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huayno · 8 months

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There is another specific problem I see with regard to sexuality. There is a common assumption that certain kinds of conceptual analysis or literary and film criticism provide descriptions or explanations about living individuals or populations, without establishing the relevance or applicability of such analyses to those individuals or groups. I have no objection to people performing dazzling analytic moves upon a body of assumptions or texts in order to say interesting things about those assumptions or texts. I have nothing against philosophy, literary analysis, or film criticism per se. But I have a problem with the indiscriminate use of such analyses to generate descriptions of living populations or explanations of their behaviors.

For example, there is a trend to analyze sexual variance by mixing a few privileged “theoretical” texts with literary or film criticism to produce statements about either the thing (e.g., “masochism”) or the population (e.g., “masochists”). The currently fashionable “theory” of sadomasochism is Deleuze’s long 1971 essay on “masochism.” Despite the fact that Deleuze based much of his analysis on fiction, primarily Sacher-Masoch’s novel Venus in Furs and some texts of de Sade, he is taken to be an authority on sadism and masochism in general. Since he is known as a theorist, his comments on sadism and masochism are surrounded with the penumbra of “Theory.”

Deleuze treats differences in the literary techniques of Sade and Sacher-Masoch as evidence for ostensible differences between “sadism” and “masochism.” But what are the “sadism” and “masochism” of which he speaks? Are they literary genres? Desires of living sadists and masochists? Floating formations of desire? He makes sweeping generalizations about “sadism” and “masochism,” such as, “Sadism negates the mother and inflates the father; masochism disavows the mother and abolishes the father. . . . There is an aestheticism in masochism, while sadism is hostile to the aesthetic attitude.” I find statements like these fairly meaningless, intelligible only because of a psychoanalytic tradition that has equated particular constellations of sexual desire with alleged universals of childhood development. What troubles me is that such generalizations are and will be taken as descriptive statements about those persons and populations who might be considered “masochistic” or “sadistic.”

Deleuze is very smart, and it also seems clear from his text that he had some acquaintance with practicing perverts. But his empirical knowledge enters primarily as anecdote. He seems familiar with female dominance, particularly by professional Mistresses. He seems to generalize from some literature and some kind of personal knowledge to make statements about “masochism” and “sadism” in a broader context. This essay is fascinating, yet hardly definitive. It is nonetheless becoming an authoritative text for writing about masochism and sadism.

There are now discussions which draw on Deleuze to analyze the “masochistic aesthetic,” “the masochistic text,” “masochism’s psychodynamics,” or “masochistic narrativity.” Such usage implies that masochism is an “it,” a unitary phenomenon whose singular psychodynamic, text, aesthetic, or narrativity are not only knowable but known. Leaving aside the issue of what terms like this mean, I see a danger that statements about what “masochism” in this sense “is” or “does” or “means” will be taken as descriptions or interpretations of what actual masochists are, do, or mean. Yet the authority of these statements is not derived from any systematic knowledge of masochism as it is practiced by masochists. It is derived from an analytic apparatus balanced precariously upon Deleuze’s commentary, Sade’s fiction and philosophical writings, Sacher-Masoch’s novels, psychoanalytic writings on the etiology of masochism, various other texts and films, and personal anecdote.

I have this quaint, social-science attitude that statements about living populations should be based on some knowledge of such populations, not on speculative analysis, literary texts, cinematic representations, or preconceived assumptions. And I can hear the objection to what I’m saying already: “But Deleuze,” someone is bound to say, “is Theory.”

Gayle Rubin, "Sexual Traffic" in Deviations

#gayle rubin #gilles deleuze #excerpts #rip to this formatting

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lucysarah-c · 3 months

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Okay okay

I like your opinions really but

To me really if someone cheated on me that is it , that ends the relationship , I mean what Erwin expect ? They coudle? . I really hated how Erwin treated her before even the incident. He was manipulating here, it's like she is always here and listen to me and love me , I don't need to do anything for her .

I don't know I think Erwin should really know that the moment he kissed Marie he ended his relationship with twiggy . What happened with levi , I'm not saying that's right, it's wrong but for a whole different reason, they shouldn't rush that's all , she was hurt . Not because that's cheating really , you know friends? I don't know if you know it but in this show Rachel and ross were the main couple and they had a break from their relationship , so Ross get drunk and sleep with someone else. Is it wrong? Yep ? Did he cheat? No , he didn't . The same here it wasn't cheating simply, it wasn't right

So nana ,I personally loved nifa more , nothing against nana it's just she shouldn't really judge people , friends protect eachother yeah but they support eachother. I think she wasn't that fair towards her or levi really but my favourite friend is linda , she is Queen she THE QUEEN

And twiggy okkay I agree with everything you said but I go easier on her cuz she's just young, and she is trying too much to make people acknowledge her , she is sad but I can really relate

Erwin, I don't know he is Cool but I like seeing people like him suffering, am i evil 🙈? Maybe but yeah I like it lol

Levi ,

Nothing, he is my man, my babe , my love, YOU ARE DOING GREAT MY LOVE KEEP GOING ** CHEERS CHEERS

Hi sweetie! It's great to see you around here again!

I completely understand your point. I've never watched Friends, but I have a general context, haha. However, I truly get what you mean! I always think that HG is a "POVs story," where almost everything is very "grey," depending a lot on how the character sees the events unfold. Like, haha, Levi has a much less "grey POV" about his actions. In my mind, Levi thought that the moment Erwin didn't prioritize Twiggy's safety, she was single for him. He could have "understood" a lot of stuff—each couple is a world of its own, and so on—but for him, the safety of those he loves is "above" any other nicety.

So in Levi's eyes, the relationship basically didn't exist even before the cheating, lmao. He says it in his first POV, "if he wasn't scared of losing her, then she wasn't important to him. That relationship was doomed even before I showed up."

If you ask me, the relationship would have been over for me the moment you introduced me as your assistant, LMAO. In that second, I'm picking up my stuff and telling you we are done.

OMG, I'm so happy you like Linda! Writing Linda is my favorite. She's such a badass. The mere mental image of her seeing Marie coming inside the hospital and running through people in high heels to listen to the doctor's appointment is so professionally wrong but iconic. I think Levi and Linda have a very weird relationship because both are extremely honest and fearless, but Linda has a way less charitable character. She lacks a lot of social awareness. Levi's favorite friend of Twiggy is Nifa, and it's clearly seen, but he can't help but chuckle sometimes with Linda. That girl is wild, and Levi kinda enjoys her comments. I imagine her saying, "No, I don't go to church, dear. You have to kneel to pray, and I don't kneel to anyone, not even to give a blowjob." and Levi can't help but chuckle. The girl has more guts than the entire MP formation together, and Levi supports that. Plus, Linda never fails to deliver the juiciest gossip from MPs, and how could Levi not love that?

But Linda does certain things just to bother Levi, like giving him one kiss on each cheek each time they meet, staining with lipstick because he hates it. Linda is that friend who would get 100% canceled on Twitter if people heard what she says, but she's also that friend who's got your back even if you murdered someone.

#snk #shingeki no kyojin #captain levi #levi aot #levi ackerman #attack on titan #aot #levi #snk levi #attack on titans #Holy ground

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hxdrostorms · 10 months

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@legendreign has sent: 1. OTP(s) for your muse? ( For muses, all three Gold Saints! ) 2. NOTP(s) for your muse? 4. Are you oc shipping friendly? 12.Do you believe rp’ing a ship adds to character development?

Mun Related Shipping Questions! [Accepting]

1. OTP(s) for your muse?

// Funnily enough, I only have one answer for this one, bc I haven't figured that out for 2/3 boys I have here.

I've seen some really lovely fanart of Shaka/Mu, and I think I might enjoy it in a fanart/fanfiction way. Because I don't think I'll be RPing it, with the way I've set up Shaka (this isn't something I want to do with Shaka RN. That's why I've set him up as a singleship muse, nothing is ever set in stone so who knows if I'll ever change that about him.).

Aldebaran is practically a blank slate: sticks leggy out, who's going to give me a ship for him? I'm literally all ears, when it comes to ships for him.

And then we have Deathmask, and I've dug myself into the Aphrodite/DM ship hole, and I'm not leaving. NGL, I'm looking forward to write this ship. Fingers crossed for me to find an Aphrodite RPer, who'd be down to write it with me.

2. NOTP(s) for your muse?

// I've got nothing TBH? I also haven't touched with a 10 ft post any form of discourse in this fandom. Spoiler alert: I don't want to see or engage with it. So, I have no clue what would be considered a "bad" ship for my muses, that would get me crucified.

I'd imagine that anything involving the golden saints with the bronze ones, due to the ages. And I think it's a good time as ever to say that: in order for me to do anything like that in a RPing format, the characters will have to be aged up first (likely in the context of a post-series events type of situation/plot). Everything must be discussed and agreed upon, between me and the other mun. No ifs and buts, I won't do anything romantic between them, during the series' events for my own comfort.

I don't want to start any form of a shitshow of a discourse. Because, I'm way too tired of this nonsensical discussion, that never ends.

4. Are you oc shipping friendly?

// OFC I am! I'm just a bit more selective for OC/CC ships. But honestly? If the chemistry is there, and we have a solid plot going for them? They can offer me an experience that even surpasses CC/CC ships! I've had some truly awesome OC/CC ships in the past, which I still cherish to this day.

12. Do you believe rp’ing a ship adds to character development?

// Okay SO as sb who personally takes huge enjoyment out of character development, AND has had a long history of dealing with some snobbish Rpers in the past, I'll go straight to the point:

It all depends on what your end goal with it is.

Do you want to only focus in the fluff/smut/etc aspects of it? That's awesome! All the power to you.

Do you want to take this as an opportunity to expand on things through a relationship? That's equally awesome as well! All the power to you.

I'm just genuinely sick and tired of Tumblr RPC's competitive nonsense, where they think that they have to pitch one against another and try to shame RPers who have a different approach/interest to RP. No Karen, we aren't doing a full on essay through rp on tumblr dot com. You're not handing your shit ship to be analyzed, in a professional way.

All ships have the potential to serve as food for character development, but that has to come from the muns' wishes to do that to begin with. Otherwise, you're just forcing an elitist and snobbish way to RP, that's just unhealthy and nobody wins in the end. I personally take a lot of enjoyment of grabbing my main ship partners, and truly get DEEP into things on our discussions and worldbuilding.

And at the same time, I've had some good times with folks, who only wanted to do a simpler/easier to digest stuff and not think too much about the HCs/implications/etc. Does that suddenly make me into a lesser RPer? I highly doubt it.

#ooc /#thank you for the ask!#legendreign #oops I rambled a lot JFDKHBFFDBDF #would you like some salt in your tea?

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m-r-levine · 8 months

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Unspoken : a wip that shouldn’t be

It occurs to me I should probably explain the og/elf brainrot premise of Unspoken since basically I’ve not talked about anything #Dark Tapestry outside of asks in literally years due to mi hijo maldito stealing the spotlight becoming the focus of my writing attention for the last four years or so.

Especially since searching my own blog is turning up almost nothing. 🤦 I swear I feel like I froth at the mouth about these characters all the time and yet my blog shows no evidence of this?? What strange unsearchable vortex have they fallen into this time?

Ahem.

The context…

Under the Weaver's hand, all patterns move in harmony.

Where chaos moves, all theory becomes meaningless.

Daidel is a world of darkness and light, in possession of magic and technology, science and divine power, often at war with itself. Terrible things happen in this world under two moons, and wonderful things as well. The stories in this world span the globe and a massive stretch of time — but the first thread written belongs to a mortal chosen to become a Fury.

The cast

Although the supporting cast is as usual a sprawling mess of multiple cities and factions, the brainrot thin excuse for a plot centers on just two characters: Keris and Davri.

Neither a hero nor a villain nor yet a world power, Praetor Brynrinkeris Z’equidai Chath il Rex do’Xiphos is merely an arrow aimed at one particular offense to the gods (not the Weaver, merely some number of little gods) who is also no one of any particular or weighty consequence except to the gods offended by his existence. Although still mortal, fallible, vulnerable, and utterly killable, Keris was given a certain… conditional permanence in order to facilitate her mission. (Not that she has any idea what it is or that she even has this drive at all. It’s not terribly important to this particular plot or even half of them, it’s just… there. A little narrative land mine that may or may not ever trip.) She has led the Trinae for several centuries now - but this is not remarkable either. Even moonborn with no magic at all can live a thousand years if they set their formidable Wills to it, evade the ravages of wild magic and pestilence, and no one finds the motivation to pay the hefty bills arranging a permanent death would incur.

She will neither save nor destroy the world at any point in the Dark Tapestry. She is sometimes the narrative focus and sometimes she is just a stranger neglecting to pay a gate fee in someone else’s bad day. She is not particularly unique - even when she cheats Death the Scalekeeper, especially after the formation of the Ravens* in the aftermath of the Forge Moon explosion. She is merely a red thread.

…And Davri’s commanding officer. (Whoops)

The little mercenary company Trinae Amicae is not so little anymore - hasn’t been since they seized the wild heartstone in the deadlands of Molniya and built the hidden fortress of Xiphos atop it. Half village, half command center and training ground, Xiphos is hidden by the landscape itself and the wild magic rampant throughout that part of the world… and maybe a little help from the mages of the Amicae who have made their home there for many daystar generations. Although the Trinae is known in many citystates for their professionalism and efficiency and their ruthless policies should a promised paychest dare to be late, little else is known outside their organization beyond their red and gold banner and the frigid reputation of the Praetor who leads them: not only is she a moonborn grand adept who lives apart from other ekete, she owes allegiance to no city at all, and neither does anyone else under the Trinae banner. Centuries ago this was regarded as an amusing and temporary (read: doomed) quirk by administrators of the major cities — in the contemporary era, most civil and military functionaries tacitly agree it’s not worth their lives or livelihoods to question their paperwork too closely. Especially as the Trinae are one of the few Companies willing and able to field any measurable resistance to the violent ambitions of the Ragestorm Empire of Mor’chagh.

Davrush mej Nakun was born among the oggish clans of the Amicae, and follows the wide path forged by his foremothers to train in the arts of war and serve the banner in his turn. Unfortunately, the distant, abstract, and imposing Praetor became a tangible and distressingly mortal reality for him when he was still a child. He has carried a more-or-less secret flame for her ever since, despite six years in voluntary exile attempting to obey her order to overcome what she believed to be a starry-eyed sort of hero-worship infatuation common to the young of every kind. He is acknowledged a master weaponsmith, and on his return to Xiphos and refusal to accept a commission into the Elite Three Hundred** until the Trinae could be (mostly) self-sufficient in the matter of their armaments, he was elevated to Legate (the second-highest rank - there were two Legates previously, East and West, and he was made a third, Artifex) and charged with authority over the craftspersons and armory among the Trinae, both in Xiphos itself and support staff in the field.

Working so closely with the love of his life, burdened with both the privilege and responsibility to advise and argue with her is a torment he embraces with stoic determination and absolute discretion. He is widely respected as a warrior, artisan, educator, and leader. He embodies the highest virtues of the Trinae, regards his rank as a vocation, and more than a few whispers around the Company speculate that the spirit of their First Praetor (a human knight of the early fourth kiya, Cieramos the Bright) may have been reborn as a chaste og - and what a pity, since unbonded oggish rarely live past seventy-five.

The plot

And now we get to the heart of the brainrot the Excuse to wallow in pining the surface plot.

Three foreigners defy the landscape and magical protections around Xiphos to approach the Trinae with a delicate job offer. They negotiate a deal for an advance party to discreetly evaluate the scope of the work they want: the Company to protect their walled city from multiple external threats and also to mediate between political factions within their city.

Keris has Doubts™️ but at the same time she needs to solve the problem of how these envoys found Xiphos to begin with, how they came to possess artifacts once owned by Cieramos, and how to position a successor for a stable transition when she can no longer lead the Trinae. A campaign past the edges of the charted world would make such a convenient circumstance to force the succession one way or another, if only she can subtly guide the Council to acknowledge the best and most natural choice in their midst. (She is of course certain that when they offer Davri the mantle of Praetor he will finally see reason and secure a platonic bond of convenience to extend his life.***)

Davri attaches himself to the campaign in no small part to prevent her from seeking Death despite Keris’ initial refusal by implying he will seek a bond and establish a family after they return. No one would deny him the right to one last glorious campaign — and to sweeten the deal the foreigners carry better steel than they can make, and armaments of a different style than anyone else. He is the expert on both - and he is more than enough of a warrior and tactician in his own right to command the Three Hundred in the event the Praetor cannot — or if circumstances require a division of their forces.

Naturally, reconnaissance and peacekeeping in Udea does not go easily. Month after month of work uncovers only more tangled politics and personal vendettas and pockets of wild and malicious magics both. Nothing in the desert is simple - and by the Writ the Company is no longer free to walk away from the problem of the modern citystate as inconveniently active magical artifacts predating the Rending of the Forge Moon keep surfacing from various conflicts and expeditions into the trackless sands.

Every day spent in close company on this delicate, dangerous campaign increases the pressure to forge some kind of victory from the chaos, and doubles the challenge of pretending to continued faith in their mutual fiction of indifference.

The Writ that governs the Trinae is sacred and good and right — and the officers of the Company are held to an even higher standard of faithfulness to their laws. Anything less would destroy the foundations of the strength that protects the freedom of the Amicae. No one clear of mind and heart would disagree, much less the highest authorities among them.

Abuse of a subordinate carries the same grave and final penalty as treason and sabotage. No one knows this better than Keris, who bears the silent grief of enforcing the Writ herself.

Control is paramount for a mage, passion is dangerous. Keris is a grand adept with many centuries of field experience behind her. Control is as much her field of expertise as magic and war.

And yet, and yet.

Every “remedy” she leverages against temptation fails to slay the desire to embrace the forbidden beloved at her side.

You see the problem, of course.

The delightful, sticky, overheated pressure cooker of a star-crossed mutual-pining friends-to-lovers slow burn idiots-in-love size-difference monsterfuckery-adjacent secondearth military fantasy adventure kinky romance.

Why is my brain like this.

Send help.

- - -

* The Ravens are an apolitical, secretive, and vaguely occult necromantic organization common on several continents. They offer essential support and recovery services to the city-states at negotiated contract rates lower than any independent necro or dolovai can offer in exchange for a vertically-unbounded but horizontally modest plot of land within the city walls… and tax-exempt status

** The Three Hundred is a company-within-a-company of warriors under the direct command of the Praetor herself

*** Dear Reader, Keris is wrong.

#dark tapestry #writeblr #studiorat rambles #long post #unspoken #writeblr wip summary #spicy fantasy romance wip #long reads

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archivyrep · 1 year

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Archie the Archivist, the laserdisc, and preservation of analog data

Some time ago, I went through all the major animated series and searched the fandom pages related to them for terms like "library" and "librarian." One of the series that came up was Regular Show. I watched a few specific episodes, one of which was "The Last Laserdisc Player." At first, I thought a character was a librarian, even listing him on the list of Western animated series with libraries and librarians at one point. But, I learned in the credits that this man, voiced by John Cygan, was named Archie the Archivist. Enter one of the strangest, wildest, most bizarre depictions of an archivist that I've ever seen, seriously. So, I just had to write about it. I had no choice in the matter, ha. Anyway, warning for spoilers for those who haven't watched the episode.

Reprinted from my Wading Through the Cultural Stacks WordPress blog. Originally published on Jun. 10, 2021.

Before getting that far into this series, I'd like to bring in what is noted on the blog, #ArchivesInFiction (herein AIF) on this blog it is noted that for archivists, archivists often aren't protagonists in fiction, if at all, leaving those in the archives profession unable to reference a fictional character as a shorthand when explaining what they do. Even worse, archivists and archives are often misrepresented in fiction, with writers falling back on various cliches and tropes. I used their posts to determine whether any of them are the case here.

The protagonists, Mordo, Rigs, and their friend, go to the local library to search for a laserdisc player. They are told by two older patrons who declare a VHS is better than a laserdisc (I guess the equivalent of a Blu-Ray?). Archie hears about this and takes them down to the basement where thousands of formats are stored. He believed they are the ones who will end the "format wars."

At this point, this could be called a basement archives and Archie could be called #AlmostAnArchivist which AIF describes as when a character managing the archive is doing their best but isn't a professional archivist. Archie goes on to tell the story of how VHS took over from laserdiscs, having a goon squad which destroyed all the players in society, so VHS could be dominant. The laserdisc itself opens a secret chamber in this basement archives (treated as the basement of the public library). Inside, they find the last laserdisc player. Again, I would say this falls into a few tropes, specifically by heists, robberies, and theft from archives. [1]

youtube

Anyway, the episode continues as they fight off the “ancient order of the VHS” so they can watch their film, with the library getting destroyed in the process. The librarian turns into the laserdisc guardian and they later watch the movie together, which is an absurdly long film. All in all, however, the archives is in a "dank, dark, subterranean setting for the repository in question," what AIF calls #DustyArchives, which is a trope common in journalism and fiction. However, there is not any #InvisibleArchivesLabour, as the characters don't seem to ignore the work that has "gone into compiling, ordering or preserving the records is forthcoming." I suppose you you could say this falls into the #AcknowledgedArchivalLabour trope, which is, surely "all to uncommon in fiction" as AIF notes, but is worth nothing for sure.

In this story, however, there are no aha moments where characters find exactly what they need without finding aids, convenient finding of archival records with minimal research, no death-related imagery used to describe interactions with repositories or records, with no buried records. I vaguely remember something about records being compromised due to their lack of provenance, but he was not an unapproachable curmudgeon who views archives as their "personal fiefdom and is therefore protective of their records and their knowledge." And you could argue that power of archival records is "acknowledged within the context of the narrative."

Notes

[1] AIF defines #ArchiveHeist as a "scenario in which the planning and/or execution of #ArchiveTheft is as important as the theft itself," while defining #ArchiveRobbery as "similar to #ArchiveTheft only with force and or destruction," and #ArchiveTheft as a common trope for archives in fiction, a "self-explanatory generic term but with some nuances regarding the subtlety (or otherwise) of the theft in question.

#regular show #archivists #laser disc #vhs #theft #robbery #archival #records #animation #player #invisible labor #ropes #stereotypes #historic preservation #preservationists #cultural preservation #tropes #Youtube

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contra-zen · 2 years

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The more research you conduct in advance of writing, the more likely it is that you'll find and generate a slew of relevant data and perspectives that connect to the topic of your essay. While reading for an essay, it may be tempting to include all you've learned along the way. The essay will lose focus if you incorporate irrelevant material, irrespective how much effort you spent on it.

This is true for both an excessive wide-ranging and an excessively deepening perspective. It is a good idea to learn to be succinct. Your professors may even set stringent word limitations on your essays and other tasks as a way of testing your proficiency with accuracy as you move through university.

Planning is a crucial part of keeping your article on track. As you plan out your general framework, choose the evidence that best supports each of your paragraphs. You don't need a slew of examples to back up your claim; just enough to demonstrate that your hypothesis has some substance behind it will suffice. As a result, when it comes to creating the initial draft of your essay, you won't have to worry about straying from the topic.

It's time to wrap things up!

The conclusion of an essay is just as vital as the introduction in terms of establishing the background for your argument. This is to ensure that your reader departs with a clear understanding of what you've learned through your research.

As the name suggests, the conclusion is where you restate the key ideas of your paper. Introducing new arguments or concepts is not permitted. The conclusion, like the dessert, may make or ruin a meal, to return to our meal example. An essay might be ruined if the body is great but the conclusions are poor. Examiners, in particular, will focus on this section since it is the final one they read before determining your mark. In other words, make a big exit!

A excellent starting point for figuring out how to conclude an essay is to consider how everything you've mentioned in the main body ties back to the opening. It's crucial to remember that your conclusion is not a rehash of your opening paragraph. In other words, it's a summary of what you've learned about the subject after sifting through a lot of information and ideas in your essay's main body. In order to provide your reader with a sense of closure and pleasure, your conclusion should tie everything in your essay together into one cohesive whole.

#cheap essay

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deoffal-mp-adm7000-n-s1-2022 · 2 years

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Current Goals for Final Submission

In summary, I won’t embellish my writings here, this is somewhat of a shopping list to map my current progress and all are literal and exacting goals of which I am working on as I continue to fill my research blog along the way to document them. The desired end result would be that all are done to a high standard by the time of the final exhibition (late August) and are able to be shared and enjoyed alongside the group show.

1. The 120 pieces ( ‘The 57′ and ‘The 63′ collections as they will be referred to in my notes) fully resolved and formatted into 3 publications, resulting in what is currently branded as the ‘Noumena’ collection. All sketches will also be featured in the 3rd volume, a 4th may be in the works for my my paintings and extra ink pieces but this is still being debated and most likely will not happen, as the paintings are not as connected to my research.

(The drafts of each volume are complete, only needing prefaces and introductions now. The reason they are split into 3 is due to a software issue on my current laptop, i.e. my laptop cannot work with files that are too large, this being a huge problem with the scale of the last publication. I’ve decided to fully enrol in this issue by instead making 3 smaller more and more concise publications, this will break up the collections better and this in turn should represent the overall work much better than just doing one massive compendium. Even if I wanted to make it, it would be impossible to make on my laptop, and be too long to be enjoyable to look through.)

2. Make a website for Deoffal Maldoror (as linked here, https://deoffalmaldoror.wixsite.com/deoffal-maldoror ), this will have the full Soma - Volume 1 collection and all current work presented. I have already set myself the deadline of having this finished by the end of June, just so that I can push myself to get it down in time for any updates that need to happen out of preparation for the show)

3. Work on my blog and to keep updating it right until the final submission point (September 8th I believe is the current date in mind), I would also like a goal of atleast 75 posts to properly document all developmental stages and to showcase all my work in it’s proper context outside of the publications.

4. Business Cards and having a LinkedIn . These will be designed specifically for the show and later networking, seems like a minor step but I’m sure it’ll be a whole lot more relevant once I get my FCG Exhibition out of the way and need to think about even more professional opportunities past the Ma and what may end up leading to me also doing an PhD soon too.

5. Exhibition prep and design work for the final mock. I already have some experience in this as an art student of course, and also because we did a test in march (of which I will give proper attention to after these establishing posts), and so I already have an idea of how I want to present the work, I just now need to write and draw proper plans to excuse my exact ideas and to make sure I can properly justify my later actions when I rebuild my piece of the final show.

6.Sorting the proper documents, risk assessments and final statements. This runs in tandem with my ideas for an updated proposal, simply because I can’t forget any minor formality this project around and don’t want to be at any point...completely directionless, I typically start these documents long in advance anyway just to predict what I’ll be doing in the final show, then I edit what I need to and that usually saves me the mundanity of retrospect.

I hope this gives a candid insight as to my current thinking, nothing is entirely set to change but my proposal will explain my aims for the overall project much better than this list of guidelines I am currently testing as a start my research proper.

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joezworld · 2 years

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Someone sent me an ask about how Andrew Lloyd Weber's acid trip of a musical Starlight Express would work on Sodor, so I did some research.

My findings to date:

This play has never had a consistent song or cast list at any point, and is seemingly changed on a whim, with songs being swapped and changed depending on the production or date.

I can't stress that enough. Andrew Lloyd Weber had to go and re-write the long-running German production in 2018 because it was virtually unrecognizable from the original play due to 30+ years of gradual changes.

(The German play is in its own custom made theater btw. Of course it is.)

The original cast soundtrack (which is what's on Spotify, and is not even remotely all the songs that have ever appeared in this song) actually slaps really hard in spots, but having watched old VHS bootlegs of shows from the 90's (and YouTube videos of a Singaporean production from a few years ago) I feel that much of the "this slaps" energy comes from the fact that the cast is standing still in a recording studio, and the songs were then professionally mixed.

That's an important distinction to make because the songs are usually preformed live by a group of mic-ed up lunatics on roller skates, which is naturally going to degrade the quality of the audio somewhat.

Yeah this is performed on roller skates. I knew that already but God damn.

This says nothing of the plot, which is insane - it's nominally about a rusty old steam engine trying to win a race to impress a modern/attractive passenger car, but there's a decidedly large amount of god/worship overtones? The "starlight express" is apparently some kind of actual thing that characters can pray(?) to for guidance.

We also need to remember that this entire story is happening on a child's toy train set. The child himself is "control", which is some kind of other omniscient godlike entity?

This creates some... interesting context for some of the characters, like the (spiteful) breakvan CB, who just straight up has a song where he talks about crashing trains for fun.

I should also mention that Andrew Lloyd Weber made a serious attempt to adapt the Railway Series books to a cartoon format, and only came up with Starlight Express after he got turned down by Granada TV.

And you know what? You can kind of see the RWS influence here: CB is basically the Spiteful Brakevan turned up to 11, the entire "old engine has to prove himself" plot is basically any Edward story when you view it from a distance, and the steam vs diesel / old vs modern conflict is very similar to a lot of Awdry plots (again, on a very basic level). If this was done in a world where Sodor was real, I can totally see even more references to the Island - most of the character names, maybe, and some of the songs.

(Hilariously, the main character is named Rusty, which I'm sure went over fabulously on the Skarloey Railway.)

Finally, let's just talk about the costumes, which looks like what would happen if the TTTE humanization art community was bad at what they did.

I'm being serious.

These are supposed to be trains.

@asktrio516 is good enough that she could probably do better than this with her eyes shut.

I bet that Andrew Lloyd Weber showed this once on Sodor, and got laughed off the Island faster than you can say "unintentional comedy."

#goddamn starlight express is fucking weird #ttte #sodor #sodor shenangians #there's no way that this isn't some running joke on sodor #one of the songs seriously says #nobody does it like a steam train #i cannot make this up

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jamespotterthefirst · 3 years

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Not Yet Wed Questions

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Lilac Allende)

Format: Dialogue only

Series: Newlyweds Game

Author’s Note: Thank you @genevievemd for UNO Reverse Carding me

Additional Note: If anyone wants me to send them the questions, please let me know!

Context: This week’s questions are for Book 1 Ethan x MC :)

The setting for this answers is: Book 1, after the coffeehouse date scene.

For Both

When I first saw them, I thought__________

Ethan: Hrm.

Lilac: *laughs nervously* I can go first, Dr. Ramsey. When I first saw him I thought: “Oh, god. He’s looking at me. Lilac, move.”

Ethan: That makes sense because I thought, “Why is she just standing there? A woman is dying.”

What is your coworker's most used swear word?

Lilac: *lowers her voice in a passable imitation of Ethan* “Goddammit.”

Ethan: *not amused* Cute. Dr. Allende is just as loquacious when she curses. As such, she uses a different combination of expletives each time. For example, yesterday she dropped a clipboard on her foot and said, “Motherfucking tits!”

Lilac: *Clasps a hand over her mouth, mortified* You heard that?

Ethan: I did.

*There is a tiny quiver at the corner of his lips as she looks as though she wants to die.*

Quick: What color are their eyes?

Lilac: *without hesitation* Blue.

Ethan: *raises his brows*

Lilac: *blushing* They’re kind of had to miss.

Ethan: *Impassive* Her eyes are red. From all the sleep depravation.

Lilac: *laughs out loud* He’s not wrong. *continues to laugh*

Ethan: *watches her laugh, looking something close to satisfied*

Three people at work your coworker hates?

Lilac: Just three?

Ethan: Right answer.

Lilac: Except for me, right?

Ethan: ...

Lilac: Right, Dr. Ramsey?

Ethan: Dr. Allende seems to genuinely like everyone she works with. It’s baffling.

Lilac: Aww, you’re still my favorite out of all of them, Dr. Ramsey.

Ethan: *with no expression* I’m thrilled.

*Lilac laughs*

What is your coworker’s strangest or most endearing quirk?

Lilac: The pinching the nose thing.

Ethan: That’s not exactly a quirk.

Lilac: It is! It’s a cute behavioral habit you do all the--What?

Ethan: *schools his features* Nothing. Dr. Allende’s entire being is a strange quirk.

Lilac: *laughing* Dr. Ramsey is so mean. It’s how he shows he cares.

If they had a crush on anyone at work, who would that be?

*long, awkward silence*

Ethan: Dr. Allende would have a crush on the surgeon. Or the paramedic.

Lilac: *visibly confused* Bryce? Rafael?

Ethan: The very same.

Lilac: Not at all. They’re just friends.

Ethan: They certainly seem to have a crush on you.

Lilac: *blinks* They do?

Ethan: It’s far too obvious.

Lilac: I don’t... I don’t see it.

Ethan: That’s because you’re also painfully oblivious.

Lilac: *raises her brows* Oh yeah? What else am I oblivious about?

Ethan: *ignores the question* Don’t waste your time answering the question. The answer is “no one.”

Lilac: Not even Dr. Em--

Ethan: No one.

Never have I Ever:

Ethan: This is dumb.

Lilac: It’ll be fun. We’re not breaking any rules when there’s no alcohol involved. *raises her iced coffee*

Ethan: That caffeinated abomination is no better.

Lilac: *rolls her eyes* I’m sorry I don’t hate myself enough to drink black coffee everyday.

Never have I ever come into work hungover

*both Ethan and Lilac drink from their coffee*

Lilac: *impressed* Nice.

Ethan: Not a word to anyone.

Lilac: My lips are sealed, Dr. Ramsey.

Never have I ever had a fistfight

*they both drink again*

Ethan: *raises his brows at her*

Lilac: *shrugs* I was feisty in my youth.

Ethan: You’ll have to tell me all the stories.

Lilac: You'll have to buy me a drink first.

Ethan: *can't resist a smile* Fine.

Never have I ever been kicked out of a bar

*Lilac takes a drink*

Ethan:...

Lilac: Drunkenly dancing on tables.

Ethan: That checks out.

Never have I ever gotten a tattoo

*Ethan almost takes a drink but puts his cup down midway*

Lilac: Explain.

Ethan: It'll have to be over a second round at Donahue's. When you're buying.

Lilac: *laughs* Tease. But fine. I have to hear this story.

Never have I ever broken someone’s heart

*they both take a brink, a bit sadly and without comment*

Never have I ever been in love

*Lilac takes a drink. She stares at Ethan's cup, which hasn't moved from the table, in surprise.*

Lilac: Never?

Ethan: *after a small pause, he shakes his head, eyes never leaving hers*

Lilac: Believe me, consider yourself lucky.

For Lilac (Ethan is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

Lilac: I would say Chief of Medicine because he's brilliant enough, but I know he hates admin. He'd never do it. I can see him writing another book and inspiring many young doctors to pursue a career in medicine. He... I hope he finds someone by then. I worry he's... lonely.

What do you find the most impressive about him?

Lilac: I'm impressed by how humble he is. I mean, he's Ethan Ramsey and the proudest moment of his career is when he applied to med school. It says a lot about his character. It says he's not concerned about what others think of him. What keeps him going is a genuine love for knowledge, medicine, and patient care.

Last thing he texted you?

Lilac: “I saw you in line for a latte, Rookie.”

If he asked you out on a date, what would you say?

Lilac: *blushes furiously, striving to keep her cool* He wouldn't... Would he? He's so hard to read sometimes. If he asked me I'd probably ruin the moment with some stupid joke. He'd pinch his nose, sigh, and wonder why he likes such a dork. I'd rush to say yes before he changed his mind.

For Ethan (MC is not there)

Where do you see her in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

Ethan: Dr. Allende is proving to be an excellent doctor with a brilliant future before her. She will, without a doubt, revolutionize the field as we know it. As such, the possibilities will be endless. She... She will most likely leave Edenbrook to pursue career opportunities.

As for her personal life, I just hope it doesn't get in the way of her potential as a doctor.

What specifically do you find attractive about her?

Ethan: I... What?

What specifically do you find attractive about her?

Ethan: She's... Obviously, she's an attractive person overall. Specifically? Her eyes.

Last thing she texted you?

Ethan: “Running five minutes late. Train is behind schedule.”

If she asked you out on a date, how would you respond?

*long silence*

*more silence*

*silence getting painful*

Ethan: I'd say I'm flattered... but I'd have to decline. She's my intern, competing for a spot on my team. Dr. Allende is talented enough to win. I'd be her direct boss. It's... *small pause, he looks almost pained* It's not going to happen.

*Tagging later in a reblogs because I'm on my phone *

#newlyweds game with your host bree #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #Ethan x Lilac

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nordic-language-love · 4 years

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About Productivity Grids

I’ve seen more and more people starting to use the productivity grids I’ve been using this year to track my progress (which is awesome), along with concerns about them being toxic and putting the focus on “filling in the grid” rather than actually being productive. So! I thought I’d make a post about how I use them and how to avoid that icky feeling that you’re not being “productive enough”.

What is a productivity grid?

Here’s an example of my productivity grid from this week:

As you can see, I split my different areas of productivity into subsections and mark each day I do them. I fill it in each week, then I take a screenshot to post to my language learning log before clearing it out and filling it in again the next week.

A lot of people use powerpoint for their grids. I use excel with conditional formatting (so I just pop an ‘x’ or ‘/’ in a box and it automatically changes colour, which is super exciting for my dumbass monkey brain). You can use whatever works for you though - I used to print out tables and put gold stars in each square I completed.

What it’s good for

This grid is great for keeping track of things. You can therefore use it to:

See which areas you’ve been working on and which ones you’ve been neglecting. This is a major one for me, because I would go for literally months without doing any speaking practise and only realise when I went back through my blog to find that one recording of me speaking. Now I can see at a glance if I’ve done any speaking practice this week, or last week. All in all, it helps me balance my studying a lot more.

Help you decide what to work on next. Sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed by the choice of what to study. Do I pick up my grammar book? Do I watch the news in my TL? Do I read my book? So then I’ll look at my grid and think “well, I’ve been doing a lot of reading this week but I’ve not spent any time on grammar, so I’ll do that.”

Make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Before I used these for studying, I had a similar grid for self-care, which I filled with things like “went for a walk” and “ate three meals” and “had at least one vegetable” and “read a book” and “talked to a friend”. You can see I’ve included some elements of that in this grid, and honestly I think this is very very important to include.

Understand and predict burn-out. It’s quite easy to see if you’ve been overworking yourself. If you have a lot of full squares one week and a lot of blank squares the next, you can think to yourself “huh, maybe I worked too hard and that wasn’t good for me, clearly I need more balance.”

And of course, it does provide some motivation for yourself if, like me, you love things to be super colourful. Do I sometimes push myself to do a thing just because I want extra colour on my spreadsheet? Yes, absolutely.

Limitations

If you’re looking at this and thinking “I should do that so that I keep myself accountable to my followers”, then I highly recommend you do not use this method. If you do, keep it in a word document for yourself. The goal is not to threaten yourself with a blank grid of shame. The goal is, as I said before, to keep track of things for your own benefit.

Additionally, this only provides quantitative data, and doesn’t give any indication of how much you did. If you spend thirty minutes on an essay every day for a week, you’ll fill more squares than if you spend 5 hours on that essay in one night. Even though you actually spent more time on it, you would seem less “productive”. That’s why I always use it alongside a written log.

Another thing is that there are always situations you don’t account for that don’t fit on the grid. Spent all day cheering up your best friend after her boyfriend broke her heart? Yeah, that’s not gonna show up, so you might end up with a whole day that’s blank.

Some tips for using productivity grids

Be flexible! I’m always swapping my grids around to reflect what I’m working on. I used to have full grids for Icelandic and Finnish, but they took more of a backseat so I shrunk them down to fit in alongside Japanese. You can always add in more grids or take ones out.

Use it to track “unproductive” activities too (if you want). I cannot stress this enough: self-care counts as productive! Cooking yourself a nice meal is productive. Choosing to watch a Disney movie because you’re tired and the thought of studying makes you want to cry is productive. Calling your friend and admitting you’re not okay is productive. Spending time on your hobbies is productive (languages and writing are a hobby for me, so like 70% of my grid is actually devoted to hobbies). Of course, if you then feel like you’re forcing yourself to do your hobbies just to fill in an extra square, take that line out.

Keep a written log of your feelings and accomplishments. In my language log I talk about how well I feel I understood things, how tired I’ve been feeling, what I’ve struggled with and what I’m proud of. This will give more context to your grid, as well as help with identifying those patterns we talked about earlier (if I’m feeling tired and nothing’s working and I notice I’ve not been exercising, I can try the following week to exercise more and compare how I feel).

Never aim for a full grid. You should always have blank spaces - you can’t do everything all the time! If you find you’re consistently filling everything in, you might need to evaluate whether your habits are healthy.

If there are consistently a lot of blank spaces in a particular area, evaluate why. Are you not doing any writing because you’re uninspired? Anxious? Are you just focused on something else right now? Is it so important to you that you do it? Have a think about the reason and whether it’s something that needs addressing or not. (My writing grid is often blank or nearly blank, but that’s fine because it’s not something I want to pursue professionally. My stretching/performance grids being as blank as they are though, well, that is a problem that I need to address.)

If you’re not sure whether something “counts” or not, add levels to it. See how I have some boxes marked with a / instead of an X with a lighter background? Those were when I told myself “this doesn’t really count”. I only stretched when I warmed up, I only spoke a few broken sentences to myself, I did half a Duolingo lesson then quit etc. For a long time, I didn’t mark them in at all. Now I do because I was getting too harsh on myself. You could always try ranking your sessions based on how intense/productive they were, or putting in numbers to show how much time you spent on them. This doesn’t work for everyone though and can add further pressure.

Remember your followers appreciate honesty. Like I said earlier, you don’t have to post these to tumblr; you can keep them for yourself (either in a word document or a spreadsheet or print them out etc). But if you do post them, remember that giving your followers an unhealthy impression of always being productive won’t do them any favours. So embrace those blank squares and don’t feel ashamed.

If you start to feel anxious about how “little” you’re achieving, or like it’s preventing you from being truly productive, stop using it. No method works for everyone and you should never feel pressured to continue using a method that doesn’t work for you just because other people on tumblr do it (just like I never take aesthetic pictures because spending all that time and effort setting them up burns me out before I’ve even started).

Happy studying, everyone! Go smash those goals and remember to look after yourselves while you do it.

#productivity #studying #languages #language blog #langblr

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kiingocreative · 3 years

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The Structure of Story is now available! Check it out on Amazon, via the link in our bio, or at https://kiingo.co/book

Every author starting out will know how important reviews are. If you’re yet to be convinced, here are some fun facts about reviews*:

1. 88% of consumers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations.

2. 72% of consumers will take action after reading a positive review.

3. Positive reviews tell Amazon and Google you’re worth ranking and can boost search results for your book by feeding into SEO (reviews account for almost 10% of total search ranking factors).

So reviews aren’t just a nice to have — they’re critical to the success of a book.

Now, amongst the writers community, we talk a lot about receiving reviews, but less so about giving reviews. I enjoy writing book reviews immensely, because it makes me think about what I’m reading on a different level, and forces me to learn how to articulate that opinion. This is actually one of the main reasons why I got into professional BETA reading.

I was asked recently how I structure my book reviews (all of which can be found on my blog), so here you have it: all the secrets to how I go about writing book reviews, along with some concrete examples!

Start With Why.

The most important question to ask yourself before you even start writing a review is this:

Why do people read book reviews?

In essence, they want to know whether the book is good, what it’s about, and — more importantly — whether they should read it. They generally like some context and detail to back the review so that they feel it’s genuine and trustworthy.

If you can keep in mind what people generally want to get out of a book review, this will help you keep your review relevant and useful. It’ll help you figure out what’s worth including and what isn’t. If in doubt, ask yourself what you would want to read about in a review when you’re trying to decide whether or not to buy a book.

Some Key Questions.

Before you start writing, you also need to ponder a few things. It may not always feel natural to reflect on a book on this level of detail — it didn’t for me at first. I either liked a book, or I loved it, or I didn’t, but I rarely spent a lot of time critically thinking about why I did or didn’t like a read.

If you’re also finding this uncomfortable at first, I say stick with it. I found it extremely interesting to make myself think these things through. It’s made my writing so much better, because I’ve developed that objective evaluation muscle that activates even when I’m with my own work. It’s also made me much better at forming and formulating an opinion, which is something I didn’t use to be good at!

Here are some questions to start with before you start on your review:

• Did you like the book?

• What did you like about it?

• What didn’t you like about it?

• Are there any themes that were particularly well handled?

• Were there any characters you liked above others, and why?

• Would you recommend the book to a friend?

These few questions will start shaping your view of what you’ve read and provide the main elements of your review.

To take your critical reading to the next level, you may want to ponder the various elements of the story and the writing as a whole. Think about:

• The plot / storyline — is it strong? Consistent? Original? Enticing? Are there gaps?

• The characters and character arcs — are all characters well developed? Multi-layered? Do they make sense? Are they relatable?

• The key themes — what are some recurring topics through the story? Are they well handled?

• The pace and timeline — is the story progressing at a good pace? Where does it lag? Does the timeline make sense?

• The writing style — how was the writing style? Did it flow well? Did it feel unique or original?

• The dialogues — did they feel natural? Were they believable? Were they engaging? Did they add to the overall story?

• The editing — how was the editing? Were there any typos or formatting errors?

Example Review Outline

Once you’ve spent some time with those initial questions, you’ll find it gives you the best part of your review content. At first, you may want to note down your answers to each of these. With time, you may find you can process these in your mind faster than you did before, and you don’t need so many notes. Whichever way is right for you, once you have this, you’re ready to start structuring your review.

I tend to use the following outline (though, of course, this isn’t the one and only way to write a review!):

1. Star Rating:

It’s most common in this day and age to include a rating in your review. There are talks out there about not leaving a rating on a book, because these can be extremely subjective — someone’s three-star rating may mean they loved the book but for others it’s a negative rating, some people don’t leave five-star reviews out of principle etc.

If you’re reviewing the book on Amazon and Goodreads however, you don’t have a choice but to pick a rating out of five stars. Have a think about how that rating system relates to you. For instance: would you leave five star ratings? What rating do you use for a book you liked versus a book you absolutely loved? What kind of book would warrant a low-rating? etc.

2. Opening:

Start with a short overview of what you thought of the book. This should give the reader a concise view of what you thought of the book, in two or three sentences. The idea is that, if they read only this opening part of the review, they should know your view on the matter.

Here’s an example opening paragraph I wrote for Heart of a Runaway Girl by Trevor Wiltzen:

‘Heart of a Runaway Girl is a breath of fresh air. As far as crime and murder investigation novels go, I only ever read Agatha Christie, so my standard is high. But this book did not disappoint.’

3. Synopsis:

The next section of the review is a short summary of the book, which should give the main elements of the plot. I tend to keep that part really short because I find that, if anyone wants to know the specifics, the book blurb the author so diligently wrote for the back cover is a much better place to learn more about that. Yes, you need to give a sense of what the book’s about, but it shouldn’t be the bulk of the review.

I think this is a matter of personal preference, I’ve seen reviews out there with a much longer synopsis section, but I always find myself skipping those bits to get to the nitty gritty of the review, which is what the person thought. There again, go back to the why — people who read reviews do so to find out whether or not they want to buy a book, so the more valuable pieces to help with that (in my view) are your opinions, more than an in-depth summary which they can find elsewhere.

For instance, when I reviewed Counter Ops by Jessica Scurlock, the second opus in the Pretty Lies series, I kept the synopsis paragraph to:

‘In Counter Ops, we meet a familiar duo, Ivy and Nixon, as they face the aftermath of the Elite Auction, and each endure its painful consequences. We follow their journey as they try to escape their fate and attempt to come to each other’s rescue — in more ways than one.’

4. Highlights:

The next part is what I call the ‘highlights’. This is where you talk about what you liked most about the book, or what you thought the strongest parts of the book were. This can focus on one element of the book (a character, a part of the plot, a theme etc.) or cover multiple elements.

See, for example, the highlights I picked for my review of Age of the Almek by Tara Lake:

‘I loved the author's ability to give every character their own voice and a distinct perspective on the world around them. I loved how involved I became with every character's fate and woes. I loved the precision with which the Almek world has been created, with such minuteness you can picture it down to the finest details.

My favourite part is the portrayal of the many facets of human nature, be it through the reactions of the masses to the barbaric ways of their rulers or the individual views of the protagonists. In every Almek citizen is a piece of the great puzzle that is humanity at large, and the author has a gift for writing it as raw and real as it gets.’

5. Mitigate your view:

Right after the highlights is where you’d add anything that mitigates your view. That’s anything that wasn’t quite as strong as you’d want it to be, or anything you weren’t a fan of.

You can skip this part if there’s nothing you didn’t like about the book — you don’t have to go nitpicking if nothing comes to mind. And it doesn’t have to be a bashing of the author and their work either. Keep it constructive and explain why you felt that way. There’s never a need for insults or expletives, and these wouldn’t enhance the quality of your review anyways. Formulating constructive criticism takes practice, and requires tact and subtlety. It’s a valuable skill to have if you’re willing to invest time in honing it.

Here’s how I phrased that part of the review for Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan:

‘But - and there's a but - my qualm with this book is that, for a story that revolves entirely around Nick and Rachel... There's actually very little Nick and Rachel in it!

Yes it's all 'about' them and it talks 'of' them loads, and we're told theyare happy together and want to be together... But it's all 'tell' and no 'show'. Their intimacy is sorely lacking, so I was left missing that added colour to convince me that they, in fact, do love each other. And I'm not talking saucy passages — I 'm talking about basic things suchas them actually talking to each other and spending time together.’

6. Conclusion:

The final part of the review is a short paragraph with closing remarks, such as a short summary of your view on the book, whether or not you recommend it or some indication of what readers the book may be for (e.g. ‘if you liked… you may like this book’).

When I reviewed Collision by Kristen Granata, I ended the review with:

‘Readers used to intricate, far-fetched romance plots may find this book too straightforward for their liking. In my mind, this is what makes the book's key strength: it's real and honest, it takes the reader through difficult situations and complex emotions beautifully, and that makes it all the more relatable.

A great read overall - and the moment I finished the last page, I was on Amazon ordering the next book in the series!’

How long should a review be?

I don’t think there should be a minimum or maximum word count to a review, though I find that mine end up being around 300 to 500 words. I feel this is a good length because as a reviewer this forces me to be concise and clear in expressing my opinions, and as a reader it’s long enough to give people a sense of the book, but not too long that they’ll drop off before the end.

Final Thoughts: To spoil or not to spoil?

My view on adding spoilers in your review is simple: DON’T.

Try as I might, I can’t fathom what could be gained from adding spoilers to a review. Once again: back to the why. Someone reads a review to find out if they want to read the book themselves. If you ruin the plot for them in that review, what’s the incentive to pick up the book?

It just hurts the author’s chances of making a book sale, and it robs a fellow reader of the joyful rollercoaster of finding out those plot twists at their own pace. Don’t do it, it’s just rude.

*Sources:

www.bookmarketingtools.com

www.searchenginewatch.com

www.dealeron.com

#writingtips #screenwriting #creative writing #writers on tumblr #writers #writing #writerblr #writing advice #writing community #writing resources

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obsessivelollipoplalala · 3 years

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I see you’re a woman of culture 😌 I LOVE The Book of Mormon, POTO, Something Rotten; they’re definitely in my top 5. I’m also a Sondheim fan. I love LesMis, Chicago (the movie), Cabaret, Hairspray, Legally Blonde, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and dare I say it, Cats (NOT the movie, and before you ask, no I’m not a furry lmao). Falsettos, Dogfight and Rent make me cry like a baby. Avenue Q is good but I think it’s a bit dated.

Anyways on the topic of RPF or fanfiction in general, what’s like the worst fic you’ve encountered? That one I talked about definitely scarred me the most, but I also saw fics where the entire premise is a female Y/N “turning Freddie straight” and having heterosexual sex with him which is just ew. And tbh I personally don’t have anything against old man thirst/PD!Queen fics (not including fics that normalize ped0philia etc), it’s just… some things are harder to stomach than others lol. As long as they keep it in their corner of the Internet and do not present it to the people they write about, live and let live.

Actually now that I think about the old man thirst, it’s a bit concerning to see literal children in their preteen and early teen years openly thirsting for old men, like men in their 60-80s. This goes beyond the Queen fandom, and applies to the wider classic rock fandom. The things I’ve read… They’re not just cute innocent crushes, they’re literally talking about present day rock stars in a very explicit, sexual way. A LOT of kids are getting into classic rock now; I sent you that ask about Tiktok and I’m not exaggerating when I say I see a lot of 11-14 classic rock fans (who like bands like Motley Crue, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, The Who…) And this opens up to all kinds of problems; I’ve seen a lot of them talk about how creepy old men would disguise themselves as their faves online and talk to them, ask for their number/address, etc.

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Oh yeah, Avenue Q is a product of its time. It was 2003 and it even has the line that George Bush is "only for now" in the last song lol. A lot has changed in our culture over the past 18 years. Sondheim is my favorite composer, hands-down. He's a genius and his music is so damn smart a lot of times. I haven't seen all of the other ones you've mentioned, but I'll be controversial and say that not only am I not a fan of Cats or POTO (with the latter, it has good songs but I think they're better out of context because the characters suck), but god, I really dislike RENT lol. I know a lot of people love it and that's fine. I'm glad you can get more enjoyment out of it than I can. I cried my eyes out when I watched it in 8th grade, but then I watched it when I got older and really did not enjoy it anymore.

Ooo boy, you're asking the real controversial questions lol. I'm definitely uncomfortable with the type of stories you mentioned. RPF is a complicated topic and I have mixed thoughts on it, but the short version is that I do think there are lines that shouldn't be crossed with it. I...really hate to name any specific fic....But. There's this person who has posted a ton of stories and they've gained quite a reputation. The stories tend to have these common themes: young Freddie being physically ill in some way (so some lowkey illness exploitation, for lack of a better term), the other members of the band being medical professionals who are either related to Freddie or his partners, some underage shit, random George Michael cameos, a dentistry fetish, and a tickling fetish. There are other things thrown in their work, but those are the things that pop up the most frequently.

I'm sorry, but it's the strangest collection of stories I've ever come across. I read just the descriptions of these stories to friends who've been reading fic for a long time, and they agree they've never seen such a weird collection. I think it would be weird if it were regular old fanfiction, but the fact that it's RPF is...Idk. I might get my head bitten off but I'm very uncomfortable with these stories which revolve around making Freddie medically suffer in some way when he really died of a terminal illness. This is where the stories go from strange to offensive for me. It's not like these stories deal with his real AIDS diagnosis, either, but stuff he didn't actually have irl. I saw one description where he'd need a lung transplant (?!) and closed the fuck out of AO3. Just, why? Where is the enjoyment out of imagining such a thing? Why not just write this story with a fictional character if it's going to have nothing to do with Queen? It honestly unnerves me. Oh, and the formatting of the stories themselves is absolutely unreadable. I clicked on one out of sheer curiosity but the lack of spaces and paragraph breaks hurt my eyes.

I do think the old man thirst is concerning when the people doing it are very young. Sorry but....kids aren't supposed to find senior citizens attractive lmfao. It definitely seems to be a thing in the wider classic rock fandom. I was going to say they'll just outgrow it, but if these kids on Tiktok are really talking about older men talking to them while posing as their idols, that's really concerning. Reason #7234 TikTok was a fucking mistake and I'm so glad I'm not on there.

#spicy ask time i guess #if y'all know the stories i'm talking about don't go send hate to the author #but i'm not going to act like i'm not disturbed by that person's work lol #replies #Anonymous

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charmedseoull · 3 years

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Greta Garbo and Uemura Naomi in Imprints (For the Boys in the Back) by Anna(arctic_grey)

I am entirely in love with the writing of this fanfic. This could be called a commentary or an analysis or an essay, but I don’t entirely give a damn about the specifications. Fuck it, this is a love letter, an appreciation, and understanding of Imprints (For the Boys in the Back) by Anna (arctic_grey). I wanted to leave a comment on their works, but a comment would not do justice to the absolute love and adoration I have for their writing. Thus, I chose to do this instead. Enjoy.

This analysis is a part of Charmedseoul’s Slice of Namjin side project, which documents Namjin (Kim Namjoon x Kim Seokjin) fanfiction with unique writing styles and complex themes. You can find Imprints and Magnitude’s Fanlore page here.

Disclaimer: This is a 18+ work with adult content such as sexual activity. You are responsible for the content you consume, please be aware of that. This analysis contains spoilers for the work as well.

Here are the trigger warnings the author provides: depression and mental health issues, few brief references to suicidal thoughts, discussions of infidelity, self-destructive behavior, consensual sex under influence.

Imprints (For the Boys in the Back) begins with struggling actor Kim Seokjin and his self-destructive behaviors after a messy breakup. He ends up with a one night stand that grows into something more with Kim Namjoon, a successful producer in South Korea. The story follows Jin’s personal growth and their budding fuck-buddies turned boyfriends relationship.

Now presenting the analysis of the use of historical figures Greta Garbo and Uemura Naomi in Anna(arctic_grey)’s work Imprints (For the Boys in the Back):

In the first chapter of “Imprints (For the Boys in the Back)”, Anna introduces the two historical figures Greta Garbo and Uemura Naomi to reflect the main characters of Kim Seokjin and Kim Namjoon. They each represent the two main characters’ initial desires and hopes for the future, but as the story progresses these things change. Greta Garbo and Uemura Naomi are Kim Seokjin and Kim Namjoon’s beginnings. Through their relationship, these two characters change each other and alter the course of their lives. They reject the comfort of Garbo and Naomi for the comfort of each other, definitively defying what they believed in the beginning of the series. The Imprints and Magnitude series offers alternatives to their lives and gives a realistic resolution that is able to resonate with any reader who has felt broken or lost. Imprints and Magnitude hears them.

Greta Garbo: Lavish, glamorous, compelling, and renowned. She was one of the greatest motion picture actors of the 1920s and ‘30s with her subtlety and restraint. Garbo carried an air of sophistication and richness that was insatiably desired by the public.

Greta Garbo is everything Jin wants to be at the beginning: sophisticated, surrounded by wealth, and explicitly independent. However, Jin craves affection and partnership. For him to live a life without a partner after the pain of his past relationship would doom him to misery. Jin is in pain. He is broken, a shattered glass mirror with an empty reflection that needs its pieces picked back up and glued together. He rejects his needs because they’re complicated. He was hurt deeply by someone he trusted. To fix all of that takes so much more than a comforting word or reassuring hug, it takes consistent gentle and attentive attention which many do not care enough to give. Even though he’s told his other friends about his pain, he’s still closed off. He puts up barriers and only Namjoon attempts to break those down with that consistent, gentle and attentive attention. He is the only one whose patience does not run thin. Jin tries so desperately to be like Greta Garbo, completely unbothered by the world and his wants. He isn’t Greta Garbo though. He’s Kim Seokjin. He needs to heal and at the beginning of the story, readers themselves aren’t acutely aware of that.

Uemura Naomi: Ambitious, independent, driven, and well-loved. He was one of the greatest Japanese adventurers as he became the first man to reach some of the Earth’s most remote places alone. Naomi scaled mountains and traveled relentlessly. When he was not adventuring, he was giving public lectures and sharing his warm personality with the world.

In the beginning of Imprints, readers aren’t too aware of who Namjoon is. The story is told from Jin’s point of view where he promptly calls Namjoon an asshole after their first rendezvous. Readers do get to know Namjoon better throughout the story though, catching on small quirks about him that they grow to love. Namjoon is like Uemura Naomi with the goal to do work, in his chosen field, by himself. Namjoon is already successful from the song “Hey Cutie” and grows more successful as he produces more music. He’s content with his success, focusing on it. Jin changes that. Jin enters Namjoon’s life suddenly, broken and confused about love. Namjoon is no savior. He had no intention to change Jin, only adding his own experiences and healing to the conversation. Unlike Jin, who grew resentful and emotionally unstable due to his breakup, Namjoon grew from it as a person. He came to accept what happened and let go of his past relationship. He’s then able to provide Jin a push to grow, diverting from his own path of solo adventures like Uemura Naomi. Namjoon departs from the role he was playing in his life as a mountain man and begins a path with Jin.

Each of these historical figures were known for being alone. Garbo closed herself off from the public and lived her life lavishly without ever marrying. Naomi scaled entire mountains and landscapes by himself, capable of accomplishing solo ventures deemed impossible. Both Namjoon and Seokjin were alone in the beginning of Imprints (For the Boys in the Back), but then they found each other and departed from their associations with these historical figures. They’re not alone anymore. They’re together and meant to be together. They’re healing.

Seokjin and Namjoon are no longer Greta and Uemura. They aren’t these lonely figures who found great success by themselves then died alone. (There is nothing wrong with dying alone by the way.) They’re human and need other people. It’s a startling refreshing take on love and relationships using a set up with historical figures. The message hits all the more with the context behind who these two were.

And that’s why I love it.

Author’s Note:

The Imprints and Magnitude fanfiction series, written by an author who had no intention to ever be documented, analyzed, or a part of this side project is one of my favorite works in both professional and casual literature. It’s an automatic recommendation to any who ask. Its writing style flows easily off the paper, detailed and emotional and incredibly personal. In literature stuffed with attempts to mean something, Imprints and Magnitude attempts no grand pompous message. It’s simple. It excels in its meaning whether intentional or not. I love works like that. I love works that feel intimate with the author’s closest thoughts. I love works where an author bleeds into the words and pages. It absorbs emotions in a raw way that can not be replicated in professional published works often. That is because published works have limitations. They have deadlines and people to make happy with the proper words and formats. Fanfiction doesn’t do that. Fanfiction is free to do what it wants. There are no restraints. It satisfies my intense craving for a work unleashed and unedited by publishers and institutions. It satisfies my intense longing for literature that’s different. I just want one person’s closest and deepest thoughts stitched together with words and phrases and sentences and paragraphs and laid bare for the world. Imprints and Magnitude gives me all of that and a cute love story with a message that sticks to me like gum. This series retaught love, relationships, and letting go to me. I needed that, especially as I continue to grow older. Thank you to the most wonderful Anna for being the one thing I’ve wanted for so long.

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#bts #bangtan sonyeondan #imprints (for the boys in the back)#imprints (for the boys in the back) by anna(arctic_grey)#fanfiction #fanfiction analysis #analysis #ao3

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d-criss-news · 4 years

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Darren Criss acts as playwright when he writes songs. He’s far more confident, and certainly more vulnerable, when he allows himself to play the part. In such a way, songwriting opens up a whole new world that pulses with untapped potential. So much of what he has accomplished in 15 years resides in his willingness to expose himself to what his imagination and intuition have in store. He steps into a playwright’s shoes with considerable ease (just look at his resume), and always one to put on plenty of bravado, especially during our Zoom face-to-face, it’s the natural order of things.

“As I get older and write more and more songs, I really recognize that I’ve always preferred to write for another context other than my own,” Criss tells American Songwriter. He speaks with a cool intensity, gesturing emphatically to accentuate a sentence, and when you let him go, he’s like the Energizer Bunny 一 “I can tell by just how quiet you already are that you’re fucked,” he jokes at the start of our video chat. But he remains just as engaged and focused when listening.

He soaks in the world, taking astute notes about behavior and emotional traits he can later use in song. His storytelling, though, arrives already in character, fully formed portraits he can then relay to the world. It’s not that he can’t be vulnerable, like such greats as Randy Newman, Tom Waits, and Rufus Wainwright, who have all embroidered their work with deeply personal observations, it just doesn’t feel as comfortable. “I’ve always really admired the great songwriters of the world who are extremely introspective and can put their heart and soul on the chopping block,” he muses. “That’s a vulnerability that I think is so majestic. I’ve never had access to it. I’m not mad about it. It’s just good to know what your deal is.”

Criss’ strengths lie in his ability to braid his own experiences, as charmed as they might be, into wild, goofy fantasies. In the case of his new series “Royalties,” now streaming on Quibi, he walks a fine line between pointed commentary on the music industry, from menial songwriting sessions to constantly chasing down the next smash, and oddball comedy that is unequivocally fun. Plotted with long-standing friends and collaborators Matt and Nick Lang, co-founders of Team StarKid, created during their University of Michigan days (circa 2009), the show’s conceptual nucleus dates back more than a decade.

If “Royalties” (starring Criss and Kether Donohue) feels familiar, that’s because it is. The 10-episode show ─ boasting a smorgasbord of delightful guest stars, including Mark Hammill, Georgia King, Julianna Hough, Sabrina Carpenter, and Lil Rel Howery ─ captures the very essence of a little known web series called “Little White Lie.” Mid-summer 2009, Team StarKid uploaded the shoddy, low budget production onto YouTube, and its scrappy tale of amateur musicians seeking fame and fortune quickly found its audience, coming on the heels of “A Very Potter Musical,” co-written with and starring Criss. Little did the trio know, those initial endeavors laid the groundwork for a lifetime of creative genius.

“It’s a full circle moment,” says Criss, 33, zooming from his Los Angeles home, which he shares with his wife Mia. He’s fresh-faced and zestful in talking about the new project. 11 years separate the two series, but their connective thematic tissues remain striking. “Royalties” is far more polished, the obvious natural progression in so much time, and where “Little White Lie” soaked in soapy melodrama, the former analyzes the ins and outs of the music world through more thoughtful writing, better defined (and performed) characters, and hookier original tunes.

“Royalties” follows Sara (Donohue) and Pierce (Criss), two struggling songwriters in Los Angeles, through various career exploits and pursuits. The pilot, titled “Just That Good,” features an outlandish performance from Rufus Wainwright as a major player in dance-pop music, kickstarting the absurdity of Criss’ perfectly-heightened reality. As our two main characters stumble their way between songwriting sessions, finally uncovering hit single potential while eating a hot dog, Criss offers a glimpse into the oft-unappreciated art of songwriting.

In his own songwriting career ─ from 2010’s self-released Human EP and a deal with Columbia Records (with whom a project never materialized) to 2017’s Homework EP and Computer Games’ debut, Lost Boys Life, (a collaboration with his brother Chuck) ─ he’s learned a thing or two about the process. Something about sitting in a room with someone you’ve never met before always rang a little funny to him.

“You meet a stranger, and you have to be creative, vulnerable, and open. It’s speed-dating, essentially. It’s a different episode every time you pull it off or not. All the big songwriters will tell you all these crazy war stories. Everyone has a wacky story from songwriting,” he says. “I slowly realized I may ─ I can’t flatter myself, there are tons of creative people who are songwriters ─ have prerequisites to just put the two together [TV and music]. I’ve worked enough in television as an actor and creator. I can connect the dots. I had dual citizenship where I felt like it was really time for me to go forth with this show.”

But a packed professional life pushed the idea to the backburner.

Between six seasons of “Glee” (playing Blaine Anderson, a Warbler and lover to Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel), starring in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” on Broadway, and creating Elsie Fest, a one-day outdoor festival celebrating songs of the stage and screen, he never had the time. “I was lucky enough to be busy,” he says. “As Team StarKid’s star was continuing to rise with me being separate from it, I was trying to think of a way to get involved again with songwriting.”

At one point, “Glee” had officially wrapped and his Broadway run was finished. It appeared “Royalties” may finally get its day in the sun. “I went to Chicago for a work pilgrimage with the Langs. We had a few days, and we put all our ideas on the map: every musical, feature film, show, graphic novel, and animated series we’ve ever thought of,” he says. “A lot of them were from the Langs; they were just things I was interested in as a producer or actor. We looked at all of them and made a top three.”

“Royalties” obviously made the cut.

Fast forward several years, Gail Berman’s SideCar, a production company under FOX Entertainment, was looking to produce a music show. Those early conversations, beginning at an otherwise random LA party, showed great promise in airlifting the concept from novel idea to discernible reality. Things quickly stalled, however, as they often do in Hollywood, but Criss had at least spoken his dreams into the universe.

“I finally had an outlet to put it into gear. It wasn’t until two to three years after that that things really locked in. We eventually made shorts and made a pilot presentation. We showed it to people, and it wasn’t until Quibi started making their presence known that making something seemed really appealing,” he says. “As a creator, they’re very creator-centric. They’re not a studio. They’re a platform. They are licensing IP much like when a label licenses an indie band’s album after the fact.”

Quibi has drawn severe ire over the last few months, perhaps because there is a “Wild Westness” to it, Criss says. “I think that makes some people nervous. Being my first foray into something of this kind, Quibi felt like a natural partner for us. If this had been a network or cable show, we would’ve molded it to be whatever it was.”

Format-wise, “Royalties” works best as bite-sized vignettes, charming hijinks through the boardroom and beyond, and serves as a direct response to a sea of music shows, from “Nashville” and “Empire” to “Smash.” “Those shows were bigger, more melodramatic looks at the inside base of our world. I’ve always been a goofball, and I just wanted to take the piss out of it,” he says. “This show isn’t about songwriting. It’s about songwriters… but a very wacky look at them.”

“30 Rock,” a scripted comedy loosely based around “Saturday Night Live,” in which the focus predominantly resides around the characters, rather than the business itself, was also on his mind. “It’s about the interconnectivity of the people and characters. As much of the insider knowledge that I wanted to put into our show, at the end of the day, you just want to make a fun, funny show that’s relatable to people who know nothing about songwriting and who shouldn’t have to know anything.”

Throughout 10 episodes, Criss culls the “musicality, fun, and humor” of Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger and Max Martin, two of his biggest songwriting heroes, and covers as many genres as possible, from K-Pop to rap-caviar and classic country. While zip-lining between formats, the songs fully rely on a sturdy storytelling foundation ─ only then can Criss drape the music around the characters and their respective trajectories. “I wanted to do something where I could use all the muscles I like to flex at once, instead of compartmentalizing them,” he says. “I really love writing songs for a narrative, not necessarily for myself. I thrive a little more when I have parameters, characters, and a story to tell.”

Bonnie McKee, one of today’s greatest pop architects, takes centerstage, too, with an episode called “Kick Your Shoes Off,” in which she plays a bizarro version of herself. “She has her own story, and I’ve always been fascinated by it,” says Criss, who took her out to lunch one day to tell her about it. Initially, the singer-songwriter, known for penning hits for Katy Perry, Taio Cruz, and Britney Spears, would anchor the entire show, but it soon became apparent she would simply star in her own gloriously zany episode.

In one of the show’s standout scenes, Pierce and Sara sit in on a label meeting with McKee’s character and are tasked with writing a future hit. But they quickly learn how many cooks are in the kitchen at any given moment. Everyone from senior level executives to publicists and contracted consultants have an opinion about the artist’s music. One individual urges her to experiment, while another begs not to alienate her loyal fanbase, and then a third advises her to chronicle the entire history of music itself ─ all within three minutes or so. It’s absurd, and that’s the point. “Everyone’s been in that meeting, whether you’re in marketing or any creative discussion that has to be made on a corporate level by committee. It’s the inevitable, comedic contradictions and dissociations from not only rationality but feasibility.”

Criss also draws upon his own major label days, having signed with Sony/Columbia right off the set of “Glee,” as well as second-hand accounts from close friends. “There are so many artists, particularly young artists, who famously get chewed up and spat out by the label system,” he says. “There’s a lot of sour tastes in a lot of people’s mouths from being ‘mistreated’ by a label. I have a lot of friends who’ve had very unfortunate experiences.”

“I was really lucky. I didn’t have that. I have nothing but wonderful things to say,” he quickly adds.“It wasn’t a full-on drop or anything. I was acting, and I was spreading myself really thin. It’s a record label’s job to make product, and I was doing it piecemeal here and there. I would shoot a season [of ‘Glee’] and then do a play. I was doing too many things. I didn’t have it in me at the time to do music. I had written a few songs I thought were… fine.”

Both Criss and the label came to the same conclusion: perhaps this professional relationship just wasn’t a good fit. They parted ways, and he harbors no ill-will. In fact, he remains close friends with many folks from that time. So, it seems, a show like “Royalties” satisfies his deep hunger to make music and write songs ─ and do it totally on his own terms.

“I still say I want to put out music, and fans have been very vocal about that. I feel very fortunate they’re still interested at all,” he says. “That passion for making music really does come out in stuff like [this show].”

“Royalties” is Darren Criss at his most playful, daring, and offbeat. It’s the culmination of everything he has tirelessly worked toward over the last decade and a half. Under pressure with a limited filming schedule, he hits on all cylinders with a soundtrack, released on Republic Records, that sticks in the brain like all good pop music should do. And it would not have been the same had he, alongside Matt and Nick Lang, not formed Team StarKid 11 years ago.

Truth be told, it all began with a “Little White Lie.”

#darren criss #american songwriter #royalties press #press #royalties #june 2020

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animaniachan · 4 years

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A3! Act 3 Episode 9 Summary

Please read through this note before you start reading the summary!

whhhhew, finally finished episode 9 and THE EMOTIONS ARE ROLLING-😭😭

but ofc being the maniac that i am ive decided to provide a full summary of episode 9 for those who are interested!

Be warned that this is MAJOR STORY SPOILERS so i would recommend you be at least finished act 2 and all the events leading up to it before you read this. Otherwise you’ll probably have a hard time understanding the full context of things.

The last note I want to make is that this won’t be a detail-for-detail summary! I still want to keep things decently vague so people can still have the joy of experiencing the story for themselves while still providing adequate information to clear up any confusions and speculations. This summary will basically be a rough outline of the story that highlights some of the major events that went on. This summary will follow the order of how the episode played out, all the events will be listed in order.

Ofc, if anybody has any specific questions regarding the story that they want clarified or just simply want to discuss episode 9: always feel free to shoot in an ask or dm me! I’m always happy to provide with information and/or rant about these precious boys!

Well, without further ado, here y’all go~~

WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG POST AND MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD~

the new groups of people now are the following:

High schoolers- Yuki/Muku/Azami/Kumon

Yosei University- Juza/Tsuzuru/Tenma/Taichi

Amabi- Kazunari/Banri

Adult group is still adult group~~

Apparently Tenma’s parents decided it would be a good idea to let him attend university so it was decided on the spot that he would be going through exams. He had to get Chikage to tutor to barely scrape by passing bc of how busy he was. Taichi on the other hand....Tsumugi the GOAT-

Omi now works as a professional photographer through a job his friend introduced him to.

Masumi decided to go to Fuyou University which is Tasuku and Tsumugi’s old university to study. Misumi’s brother, Madoka, also studies there. Although Madoka does not look like it, he’s actually 19... I know...

Azami decided to attend the same high school as Kumon which warms my heart honestly bc it just showed how good of friends they’ve become <3~~ Here’s his new uniform look <333

not sure how i feel about the red hoodie but eh, boy can pull it off so it doesn’t matter aha~

Guy is apparently opening up a new Zahra style bar with the help of the winter troupe members such as Homare who introduced him to an interior design company (same company that installed that brick wall in his room orz). Hisoka will also be helping out in Guy’s bar.

The entirety of Reni’s backstory (5 episodes in total) which describe his initial meeting with Yukio during high school to how they built Mankai together was described through the format of portraits (the autumn troupe signature). HIs backstories are basically just narrations of Act 3 1/2 if any of you read that when it was first posted.

Reni’s real name is apparently “Kamikizaka Reiji” and “Reni” is a nickname that Yukio gave him in high school bc Yukio thought that his real name was too hard to write out in kanji and pronounce lolol.

Reni keeps a journal which documents his time with Yukio (basically Act 3 1/2) in a safe in his office.

Kasumi’s nickname back in the day was apparently “Juriko”: stems from “Juliette” and “ko” which is a way to feminize someone’s name in Japanese. This was because he was the crossdresser that had to play Juliette in the OG spring troupe RomiJuri- heh.

Shifuto is now the new “top” in GOD Troupe after Tasuku and Haruto who got demoted.

FRIEND ANGST BETWEEN AZAMI AND SHIFUTO HNGHHH and that’s all I’m willing to say oop-

GOD Troupe challenged Mankai to an act-off once again and this time appointed Tsumugi as the lead and Tasuku to be in the play and the theme as “devil” and thus...Devil Tsumugi was born.

The company was initially debating on whether to accept the challenge or not but Tsumugi and Taichi desperately wanted to show Reni who they have become as an actor and prove him wrong on all the things he’s said to them. Basically, everyone who was casted for this play had their own reasons on why they wanted to act.

Misumi’s dad’s name is revealed to be “Kusumi” which literally means nine-points/sides and I- top 10 betrayals? I was certain that his name will have something to do with a square but apparently not-

Although it was briefly revealed during Sky Pirates, Misumi’s dad is the official script writer for GOD Troupe. However, it is shown here that he has absolutely no talent in writing so what he does is get Madoka to act as his ghostwriter and write for him.

Hence this birthed Madoka’s complex of wanting to write in his own free will and not under the control of his father. Since everything he writes gets “edited” by his father but everything his father edited gets rejected by Reni and so Madoka has to fix it himself anyways.

Returning to backstory, Reni revealed that Yukio legit went to visit Misumi’s grandpa (Hakkaku) as a senior high school student to ask him for a script. As a note, Hakkaku was already a very famous script writer at that time and age wise he is about what both their dads would be. Ofc he was refused many times but Yukio wouldn’t give up and would not stop pestering Hakkaku until he finally caved in.

Honestly I loved the autumn and winter troupe dynamic throughout this entire episode- just the way they supported Taichi and Tsumugi is just-

Kumon had to act as the mediator between Azami and Shifuto to try and recover their friendship and the entire process was hilarious.

Yukio and Reni were actually Yuzo and Kasumi’s high school seniors at Nanakusa High. Yuzo was the “ghost member” that was only member of drama club in-name only that was mentioned earlier.

NAMIKAWA DAISUKE’S VOICE IN KASUMI- *deaded counter x1* as a tiny side note: i realized half way through that Tezuka (Reni), Sanada (Yuzo), and Ootori (Kasumi) were in the same high school together bc of their seiyuus. This is for my TeniPuri fans out there haha~~

During their last performance in high school, Yukio and Reni got boycotted by the other junior members right before their play. Reni ended up forcing a reluctant Yukio to go at speak act out the monologue Hakkaku provided for them and everybody ended up being overwhelmed by Yukio’s performance.

This is what ended up making Reni dedicate his post high school life creating Mankai with Yukio, he wants to see Yukio act on stage again. He describes Yukio’s acting as “someone who was chosen by God” and even went as far as using his own money his parents gave him when they kicked him out (strict family bs) to build the initial theatre while they both worked part-time. Reni was the one who designed the entire theatre according to Yukio’s wishes to “make it long lasting”. However, Yukio revealed to him that he has no desire to stand on stage again and instead wants to make others “full bloom”, this invoked a sense of betrayal in Reni.

Reni was also the one who recruited Syu, his childhood friend, into the theatre. From there on, Yuzo and Kasumi also joined. Kasumi was revealed to also be garbage at acting at first but Yukio appointed him as lead for their first play nonetheless.

There is apparently some outside force wanting to ruin Mankai as they even went as far as stealing a part of Tsuzuru’s script and provided it to Misumi’s dad who ended up plagiarizing. It is later revealed that Reni had nothing to do with this so it is currently unknown who the main perpetrator is.

In order to get a better grasp on his devil character, Tsumugi opted to spend one day with each of the other winter troupe members (Homare, Hisoka, and Azuma) individually. This is to get more insight from people who had lived such different lives and accumulated such different experiences. Honestly, one of the most heartwarming moments ever.

MY ANGST MAN IS HERE WITH HIS FIRST APPEARANCE!!! SAKURAI TAKAHIRO’S VOICE OMGGGGG *deaded counter x2*

He met Tsumugi in front of the GOD Theatre and asked him to “save” Reni.

On the day of the performance, Tsumugi and Taichi decided to walk to the theatre. They met Banri and Juza along the way who were planning to do a street act to release some energy. On their way, they ended up being surrounded by numerous punks who were presumably sent by the same outside force who stole Tsuzuru’s script.

The night before the actual performance, the plagiarism was revealed to both sides and both sides were just as much caught off guard by this. Reni, however, refused to change the direction of the play since it was too risky as the performance is the next day. However, Shifuto refused to act out something that is plagiarized since he promised Azami that they would have a “fair fight like men”.

And so, he managed to convince Haruto to use Madoka’s script that he has written for the first time according to free will and changed the entire play in one night. With the help of Haruto’s authority, they managed to do it in time. (I’ve failed to mention this until now but these three has been building up chemistry all through out this episode and im so down for them tbh)

Banri told Juza to take Tsumugi and Taichi and go ahead while he stays behind to try and buy some time alone against all the men. Just when Banri was in a tight spot due to power in number...

BAM THIS OLD MAN COMES IN AND SAVES THE DAY!! by now y’all already know... YASUMOTO HIROKI’S VOICE HAAAAAAAAAH *deaded counter x3*

After Banri revealed to Zen that he was autumn troupe leader of Mankai, Zen gave him a card of his restaurant, “Gentiana” and promised to treat them to a meal there afterwards.

Costume reveal for GOD Troupe. Honestly, I love the chemistry that was built throughout this episode between Shifuto, Haruto, and Madoka. Haruto really did give out redeeming qualities and i don’t dislike him as much as before aha (even tho he is still a snob) and I acknowledge him as a character. Madoka’s script consisted of two characters and basically talks about two estranged brothers (his way of writing down his guilt for towards Misumi)

Costume reveal for Mankai as many of you probably have seen already- devil tsumugi and sexy tasuku is just-

In terms of actual in-game plays, this was the second play that I’ve actually cried at, the first being Clockwork. Super emotional and well-written play and certainly it draws a lot of parallels to Sympathy for the Angel.

SAME RENI...JUST-SAME. TT

After the performances...i won’t reveal who won and by how much but Reni did officially apologize for all his past actions as he was reminded of his passion for acting through this play. Izumi thought this too but it is hard to 100% forgive him bc of the pain he’s brought on all the members.

He revealed why he quit Mankai, it was bc he and Yukio had become so divided that if he had stayed, the entire balance of Mankai would fall to ruins. He actually came to the conclusion to leave after being trapped in the time loop with Yukio for about three days aha~

Reni decided to create GOD Troupe bc he wanted them to win the Fleur Awards first and crush Mankai, that way, he may have the chance one day to accepted a lost Yukio in his troupe as an actor and not a director (obsessed much my dude??)

The last part of the episode is Reni wanting to talk to Izumi about the Ikaruga family and being invited to Mankai Dorms as a result. There he reminisced the days with the OGs before we are left with a cliffhanger-

Even though he only talked for two lines but ONO DAISUUUUKE~~~ *deaded counter x4*

The very last scenes showcased how the OGs are starting to come back together as they will be getting involved with the new Mankai members.

THIS OLD MAN LEGIT WENT AND HELPED THEM PICK CABBAGE I-

LOOK AT THIS EXPRESSION HE IS SO PRECIOUS-

~❀❀❀~

that concludes the rough summary of episode 9! i...this was an ordeal to get through aha and sorry for it ended up being such a long post...It was inevitable bc this episode consisted of 39 chapters.

Honestly im so dead by the end of this that i didnt have the heart to check for any grammar mistakes so there’re probably quite a few that i ask you kindly to just ignore~ 🥺🥺

now, time to dig a hole and cry until episode 10 comes out...☠️😇😭

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