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dallonm-archive · 4 years

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So I Turned Church Mud Into A Novel Lol Oops | NaNoWriMo 2020

Folks the JOURNEY I have been on in the last 3 days. I’ve been on a great albeit chaotic Church Mud high and it led to? This?

For those who don’t know, Church Mud is meant to be a ~7k words short story for my writing dissertation (and it still is). I attempted to do Draft Zero over summer, completely missed the mark, pretended it didnt exist for a month and here we are. One thing I learnt from that attempt though was that there is a much wider story to be told than what we’d see in those 7k words. Back then I was content with it only existing as a short story, not having all the parts told, because I liked the idea of Felix and Dorothy existing in this small window with a happy ending that’d otherwise be temporary. But I cannot help myself :) I met my advisor on Wednesday and reaffirmed that I’m at a really good place with this story in terms of ideas, themes and character - what’s missing was just the plot. So that’s what I’ve been working on (and killing my sleep schedule over) since, and what happened was: I realise most of my ideas wouldn’t fit the short story --> But they’d work in a novel --> So I guess I’m writing Church Mud as a novel after I graduate? --> But I kinda wanna write it now --> But I can’t --> But I want to --> Chloe your dissertation --> Hey you want more novel content? Here’s chapter titles --> God I Can’t Wait To Write This As A Novel --> Hey that thing where you write a novel in a month is happening soon...could be a...perfect excuse to...….,,,

So I had a ~revelation~ at 4am: why can’t I write it now? NaNoWriMo coincides with when I’m meant to brainstorm this story, so why don’t I take what I have and pants it as a novel, intentionally #LoseNano2020 and use what I wrote to infer what the short story will look like whilst also have a Draft Zero to work with/finish/rewrite next year? I debated if this was a good idea because it felt ~unconventional~ but I realised that a) I want to write this as a novel anyway and b) this is where I’m loving the project and that’s what matters and c) makes it feel less like uni work lol I’ve spent the all day playing around with what Church Mud The Novel would look like, and not only am I o b s s e s s e d but it also taught me? so much? about the short story? I was worried it’d get complicated but from the vague plot idea I have, I have a clear vision of Church Mud The Short Story separate from the novel, but I also see how it would fit into the novel as a chapter, and seeing where it’d fit in has really helped me figure out where it sits in the twins’ lives and so many elements I hadn’t considered before. I believe very strongly in Writers Intuition and my intuition is telling me that this is the direction I need to go with this project. My only issue is Church Mud doesn’t fit as a title for the novel at all and was never going to be the title, but I really don’t care oop, I’m not titling it until next year unless I come up with a title so good I want to change the short story as well lmao. But other than that this is working so well for me and really catalysed the momentum I already had atm for this story. I’ve also wanted to rework how I share Church Mud things here and this is a perfect way to at least for the next month, but before I ramble more lets actually talk about where the story is!

CHURCH MUD

Genre: literary fiction Setting: California (+ probably some other states? Idk I’m not American wtf is a state), 1986 POV: third person present + retrospective moments, split between twins Felix and Dorothy The Vibes: hazy summers, hot air, 3am, saltwater breeze, grainy photographs, empty roads at night, the moon blurred by clouds, arms resting out car windows, abandoned churches, telephone boxes, getting lost on purpose, cigarette smoke, dust from an old Bible Deals with: faith & the weaponization of it to control others, identity, perceptions of reality, chosen family, independence v co-dependence, free will, trauma & what it means to “let go”

CONTENT WARNINGS: religion/religious imagery (specifically Christianity), trauma, toxic relationships, inferred addiction (all updates will be tagged with these/any more specific warnings)

This is still in very early conception, in the sense of it’s existence as a novel, but it’s definitely an expansion on the ideas I had for the short story, where these two seek to let go of their past together so they can live their own, new lives, and also restore their tangled relationship that could never be fixed through letters and distant contact. When Dorothy left the controlling religious cult she grew up in, she never gave herself a chance to properly process the complicated emotions that came with that decision, or the trauma she went through, opting to cope with it by putting all her energy into building her new life and embracing her identity. Watching her brother navigate the same new, confusing path she took four years ago forces her to look back on her own experience, and the repressed memories of events that prompted her to leave in the first place. When Felix catches up with her, he struggles with the realisation that adjusting to this new life and world won’t be easy, and whilst it was the right choice, his impulsive decision has ramifications. Trauma does not necessarily stay in the place you associate it with and for Felix, it’s like seeing all of it from a birds eye view, all at once, including everything he blocked out. With his faith, his sister, and his drive to be a good person, he has hope for himself and the world, but the pain and anger he harbours will not make it easy for him. ^by no means a pitch literally just the copy paste of the quick summary I wrote for myself lmao

The most exciting part of this to me is how different, yet similar the novel feels. This version of the story isn’t necessarily happier, it’s still rough around the edges, but it’s definitely from a different mindset and there’s this haziness to it that doesn’t exist in the short story. It feels like a grainy home video that they’d never let see the light of day. I wouldn’t call it dreamlike or softer because of this, but there is this distinct tonal shift from the short story to the novel that I can only describe through the aforementioned Vibes. As I said, I have an idea of where the short story would fit into the novel’s timeline as a chapter, but they still won’t be the same. The short story is obviously more restricted to one singular event, and that turns the intensity and tension up high. This difference is also 100% influenced by the fact that the short story is set only at night (bar for some potential flashbacks), and the night plays a huge thematic and atmospheric role. Of course parts of the novel will take place at night, but the presence of daytime changes the mindset to me? In the short story it feels like they’re stuck in this perpetuate-esque night, whereas in the novel you know that the sun will always rise.

This story is also very different aesthetically, but at the same time elements of the short story’s aesthetic come into play and clash with the unique aesthetic of the novel, where they coexist, but are also in conflict with each other. As you can tell from these two moodboards where you can really see how for the second I gave up trying to make it coherent lmao:

To me there are two distinct aesthetics, and they are both very different and exist in different ways, but they are both inherently part of the story, and it feeds into this idea of perception of reality and these two realities that the twins perceive: the “outside world” and the gated world they grew up in.

The stars of the show, my favourite disaster twins:

Not fragile, but not made of stone either

Loves very hard, sometimes more than she’d like

A protective and loyal soul, especially with those she loves, but she never wants to forget to protect herself

If I’m in love with my best (female) friend, no I’m not <3

-goes to the edge of the pier and stares wistfully at the ocean so everyone knows that I am the main character-

Loves her brother more than anyone else but is struggling to figure out his new role in her life. As teenagers she felt painfully tethered to him because they were always The Twins, and she had nobody else, as adults she hopes to find a balance between their deeply close bond and their harshly different lives

Arc driven by defining your identity and then redefining it, and facing the parts of it you’d rather lock far away. Also deals with her experience growing up as a girl in a religious cult in the 60s/70s, and the relationship faith has with her feminist identity.

As of now, there’s more focus on him in the novel, since the short story focuses on Dorothy and I feel to write him from an observer perspective I need to get into his head first

Just found out restarting your life completely is hard?

Trying to be a good person, wants to be a good person, but there’s an anger in him that he hates but it’s festering and it’s growing

But ultimately he is a sweet and soft person and that’s what he wants to be in life even though it’s hard, it shows especially with his sister

I think at some point he locks himself in a cabin and? I would too

Centred around perception of trauma and v influenced by my own experiences with that, where you think things will be easier as soon as you leave that situation but really it just makes you look at everything from a distance and be like “what the fuck?? that actually happened??” (which conflicts with the fact that you KNOW you’re in a better place and you would never go back, but it hurts and it’s hard especially understanding the placement of your trauma in this new space)

I need to give this dude and his sister a happy ending for my own wellbeing. I don’t know how that’ll look but these two will get their happy endings. I actually don’t think I’ve loved two characters more and I love all my characters deeply

And I think that’s all for now! This 100% was not the direction I expected to take but I am so glad I did, and I also love the opportunity to reintroduce this story because good Lord it’s changed so much (and this instance is the most change). I also think this is the perfect Nano scenario for me, as someone who’s never done it before, there’s zero pressure on me to “win” because I don’t expect to even finish this. I’m just going to see where it takes me and see what it’s given me at the end of the month. I’m also not outlining this at all lmao, one because me and outlines do not get along but also my Preptober is just. the work I have to do for my dissertation anyway, which is reading and gathering a lot of fiction/nonfiction about cults/religion, and all the weird and unhinged takes on it. It’s very slow but it’s also fun! My uni work this weekend is literally to read The Girls by Emma Cline so I think I won here?? I also want to dedicate the rest of October to the short stories I planned to write for Nano (I was going to work on my collection).

I don’t know if I’ll do a taglist for this - I have the og Church Mud one but like I said I’m rethinking how I want to share this story and updates for this will only be regular in November so?? But chances are I will be constantly on my bullshit for the next month and a half with this story, pretty update or no pretty update

My NaNoWriMo page is here, although fair warning I have No idea how this site works, this is my boomer moment. Excited to clown about this story though!

- Chloe

#first off my fatal flaw is interchanging between Felix and Dorothy and Dorothy and Felix #second off i would die and kill for them #writing #amwriting #writeblr #writeblr community #religion /#trauma /#nanowrimo #nanowrimo 2020

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nemrut · 3 years

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Epic Seven / Re: Zero Collab Units

So, a lot of units were revealed. Three five-star collab units and five three star regular units, and it is amusing to me that the three-star units are creating more buzz.

Since I am not a big Re: Zero fan, I am also more drawn to the three-star heroes, although, I have to say, the collab units seem solid so far.

Personally, I am mostly drawn to Emilia as of now, at least on paper, simply for her more offense oriented Soul Weaver kit. From what I remember, her kit doesn't really seem to work thematically for her all that much, or to her in show capabilities, but it works for the game.

So, Emilia. Her S1 gives healing based on her own max health to the ally with the lowest health. That's solid. Nothing too special but solid. Makes counter viable on her, similar to Destina only without the potential cleanse from the EE. With the right artifact, she can either heal one target with the same effect twice or heal two different units at once.

Her S2 is her best skill. It dispells two debuffs from an ally, gives increased attack for two turns and increases their CR by 40%. It also increases her own CR by 25%. With mola, the CR on the target can increase to 50% and it is on a two turn CD. SB also heals the target unit for ten souls. That's one packed skill. Can be used for cleavers or units like Straze or LQC or any other offensive unit with no atk buff who is a bit slower than her.

Her S3 cleanses two debuffs from her whole team, heals them and gives a two turn barrier. Nothing amazing but respectable.

So, all in all, she doesn't bring any new skills or abilities on the table. I will probably give her Ray's equipment and call it a day. She is a typical cleanser soul weaver where one should focus on speed, ER, HP and Def in that order. She is still very solid and I would personally benefit because I have no cleanser who provides and atk buff and cr push at the same time. I think she is also better than ML Kawarick even though they have similar kits, lol. But anyone who already has one built could probably pass on her but dunno, she has better animation and her ER imprint does make things easier.

Her artifact is interesting, in that it gives a flat ER of 15% on top of healing an ally once a turn for what I assume is 15% with no copies at plus 15. It serves her well, but of course, soul weaver artifacts are good across the board and all of them can work there.

While her S1 might allow for a counter set, I do think speed/ER set is the way to go. You want her fast enough to use her S2 or S3, depending on the situation and she has to go before the rest of your team. She doesn't even care that much whether she goes before the enemy or not. If she goes after, she cleanses their debuffs, if now, she just uses the S2 and starts an attack with your cleaver or damage dealer. She is definitely going to be useful.

Rem is more interesting in that she is getting new abilities, but that also makes her a bit harder to predict.

Her S1 can defense break the enemy. 35% odds without mola and 50% with mola. If she is in demon mode, she attacks twice.

Her S2 is her weird new stuff. When anybody dies, she cleanes all debuffs on herself and activates Demon Mode for two turns. This can only happen once every 5 turns so, basically, in pvp/rta that means it can only happen once in a fight. Demon Mode means that she is immune to debuffs, it cannot be stripped and the debuffs she applies ignore ER.

When an ally is attacked, she has a 15% chance to counterattack with iron strike. In turn, iron strike attacks all enemies, decreases their buff durations and makes them unhealable for 1 turn. It also says that iron strike takes priority over counterattacks with basic skills, so that means she counterattacks with Iron Strike instead of her S1. Molas increase her counterattack chance to 20%

Her S3 gives herself an attack buff and aoe attacks all enemies and decreases their hit chance for two turns and increases her own CR by 50%.

Her artifact increases crit chance by 15% and whenever somebody dies, it gives the user a CR push between 12 and 24%. Not sure how much CR push that is for +15 without any copies.

Artifact is meh, tbh. I guess it can be useful, but dunno if I would give her that.

Team imprint is health and on her self it is plus crit chance which would make it easier to go for dps build but have fun getting several copies of her with three collab heroes and artifacts plus summer Iseria and her artifact around the corner.

So, what about Rem? Her kit is interesting at least. She needs for someone to die before she starts going crazy which is somewhat fitting. That means she probably doesn't want to go first if one wants to take advantage of the ignores ER thing. In fact, one can build her with no effectiveness at all, which makes things at least a bit easier. That said, she seems to be a lot more gear hungry than Emilia was in order to use her effectively.

For her S2 condition to activate she needs to be teamed up with an ally who is rather fast and can snipe at least one enemy unit before she takes a turn, in which case one can get away with a bit less bulk. Still, I do think one wants to build Rem as tanky as possible, as she should remain on the field for as long as possible and hit the enemy team with Iron Strike and attack twice with her S1.

So, I am unsure how she would interact with a counter set. Does the sentence "Iron Strike takes priority over a counterattack with a basic skill" refer to all counterattacks she makes or only those which are facilitated by her S2? If only her S2, I would probably go for a bulk and damage with medium speed. So, speed or atk sets. If it refers to all counter-attacks, maybe go with counter. I think one can give her Champion's trophy and hope for stuns on top of everything, although her skill makes it clear that the ignores ER effect does not apply to artifacts, so enemies might resist there, especially if there is no effectiveness on her otherwise.

All in all, I can see two options with her builds: Either go for dmg or go for debuffs. Either way, she wants to stay on the field for as long as possible to counterattack as much as possible. She should be fun, but I don't know how good she will work.

Think will have to sit on her kit for a while longer. I could also see the cockroach approach with her, where you accept that the one person dying is on your own team and hope Rem can turn things around afterwards. If the one dying is on their team, you are kinda wasting the self cleanse but then again, planning for someone on your team to die is not a great strategy, even if you have a reviver on your team. That said, maybe she works really, really well with Arby, who should count for the team death thing. I don't know, it seems fun at least.

Last and maybe least is Ram. She is a mage, gives her team health with imprint or effectiveness to herself.

Her S1 attacks one enemy and has a 60% chance (75% with mola) to decrease attack for 1 turn. If she is buffed, it reaches 100%. Soul Burn allows her to attack all enemies for ten souls.

S2 is a passive and increases her own Atk by 30% and reduces the effect of CR debuffs on her by 80% (100% with mola).

S3 attacks the enemy and inflicts def break on them for two turns and gives herself Greater Attack Buff (also called GAB in case you heard a youtuber say it and didn't know what they meant)

Her artifact increases her ATK by 15% and decreases dmg suffered by elite or boss monsters by 15% at +15.

So, I'll be honest, she seems a bit underwhelming. Her S1 is aptly titled How Boring. because it is a very boring skill. Decrease Attack is not useless, by any means, but it is also not that great. A possible aoe on her S1 with ten souls can be useful against enemies hiding in stealth, but there are better options. Her passive is interesting at least, since it means she can't really be pushed back, and she has a lot of atk. That said, her S3 is okay, but also not great.

With her artifact, she seems more of a pve unit, but she also should be useful in pvp. Like, with 30% atk from her s2, 15% atk from her artifact and GAB on herself, alongside a decent attack set, or a speed set with good atk, that should translate into a lot of dmg with her basic attack, especially if it can be a potential aoe with only ten souls. She can also be paired up with Lilias who benefits from her high attack to cleave, especially if she goes after her and there is someone def broken there.

Could build her with no crit chance and crit dmg in order to get her speed and atk as high as possible, or a bit less of both and go for a more traditional damage dealer for pvp.

As for pve, I don't know, maybe expedition? She could def break for Banshee, but so can a milllion other units. I don't know if she is useful after that, but can't imagine her replacing Baiken there. Also find it hard to believe that someone wouldn't have Leo or Bellona or kluri or any other def breaker for that, so can't see how she is good for wyvern. If she had been ice or fire, I would say good for either one of those two hunts, but banshee might be the one hunt her skill-set is ill-equipped for. Might be overlooking something, though.

So yeah, those were the collab units and artifacts. Seems solid enough, I like Emilia and Rem seems interesting enough. A bit meh on Ram.

Still, the three stars seems more exiting, oddly enough.

#epic seven #epic 7 #re:zero #re zero #collab #emilia #rem #ram

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cyanoscarlet · 3 years

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2020 writing review

Thanks for the tag, @gladiowrites! (I know it’s not a tag, but this is fun to do lol)

I.. honestly wrote a lot this 2020. No kidding. Quarantine productivity was real, but so is residency languishing by the wayside while everyone was busy surviving and adjusting. I highly doubt 2021 will be the same, but I’ll always cherish 2020 just because of the writing and nothing else.

This is gonna be long.

FIRST CREATION + MOST RECENT CREATION OF 2020

8:15 am - Final Fantasy XV. Lunafreya. February 2020. - First piece ever written for the year. - Intended to be a Luna-centric AU, in which the Nox Fleurets were deposed and she’s now a regular teacher. Never managed to write anything beyond that, though, because residency. (Back then, I didn’t know it was gonna be the beginning of the end, so I had hopes. Oh well.)

irresistible!, or the summer ramblings of nene yashiro and everything that followed - Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun. Nene, Hanako. March 2020. - First one published on AO3 for 2020 (yes, there’s a distinction). - If you think the title sounds familiar, you’re right.

versus

first yuletide - Final Fantasy XV. Nyx. December 2020. - Written for the FFXV Secret Santa event on Twitter. - Before y’all object and say what unwinding is, that’s an old fic uploaded late.

ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CREATIONS FROM 2020

Do I seriously have to choose? Omg.

take heart - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. Gods/Humans AU. - Discovered so much about myself writing this. Also (hopefully) I managed to get into Dazai’s headspace correctly. He’s an extremely difficult character to write, so finishing this brought so much gratification.

you don’t raise heroes, you raise sons - Final Fantasy VIII. Laguna, Squall. Post-canon. - Probably my most heartfelt work of the year- scratch that, ever. Also happy with how I just let myself go writing this and didn’t need to think twice.

A CREATION YOU’RE REALLY PROUD OF

oneiric moments (or, five nights with you) - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. - Written for the SKK Fic Exchange for Summer 2020. - Five interconnected fics. 18,985 words. - Might not be a big deal for others, but this was taxing because I don’t usually write long, multichaptered stuff. I got carried away, though. It ain’t as well-polished as my more recent stuff, but I’m proud of myself for pulling this off.

A NEW STYLE YOU TRIED THIS YEAR & A FIC THAT USES IT

I... don’t think I have tried anything of the sort. My repertoire is sorely limited compared to others, I’m afraid. I’d probably have an answer for “explored new themes,” but again, I’ve a limited arsenal, too, in that regard.

A CREATION THAT TOOK YOU FOREVER

all in a day’s work - Bungou Stray Dogs. Atsushi, Akutagawa. Cells at Work AU. - It’s still being written, with a lot of side stories planned but never drafted. - I fell out of love with BSD, recovered from that, then got busy with residency.

YOUR CREATION FROM 2020 THAT RECEIVED THE MOST NOTES KUDOS

Also take heart. While I am proud of it, I guess it hit the right spot for mainstream shippers, too, somewhat? My feelings about mainstream things have changed a lot because of things, but I am still happy.

A CREATION YOU THINK DESERVED MORE NOTES KUDOS

amīcitia - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai, Chuuya. Final Fantasy XV AU. - Petty indignancy for my self-indulgent baby aside, I’m also proud of how I wrote Dazai in this one, similar to take heart. the fun they had - Bungou Stray Dogs. Kajii, Port Mafia Ensemble. - ... Guys. Please notice genfics.

A NEW FANDOM YOU JOINED AND A CREATION YOU MADE FOR IT

Everything I wrote for Bungou Stray Dogs. (I kid you not.)

If you want a single answer anyway:

on the flaming mountains - act-age. Chiyoko, Kei. Princess Iron Fan Arc. - arc words: “what shall i do with this ire?” - I wouldn’t really say I “left” the fandom, more like it fizzled out after Matsuki-sensei got arrested.

A CREATION YOU MADE THAT BREAKS YOUR HEART

a cycle of; - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. Medico-legal AU. - Written out of much anger and frustration over things. Also because this in itself was frustrating to write.

Also you don’t raise heroes, you raise sons. Because no matter how much I hate my family at so many points in my life, I know I can’t truly hate them from the bottom of my heart. This fic is a reminder of that.

A SIMPLE CREATION THAT YOU REALLY LOVE

express delivery for love - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. Real World Quarantine AU. - It’s funny. It’s orthodox. It’s sweet. I don’t think it can get any better than that.

A CREATION THAT WAS INSPIRED BY ANOTHER ONE

rather be - Bungou Stray Dogs. Yosano. Pre-canon. - Inspired by yesterday is another world by @wctercress - The whole of primum non nocere, actually, but specifically this one, and the rest followed. - This is also my first BSD fic. Ever.

A FAVORITE CREATION CREATED BY SOMEONE ELSE

... You sure? There’s a lot, and this is just on the surface. (unleashes the proverbial waterfall)

The aforementioned yesterday is another world by @wctercress

silencer and snow white days by EKmisao - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai, Chuuya. Dead Apple canon-divergent. - The aftermath of Dead Apple, in which one of two goes wrong. - They’re unrelated, I know. But they’re both sisters! Just trust me on this. - The proper entry for this would be silencer, but I can’t very well mention one without the other, so have both anyway. I read both only this year, after all. Waiting for Godot by @eternal-aegis - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai, Fyodor, Chuuya. Canon-divergent. - Amazing theme, amazing philosophy, amazing writing. It makes you think. It makes you analyze and explore. This writer definitely knows her stuff, and it shows. Catharsis by @gladiowrites - Final Fantasy VIII. Rinoa, Gen. Caraway. Post-canon. - The denouement to the Caraway family drama we all deserve. I love how Rinoa is presented in this fic. She’s a normal person who makes mistakes and learns her lessons. So is Fury. Burned bridges don’t always have to stay down, and this fic illustrates that wonderfully.

Culmination by @gladiowrites - Final Fantasy VIII. Squall, Rinoa. Post-canon. - We can’t all have happy endings. This fic also illustrates that very well. While I, a Squinoa fan, personally ascribe to the happy ending Squall and Rinoa must have had after the events of FF8, this fic is so compelling and grounded and reflective and I totally buy this.

Here Without You by @muselover1901 - Akagami no Shirayuki-hime. Zen/Shirayuki. Real world quarantine AU. - One of the sweetest stories I’ve ever read this year. I can definitely relate to a lot of things in this fic. I’ve been rereading all of Muse’s ANS stuff whenever I feel down, and they all hit the spot.

Savor The Moment by @joeys-piano - Bungou Stray Dogs. Oda. Pre-canon. - Yes, yes, YES. One of the best stories I’ve ever read this year, ever. (And I mean stories, not fanfics.) Great character study about a man named Oda and a day in his life and a page (or three) out of his book of relationships. The love poured into this is simply overflowing and precious. I’ve been following Joey since this fic was being written, and I’m so proud of him.

False Equivalences by @slowquotesquill - Dai Gyakuten Saiban. Asougi, Ryuunosuke. Fullmetal Alchemist AU. - This fic also! Oh, My Heart. The cynicism of a state alchemist and the optimism of a foreign doctor. It perfectly hits the spot for everything FMA, and we all know that SQQ’s Asouryuu fics are always to die for. It’s the ultimate combo.

The whole Promptober Leo/Will/Despair series by @eternal-aegis - Kekkai Sensen. Various themes, many of which are dark/mature. - I’ve said this with Waiting for Godot, and I’ll say it again: Aegis knows her stuff. This is her exploring further in that direction, and you can feel the improvement with every fic in the series. I really love how adventurous these stories are, and how much depth you can go with every one. Her characterization is layered and exquisite, and the underlying lore is well-thought-out. - tl;dr: B3 Goddess.

Predestined by Galkimasera - Final Fantasy VIII. Rinoa, Squall. Reverse/Fateswap AU. - A very well-written reverse AU! The circumstances of Squall and Rinoa in this ‘verse fit so well and are so well thought out. I love this AU so much, you don’t even know. It also fills my nostalgic shipper’s heart with much joy at seeing quality content in this Year of our Lord 2020.

For auld lang syne, my dear by @by-nina - Fullmetal Alchemist. Roy, Riza. Canon-compliant + post-canon. - Holiday feels, snapshots through time, and all over showing Roy and Riza’s budding relationship over the years. And it does remind me of a lot of the SKK fics I’ve written (thematic-wise). This was such a treat to read and to follow. All her FMA fics are. She does Royai so much justice. Am not yet finished reading smoke without fire, but I’ll get to that, too!

SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE CONTENT CREATORS FROM THIS YEAR

Everyone in the answer above. There’s honestly a whole boatload of more, but this is getting too long already lololol

(might edit this when I feel like it, tho!)

#cyanospeaks #dani has been tagged #2020 in review

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lyrebirdswrites · 3 years

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Hi! There's a playlist on spotify that fucking SLAPS, maybe you can get something there? I'm totally obsessed and would recommend any of those, and they all have the vibe of the show. I think it's the official soundtrack, by akira meruna. Dunno how official it is, but it's in the title lol

Wooooo finally digging into some of these jjk playlist asks!!

That playlist has a lot of fun stuff in it! I won’t go through all the songs, but I did notice いのちの食べ方 (How To Eat Life) by Eve in there, which I think is definitely very fitting for jjk. Eve composed and performed the anime OP so I’m guessing most of us are probably familiar with their work by now, but if you haven’t checked out Eve’s other albums I would recommend it!

(just in case, cw for mild body horror, blood, and cannibalistic imagery in the music video)

youtube

So in this one there’s the obvious extended metaphor of uhh... eating people, eating monsters, sensing that time is running out because the things you’re consuming are slowly consuming you, which definitely parallels Itadori’s situation. But also some of the lyrics are pretty fitting too, like this line from the chorus -

For both of us, to forget that is unthinkable / as long as you don’t ever stop thinking of it

- I think a big theme in jujutsu kaisen is about change/the duality of narrative foils/the stuff which binds certain people together even as circumstances shift. So that lyric reminds me of Satoru and Suguru considering each other friends the whole way through, or Itadori and Yuji always promising not to die while the other is gone, etc. Thematically this is very much a jujutsu kaisen song!

(Also the protag in the music video literally has a little mouth appear on his cheek, so it kind of automatically gets a spot on the playlist just for that lol)

Send me songs you think fit the characters or themes of jujutsu kaisen and I’ll add them to my playlist!!

Link to the playlist

#jjk playlist project #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #thank you for the ask!!

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disposedserenity · 4 years

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*rough* review of MOTS:7

The title might say review, but it’s really just my own thoughts that I want to share in the form of verbal vomit. STREAM while u read.

1) Interlude: SHADOW I loved the song right away on first listen. The extended version is soooo good, because it traces back to yoongi’s iconic ‘I want big house, big cars, big rings’ line from NMD. Thematically, this is my favourite concept out of the 3 rap line solos (Persona, Shadow & Ego). Yoongi songs all immediately reasonate with me because the stuff he writes about are what I’ve experienced at one point in my life.... and I feel so deeply when yoongi is rapping about it. At this point, I could go on forever about why I love yoongi songs so much but I will stop here.

2) Black Swan

It took me about three listens to fully appreciate the song, but I KNEW I was going to love it when I heard that trap beat and the bump bump bump lyric... Then I watched the performance, and I just loved it even more. For years, I’ve been fervently wishing that bts (especially jimin) would do a contemporary dance and I AM SO GLAD THEY DID!! Speaking of the dance, that’s another analysis on it’s own.... The way they match the dance steps to the lyrics.... Also this song lined up right after shadow makes perfect sense because Shadow talks about losing yourself into the deepest and darkest recesses of your soul while in Black Swan, the boys step into that shadow and confront it because they realise you have to make peace with your shadow to emerge triumphant.

3) Filter

I swear, this could be an Alec Benjamin song because this song has Alec Benjamin VIBES all over. Well, I guess jimin took inspiration from him because he put a ton of alec’s songs on his spotify playlist and even went to his concert so yey! Both their voice tones are similar ish because it’s very distinct and their singing voices are quite different from their speaking voices so it’d be really cool if they made a song together. Funnily enough, I don’t really like this song as much as I thought I’d would. It’s not a bad song, but I think I don’t gravitate to this song as much because this song was written about jimin for jimin and it’s really himself that he’s singing it to.

This song also radiates BIG libra energy. Libras love changing and moulding their personalities to please other people and they put on various personas to showcase the multi-faceted sides of themselves (sorry, just a huge astrology enthusiast here lolol). Filter has a narcissist undertone to it done in a purposeful manner. The protagonist of this song KNOWS he’s desired and is flaunting it in any way possible. They are aware of the power they hold and are wielding it to control the listener (the pursuers) Ahahaha sounds like someone we know? Recently, I told a friend that Jimin is really good at fan service. He’s the idol of idols, his face and name gets recognised first, everyone wants to be him AND be with him.... To sum it up, filter is jimin showing the world that he has many sides and it doesn’t matter which we are going to choose because he can adapt to whichever one you please (this push and pull reminds me a lot of house of cards hmm...)

4) My Time

Jungkook definitely has some magic where his song always gets to me and I immediately like the song. I think he excels in laying out his emotions bare and this creates a perfect canvas for telling his story. I definitely cannot relate to what he talks about in My TIme because I am not a jetsetting global superstar who vary between time zones (not that I know of), yet I still feel like I’ve been in his exact footsteps and know that feeling. This, my friends, is what true skill looks like. The rarest of musicians are able to write a song about themselves and make it relevant to almost everyone. It’s an impossible task. Yet, this golden maknae has succeeded once again.

In Begin, he talks about leaving Seoul to pursue his dreams and dedicates that song to his 6 members, his 6 newfound brothers, the hardships they go through and again, this hits you hard. You might not have left your hometown at a young age, but everyone has left something or someone behind in their lives. Euphoria ALWAYS makes me melancholic even though I clearly 1) am not young, 2) do not have a first love 3) minus bts, would NOT call anyone the cause of my euphoria but shit, jungkook out here got me feeling things and tearing up.

Thank you jungkook for constantly expressing your thoughts in such a clear way in any song you write, and My Time is no exception (and it sounds like such a r&b banger too)

5) Louder than Bombs

TROYE! SIVAN! You absolutely can hear troye’s fingerprints all over this song because this song sounds like a troye song (in the best way possible, because I looooove troye and his music) This is another classic “happy sounding but sad af lyrics” bangtan moment. Louder than Bombs is a good midway point in the album because they are crossing into the sad, aggressive, heart tearing, no bullshit songs territory.

(I don’t have a lot to say about this because I really love this song and sometimes with songs that I like, I just sit back and enjoy for what it is.)

6) ON

OKAY NOW LET’S GET INTO FORMATION! (yes, this was the first thing that it reminded me of hahaha and her superbowl half time performance had a marching band too) THIS.IS.SUCH.AN.ABSOLUTE.EARWORM. I LOVE IT. The 30 second preview made me so intrigued because it only featured the “hey na na na” part so I wondered what ON would sound like. I was NOT expecting it to sound like that, but what can I say? BTS always blows me away with their title tracks.

Speaking of formation, hooooo boy do I love the formation of this choreography. Mad props to The Lab for pulling this out of their hat because IT IS SO IMPRESSIVE. The set up reminds me of dionysus too, in the way that the choreography is being arranged in the live performances. Big ups to the Blue Devils marching band too, because even though you can’t really see much of them in the mv (or maybe I’m too focused on the boys lol) but you can hear the marching band so much clearer in the audio and I am LIVING for it. Overall, I am utterly thrilled by this masterpiece.

7) UGH!

*gunshots* alright back to 2013 bangtan let’s go. UGH, when will rap line stop making a banger? never I guess, UGH. lord, just let me get dissed by rap line once and then life would be better.

I. fucking. love. the. rap. line. I am definitely not smart enough to try to analyse or decipher the lyrics even with translations because their wordplay is on a whole other level. With cyphers and ddaeng, I really shouldn’t be surprised anymore but I still am. They manage to outdo themselves with every new song they release together. RM, Suga and J-Hope are great on their own but you put them TOGETHER? in one STUDIO? god help us all when this is performed live because someone’s gonna get headbanged out of the venue. I’ll end this with a silent prayer for a rap line concert.....

8) 00:00

This song is so, so, so painful. This song is what Tonight is to me. Ok I’m going to get a whole lot more personal here.

I was in a fucking terrible internship last year during the period Persona was released (I’m actually quite thankful this song wasn’t released then or I’d really have full on goblin ugly cry listening to this). That was the worst job experience I’ve ever had in my life (lao tian ye please don’t deal me any more shitty hands). I spent every day wishing that my misery would end soon and I physically did not want to go to work the next day. Every morning, I was almost crying to have to get up to go to work (and because it was an almost 2 hour journey to the office). By the time I reached home, all I could do was eat (if I had an appetite) and retire to my room and lie on the floor and just stare into my ceiling while mindlessly scrolling through social media looking for some sort of solace. Some days, even bts wasn’t doing it for me. Even though I managed to get out of that hellhole before the end date, the trauma (lol can I call it that?) and emotions stayed with me throughout the rest of the year. Only one friend knew I had depression and constantly asked me about it (thank you friend, even though you won’t read this...) and I even looked up therapists in singapore.

The lyrics ‘An unsettling night, suddenly, I look at the clock. Soon, it’s 12 O’Clock. Will something change. It probably won’t be the case’ hits so hard because this describes my situation to a T. By the time I got home, it was about 8.30 and by the time I snapped out of my mindlessness, it was almost midnight and this cycle just carried on for months.

Zero O’Clock

And you gonna be happy

Midnight is both a happy and sad hour, because for some it could signal the end of their misery or their happiness. Back then, it was my hell because it meant a new hellish day was approaching. Looking back now, I realise it could have been a tiny form of happiness because it meant that the days are passing and the end to my pain was getting closer.

So thank you Jin, Jungkook, V and Jimin for creating such a beautiful song that I didn’t know would end up being so personal. Putting aside the meaning, it is such a great song that I’d put on repeat. But I’m scared to call this a favourite because of how intimate this is for me so I hope y’all understand. But, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

9) Inner Child

This sounds like it should be a in a drama or anime haha. The “whoa ohhhh” vocals in the backgrounds reminds me a lot of Jet Lag too. Inner Child is a very fitting title because as V described, it is a letter to his past self. As an ARMY, I’ve witnessed how much V has matured over the past few years. I mean even though all of the members have also grown, V’s transformation is the one that stands out the most (at least to me). Tae went from a bright eyed outgoing kid to a still outgoing but deeply contemplative adult in front of millions of adoring fans and strangers alike, and I cannot imagine how that must be like for him. V is a notoriously private person, and we know the least about if you reeeally think about it. I will never (nor do I want to) know what goes through his mind but I appreciate the fact he reveals a tiny glimpse of it in his songs (scenery, winter bear and now inner child).

10) Friends

CAN YOU SPELL SOULMATES? NO YOU CAN’T, BECAUSE THERE IS NO VMIN IN IT. Ships are cute and all, but vmin has trascended beyond what ships are and I’m convinced they are all part of a bigger plan arranged by the Almighty that no matter what happens, they will always find each other in their four lives (can you tell I’ve been watching Goblin lolol). Recently, I was listening to a podcast by Jae and the episode was about the probability of soulmates. One of the questions he posed was what is a soulmate? To me, I believe that soulmates exist in many forms. There are the romantic soulmates (hi glenn & benn), friendship soulmates, family soulmates, strangers soulmates and even a bond between a pet and a human. I now think there should be another category of soulmates and that is vmin. *cries I want what vmin have* Not everyone manages to find their soulmates. The lucky ones do, and the rest of us will have to settle for second best.

Also kudos to Jimin for his first ever produced song! woohoo

11) Moon

When I first read that this was a song about Jin’s love for ARMY, I braced myself for a full waterfall of tears. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how happy this song sounds??? (thanks jin for not making me cry again like tonight did). Now that I think about it, of course Jin would make a happy love song (pffft saggis). As we all know, Jin’s way of comforting himself is to comfort others through laughter, smiles and lotsa dad jokes. No one else but Jin would and I love him even more for this. He takes the idea of what you’d think a love song would sound like and turn it around. SAD? NOT IN JINHIT ENTERTAINMENT.

Jin, know that you are more than a handsome face and the oldest member. You are loved more than you think you are. You think you’re the moon to us? No hun, you are the entire galaxy contained in those worldwide shoulders.

12) Respect

My favourite track. I mean starting with that iconic “should I stay or should I go” line? Genuis. Collab of the year. Namgi of the year. Ok, maybe I am slightly (alot) bias since this song is essentially Suga, RM & El Capitixn (yes, THE El Capitixn that helped to produce DDAENG).

Namgi dynamics are so rarely talked about because most people see them as the underground rapper duo who’ve known each other over 10 years and are old friends and that’s about it. Their dynamics just gets to me even more because the trust and respect they have for each other is incredible. Joon looks up to yoongi as an older member and also for his incredible work ethic, while yoongi trusts joon wholeheartedly as their leader even though joon is younger and the way they banter off each other? ugh, where can I get bros like namgi? Their rap and producing styles are so vastly different yet the result that is respect makes ME respect them. Use me as your slave, masters.

bonus: that ending clip of them just having a convo? please share your stories from back in the day, please. I said please. with a cherry on top.

13) We are Bulletroof: the Eternal

Is this MOTS : 7′s answer to Mikrokosmos? I can already imagine this as the ending song of a concert..... A perfect tune to end the album as well. Who knew my attraction to the number seven had a deeper meaning than just simply liking it huh? Is my life preplanned too.... @ universe give me answers. I really like how this song did not go the WABB Part 1 & 2 route and took a softer approacher indeed. It’s almost like they are saying we were seven hardened boys made more tender with the existence of armys.... ok bitch don’t make me cry anymore than I have been suppressing.

“we are not seven, with you” :’))))

14) Outro: Ego

This is the kind of song that gets better the more you listen to it. Not that it was bad on the first listen, but usually such bright and positive songs takes a while longer for the emo in me to process. I say this all the time that I almost sound like a broken recorder, but I LOVE LOVE how hobi has crafted a sound for him that is uniquely his and you will be able to immediately recognise it’s him (which is such a hard feat to pull off, might I add). I’m also immensely proud because he started out as a street dancer to becoming one of the best rappers in the industry while holding his rightful candle alongside two already established rappers that is namgi. I cannot wait to see this being performed live because you just know he’ll get everyone and their grandmas to start vibin right there.

In conclusion, I love bts. what else is there more to say.

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dillydedalus · 5 years

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what i read in july

THAT’S MORE LIKE IT aka i’m finally out of the (relative) reading slump for good & my bro james joyce was there

men explain things to me, rebecca solnit the original mansplaining essay is great, and still scarily relevant; the others in this collection (most on feminist issues) are also quite good; some aspects are a bit dated & problematic so be aware of that. 2.5/5

erschlagt die armen!, shumona sinha (tr. from french, not available in english) short but very impactful novella about a young french woman, originally from india, who works as an interpreter in the asylum system and becomes more & more broken by this system of inhumane bureaucracy and suffering, until she snaps and hits a migrant over the head with a wine bottle. full of alienation and misery and beautiful but disturbing language - the title translates to ‘beat the poor to death’ so like. yeah. 3.5/5

fire & blood: a history of the targaryen family I, george r r martin look, it’s a 700-page-long fake history book about a fictional ruling dynasty in a fictional world, and i’m just That Obsessed & Desperate about asoiaf (and i don’t even care about the targs That Much). anyway, now i know more about the targs than any ruling family from, you know, real history, which is like, whatever. this is pretty enjoyable if you are That Obsessed, although i will say that some bits are much better than others (there are some dry dull years even in everyone’s fav overly dramatic dragon-riding incest-loving family) and the misogyny really is. a lot. too much. way too much. BUT i did really like Good Best Queen Alysanne (her husband king joe harris is alright too i guess) and i found my new westerosi otp, cregan stark/aly blackwood, who both have Big Dick Energy off the fucking charts. 3.5/5 (+0.5 points for cregan and aly’s combined BDE)

the old drift, namwali serpell hugely ambitious sprawling postcolonial nation-building novel about zambia, told thru three generations of three families, as well as a chorus of mosquitoes (consistently the best & smartest parts). there is A LOT going on, in terms of characters, of plot points, of references to history (the zambian space programme) and literature (finally my knowledge of heart of darkness paid off) and thematically, and honestly it was a bit too much, a bit too tangled & fragmented & drifty, and in the end i probably admire this book more than i liked it, but serpell’s writing is incredibly smart and funny and full of electrical sparks 3.5/5

a severed head, iris murdoch the original love dodecahedron (not that i counted). iris murdoch is fucking WILD and i love her for it. this is a strange darkly funny little farce about some rich well-educated londoners and their bizarre & rather convoluted love lives. not as grandiosely wild as the sea the sea, but fun nevertheless. 3/5

midnight in chernobyl, adam higginbotham jumping on the hype bandwagon caused by the hbo series (very weird to call the current fascination with chernobyl a hype bandwagon but you know). interesting & well-written & accessible (tho the science is still totally beyond me) & gets you to care about the people involved. lots of human failure, lots of human greatness, set against the background of the almost eldritch threat of radioactivity (look up the elephant foot & see if you don’t get chills), and acute radiation syndrome which is THE MOST TERRIFYING THING ON EARTH . 3.5/5

normal people, sally rooney honestly this is incredibly engrossing & absorbing once you get used to how rooney completely ignores ‘show don’t tell’ (it works!), i pretty much read the whole thing in one slow workday (boss makes a dollar, i make a dime so i read books on my phone on company time, also i genuinely had nothing to do). i also think rooney is really good at precisely capturing the ~millenial experience in a way that feels very true, especially the transition from school to uni. BUT i really disliked the ending, the book never engages with the political themes it introduces (esp. class and gender) as deeply as it could and the bdsm stuff never really gets TIED UP LOL. so overall idk: 3.5/5

störfall: nachrichten eines tages, christa wolf quiet reflective undramatic little book narrated by a woman waiting to hear about the outcome of her brother’s brain surgery on the day of the catastrophe at chernobyl - throughout the day she puts down her thoughts about her brother and the events unfolding at chernobyl, as well as the double uncertainty she is trying to cope with. really interesting to read such an immediate reaction to chernobyl (the book came out less than a year after chernobyl). 2.5/5

the man in the high castle, philip k dick it was fine? quick & entertaining alternative history where the axis powers win the war, some interesting bits of worldbuilding (like the draining of the mediterranean which was apparently a real idea in the early 20th century?) but overall it’s just felt a bit disjointed & unsatisfying to me. 2.5/5

fugitive pieces, anne michaels very poetic & thoughtful novel about the holocaust, grief, remembrance & the difference between history and memory, intergenerational trauma, love, geology and the weather. i’m not sure how much this comes together as a novel, but it is absolutely beautifully written (the author is a poet as well) and very affective. 3.5/5

american innovations, rivka galchen short collection of bizarre & often funny short stories about neurotic women whose furniture flies away, or who grow an extra breast, or who are maybe too occupied with financial details. very vague & very precise at once, which seems to be the thing with these sort of collections. 3/5

fool’s assassin (fitz & the fool #1), robin hobb YAASS i’m back in the realm of the elderlings!!! i thought this was one of the weaker installments in the series - i still enjoyed it a lot, and Feelings were had, but it just doesn’t quite fit together pacing-wise & some of the characterisation struck me as off (can i get some nuance for shun & lant please?) and tbh fitz is at peak Selfcentred Dumbass Levels & it drove me up the fucking wall. molly, nettle & bee deserve better. still, completely HYPE for the rest of the trilogy. 3.5/5

JAMES JOYCE JULY

note: i decided not to read dubliners bc it’s my least fav of joyce’s major works & too bleak & repetitive for my mood right now AND while i planned not to reread finnegans wake bc……. it’s finnegans wake…. i kinda do want to read it now (but i also. really don’t.) so idk yet.

a portrait of the artist as a young man, james joyce y’all. i read this book at least once a year between the ages of 15 and 19, it’s beyond formative, it is burnt into my brain, and reading it now several years later it is still everything, soaring and searing (that searing clarity of truth, thanks burgess) and poetic and dirty, and stephen is baby, and a pretentious self-important little prick and i love him & i am him (or was him as only a pretentious self-important teenage girl reading joyce can be him - because this truly is a book that should be read in your late teens when you feel everything as intensely and world-endingly and severely as my boy stephen does and every new experience feels like the world changing). anyway i love this book & i love stephen dedalus, bird-like, hawk-like, knife-blade, aloof, alienated, severe and stern, a poet-priest-prophet if he could ever get over himself, baby baby baby. 5/5

exiles, james joyce well. there’s a reason joyce is known as a novelist. this is….. a failed experiment, maybe. a fairly boring play about an adulterous love-square and uh… love beyond morality and possession maybe??? about how much it would suck for joyce to return to ireland??? and tbh it’s not terribly interesting. 2/5

travesties, tom stoppard a wild funny irreverent & smart antic comedy inspired by the fact that during ww1, james joyce, lenin, and dadaist tristan tzara were all in neutral zurich, more or less simultaneously; they probably never met, but in this play they do, as dadaist poetry, socialist art critique, and a james joyce high on his own genius & in desperate need of some cash while writing ulysses, AND the importance of being earnest (joyce is putting on a production of it) all collide in the memories of henry carr, who played algernon & later sued joyce over money (tru facts). not my fav stoppard (that’s arcadia) but it’s funny & fizzy & smart & combines many many things that i love. 4/5

ulysses, james joyce look i’m not really going to tell y’all anything new about ulysses, but it really has everything, it’s warm & human(e) & cerebral & difficult & funny & sad & healing & i always get a lot out of it even tho there’s bits (a lot of them) i’ll never wrap my head around. ultimate affirmation of humanity or whatever. also stephen dedalus is baby. 5/5

dedalus, chris mccabe the fact that this book (sequel to ulysses about what stephen dedalus might have done the next day) exists and was published ON MY BIRTHDAY is proof that the universe loves me.

anyway this is very very good, very very clever, extremely good at stephen (less good at bloom but his parts are still good), engages w/ ulysses, portrait & hamlet (& others) very cleverly & does some cool meta and experimental shit. y’all it has stephen talking to a contemporary therapist about how he’s stuck in joyce’s text which is all about joyce & very little about whoever stephen is when he’s not joyce’s alter ego/affectionate but slightly amused look at younger self and ithaca is an interview w/ the author about how his relationship to his dad influenced his response to ulysses and I’M INTO IT. the oxen of the sun chapter replaces the whole ‘gestation of english prose’ w/ just slightly rewriting the first pages of about 10 novels published between ulysses and now & it does lolita w/ “bloom, thorn of stephen’s sleep, light in his eyes. his sire, his son’ and i lit. screamed. anyway i don’t want to give this 5 stars (yet) bc i think some of the experimental stuff ended up a bit gimmicky & didn’t add that much to the text but fuck. that’s my boy & i want to reread it right now. 4.5/5 ALSO it’s a crime no literary weirdo woman has written ‘a portrait of the artist’s sister’ about delia ‘dilly’ dedalus, shadow of stephen’s mind, quick far & daring, teaching herself french from a 3rd hand primer while her father drinks the nonexistent family fortune away and her older brother is getting drunk on a beach & starting fights w/ soldiers bc he’s a smartarse

#the books i read #long post

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sleepymarmot · 6 years

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A couple of months ago, after finishing COUNTER/Weight, I spent about a week in a total hangover, relistening to scenes and having feelings. I took some notes, but procrastinated posting them, and then finally got distracted. But, a) I hate leaving things I intended for tumblr unposted, even if they have value only for me, and b) I also hate posting things out of order, and there's a big TM liveblog incoming. So, here's a bunch of really random thoughts about C/w from past me.

The gnosis virus did go nowhere huh. I was hopeful for a minute when one of the finale intros mentioned it, but that was it. What was the purpose of that arc even. [Note from present me: Lol. At least I feel better about this one!]

Oh, and the patch AuDy left never reappeared either. And the idea from the faction game that Aria's images owned by EarthHome/Petrichor transmit Rigour code… That's the flip side of the coin. On the one hand, it's really cool to see the creative process – on the other, it sometimes feels like you're listening to people write a script for the tv show, but only get to see a half of the finished product. It's fascinating to see the universe grow organically and the players to come up with new ideas and get excited about them – but that means numerous retcons, some of them not even presented as such, because the creators forgot what the previous revision was or didn't thought it was important. It's a unique feature of the medium that player choice directs the narrative and it's not bound by railroading – but that means some roads lead nowhere, and some branches dry and fall off.

It's a bit harder to make peace with something that could have easily been developed more within the existing plot of the show. How come there's a player character whose consciousness consists of three different people in various combinations, but nobody seems to be curious how that works? No PC or NPC ever asked “Which one of you is speaking right now?” or something. The final episodes made a lot of things clearer, but it still felt too little, too late. Hard not to be reminded of that gripe about certain two characters sharing one character sheet one of whom was left underdeveloped and half-forgotten… Both are very ambitious concepts that require a double amount of work from the player, so I feel bad complaining they weren't realized to full potential, but…

Speaking of L&D… I still want to know how the hell did that one engineer all by herself design 4 gods, one of which became a basis for technology that was advanced even for the civilizations 80,000 years later? This woman singlehandedly surpassed any technological achievement of humanity before and after. Who Is She

I saw a “Wake me up: before you go go / when september ends / wake me up inside” meme and thought “heh, this sounds relevant, which member of the Chime is which?” and it already made me sad, but then I realized that I'd never actually heard the september song and looked it up and. The lyrics fit so well. What the fuck. It's an old song everyone keeps joking about. Why is it appropriate for a legitimate fanmix. What. I guess the word “September” will never be the same again for me.

I looked up the rules for Firebrands, the game used for the finale. Oh my, challenges for the dance minigame are so overtly romantic when you see them in a list together! Imagine this cast of characters having to answer to “do you place your hand upon my elbow, shoulder, waist, or hip?” lmao. Also I didn't realize “May I?” was part of the rules for “stealing time together”. (And I found out there's a party version of that minigame with bug-themed challenges. I might have dug too deep…) "Tactical skirmish" is a really fascinating concept, I've never seen such a masochistic combat system! Really faces the player with the violence they're inflicting: sure, you can always fight on, but are you ready to live with what you'll have to do? But for it to work fully, you need a lot of non-expendable NPCs on both sides. The one with the most likeable team wins! (Like Mako did.)

I'm relistening to Three Conversations and it's pretty interesting that Ibex has a bunch perfectly lifelike android bodies, right? There is no such technology seen anywhere else. Did Righteousness develop and privatize that? Are they so complex that only a Divine would have enough computing power to successfully mimic organic life? Can Aria convince Righteousness to help her perform on stage without leaving her duties? Also, like with AuDy, I wonder how Ibex & Righteousness' consciousness works. Is it a single mind, spread across every body he has, or even anything Righteousness is running on, having a bunch of different conversations at once if he needs to? Or is the original Ibex just gone, and what's left is a personality imprint hanging on to the connection to his still living body, imitating his former self like the automated recording Cass saw wore his face? In other words, has Ibex completely fused with Righteousness, or assimilated and destroyed by it? Does he not exist anymore as an independent singular being, or does he not exist at all? Most info indicates the former, but there was also “You’re not in there anymore” “No”.

If Orth and Jace are anime fans with their Kingdom Come and Panther, then Ibex is the guy who's way too into dinosaurs or paleontology. It's as if the heads of various confessions were called Triceratops, Stegosaurus etc. and only one of them knows wtf that means, and also he compares his Divine to… Were there scavenging dinosaurs? I'm looking at an article that suggests T. Rex might have been a scavenger, so yeah he would compare Righteousness to a goddamn T. Rex.

Hey what do you think is the most thematically aproppriate part of the Hieron anime for Orth to watch alone at night during the Kingdom game. What's the best thematic parallel for when he turns off the episode and thinks he made a mistake. Do you think that he once, after a long day and a long month and maybe a long year of feeling helpless and doomed, sits down for a distraction but ends up sobbing “How could they let this happen to Mother Glory”

On Joypark, there are definitely statues of Eidolons, ancient and holy, that were repainted and repurposed as Hieron deities. Imagine a giant Greek or Roman style marble statue of Apote – and it’s painted over as Samot, with an anime face and in really bright plain colors like these “reconstructions of original coloring” that actually only use base colors so they look like cheap action figures.

I was reading Austin's top ten games of 2016 list on Waypoint and he gave first place to The Sprawl! Aww!

The Downloads folder in my phone gallery is funny bc it mostly consists of every freely available f@tt map and also that one photo of Tristan Walker (because I tried to redraw it, very unsuccessfully). I go check a map and every time am met by Ibex just. staring at me. It's unsettling

Some of the many options for how Apostolosian gender could have been presented:

Apostolosians prefer to be addressed by the most neutral available human pronoun, represented as "they" in English, because the human languages don't have anything close enough

Apostolosian pronouns are represented in English by a set of real-life common pronouns and neopronouns

There's a list of Apostolosian pronouns and they're just used in English verbatim (Really impractical because the players need a cheat sheet, but the most fair)

Humans apply human genders to Apostolosians. Apostolosians may be offended, may find it convenient, or something else

As Austin said in the post-mortem, the Eidolon system is not gender. It's represented in English by titles/honorifics/etc

Any of the above, and the creators are aware of the difference between personal pronouns, grammatical gender, and social gender

And that’s not even touching the core problem of what the concept of gender in a futuristic, techonologically advanced society would look like. Yes, I'm complaining about this for the third time but I'm just. So tired of native English speakers' takes on gendered language. They could have made Apostolosian gender look like anything and they made it look like that fucking mess... God, I really hope TM is good enough to make me forget and forgive the experience of listening to “he... sorry, they” for 100 hours. [Note from present me: Well… mostly]

Here’s my take on this: eidolons in Apostolosian language are absurdly broad noun classes with associated classifiers (which fits both the idea that they’re gender but not actually, and that each of them is a patron to several unrelated aspects of life) Apostolosian: the word “(Apo)thesa” is used to refer to people who follow the corresponding eidolon, as well as for counting buildings, heavy machinery, military units, specific strategies and tactics, log entries, historical documents and chronicles, history textbooks and monographs, and eras :) Human: what the fuck

Very critical, imaginative worldbuilding in which 80,000+ years into the future humanity somehow has 21st century gender and 21st century capitalism! TBH, I find any sci-fi set in the far future inherently silly – we can’t really imagine the future technogy and its effect on society. But it feels like C/w barely even tried, and to hear it boast about “critical worldbuilding” is kinda strange. I assumed that meant they build the world critically, not that they recreate modern society or some aspect of it and criticize that! It’s just another Star Trek then! And it was already clear right during the setup when they said “We don’t want Star Trek aliens” and immediately created Apostolosians.

I haven't seen a single piece of fanart with Taako and Mako. Come on, does nobody want to see these two next to each other! Especially considering the outfits artists like to put Taako in!

I really don't understand how and why people do fandom activities on Twitter and Discord where the creators also have accounts. It gives me so much secondhand embarrassment. I can barely peek at Twitter posts before running away. Old-fashioned opinion apparently but I strongly believe the main fandom space and the interaction-with-original-creators space should be separate. I need a space where I can voice my opinions, especially negative ones, with complete freedom. I need to be able to say exactly what's on my mind. But I wouldn't want any of the people on the podcast to read something unfiltered like my complaints above. Being in the same space as the source content creators obliges any decent person to be diplomatic and constructive. And the creators, in turn, need a space where they don't come across complete randos yelling at them about something they said in a podcast three years ago. I'm already feeling uncomfortable because hearing to strangers pour their hearts out for hundreds of hours gives me way too much insight on who they are as people. Of course, nothing’s stopping them from lurking on Tumblr or AO3 and even reading this very post, but a platform where they have official accounts is still a different thing! I even feel uncomfortable talking about the podcast creators using their first names so much. To my ear, referring to a total stranger by first name, especially if it's a shortened form, sounds so rude! I'm not their friend, I don't have that right! But, of course, writing something like “Mr Walker” in my liveblogs would have been even weirder, nobody does that...

Is it a common experience to not even think about fanfiction after listening to Hieron, but going straight to AO3 after C/w? I feel like since Hieron is still a work in progress, writing/reading about it is stepping on the GM&players' toes, and C/w is finished so it's like they gave us the keys to the playground, it's the fandom's turn now. This story has so much blanks and they must be filled! In one of the early episodes they joked that something cute they said would encourage people to ship Mako/Cass and I was like "Bold of you to assume they aren't already" and, indeed, I was right and it's the most popular C/w ship on AO3. Too bad I’m so indifferent to it…

It’s a shame we never had a full scene with Ariadne or even learned what they were up to during the finale.

I still don't understand how Ibex went from “evil CEO” to “leader of a proletarian revolution”, these sound like completely opposite concepts to me

I probably have talked about this too much and have pretty much given up on ever getting a clear picture due to all of these reimaginings but… Righteousness and Voice… Ibex takes Righteousness out of Mako but he still has Voice, that was pretty much openly stated, correct? So how does that work? I’m guessing Righteousness is hidden somewhere in Voice’s code. But if so:

Did Maryland know? On the one hand, she’s too competent not to. On the other, why would she ever allow or accept that?

How did Righteousness not get corrupted by Rigour too? Maybe it did, but broke off the connection with the rest of itself to contain the damage? Or maybe, on the contrary, it kept in contact and was sending intel to Ibex the whole time? But in that case he would have provided more help in the finale.

#friends at the table #blah blah blah

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sibilantly · 7 years

Note

for the ask game (because i forgot to ask actual questions like a fool): A for in the family of things, B, K, R!

(The ask game in question is this one!)

A: How did you come up with the title to in the family of things?

‘in the family of things’ is the final line from the wonderful poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. (You can read/listen to it here.)

Shortly before I began posting IFT, I was casting about madly for a title that I hoped would encapsulate the themes I was building into the story. “It has to evoke found families!” I hissed to myself. “People seeking atonement! People with vastly different experiences nevertheless finding a point of connection, and the joys and complications that brings!”

It was a lot to expect of one poor title, lol. (And probably shows you how stupidly ambitious/impatient I was, even back then.)

In the end, the main theme I focused on was that of found families, and Oliver’s poem swam up out of my memory. On its own/out of context, I found that line to be a fitting description of John, the orphan kids, Barsad, and Bane. They’re considered outsiders - less than human, things - by most of society, but they’ve nevertheless managed to form a quasi-found family.

That being said, the whole of Wild Geese encapsulates a lot of IFT’s themes, particularly the first six lines:

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesFor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?

Hmm, no, I don’t think so. At least, not in a direct manner. The topics/themes I try to explore (mostly in my longer works) are ones that are of intense interest to me, but they aren’t based on my personal experience. I think the closest I get is that a lot of the ‘mundane’ criminal and street life details I sprinkle through my Inception and TDKR fics come from my experience working with young and adult offenders.

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

Other than Persistence?

I once came up with this Mad Max crossover (fusion?), and I guess it could be viewed as a weird remix of Persistence. In fic, I’ve found that most people transplant the Inception characters into the Mad Max universe as Max’s contemporaries, but I was struck by this thought: what if Inception takes place before Fury Road?

What if you have an Arthur who is older, wiser, and - after many years together - still very in love with Eames. What if this Arthur - still in the illegal dreamshare game, like some founding father figure - is in Australia on a job (MAYBE EVEN SYDNEY, AY?) when the nuclear apocalypse goes down? What if he tries– God, he TRIES, he pulls every string, calls in every favour at his disposal, but the airports are closed, the ports impassable, and there’s no way out, no way for him to get to LA, or Mombasa, or any of the places Eames might be waiting for him?

What if Arthur has to come to terms with this? What if he has to learn to live with this unliveable truth, the bone-deep grief that comes from knowing that even if Eames managed to survive the bombs (he must have, Arthur tells himself, he did; Eames is, above all else, a survivor), Arthur will never see him again; he will have to go on, scrape together a new life in this barren world, because Arthur, too, is a survivor.

(And no, when they finally cross paths, Max is not Eames. He’s several years younger than Arthur, much younger than Eames would be (much younger than Eames is, Arthur corrects himself). It just fucks with Arthur’s grieving process more.)

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

Terry Pratchett is a huge influence on my work. I’m working doggedly to develop and hone my own voice - learning when to rein in the humour and let the emotional scenes stand on their own - but Pratchett’s potent blend of humour, humanity, and pathos is basically what I aspire to. LIFE GOALS, MAN. YOU GOTTA HAVE THEM.

Kai Ashante Wilson and Alyssa Wong are two thought-provoking speculative fiction writers (fantasy/dark fantasy/horror, mostly) whose works are interwoven with sharp, sometimes disturbing social commentary. When I finally get around to writing my OTHER canon-divergent TDKR novel, it’ll be Wilson’s and Wong’s fiction that I look to as atmospheric and thematic inspiration.

Yahtzee is the fic author I look up to when it comes to plotting world-changing AUs and/or stories with epic scope and depth. *deep sigh* IFT could only hope to hold a candle to her novels.

bauble, dialogue master par excellence, is the fic Yoda to my Luke. By which I mean she sits on my back, laughs while I struggle and bitch mightily about running through the swamp how my writing ambitions outstrip my current skill level. She pushes me to do better, refuses to let me get away with being lazy, and I learn something new from her every day. Again, I can only hope my works will one day hold a candle to hers.

(Thank you so much for the questions, and I hope I didn’t bore you to tears with my lengthy answers!)

#tumblr meme #fic asks #i am not familiar with this thing called brevity #ikenew

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cbspams · 3 years

Text

The Boyz - No Air (A Song of Ice and Fire)

These are gonna be super fucking long, just fair warning.

Hello again and welcome to another round of Delphine nitpicking a performance into the oblivion!

Honorable mention to my roommate who desperately despises kpop with all their heart but watched this performance (and the other TBZ performance) with me to help me get some insight on how attuned to GOT the performance was since I've never watched the show or read the books. For reference, they have read the books, watched the tv show and in their free time they listen to extensive opinion pieces and analytical essays on GOT. So I'd personally put their knowledge pretty high, but once again this is like a second hand account so sorry if I get things wrong.

ALRIGHT LETS GET IT!!

First, I wanna talk a bit about the pre-performance clips. I really liked the underwater photography studio idea as a way to feel and show desperation. I personally would need to do something else as I'm not afraid of water but I think that the literal concept of not having air is interesting and a good direction. I'm also really proud of Sunwoo for working so hard despite his fear, and I'm really touched by Younghoon specifically going back into the tank to help. Side note but pufferfish New hehehehe.

I genuinely wish they had used more of the film and photography from the session for the actual performance. I feel like a short pre-performance film would've really elevated the storyline, especially since they're trying to reference GOT which is (as according to the books and the show UP TO where the books ended, yknow, pre-season 8) really, really plot and lore based. Not to dive too deep into the theme yet but I feel as though a lot of TBZ's performances in Kingdom (which are really just this one and then O Sole Mio (Red Wedding) in round 2) aren't really expressing the full extent of their themes.

What I mean by this is that anyone who has read A Song of Ice and Fire (ASIF, pls dont @ me if this is the wrong acronym bc idk??) probably knows that TBZ performance wasn't really based in any events of the book or any themes of it. No Air is a desperate love song and there's plenty of desperation in ASIF but it really feels like TBZ did a mix of inspired by ice and fire (the literal elements) and set in ASIF (physical location markers). According to my roommate, the set pieces are recognizably places in ASIF but the performance didn't really track the themes present in the novel. I'll get to the Red Wedding later as well, but in both performances although TBZ were clearly trying to track some level of GOT's, it feels underdeveloped and therefore to me feels clunky, which is a bit disappointing because TBZ are masters of concepts and executing new ideas. Not sure if this makes sense but I guess if I had to summarize, it would be that they're taking inspiration from the name and title of things rather than the actual source material so it doesn't feel as effect in some ways. STILL, if I consider it operating on the level of just ice and fire rather than by GOT, they did a beautiful job!

Consider this: No Air is originally a bit more of an upbeat rhythm and melody but the way they toned it to be almost kind of in minor key to fit the desperation theme? Whoever's doing arrangement is putting out stuff that's really amazing. On top of that, the drum beats in the baseline add to that same feeling and then to have the turn around where the melody gets softer before the chorus, is a beautiful touch of contrast that really draws together the tender side of a desperate love. And the first chorus feels almost defeated, longing and yearning. I feel like the flow of the music really fit a tragic romance storyline, which I just love about TBZ.

Even with their less than stellar (imo) execution of theme, they're still putting out completely new and incredible ideas. Starting even with the 100 sec performances in which they did the hands thing and now with the POV camera direction, TBZ are taking full advantage of the stage and it's set up, which I cheer at every time I see it. Even the other groups are were picking up their ideas! See Stealer (The Scene) by SF9 in which Zuho "fights" the camera.

ALSO a quick note on the beginning camera work!! They show the frozen zombies (an allusion to the white walkers I assume) and they're completely stiff but then the camera moves towards Juyeon and the woman's arms take off one of his wrist cuffs before turning and you see that the zombies have moved!! And then there's a quick shot that as she's turned around to take off the other cuff, the zombies start to move again. That's a really smart way of setting up the kind of stakes in the moment, that if she doesn't get Juyeon free quickly then she'll be attacked and overtaken and Juyeon will stay trapped. The blocking in this moment is immaculate as far as story telling goes!! I love when the camera contributes to the theme and storyline, very much a show don't tell kind of thing. Love that for them.

The stretch screen is also a really interesting idea! I'm not sure how it correlates to ASIF or their theme necessarily, I think it's more of a performance aspect but literally Juyeon What The Fuck. He's genuinely so talented and it stems from his dedication and hard work. They kind of mention in the pre-performance clips that he's really harsh on himself and cries after performances when they don't do well, but legit I thought he did so, so well here. His expressions were really forlorn at first and once again, those dance moves!! Bro!!

On the topic of expressions, because one of their main themes is desperation, I watched really closely to how they were expressing that with their faces and bodies. I'm judging body language differently, since kpop dances tend to really favor the more hip hop, sharp isolation style and I can't view it like, oh they should've done contemporary dance.

Kevin's opening line gave me goosebumps. The kind of build up in the strings to his cool but forceful voice, mmph. I think Haknyeon's anger is also a really nice touch because desperation may be based in sadness but it's real expression usually comes out in anger. In that last do or die moment, are you cowering and hiding in an attempt to survive or do you fight back? The human body has a natural instinct to thrash around and reach for anything you can when you drown, and it feels like a fight because it is one. So although TBZ is aiming for a sad and tragic love story, because their main theme is what it is, I like that they included different sides from fury to despair. Sunwoo's little head toss back was really good too, both technically and thematically.

Honestly I don't know who choreo'd this but I really liked it. They definitely choreo'd it with the camera in mind, which I mean, everyone did but their was really smooth and easy to flow with. People were walking off camera nonchalantly, as opposed to sprinting off. It's something that ATEEZ had trouble with in the 100 sec performance (in the pre-performance clip) so you can see TBZ experience in performing the live take on the Kingdom stage (which I've mentioned before is a really unconventional type of stage). Plus because the arrangement slows in different places, they have little moments of tragic love as well (like pre-chorus when the camera unblindfolds Hyunjae or post-chorus when Haknyeon, Kevin, Sangyeon, and Jacob hold the lover's hands tenderly), which just emphasizes their desperation! I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot but tbh that just goes to show how in tuned TBZ are with their emotional theme. Another thing is the zombies, which continues the theme from before that they're fighting somehow to stay with their lover or that their time is in danger. Sunwoo dangling over the hoard, like okay. Okay! I see you! Oof, props to you choreographer, props to you.

YOUNGHOON!!! What an actor man, he's got such a diverse range of facial expressions. He really pulls off the kind of empty, forlorn look, ugh. Please get this man a role in a drama, 11/10 would watch. Honestly Juyeon too, please guys I'm too wear for those intense, piercing looks.

That last moment is interesting. It's almost like they're flinging their lover away from the fire, rejecting them so they'll be safe? The explosion in the back honestly doesn't make a lot of sense except as some kind of climactic moment but I don't think they needed it. It doesn't really fit the story they were telling, nor does it set up for their next performance so like. Why lol.

I'm new TBZ and I've been kind of eating up content from them, but especially because I got to know them through RTK, I had really high expectations for them now. I think they're still doing wonderfully, especially between the new creative freedoms Kingdom offers. But I also think they're suffering what I've previously described as the kind of burden to come up with something that fits in the set.

A quick recap: Because RTK had less budget and was smaller, the props and sets were a lot more simple and specific. Each group had to create stories using limited props which forced them to be more technically advanced with their formations, dance moves, arrangements etc. Because Kingdom has more budget and can now create elaborate sets and costumes etc, I think the groups are somehow less diverse and creative here than in RTK. Their technical skill still shines through but it feels like a lot of it gets covered with the sets and stuff.

So like in RTK, TBZ made ample usage of their own bodies to tell stories whereas now it feels like they're not doing that and it makes me sad in some ways because I think that's the appeal of a competition show. That you're allowed to make more story telling with your own body, instead of following pure performance choreography like in normal performances. Something that comes to mind for example is like The Eve from EXO. The song is supposedly about standing up to corruption but the dance is uh. Sexy and honestly not very aligned with the song. So like that's kind of a choreography and performance for the sake of performance. But on RTK, groups were able to have more themed storytelling and TBZ were a master of it, from thieves in Danger to revolutionaries in Reveal. So I'm just a little sad to see that kind of vanish with the budgeting that comes with Kingdom.

Despite all that, I still think TBZ have put on a great performance and it's still really interesting and fun to watch. I hope that their future performances allow them a little more creativity and storytelling with their bodies and techniques, with the set pieces helping enhance that rather than hinder it.

#admin talk #kingdom commentary #kingdom performance comments #drowning cw

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furederiko · 7 years

Photo

The good'ol 69... I mean, June 9th. Not that it has any special nor personal meaning though, except for the fact that I'm posting a Random-News-Digest!...

Resident Evil

It's not a secret that I have always favored the CG movies of this franchise, way better than Milla Jovovich's live action series. Those Hollywood movies were okay to good, mind you, but honestly, have they ever got it... right? Not saying that the Japanese CG ones have greater quality, but it just feels more faithful to the source material somehow. That's why when "Resident Evil: Vendetta" was first announced April last year, I know I'm totally going to see it. And yes, that opportunity is slowly approaching, as the Spring movie had officially opened in Japan on May 27th, and will be hitting the international region this month. In home video format, that is. Digital download will be available on June 20th, while the Bluray edition will be on the market on July 18th. There's an exclusive one night event in selected theatres on June 19th too, but I'm guessing that only takes place in the US.

Several character-specific trailers were released to commemorate the Japanese release last month. There was one for Chris Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy, Rebecca Chambers, and also the main antagonist Glenn Arias. It's worth noted that the three first names are characters from the first game, and don't take my word on this, but there's a likelihood that this movie is related to that title. It's a good thing though, considering the latest game of the franchise opted to go with a completely new protagonist. Anyways, fans of Chris and Leon can only wait a little longer to see their next adventure. And we should enjoy it as much as we can, because there are signs that Hollywood is already thinking of rebooting the live action movie-series... Oh boy! *sigh*

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Second movie of the franchise, the tentatively titled "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2" has a finished script, and is currently doing an interesting casting process. Namely, they are looking for teen versions of the main characters. When I first read the headline to this news, I was quite... surprised, because my head was literally thinking about Harry Potter, Ron, and Hermione. Which of course, is completely incorrect! Ignoring the glaring irony that the "Harry Potter" franchise is still looming large on my head, completely overshadowing this new prequel series, the younger cast they are talking about is for Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald, Leta Lestrange, and... possibly Newt Scamander. After all, as far as I recall, Newst IS supposed to be the central character, right? Hmmm...

And this could be big. We know that Johnny Depp is portraying the adult (or... old?) Grindelwald, and Jude Law has been entrusted to portray the younger (but also... old?) Dumbledore. Since Grindelwald was already terrorizing Europe in the first movie, it seems unlikely that they are still in good terms, right? So the casting of actors between the age of 16 to 18 means writer J.K. Rowling is finally giving fans what they've always wanted: more historical moment between the two. As in, regarding their so-called intimate friendship that led towards a disastrous outcome. Perhaps what ever happened to the Dumbledore household (his mother Kendra, brother Aberforth, and sister Ariana), the mystery that was briefly talked about late in the "Harry Potter" series, is making their way into this movie? A backstory for Dumbledore, to put it simple.

For now, it's still nothing more than random speculation. But hopefully we'll get a clearer understanding of the plot, when the movie officially begins production. Which should take place, sometime later this year, to make it for a November 16th, 2018 release. I can only hope, the whole Dumbledore and Grindelwald story is still connected to Newt somehow. I don't know, perhaps through Leta? Otherwise, having a main character alienated in his own movie, would be a fatal mistake. Not that it's anything new for Warner Bros though...

Dark Universe

Universal is pretty serious about their shared Monsters universe. While they only have one movie, "The Mummy" on the horizon so far, the plan has already begun including a second title in Bill Condon's "The Bride of the Frankenstein", as well as developing some others. We can now add three more possible titles, in the list of projects currently in development, or planned. Director and also producer Alex Kurtzman, recently revealed that the lineup will also consist of... Dracula, Phantom of the Opera, and Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The first was a no-brainer, since the 2013 critically-panned "Dracula Untold" was initially meant to kickstart this universe. But of course, everyone is talking about the other two on that list. Why? Because nobody suspected both would even be considered. I found those titles to be... intriguing, to say the least. Thematically, they fit this universe like a bill, but the genre of both movies would also add additional colors to this universe. And that's not all, because Kurtzman is also thinking of spinoff-ing other characters from within the lineup. "I think that digging into deep mythologies about monsters around the world is fair game for us, as well and connecting the monsters that we know to some surprising monsters could also be really interesting.", he said, which honestly made me speechless because I'm having trouble to describe my response to that bit. He's also aiming big, by desiring big actors like Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Charlize Theron, and Angelina Jolie to be part of this ensemble. You can check out exclusive interview with Kurtzman on Joblo Trailer's Youtube channel about this Dark Universe project.

Problem is, early tracking for "The Mummy" alone, isn't showing a good sign. Especially, in the shadow of WB's "Wonder Woman" that seems to be still doing good. And we must remember, that the Tom Cruise vehicle is being marketed as the brave first step of this universe. What if, pessimistically speaking, the movie fails to resonate with audience. Are we going to have another case of "Dracula Untold", or will Universal simply ignore the outcome (critically or financially) this time, and proceed with their plan anyway? I don't know, perhaps singing the tune of WB's DC Films?

And indeed, that's where the big question mark lies. Hot on the heels of a very promising news, that the movie is breaking opening day record in South Korea, critics have also begun publishing their thoughts. And it was simply... mixed at best. Some folks (like Ain't It Cool, and Collider) sounded like they actually had fun with it, but others (like Polygon, and IndieWire) are being the complete opposite. The Hollywood Reporter even called it "An inauspicious beginning to a would-be franchise.". Yes, go ahead and look that word up in the dictionary! So is this an apple and orange situation? Case of an acquired taste? I can't really tell. But the general consensus seems to lean towards the irony, that the movie is burdened to kickstart a new cinematic universe. Thus unable to be 'its own thing'.

The logic however, is that eventhough it will probably NOT do so well in the US, Universal is counting on international market to give it a financial push. As proven by Paramount's "Transformers" (particularly that Chinese-heavy 4th movie) or Disney's "Pirates of the Carribbean" franchise, international audience usually couldn't care less about what US critics are saying. LOL. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the response to this movie affects the entire Dark Universe then. And I'm strangely rooting for it, because as I've repeatedly said, I really want to see more of Russell Crowe's Dr. Jekyll in the future. "The Mummy", opens on June 9th, 2017... which is TODAY in my time region.

X-Men Universe

If anyone asks me why I'm NOT (or no longer) a fan of FOX's Marvel Universe, the answer would be VERY simple. Because I despise inconsistencies. Continuity issues and inconsistent writing, disregarding source materials, with characters being robbed of their full potential and shoehorned for the sake of... nothing important... are glaring elements that have been plaguing the X-Men movies for such a long time. These are easy proofs that the people behind this so-called universe, are NOT doing a good job. And yes, I'm talking about Bryan Singer, and especially producer Simon Kinberg. Ironically, this was also the reason why "Deadpool" worked. Because that movie fearlessly pointed out what really is WRONG about this whole universe, while adding more questions. Case point, the existence of two Professor Xs, two Collosuses, and many more. Even the critically acclaimed "Logan", couldn't escape this blatant continuity trapping, further showing the flaw in design.

Now we can add another one to the list. As Josh Boone's "The New Mutants" (or "X-Men: The New Mutants"... because seriously, even I'm not really sure about the movie's official title) has recently cast a second actor to portray the mutant Sunspot. While confirming that Charlie Heaton is indeed in talks to portray Cannonball, Variety revealed that actor Henry Zaga of "13 Reasons Why" has been cast as the solar-powered mutant. Why is he the 2nd you ask? Because Adan Canto (as pictured above) has already portrayed the criminally-underused character in the logically-flawed "X-Men: Days of Future Past". Does this mean, FOX is expecting Zaga to grow up into Canto (to be fair, they ARE at around the same... height)? As in, "The New Mutants" is happening years prior to "Days of Future Past"? Unless... this will be an entirely different character, which once again, points out the exact issue.

There's more than just Sunspot. Variety also ridiculously over-praised "The New Mutants", when revealing the movie's premise, "Fox/Marvel redefines the superhero genre once again with the horror thriller, The New Mutants. Mutants are at their most dangerous, both to themselves and others, when their powers are new, especially because mutation reveals itself during the teenage years. Held in a secret facility against their will, five new mutants have to battle the dangers of their powers, as well as the sins of their pasts. They aren’t out to save the world – they’re just trying to stay alive.". Though it's likely that the media merely used it to boost visitors, I'm not sure I can easily ignore the exaggerating word of 'redefines' here. HOW... is making this into a horror/thriller 'redefines' the genre, when the likes of "Lucifer", "Preacher", the Ghost Rider arc on "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", and even FOX and FX's very own "LEGION" has already done the same? Didn't they have already attempted this whole storyline with the craptastic "Fant4stic Four" back in 2015? The more pressing matter however, is once again about WHAT TIMELINE will this movie take place. Will this occur after "X-Men: Apocalypse"? Or, in the same era to "Deadpool", considering Collosus' younger sister is in this? I can't even imagine how "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" will continue to add to this... messy affair.

Putting that issue aside, "The New Mutants" has found its Danielle Moonstar as well. Actress Blu Hunt will be portraying the character, who is a Native American with the power to generate illusion from other person's fears and desires. I myself have never heard of the actress, but it seems she's got the talent, if not simply racially appropriate for the character (like Booboo Stewart's Warpath, hence the reason I used that exact picture). This means, the team is almost complete with Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, Maisie Williams as Wolfsbane, along with the two guys I mentioned above. FOX only needs to find an actor to voice Warlock as the remaining team member, considering the alien will likely be a CG character. With production set to commence next month, looks like we're going to hear an official cast announcement really soon. I can't seem to get excited about this no matter how I tried, but perhaps the opposite is happening with you. Good for you then!

Marvel Studios

Things have been pretty quite from the movie front, which might be caused due to the studio taking a back seat while WB and their DC Films are taking the headlines. But that should be over pretty soon. This weekend alone, Universal has begun taking all the headlines with their Dark Universe. Also, "Spider-Man: Homecoming" is arriving in less than a month, so of course its marketing will start to ramp up. And that's probably the case... as proven by the various TV Spots and Clips from the movie arriving online. Like the ones about Marisa Tomei's May Parker, Zendaya's Michele, or Michael Keaton's Vulture.

As far as I know, none of those are as official as the new one recently released on Marvel's channel (with new footage too! Yikes!). But you can visit Joblo Trailers on Youtube to see them if you like. I personally haven't seen any that focuses on Bokeem Woodbine/Logan Marshall-Green's Shocker, but perhaps that's because they are merely secondary villains. One thing for sure, I can't wait to see this movie. Although I'm not even sure I can, due to an unexpected financial urgency happening late last month... *sigh*. Anyway, "Homecoming" arrives on July 7th, 2017 in the US (pre-order is already available), and is expected to premiere earlier in international regions.

Meanwhile, "Avengers: Infinity War" continues production, and if the entry on IMDb can be trusted, looks like Winston Duke will be reprising his role as M'Baku or the Man-Ape from "Black Panther". This means we might be seeing more of Wakanda in the movie as well. Some people are already calling "Infinity War" to be overstuffed, a statement that's in a way seems accurate judging from that line of actor trailers (courtesy of the Russo Brothers). But this IS a movie that's supposed to be the culmination (first part of two, at least) of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2008, so... it does make a lot of sense to have so many characters in it. Heck, I think "Captain America: Civil War" alone has already broke the record of the biggest ensemble yet for comic book adaptation.

Speaking of Panther, expect to hear details of the movie alongside November 3rd's "Thor: Ragnarok" on this year's Disney D23 expo. Perhaps, the first official trailer will be unveiled there? To be held from July 14th-16th, there will be props, costumes, and exclusive set pieces from both movies, as well as others. Fans will have the chance to see the filmmakers, development team, and also actors in this event. If you happen to be luckily in the area and are interested to visit this event, you can visit the official site D23Expo.com, or get details via D23 app.

Marvel TV

I've seen the sneak-peak to the upcoming new series "Marvel's Spider-Man", and my oh my, the animation quality looks surprisingly... WEAK. It felt... underwhelming, and it has been bugging me ever since, because it didn't feel any different to the recently concluded "Ultimate Spider-Man" series. Also, and I'm being nitpicky, it's banking on "Homecoming" a little TOO MUCH, and I don't like that. When a show is taking cue to a particular movie, it's a make-or-break situation, especially because we know both will NOT be related in any way. Marvel Animation's very own "Guardians of the Galaxy" series is a good example of this problem. A series that felt like it was aimed to explore the 2014 movie in a detailed manner, before completely going overboard and... Well, let's just say I lost interest for it halfway through, and has never even bothered to check out the 2nd season.

The same personal response goes to the 4th season of "Avengers Assemble", officially subtitled "Avengers: Secret Wars". Judging from the 6 character-intro webisodes that I've watched last week, I can only say that the quality of this series is... pretty much the same. For the record, the first three seasons were never THAT good in the first place, so its not a good sign. But this new season seems to dip even lower in the story department, and that raised a dangerous flag for me. Can't believe I'm saying this (not because I'm a fan, but because I've actually been anticipating these new titles for quite a while), but I'm already thinking of giving it a huge pass. And I'm not just talking about "Secret Wars", but "Spider-Man" as well. I can only hope Marvel Animation is preparing something BIG to make up for this. Perhaps that announcement they will reveal on the D23 Expo 2017? We'll see...

From the live action side, Marvel's "New Warriors" is expected to film in Atlanta. This shouldn't be a surprise, because the city has become a regular spot for Marvel Studios to film their projects. Movies like "Civil War", "Homecoming", "Infinity War", and many others sets up their massive sound stage and goes into production there. This particular location offers up interesting questions: Does this mean the casting process has been concluded and is going to be announced soon? Will the setting of this Freeform series take place in Atlanta as well, as opposed to New York? Will we actually get the long awaited crossover between TV series and movies, considering they will be filmed in the same location? "New Warriors" is expected to premiere in 2018.

Netflix

With Marvel's "The Defenders" confirmed for an August 18th release, the one big question looming on every Marvel-Netflix fans' mind has been: so when will Jon Bernthal's Marvel's "The Punisher" arrive? Both Marvel TV and Netflix have only revealed that it will be released this year, but without any specific details. And the cast has wrapped production some time ago. Will it arrive on Winter then? The answer is... in a way, yes.

Dearbhla Walsh, who directed and edited an episode might have unintentionally spilled the bean regarding the show's release month. Talking to The Hollywood Reporter about her experience behind the camera, Walsh said that "One other time that hasn't been aired yet, which was an episode for the new Marvel series The Punisher, which I did just before Christmas, but it's not airing until November. I directed that in New York and edited in L.A.". So yeah, surprising as it might be considering "Ragnarok" is debuting that very same month, looks like Frank Castle will be rampaging the small screen as well. Hold on... it just occured to me: Is this series trying to steal attention and likely audience from WB's "The Justice League" then? WOW, that might be interesting. Let's just wait for the official confirmation from Netflix then...

Possible release window has also been partially confirmed for the three titles currently in production. Yes, I'm talking about the 2nd seasons for Marvel's "Jessica Jones", and Marvel's "Luke Cage" (which will explore his public identity issue), and also the 3rd season of "Marvel's Daredevil". While there are no fixed release date yet, highly likely all three will be released next year. And if Netflix follows this year's pattern, then we can expect these shows to be out on March, August, and November.

The only show that hasn't been officially 'renewed' is Marvel's "Iron Fist", and I'm not too surprised about it. In fact, I won't even be shocked if it ends up getting cancelled, thus Finn Jones and Jessica Henwick will be transferred to other shows instead. Netflix fairly recently did a string of cancellations to its original series, and the latest victim was the critically-mixed "Sense8". The fact that "Sense8" was better received in terms of storyline and particularly diversity than "Iron Fist", is already a negative indication. Don't forget, "Iron Fist" was simply made because it was part of the 'Defenders Package' that Netflix signed with Marvel TV, and that obligation has been fulfilled with that disappointing first season. So as much as I'm a fan of the character in the comics, I say good riddance. Time to bring the "Moon Knight" to take its place!

Valiant Entertainment

Talk about another universe I've never heard of! And not to mention, coming from a US comic publisher I'm also not familiar of. Comic book adaptation seems to be all the rage nowadays, we've got movies every other month, and also various kinds of TV series in various networks/platforms. Of course Valiant Comics would want to join such promising market, and their approach is going through the digital segment.

The best way to promote their new series? By debuting their live action characters as cover models for their upcoming comics. Yes, that means the cast of "Ninjak VS. The Valiant Universe" in full costume. Derek Theler, and the one and only Jason David Frank (yes, that super popular Power Rangers actor) are joining lead actor Michael Rowe on the second issue of "Rapture". They are respectively playing X-O Manowar, Bloodshot, and duh, of course Colin King a.k.a Ninjak. Ciera Foster's Livewire is on the cover of "Divinity" #0, and Alex Meglei is pairing up with Kevin Porter as Archer & Armstrong on "Rai: The History of the Valiant Universe" #1. If you ask me, I LITERALLY have no idea about ANY of these characters and most of the actors (Tommy's the sole exception). I'm not even sure how I should react!

Dinesh Shamdasani, Valiant Entertainment's CEO and CCO talked to ComicBook.com (that helped debuted these images and also a TRAILER, seriously!), and well... fearlessly made a direct comparison to Marvel and DC. Here's what he said, "Valiant is very different. It's character-centered. It's grounded. It's subversive. It's left of center. It's quirky. We wanted to include the characters that showcased to a new audience how different and exciting Valiant is and why it's something equal to Marvel and DC and so these are the characters, our biggest characters and our most exciting characters to showcase the Valiant tonality.". Pretty confident, huh? The site also wrote a synopsis for the series, and what... we can expect from it. I honestly scratched my head after reading it, but likely because I'm practically clueless about the... whole thing. "Ninjak VS. The Valiant Universe" is set to debut online later this year. Valiant fans might want to watch out for it...

Kamen Rider

On contrary to that delicious Sushi-themed rumor, the title for the 19th "Kamen Rider" series has been trademarked. And the title is... "Kamen Rider Build"! Or at least, that's the common sense, because the katakana 'BIRUDO' is usually romanized as BUILD. Remember, it can always refer to BILD, BEALD, BEARD, and the likes that sounds... similar. A possible first toy catalogue has also made its rounds in the internet. If this year's "Kamen Rider Ex-Aid" has game cartridge as the collectible, this one seems to be based on... bottles. Interesting, huh?

Of course, we can't immediately rule out the Sushi one either. If I recall correctly, there was a fashion theme on the rumor board before it was revealed to be Kamen Rider Ghost. And turns out, Ghost did use the fashion gimmick! So who knows, it's always possible that "Kamen Rider Build" is a food and beverages theme after all, with Build being a sports drink, while the second Rider could be sushi. Hey, this IS Japanese Tokusatsu we're talking about! The franchise that combined gamers with doctor, and fruits with samurai. We'll be hearing more about this new Rider very soon. Because it has been an annual custom now, to debut the new series' lead on the currently running one. Expect Build, or whatever he is officially called, to appear on "Kamen Rider Ex-Aid the Movie: True Ending" that premieres this August.

Cowboy Beebop

When Hollywood is running out of new idea, they tend to go over and scrape old titles from the vast library (and sometimes barrels) of Japanese entertainment fault. That's how Super Sentai became "Power Rangers", "Dragon Ball: Evolution" got made. "Ghost in the Shell" and "Death Note" got whitewashed, adaptation to "Akira" is still being pursued by many studios and directors, and many more.

The next victi... I mean, target is none other than "Cowboy Beebop". This might sound strange, but I've never fully seen the 1998 series and the 2001 movie, nor even interested to check it out. I don't know, perhaps because it's just... not for me? Because I prefer modern ones, nowadays? Or because I wasn't into jazz as much that time... because I was still... young? LOL. I'm also aware however, that it has (present tense) so many fans, especially in the western hemisphere. Due to that exact reason, back in 2009, there was a plan to create a live action movie based on this series. It even had actor Keanu Reeves attached to star as Spike Spiegel. Suffice to say, the project faded to obscurity. But now it's being revived again, but as a TV series. And I'm not kidding!

Tomorrow Studios and ITV Studios are set to produce this adaptation, alongside Sunrise Studios as the executive producer. Chris Yost, who wrote "Thor: The Dark World" and sequel "Ragnarok" (as well as that amazing series "Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes"), has been signed to write this series. Marty Adelstein, Becky Clements, Midnight Radio (Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec, Jeff Pinkner, and Scott Rosenberg), and Matthew Weinberg are producing. It's unclear is this project was an evolution to that movie one, but Adelstein certainly showed his excitement to work on it, and said believed that "a live action version will have an incredible impact today". I'm personally unsure if a TV budget would be able to deal with the series' setting, but who am I to argue. Let's just hope that it'll work out time around then...

Marvel vs Capcom

An interesting rumor concerning the upcoming "Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite" sparked throughout the internet last month. A NeoGAF user claimed to have discovered the full roster of the game, and well, it was rather... underwhelming.

As of April, we've known that the roster consists of Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Hawkeye, Rocket Raccoon, and Ultron from the Marvel side, and Ryu, Rockman X, Morrigan, Chun-Li, Strider Hiryu, Chris Redfield, and Sigma from the CAPCOM side. That makes for 13 characters so far, considering both Ultron and Sigma (who can combine into... duh, big bad boss Ultron Sigma) are likely DLC characters. According to this rumor, the Marvel side will be extended with Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Gamora, Nova, Groot, Spider-Man, and Thanos, while CAPCOM adds Arthur, Dante, Firebrand, Jedah, Monster Hunter, Nemesis, Spencer, and one unknown character that might be Frank West. There will be six additional DLC characters for the first season, including the two names I've mentioned before. The big surprise here, is that most of these names are familiar ones who have appeared in previous installments. The only new characters are Ant-Man, Gamora, Nova, Thanos, Jedah, and Monster Hunter, and this has certainly disappointed a lot of fans.

I'm personally indifferent to this situation, but the complaints from fans certainly... make a lot of sense. CAPCOM side is definitely lacking fresh characters from their latest titles. I've said before, they could've added some new characters like Rashid, or Karin from "Street Fighter V" to give it... a current feel. Things are slightly better on Marvel side with the inclusion of Ant-Man, but fans easily questions why lesser popular character like Gamora is taking over the spot that would've been better occupied by Star-Lord or at least Black Widow. And how about Black Panther, or Vision, to replace the missing X-Men characters? Now, this is still a rumor for now, so we need to take it with a huge grain of salt. It's not yet clear if it's true or not anyway. However, the user who posted this news was the one who leaked the existence of the game before it was announced last November, and has been on point with his next scoops. So does this mean, it's the real deal? Here's hoping the D23 Expo 2017 will help clear this out, while hopefully pleasing its disappointed fans along the way. "Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite" will arrive on September 19th, 2017.

Pocket Monsters

The Pokemon Company held a highly anticipated Pokemon Direct a few days ago on June 6th through various means, and naturally, fans were eagerly looking forward to hear confirmation about the long-rumored "Pokemon Stars". But against all odds, the company delivered a massive surprise instead, and announced... "Pokemon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon"!

Yep, this was... UNEXPECTED. I mean, who would've thought that the VII generation will be following the "Pokemon Black & White" route? But the biggest surprise here, rather than utilizing the new Nintendo Switch hybrid console, these two new titles will be exclusively released for the... Nintendo 3DS. Yes, exactly like "Pokemon Black 2 & White 2" that opted to avoid 3DS at the time. The premise of "Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon" is sure to make fans scratching their heads too. Apparently, these two new titles will offer an alternate story taking place in the world of "Pokemon Sun & Moon", which might explain why both Solgaleo and Lunala look... possessed by Necrozma in the covers. Once again, this brings to mind "Black 2 & White 2" that had Kyuren taking the power and form of Zekrom and Reshiram. The good side of this, along with new features, it is said to feature Pokemon that did not appear in the original. That means, we might be getting that rumored snowman and dolphin Pokemon after all! However wishful thinking that might be... LOL. The bad side however? It seems, some fans are/were NOT pleased with this outcome. Likely because many expected this new title to appear on Nintendo Switch. IMO, that would've been a wise choice as well, particularly following the mixed response to its paid online feature. The hybrid console is definitely in need of a fan favorite franchise like Pokemon to attract more players. And about that... well, on to the next paragraph.

Further adding flame to the disappointment news, the reveal of "Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon" arrived at the very end of an extensive live action trailer that focused on "Pokken Tournament DX". Which is indeed, the FIRST official Pokemon title for Switch! So in a sense, The Pokemon Company DID give what fans wanted, but NOT exactly what they hoped. "Pokken Tournament DX" is basically another port of the "Pokken" series, that combined the content of Wii U and Arcade version. This means all 16 characters from Wii U and the new ones on Arcade are playable from the get-go, with the exclusive addition of Decidueye from "Sun & Moon". Both Litten and Popplio also available as new support Pokemon. There are several new features as well, to enhance the game's replayability. And to celebrate this game, Nintendo will be hosting a tournament on June 14th, 2017 at the E3 2017 Expo.

To be fair, being a fighting game,"Pokken" does feel more at home with Switch's multiplayer capability. As that trailer suggests, this works as a fun party game as well, a game that people can enjoy in the company of friends and family. So it makes sense that Nintendo opts to push this title instead of a stand alone single-player Pokemon title. After all, Nintendo already had a critically-acclaimed open world RPG on Switch, in form of "Zelda: Breath of the Wild". They need a good fighting game title, that will be specifically exclusive to the console. But will we get an actual core Pokemon title for Switch, or will that honor be given to the successor of 3DS instead? That exact same question still remains. "Pokken Tournament DX" is released worldwide for Switch on September 22nd, alongside "Pokemon Gold & Silver" on the 3DS Virtual Console. "Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon" will then follow exclusively for 3DS on November 17th.

On the smartphone App corner, while the utterly silly but surprisingly addictive "Magikarp, Jump!" is taking the world by stor... I mean splash, and "PokeLand" is released to let players interact with... Pokemon toys, "Pokemon GO" is about to have its 1-Year Anniversary in just a month from now. And to celebrate that occasion, Niantic has been amping up on events, both in the game and real world. The next in-game one, is the "Solstice Event", that will bring out a horde of Fire and Ice-Types Pokemon. This is inline with the recent leak, and will take place beginning on June 13th until presumably June 20th if not 21st. It will also pave way, to that major multiplayer update that was reported before. And as such, Gyms system is going to be closed for an unknown period of time.

The real world one, will then take place on July 22nd, 2017 in Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA. "Pokemon GO Fest Chicago", which is the game's first ever event, will have various festivities. There was a hot speculation that the game will be releasing its first Legendaries, so might this be the time and place to deliver that? It'll be unfair for the rest of the world though, am I right? Tickets for this event can be obtained on PokemonGoLive.com/Fest starting on June 18th. Various other events will also be held in Europe, and Japan, through various partner companies. I kind of wish that these official social event is going to take place in my country. Then again, the government didn't respond to the app nicely anyway, so I doubt we'll ever have one... *sigh*

By the way, how on Earth did some sites get that catchy image for the Solstice Event anyway? Is it fanmade? Sure looks official. It's certainly way better than the one Niantic posted on their official update...

Nintendo

This last bit isn't about game, eventhough it is under a video game developer category. At least, not a software one. Yes, collaborating with Universal Studios Japan, Nintendo is going to have their first major amusement park attraction, which will be called Super Nintendo World. At least, that's the plan, because only the groundwork has been done so far (Famitsu provided footages from the event). But there's a Concept Trailer to give us a hint of what it will look, and it looks nostalgically amazing! This park is clearly Mario Bros oriented, but since the title carries the Nintendo name, I think we can expect other exclusive franchises of the company like Kirby, Pokemon, and others to be included in the future. The park will have rides, interactive areas, shops, and restaurants, and it is planned to officially opens in Summer 2020 in Universal Studios Osaka, just in time for the Olympic Games. It will then be followed by Florida and California resorts in the following years. I wonder when it will arrive on Universal Studios Singapore then? Because that's the closest one I could visit for now... *sigh*

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