion to Celebrity, edited by P. David Marshall and Sean Redmond. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc

Senft, Theresa M. 2008. Camgirls: Celebrity & community in the age of social networks. New York: Peter Lang.

Production and distribution

Lotz, A. (2018). Portals: A Treatise on Internet-Distributed Television. Michigan Publishing Services. 

Sokolowsky, J. (2017). Art in the Instagram age: How social media is shaping art and how you experience it. The Seattle Times. 

Evans, Z. (2015). How social media and mobile technology has changed music forever. Social Media Week. 

Jenkins, H., Green, J., Ford, S. (2013). Spreadable Media: Creating value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, NYU Press

Datafied culture and cultural analytics

Manovich, L. (2016). The Science of Culture? Social Computing, Digital Humanities and Cultural Analytics. The Datafied Society. Social Research in the Age of Big Data, 1–14. 

Manovich, L. Cultural Data, Possibilities and limitations of the digital data universe, Oliver Grau, ed., with Wendy Coones and Viola Rühse, Museum and Archive on the Move. Changing Cultural Institutions in the Digital Era (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017), 259-276.

Manovich, L. Can we think without categories? Digital Culture & Society (DCS), Vol. 4, no. 1 (2018): 17-28. Special issue "Rethinking AI: Neural Networks, Biometrics and the New Artificial Intelligence." Edited by Ramón Reichert, Mathias Fuchs, Pablo Abend, Annika Richterich, and Karin Wenz. , 2018

Philips, S. (2016). Can Big Data Find the Next 'Harry Potter'? The Atlantic. 

Post-digital, post-internet, post-human culture? 

Braidotti, R. (2006). Posthuman, All Too Human: Towards a New Process Ontology. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(7–8), 197–208. 

Bishop, R., Gansing, K. Parikka, J. (2016). Across and Beyond: Post-digiral practices concepts and institutions, Transmediale. https://transmediale.de/content/across-and-beyond-post-digital-practices-concepts-and-institutions

Berry, David M (2014) Post-digital humanities: computation and cultural critique in the arts and humanities. Educause, 49 (3). pp. 22-26.

Kember, S. & Zylinska, J. (2012) Life After New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process. Chapter 1 “Mediation and the Vitality of Media.” 

Gold, A. (2016). From Digital to Post-Digital: Digital IDEAS in Practice. 2016 Digital Initiatives Symposium, 1–13.

Pinto, A. T., & Franke, A. (2016). THE POST-INTERNET CONDITION. Berlin Biennale for Contemporary At, 26–31.

#syllabus #digital cultures