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reversalsun · 3 years

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Explaining Rainbow Drinkers

I’m a decade wiser and return to the Homestuck fandom with a degree in biology and a desire to use it for evil. Lets talk about Vampire Troll Girls.

We get very little from the actual canon of Homestuck about Rainbow Drinkers, just Kanaya, Porrim, and a few hints of lore scattered about. Still, they’re one of the most interesting parts of troll culture - rare and strange, feared but also obsessed over in fiction and mythology. They may be analogous with vampires in the pop culture fascination surrounding them, but I don’t believe that they’re all that similar in function. So let's speculate on how Rainbow Drinkers could function on a biological level and how they fit into greater troll society.

Rainbow drinkers don’t seem to be literal undead, but rather a functional state that some Jadebloods have the potential to enter into. Yes, Kanaya only becomes a rainbow drinker after “dying”, but death isn’t strictly what made her a rainbow drinker. In fact, I’d argue that Kanaya never actually died - rather she reached a near death state. This state, I believe, did kickstart her transformation.

The most important thing to zero in on here is rainbow drinker being an inborn trait. Contrast this with how vampirism in human mythos is treated like a pathogen - no one is born a vampire, you become one via infection. RD is hardwired into Jadeblood biology, but it isn’t expressed in their default state. This raises a question: what causes a Jadeblood to undergo transformation into a rainbow drinker? Answering this is a little difficult, as we have a pitiful data pool of one to draw from. Nevertheless, we can examine Kanaya (as well as some dubiously canon content) to extrapolate a bit more about sparkly troll vampirism. Kanaya undergoes transformation into a RD when she is blasted through the stomach and seemingly killed by Eridan’s science powers. Off screen she regains consciousness, begins glowing, gulps down some friend blood, then returns with a vengeance. How do we explain this without leaning on the supernatural? Let's start by drawing on real world bloodsuckers.

Little may be known about Alternia, but planet Earth is abound with creatures that subsist on blood. Mainly the trait is seen in bugs and parasites - this lends itself to our cause, as trolls seem to be more insectoid than mammalian in nature. Hematophagy (blood drinking) is a trait that has convergently evolved in creatures across the planet - that is to say, hematophagic creatures aren’t genetically related. The trait crops up on its own because it's widely useful, not because of a shared ancestral nematode. Vital fluids, after all, are incredibly prevalent and are in sure supply wherever animals live. It’s not farfetched to say that hematophagy would appear on other planets - especially planets like Alternia that are host to carbon based lifeforms similar to Earth’s.

We can safely assume that blood drinking would work in the same way on Alternia as it does on Earth. That means rainbow drinkers face the same difficulties that Earth’s vampires do. Blood is not only difficult to obtain, but it’s also difficult to digest. So how do rainbow drinkers solve these conundrums?

First, the method. Most terrestrial bloodsuckers are nocturnal - and not just for the spooky aesthetic. Fluttering, crawling, and slithering in on a sleeping host lessens your chance of being swatted on impact. Almost all hematophagic creatures are stealth feeders, and Rainbow Drinkers are no different. Trolls are a nocturnal species, but Kanaya is stated to be diurnal upon introduction. It would make sense for her and other potential Rainbow Drinkers to have a natural proclivity for daywalking, as it's much easier to feed from a sleeping troll than a waking one. Kanaya is also able to withstand the fierce, burning Alternian sun - a force which is enough to blind Terezi, and leave any troll who walks out in it for too long with a scathing sunburn. Even Jadebloods that are not currently or will never be rainbow drinkers are likely to exhibit non standard troll sleeping patterns, as they live primarily in the brooding caverns - dark, underground caves where the sun cycle wouldn’t really matter to them. When they do leave their caves to hunt, the glowing, white skin of a Rainbow Drinker would likely be a large boon against the Alternian sun’s devastating rays. In Friendsim we’re told that Lusii’s bright white coats help to protect them from the sun. It’s likely the same for rainbow drinkers; the color white reflects all wavelengths of light far better than any other, thus their radiance and pale complexion provides them an extra level of defense when they’re out hunting. Friendsim also vaguely mentions Rainbow Drinker extract in Tagora’s route, where it’s used as a luxury skincare/beauty product that makes a troll’s skin look literally radiant. Very little is said about the product itself, so it may be a hormone or a secretion derived from Rainbow Drinkers. In the case of the latter… Kanaya and other Rainbow Drinkers might just be really greasy?

Now, in canon Kanaya theorizes that Rainbow Drinkers glow because of their home in the near pitch black caverns. It’s true that even with trolls' natural night vision, more light sources would be a boon. Animals that thrive in the dark like cats and wolves can’t magically see without a light source, rather their eyes are specially adapted to reflect even scant amounts of light. Animals that live in true darkness, like those found in the depths of caves, are more commonly blind. If no light is present, even night vision fails. With the mother grub’s natural habitat being subterranean, her special attendants possessing an internal light source would make sense.

We have to change gears now and reckon with the How of troll blood drinking and Kanaya surviving. First: how can a troll survive on blood? We know that all trolls - even Kanaya, subsist on diets of foods akin to what you and I eat. Is it even possible to suddenly switch to a blood diet? The answer is yes. Blood drinking comes in two forms: obligatory and facultative. Obligatory, as the name implies, refers to creatures like fleas and ticks who only consume blood, whereas facultative refers to creatures that have a mixed diet of blood and other foods. Mosquitos for example only drink blood when they need to produce eggs. Rainbow Drinkers are likely similar - mainly eating standard troll goodies, but being able to rely on blood if the going gets tough. Natural resources may be scant in the brooding caverns, and the ability to survive on blood would be incredibly advantageous for those living there. Blood would of course be in no short supply given the population and purpose of the caverns. The implication I’m getting at is well… not every grub survives the caverns trials, or even the caverns in general. Between imperial drones, hoards of lusii, and difficult terrain, the brooding caverns can be dangerous. It would make sense for the troll denizens living there to be exceptionally tough and capable of “recycling” the grubs that don’t make it. Horrible. I’m sorry. But that’s nature.

The transformation into Rainbow Drinker could very well be triggered by shock or extreme physical duress. After undergoing the transformation and taking a nice sloppy drink from her friends, Kanaya begins to exhibit increased physical abilities. Natural durability and rainbow drinker abilities serve Jades well in their special role as mother grub attendants, and I think that’s in part how Kanaya was able to survive Eridan’s attack. That, and the noticeable difference in how she and Feferi were hit. Fef was hit in the chest while Kan was hit in the stomach. Assuming troll biology is comparable to our own, cleaving out the lungs and heart is a lot worse than cleaving out the stomach. Now don’t get me wrong, both are awful, But if one of the two was going to survive, it would be Kanaya - not only is she a durable Jade (see above), but as a facultative blood drinker, it could be possible for her to have a separate stomachs for blood and food. The digestion process of the two is completely different, so throwing all of it into one pouch might not be a good idea. Outside of durability and luck with the placement of the blast, this could be why Kanaya was able to get back on her feet. And she’s a Sylph, a natural healer class. But this isn’t a classpect analysis, so I’ll leave that discussion for people wiser than I.

Jadebloods are stated to be the second rarest blood type out there, and those that are able to turn Rainbow Drinker exemplify how badass the whole caste is. It’s likely that they don’t possess these skills because they’re the chosen attendants of the mother grubs, but rather these traits are why the mother grubs chose Jades as their keepers in the first place. As much as I wish we’d gotten more info about Rainbow Drinkers from canon, it was fun to explore how they could potentially work, and it really cemented Jades as my favorite caste. Anyway, please excuse me while I go draw myself a Rainbow Drinker trollsona.

#kanaya #kanaya maryam #porrim maryam #homestuck #hiveswap #analysis #here i am posting like this is still 2013 tumblr #oh well I'll find somewhere else to host this essay later #friendsim #rainbow drinker #biology #science #theoretical biology

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rosalyn51 · 3 years

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BACK IN TIME

Panavision

Adam Etherington, BSC partners with Panavision and Panalux to visualize a centuries-spanning storyline for A Discovery of Witches Season 2.

Season 2 of A Discovery of Witches found cinematographer Adam Etherington, BSC partnering with director Farren Blackburn to continue the adventures of historian and witch Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer) and her unlikely ally, the vampire Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode). Both Etherington and Blackburn were new additions to the series, and together they set out to build upon the visual language that had been established in Season 1 while embracing the opportunities afforded by a new twist in the narrative, which sends Diana and Matthew back in time to the Elizabethan era.

Etherington turned to Panavision for his camera and lens package, and gaffer Andrew “Tala” Taylor sourced lighting equipment through Panalux. “Tala handled the interaction with Panalux, as is generally the way with this scale of production,” Etherington shares. “Both he and I have great relationships with Panalux, and they were very supportive of what we were trying to achieve with the show. It was fantastic to have them in our corner.”

Panavision recently connected with Etherington for a firsthand account of the cinematographer’s creative approach to balancing the show’s period and contemporary settings, and of the process that led him to frame the story with Panavision’s PVintage optics.

Panavision: How did you come to be involved in Season 2?

Adam Etherington, BSC: The meeting came about through a competitive interview process, as is so often the way. I’m a huge believer in the value of preparation, and I dedicate a large amount of time to understanding a project and developing ideas before I enter a pitch. I studied the first season of A Discovery of Witches as well as other relevant material that might be useful in light of the move to an Elizabethan setting. I then did quite an in-depth breakdown of the script, looking into characters, potential arcs in relation to the first season, motivations, key themes and motifs, and of course possibilities for the visual realization of those ideas. The script is the foundation of the choices we make, and understanding the philosophies of the storytelling is such a crucial element in creating a world for the audience.

I also studied Farren’s most recent work and read interviews where he’d talked about other projects, and I looked at interviews with other key creatives from the series and wider material about the show itself. Then it was a case of developing a base of visual ideas and a tranche of reference material that I could offer up, if appropriate, during the meeting.

Had you known Farren previously?

Etherington: This was a new opportunity for me to meet and work with Farren. His usual collaborators were unavailable, which opened the opportunity for others to pitch on the show. I’d been aware of his work for a very long time and knew his reputation for delivering some of the most exciting shows out there in innovative and progressive ways — he was already directing massive shows when I was still a camera assistant. This was a great opportunity for me to get the chance to collaborate with him.

Coming into Season 2, where did you and your collaborators see opportunities to evolve or expand upon the series’ visual language?

Etherington: From the very start, Farren had a wonderful clarity of vision for the ethos and ideology of the series’ visual language, including an assured perspective that the camera’s movement should be wholly motivated by the narrative. He wanted a precision-based approach with a refined set of rules as to when and why the camera should move. This was something that he and I discussed at length. Rather than simply falling into coverage, we knew we wanted elegant shots that developed and evolved to tell the story. We wanted the photography to emphasise and enhance the power play within the narrative arc, with lensing that was appropriate to each character’s emotional positioning within the narrative.

We also wanted to build a strategy of graphic compositions to convey the grandeur and beauty of the incredible locations and sets. The world deserved big, bold, beautiful wides that could combine with close, intimate frames that would draw the audience close-in to a character’s experience for moments of confidence, suspicion or tenderness, enabling the audience to experience those beats with the characters.

There were things to avoid, too. We actively made a call to avoid using handheld or any superfluous, unmotivated camera movement, as both of these things felt as though they might take away from the precision-based ideology of the visual language as a whole.

Beyond the first season, did you and Farren share any specific visual references?

Etherington: The first season was obviously something that we studied and considered carefully in order to ensure that the choices we were making were respectful to the origins of the show as well as its audience and fan-base. That said, the Elizabethan landscape was a new world to explore, and Farren had a clear strategy as to the way he wanted to invite the audience into that world.

Although I had brought a base of references and visual ideas to the initial meeting, I quickly learned that Farren’s preference is to avoid homing in on any one defined cinematic reference. This meant that although I did use a number of other films in my lighting reference and mood boards, these were individual images that carried an overarching representation of tone and mood.

Farren prefers the use of stills photography rather than cinema when it comes to reference work, so our lighting mood boards consisted more so of artists’ renderings as well as beauty, still life and landscape photography. It gave us a wonderful freedom from any sense that we were at risk of attempting to recreate or directly reference any one film or show too closely. I can see now how it has enabled him to keep his work so consistently innovative and unique, as it relinquishes the creative attachment to anything that has come before.

What brought you to Panavision for your camera and lens package?

Etherington: I’d worked recently with Panavision on a series called Temple, which we shot using Panavision spherical Primos and Cooke Xtal Xpres anamorphics. It was my first time working with Panavision optics, and I was completely blown away by the caliber of their look and feel. The commitment to optical development that is synonymous with Panavision has always fascinated me, and it really showed in the qualities of the images that those lenses created. When it came to selecting the right lenses for A Discovery of Witches, I knew the high caliber look and feel of Panavision optics would be perfect for the series’ visual landscape.

How did you decide which lenses in particular you would use for A Discovery of Witches?

Etherington: I am a big believer in testing. It is an opportunity to be playful and experiment in order to push boundaries and find something with a unique character that can enhance the visual storytelling. We were also very conscious that, as the show already had an established and astute audience, it would be important to be respectful of that in our choices for the world. Testing was an opportunity to make those choices as informed as possible.

I have always had an enormous affection for vintage lenses, and given Farren’s brief to me for the show’s aesthetic, I knew that an older lens series would suit the intended approach. We wanted a lens series that would elevate the beauty and scale of the Elizabethan landscape but would also have the contrast rendition, beautiful roll-off and wonderful clarity to capture and convey both the power and the intimacy of the characters’ journeys.

This was the first time I’ve really had the opportunity to properly explore Panavision’s spherical range of optics in a controlled scenario. We needed a series that would provide us with a great range of focal lengths, that would be technically sound for our assistants to work with, and that above all would render beautiful and striking images with a world-class aesthetic. I had a few ideas as to what might be right for us, but the only way to really find out was through testing.

What did you actually shoot for this lens test? What were you looking at and testing for?

Etherington: There are so many things you’re looking at and for in a lens test. Many of them are technical representations of a lens’ performance against other optics, but largely, for me at least, you’re looking for an instinctive feeling. It is as much about the way that a lens conveys the connection between viewer and subject as it is about how many lines of projection it offers.

We set up our test with three different subjects and three different lighting conditions: exterior daylight, candlelit and lit. We wanted to see the way that the lenses handled contrast, roll-off, color rendition, flare, veiling, consistency within the range, any imperfections and aberrations, the shape and texture of the bokeh, extreme contrast, highlights and shadows, skin tones, image sharpness and projection, as well as the falloff of projection across the sensor. We created an environment wherein we could keep a consistent T-stop across the test range, with a person as a subject, various light sources in deep background for bokeh, a Macbeth chart and gray card, as well as a direct source we could pass over the lens to see the way the lens flared. We shot a couple of focal lengths from each lens series, and a couple of T-stops to see how the lenses performed at different stops.

What ultimately led you to choose PVintage lenses for this story?

Etherington: The first series of A Discovery of Witches had originated on Canon K35 lenses, but Farren was very keen to work with a lens series that would offer a greater range of focal lengths, particularly a series that included a 40mm, which is a favorite of his. So I set about trying to find an option that would give us a beautiful aesthetic but that would also offer the range of focal lengths desired.

I knew the qualities of the PVintage lenses from discussions with other cinematographers and with the brilliant Kirstie Wilkinson, who was our tech contact at Panavision, but I hadn’t yet tested them myself, so we wanted to see them alongside some more familiar options in order to understand them better. In testing, we noticed the lenses had the unique qualities and beautiful nuances of vintage optics, but they rendered an image that carried a fantastic weight and clarity without being too razor-sharp. They handled extreme contrast beautifully, combining with the format for a sophisticated, considered roll-off from the highlights. The projection across the sensor was such that it carried the eye to the subject, with a gentle falloff in exposure and roll-off in focus, and they created a bokeh that was beautiful without being distracting. They also didn’t seem to fall apart in the same way that some other older lens series do. They delivered an image that felt like it was from the highest caliber of optics, with a contrast rendition that we knew would support us in creating mood and atmosphere when required within the storytelling. They also flared beautifully and offered an internal refraction of light that split colors across the spectrum in a way we felt would work well as a narrative device for certain moments within the storytelling. There was a beautiful softness to the image, too, which was exactly what we were looking for in some of the more intimate moments within the storytelling.

Did you seek to visually differentiate the period and contemporary portions of the story?

Etherington: We didn’t actively look to push the worlds apart. We were mindful that we would be catapulting the audience back and forth between two time periods, so we actually looked to develop a base of constants between the worlds that would help the universe coalesce whilst allowing the nuances of each world to provide it with its own visual beauty and identity.

The distinguishing factors between the worlds primarily manifested themselves in the way interactive and practical light was motivated due to the inherent differences of the respective eras. In the Elizabethan era, we had this wonderful combination of soft, warm, incandescent candlelight, and directional, motivated, atmospheric daylight or moonlight to play with. We wanted to build color separation into the images, so we exploited the differences in tone and color temperature between the two sources to help build and maintain depth and texture in the images. With the fantastical ideologies and beautification of the world in mind, we decided to make use of the incandescent sources — be it fire, candles or both — as a constant both for day and night work. This meant that we were able to exploit the benefits of having mixed color temperatures for color separation as well as motivated sources in order to beautify the visual landscape and highlight the opulence of production designer James North’s sets.

Something that came up repeatedly in prep from the lead creatives was that they wanted the show to be photographically rendered in a way that would allow the audience to enjoy the beauty and opulence of the costume and set design that had been developed for the Elizabethan world. We took this into direct consideration in our strategy, ensuring that we elevated the exposure of interior scenes by around 1/3 to 1/2 of a stop above where we intended to finish. This was in order to protect the integrity of the ‘digital neg’ and leave us a clean starting point free of video noise, but with the aesthetic ready for the grade. We also elected against shooting with a lower ISO in-camera as we didn’t want to compromise the upper end of the highlights depending on the use of incandescent sources in the scene.

With our fantastic DIT Jo Barker, we then refined the look in our dailies, where she and I collaborated to bring the exposure to where we felt was appropriate to the scene. The strategy worked well and was appreciated by our lead creatives, as it gave us room to maneuver in the grade and a strong ‘digital neg’ with a clean base and plenty of dynamic range.

Can you elaborate on the idea of having a ‘base of constants’ in your lighting while embracing the unique qualities of each time period? What did that mean in terms of your overall approach to lighting the show?

Etherington: We were influenced by the motivation of the different types and qualities of light between the contemporary and period settings, but we still tried to maintain a general continuity of aesthetic within the series. There was a great focus within the production on beauty and scale, and we wanted to ensure that our lighting approach enhanced these objectives.

Our overall approach, speaking incredibly broadly, was to work with beautiful, soft, directional daylight or moonlight as a base for our world, and then to complement that illumination of the landscape with a flattering dramatic key, with color separation built into the strategy where appropriate. For the daylight itself, we generally went for a cooler hue and tried to finesse that in a way that was directional but soft as opposed to sharp, hard beams of light. The hope was that the light would break into the spaces in a striking way that would then bounce off the floors and illuminate the world in a textural manner that brought out the strengths of the design.

For the more sinister beats, we let the world fall away with greater contrast and shadow, using silhouette, backlight and wet-downs for exterior work to lend atmosphere to the scale. We then often worked with a three-quarter key on the actors, allowing the neg side to fall away into a more powerful shadow. Of course, this all varied and evolved scene by scene and beat by beat.

Did you have a preferred method for keying the actors on this series?

Etherington: In keying, we used a lot of textiles — grids, silks and muslin, either with bounced or direct sources. Our most frequently utilized strategy was a three-part key through half grid-cloths. By having the three sources playing at slightly different colour temperatures — usually with a cooler hue for the wrap, a mid-balanced source as our primary key, and a warmer source at a really low level as a fill — we created a flattering soft light that gave a wonderful catch light in the actors’ eyes while giving them room to move as much as the locations would allow. In small spaces where there was little opportunity to build larger sources from a distance, it almost created a moveable ‘window’ that we could bring in toward the actors to get that wonderful fall-off and quality of light that you might get from sitting by a window. Of course, this was only appropriate for some scenes. There are many sinister, powerful or more intimate moments within the narrative that required completely different approaches, so our lighting always changed and evolved depending on the motivations of the narrative arc and character positioning.

One thing worth mentioning is that we hoped to give the actors a good area to move and play in. I’m always conscious of having to ask favors of the actors when it comes to intricate marks for light. Artists of the caliber that we were blessed with will always find their light and are so wonderfully collaborative when it comes to the dance between camera and performer, but we wanted as much as possible to give them the freedom of a space to play in. There are of course times when you need to ask an actor to help you a little, but as a general rule I will always try my best to ‘light the world’ so the actors have flexibility to move, and so they can be instinctive and reactive without being restricted by limitations we inflict upon them. I have such respect for their craft. The fact they have to deliver with such consistency at a moment’s notice day in and day out speaks volumes for the pressures that they’re under. It’s up to us as cinematographers to support them in that.

You have a long history of partnering with Panalux for lighting support. How did that begin?

Etherington: Panalux have supported me massively throughout my career, right from the very start. The people there were wonderful in looking out for me in the early days, both in introducing me to the wider world of the cinematography community and in helping me find my feet with equipment. I was always calling Panalux and begging favors when making short films with no money, and they used to let me come down to the yard to get gel offcuts from the big films as well as old bits of poly and silver. I didn’t go to film school, so Panalux’s help made a massive difference. That was the foundation of my learning in lighting — just getting kit, making things up and gradually figuring out how everything worked. I’d load up my old car to the brim at their yard, surrounded by all these massive lighting trucks full of amazing kit, and then go off and make a bunch of short films. Hopefully I’ve been able to repay a bit of that faith they showed in me so early on. I’ll always be grateful for it.

Images courtesy of Adam Etherington, BSC.

#matthew goode #matthew clairmont #teresa palmer #a discovery of witches #cinematography

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carewyncromwell · 3 years

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[Ficlet] Take a Chance on Me

...Hey, I said I might add onto the ficlet I did of how Carewyn joined the Slytherin Quidditch team for a game back in her third year! >>; This is based on Quidditch Season 1 Chapter 6, AKA the major plot turn before MC, Orion, Skye, and their house Quidditch team’s first match. (In this case, Slytherin VS Hufflepuff!)

For those of you who didn’t read the last ficlet and want to just jump into this one -- Carewyn (soon to be “Mama-Bear”) Cromwell is a third year Slytherin, with Orion, Skye, McNully, and Rath all being one year ahead of her. This will also be the only Quidditch match Carewyn plays until the tail end of her sixth year, which you can read about with this Quest of the Quidditch tag I made! Also as a note, since there is some art under the cut -- Orion, in my canon, doesn’t look the way he does in the game until his sixth year or so (namely, with his facial hair), hence why he looks a bit more boyish in how I drew him! (It is amazing how much younger Orion looks without the stubble!!) And yeah, even if Carewyn and Orion eventually become a couple post-Hogwarts, their relationship won’t really be explicitly romantic here, even if the strong platonic chemistry will definitely be there. 😊

Hope you enjoy! 💚

x~x~x~x

The Slytherin VS Hufflepuff Quidditch match was scheduled for the first weekend of November. With less than a week remaining, both houses were getting very excited -- Carewyn could tell her friend Penny Haywood was having trouble knowing whether to be more thrilled for her house team or for Carewyn.

“Well, there are a lot of people who don’t make the team on their first try!” Penny had said to Carewyn when she learned the news. “Gosh, Carewyn -- I know you’ll be flying up against my team, but...watching you play in a real Quidditch match will be even more fun than just watching one with you!”

Charlie and Andre were also thrilled.

“I knew you could do it, Carey!” said Charlie, beaming from ear to ear. “C’mere!”

He looped an arm around her neck and squeezed her against his side in a hug.

“Mm, I can’t say I knew, given Orion Amari’s reputation,” said Andre, though his face still broke into a grin, “but I’m glad that however odd he is, at least he can see raw talent when it’s placed in front of him! It’ll be so much more exciting to have you on the Pitch too, Cursebreaker.”

Though inwardly hating the nickname, Carewyn still gave them her best smile. “Thanks...”

~~~

The first couple of Slytherin team practices were largely based on teamwork exercises, so as to “strengthen the bond” between Carewyn and the rest of her teammates. She knew her fellow Chasers Orion and Skye already, of course, but Orion wanted to make sure she was likewise on good terms with their Beaters -- a pair of muscular seventh-years called King and Shacklebolt -- their very tall sixth-year Keeper Crockett, and their pretty seventh-year Seeker, Anika Lucky.

If Carewyn’s petite height and lack of muscles weren’t noticeable before, it was comically apparent when she stood alongside the rest of the Slytherin team -- even Skye, the smallest of them, still towered a good ten inches over 4′9″ Carewyn. Fortunately, although most of the Slytherin team gave Carewyn a slightly confused side-eye when she first arrived for practice, they all reacted a little differently after Orion challenged the team to break his record of balancing on their brooms (2 hours, 52 minutes and 31.2 seconds, according to McNully), and Carewyn was the only one who kept up with Skye all the way up until the end.

“And then there were two,” sighed Shacklebolt rather tiredly, when he finally had to give up and sit back down on his broom, massaging his leg.

Crockett looked at Orion with something of a weak smile. “Come on, Orion...maybe we should call this off. We can’t exactly break the record for balancing on one leg together when most of us are sitting down...”

“Ah, but if one of us breaks the record, then we all break the record,” said Orion with a smile.

Skye crossed her arms from her position balancing on her broom. “The one who breaks the record will get credit, though, right?”

“A victory for one is a victory for all,” Orion said mellowly, “and for that, we should celebrate on behalf of that one.”

Carewyn opened her eyes. She’d been keeping them closed and singing songs in her head, to try to help her ignore how much her leg was hurting and how much time was passing. When she glanced at Skye, she noticed a line of sweat appearing on her brow.

“...How close are we to our goal, Orion?” asked Carewyn.

“Only time will tell,” answered Orion.

Skye frowned sourly. “Right -- that was Carewyn’s question: tell us the time.”

“The moment is near,” said Orion with a twinkle in his eye, “but who’s counting?”

“MCNULLY!” Skye bellowed up at the stands in exasperation. “YOU’D BETTER BLOODY WELL BE COUNTING UP THERE, OR I SWEAR I’LL BEAT BOTH YOU AND ORION BLACK AND BLUE!”

The Beaters both sighed and shook their heads.

“Here he goes again,” muttered Shacklebolt.

“I think he’s gone even deeper into his own head since becoming Captain,” King agreed under her breath, sounding both rather tired and slightly amused.

Carewyn turned to Orion, her almond-shaped blue eyes becoming a bit more serious.

“Orion, a Niffler is able to chase gold so well because it can smell when it’s close,” she said in an oddly stern voice. “It’d probably be a lot easier for Skye and me to reach our goal if we also knew how close we were to it.”

The other Slytherins all blinked at the tiny third-year, taken aback by her assertiveness. Orion, however, only grinned.

“Is not the journey a kind of treasure in itself, however?” he said. “After all...you and Skye have united so well in this endeavor, despite your apparent differences.”

“Yes,” granted Carewyn, her voice staying rather firm, “but if you want both of us -- and therefore all of us -- to break the record, then it stands to reason that both Skye and I should be of the same mind. And Skye and I would both like to know how close we are to bringing our team victory.”

“Right,” said Skye, a bit more impatiently. “So will you go ask McNully how much time is left already?”

Orion’s black eyes sparkled with mischief. “It’s so fascinating, how full of fire you both are, and yet how differently colored your flames are.”

He looked up at the stands. When he caught McNully’s eye, he threw up his fist into the air in silent celebration.

“That’s it?!” said Skye eagerly, sounding immensely relieved. “A new record? Finally!”

She immediately sat down -- Carewyn, however, did not, and she was glad of it, for sure enough, Orion turned back around with a grin and said,

“McNully’s just informed me that we’re in the final countdown!”

The team all covered their faces with their hands. Skye’s mouth dropped open.

“What?!” she yelped. “Are you kidding -- I wouldn’t have sat yet!”

“Why did you?” Orion teased good-naturedly. “I thought you wanted to be the last one standing.”

Skye looked like steam was coming out of her ears. Carewyn fixed Orion with a rather reproachful look.

“Orion, that wasn’t nice!” the much smaller girl scolded him the way she sometimes did Jacob when she was little. “Skye really had her heart set on beating your record.”

Orion’s amusement actually dimmed slightly. After a moment, his expression turned a bit softer upon both Skye and Carewyn.

“Fortunately she did beat it,” he said, gesturing to Carewyn still balancing on her broom, “through her student.”

Carewyn raised her eyebrow, looking from Orion to up at McNully in the commentary box. “So the record has been broken now?”

“Indeed,” said Orion with a proud smile, exchanging a nod with McNully. “McNully-confirmed. Congratulations, team -- we did it!”

The team all breathed a sigh of relief, except for Skye, who still looked sour.

“Carewyn did it, this time,” she said begrudgingly. “Congratulations, Carewyn.”

Carewyn lowered herself back down onto her broom, averting her eyes and massaging her burning thigh. “Thanks.”

She was proud that she was able to prove herself, after it’d taken her three whole hours just to figure out how to even balance like that in the first place...even if she didn’t love the fact that Skye was clearly bitter about it.

“I must admit, though, Carewyn, I’m a bit disappointed,” said Orion. “Not once in all that time did you share any of your meditation songs with us.”

The team, including Skye, once again turned to look at Carewyn, surprised. Carewyn flushed.

“Well, you said I could do it whenever we meditate together, as in the two of us,” she said rather huffily, closing her eyes and putting up her nose. “I didn’t want to break anyone else’s concentration.”

“A kind thought,” said Orion. “But perhaps next time, we can see if it actually helps our team’s focus. We’ll need all the focus and teamwork possible, in our match against Hufflepuff.”

~~~

The Slytherin team soon found themselves very happy with Orion’s choice. Carewyn not only was a very talented Chaser with excellent speed and aim, but she also seemed to know just how to talk to Orion on his terms and keep him a bit more grounded. And when she did end up singing during their practices, it actually turned out to be kind of a fun way to pass the time too. The players who’d been born in magical families like Skye in particular found it interesting to hear Muggle songs they’d never been exposed to before.

“If you're all alone, When the pretty birds have flown, Honey, I'm still free -- Take a chance on me! Gonna do my very best, And it ain't no lie -- If you put me to the test, If you let me try...”

Carewyn did notice, however, that their practices were being watched -- and not just by Murphy McNully, either.

“It’s not abnormal for other teams to want to get a peek at new players before a match, so they can get information they can use while building their team strategies,” McNully told her. “Most opposing players try to be subtle about it, but Ulrich Dylan -- that’s Hufflepuff’s Captain -- is not. Ravenclaw’s whole team isn’t either...especially Erika Rath -- she always makes it a point to get a good look at any new opponents. And well, admittedly, there’s nothing banning them from coming to watch our practices, so I guess they don’t feel the need to hide it.”

Carewyn considered this. “...Maybe they see it as a way to intimidate us too -- you know, being so confident in letting us know that they see us, and that they’re judging us.”

Kind of like how I felt a bit intimidated by Orion, while he was watching me fall off my broom for three hours.

McNully nodded. “Not a bad theory! Ravenclaw in particular has already won the Quidditch Cup two years in a row, so they definitely have some cause to be confident. Just with their current line-up, I’d say there’s a 38% chance they’ll win the Cup again.”

Considering that was well over 1/4, Carewyn didn’t like those odds. Seeing the frown on her face, McNully smiled.

“Don’t worry, Carewyn -- we do have one ace up our sleeve, when it comes to strategy. Only Slytherin knows how to do the Thimblerig Shuffle properly, as of yet -- therefore if we use it, I’d say we stand a 87.3% chance of throwing Hufflepuff off their game.”

Carewyn smiled. “That’s great!”

“Glad you agree!” said McNully. He then rubbed the back of his neck a bit awkwardly. “There’s...just one thing: Orion would have to actually use it, in the match. And well, we both know Orion -- the odds of him using it don’t go above 43%...” His face then burst into a smile. “...buuuut I’d say if you put in a good word with him, he might be more willing to listen!”

Carewyn looked confused. “Why me? You’re Orion’s friend too, aren’t you?”

“Of course! But Orion and I are still very different people. We have trouble speaking the same language sometimes. Honestly, I’d say I only understand what he’s trying to say about 72% of the time,” McNully added under his breath. “But you and he already seem to have a good rapport -- I reckon you bringing up the Thimblerig Shuffle to Orion would improve his odds of using it by a good 10%!”

Carewyn still wasn’t entirely sure, but she gave McNully a reassuring nod. “Well, I’ll try, anyway.”

~~~

Carewyn asked Orion to meet her before practice. She wanted to make absolutely sure that none of the other team’s players would be listening in. When Orion saw her approach, he smiled broadly.

“Greetings, Breaker of Records,” he said amusedly.

Carewyn frowned. The nickname reminded her unpleasantly of Andre’s “Cursebreaker” moniker for her.

“Hi, Orion...thanks for coming early.”

Orion seemed to notice the shift in her expression -- it made his eyes soften slightly, becoming a bit more serious.

“We’re members of the same Quidditch family now, Carewyn,” he said gently. “Therefore my time is our time...and we can always find time to find balance together.”

Carewyn smiled slightly, feeling a bit reassured. “...Well, it’s less about balance and more about...well, about the match against Hufflepuff.”

“I think those two things are very much entwined,” said Orion.

“In a way, yes...but well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve had a lot of company in the stands, while we’re practicing. Like Hufflepuff’s Captain.”

Orion nodded. “I have seen him.”

“Well, McNully thinks he’s been stopping by to get a good look at me, and the rest of the team,” said Carewyn seriously. “That way he can use whatever information he can get about us in his team’s strategy. And...well, I know you don’t think strategical skills will determine our path...but it seems like we should use all of the strengths we have to our advantage, right?”

Orion crossed his legs around his broom so that he could actually take his hands off of it and cross his arms idly over his chest.

“I agree,” he said quietly, but it seemed clear he was waiting for her to reach her conclusion, rather than being completely onboard.

“Well,” Carewyn plowed on, “right now, we’re the only Quidditch team who knows how to do the Thimblerig Shuffle -- you know, the move McNully made up?”

Orion nodded slowly. “I remember. Quintessential McNully -- magical in its complexity, and complex in its magic.”

Carewyn gave a nod of her own. “It’s really a very clever move...it would definitely throw Hufflepuff off-balance, which could only help us out. And well, considering McNully’s your friend, I reckon it would mean a lot to him, if you considered using it.”

Orion raised his eyebrows rather coolly. “You clearly have been a very good friend to McNully already, speaking on his behalf. Though I don’t know if I appreciate him using the Slytherin team in a strategy to coax their Captain to his way of thinking.”

Carewyn felt her gaze slipping down to her broom, but she tried to hold her ground. “I really don’t think McNully was trying to pressure you, Orion. I think he just really wants us to win -- you to win. Planning things out is just how his mind works...and he is pretty good at it. I learned a lot about Quidditch from him.”

“You and McNully do both enjoy your plans and strategies,” said Orion.

His face then spread into a wryer smile.

“I, however, have a different strategy in mind -- the absence of strategy.”

Carewyn wanted to be surprised, but she wasn’t. It still didn’t make the lump that settled into her stomach any less heavy.

“...Then...you have no plan at all, for us to win?” she asked, a bit shakily.

Orion’s black eyes twinkled. “Indeed. Let me show you.”

Within seconds, he’d easily leapt up onto his broom, so that he was balancing on it. Rather than before, though, he used both feet and actually surfed on the back of it, as if he were on a surfboard soaring through the air. Unlike a surfer on ocean waves, however, Orion was able to go completely upside down and around, balancing perfectly as if he and his broom were one and the same.

Carewyn found herself unable to tear her eyes away. Orion did, in fact, look pretty damn cool.

Her eyes were as wide as dinner plates as she followed his zigzagging moves around the Pitch -- and little by little, she found her lips spreading into an awed, open-mouthed smile.

Her reaction made Orion grin.

“Inspired Broom Surfing!” he called down to her. “That is its name, and that is what all shall call it.”

“Did you...did you invent this yourself?” asked Carewyn, disbelievingly.

“It’s the product of inspiration, not invention,” said Orion. “I thought of it, and so I do it.”

He looped in several circles over Carewyn’s head with apparent ease.

“Surfing the skies distracts the competition. They, too, shall wish to surf like this...”

He weaved in a tight “S” shape that reminded Carewyn of a figure skater on ice.

“...and yet, it also showcases one’s individual talent, and magnifies it! For most Quidditch players, even the best, never take the time to become one with their brooms -- but you can be an exception.”

Carewyn’s eyes and smile were very bright. ‘So you can psyche your opponent out, just with your confidence! And because you’ve got both hands open to hold the Quaffle, it’ll be harder for the opposing team to steal it too!’

“That’s...it’s brilliant, Orion!”

The praise definitely seemed to boost Orion’s ego. He flew completely upside down in a circle before coming to a stop beside Carewyn, grinning broadly.

“Would you like to learn?” he asked.

Carewyn looked down at Orion’s Cleansweep and then down on her old rundown Shooting Star.

“I definitely won’t be as good as you,” she said as offhandedly as she could.

Orion’s black eyes sparkled. “We’ll see about that. Now come -- balance first.”

Carewyn followed his lead, balancing on her broom the way he did.

“Forget technique,” he instructed, “forget form. Just be one with the broom.”

Carewyn started off slow, trying to weave. There were one or two points she felt like she was going to fall off, but she just managed to sweep her broom around enough to catch herself. Orion meanwhile swept around her in spirals to observe her.

“Do not broom surf with intent. You should only ever do this when the feeling is right, not when logic dictates.”

Carewyn sped up a bit in her weaving, tilting her broom up so that she hovered a bit higher. She then tried to aim herself toward the hoops -- she charged ahead, and then looped back around in a “j” shape. Orion followed, shimmying around her.

“Good,” said Orion. “Good -- let go -- ”

Carewyn urged her broom a little faster and Orion took off after her. Soon they were weaving around each other, Orion coming up and over her. Carewyn brought her arms up on either side of her to help her shift balance as if she was on roller skates, and she soon found herself laughing. This was fun!

“How...how am I doing?” she asked as she tried to catch her breath.

Orion’s smile was broader than Carewyn had ever seen it, so much so that it made his black eyes squint slightly. “You look like you’ve been broom surfing like that your entire life, Carewyn Cromwell.”

They finally came to a halt in the middle of the pitch. Orion nimbly leapt back down onto his broom in a seated position again -- Carewyn took a bit more time to gradually lower herself back down.

“Hufflepuff will not be able to take their eyes off you,” Orion said confidently. “And it’s while they are distracted that we will be able to rack up points.”

Carewyn adjusted her ponytail as best she could with one hand.

“It really is brilliant, Orion,” she said kindly, “but...well, isn’t that a strategy in itself, that I’ll distract the Hufflepuffs, while you and Skye score points?”

“To some, perhaps,” said Orion. “But all of it will only be if the time and feelings are right. I don’t believe in planning things out too far ahead. None of us are Seers who can divine the future, so can we truly know whether any plans we make will fit in with how that future will take shape?”

“No,” granted Carewyn, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a plan and hope for the best anyhow. Or better yet, make a back-up plan, just in case things don’t go the way you want...”

Orion raised an eyebrow. “You and McNully believe Hufflepuff’s Captain came to watch our practices so as to make a strategy, correct? It stands to reason, then, that he’s channeling the Demiguise as best he can.”

“The Demiguise?” prompted Carewyn.

“Trying to predict our own strategy in the upcoming match, through watching our interactions and team dynamics,” said Orion simply. “If, however, we go in with no strategy, there’ll be nothing for Hufflepuff to latch onto. That mystery works in our favor.”

“But it also might make it harder for us to fly as one team,” Carewyn pointed out, trying to mirror Orion’s level tone but not quite succeeding due to her sincere concern. “I can Broom Surf now, Orion, but I can’t do it as well as you. Only you will likely ever be able to do it as well as you do...because no one could be exactly like you. And well...no one else sees the world quite like you do, either. It’s brilliant, really,” she added quickly. “It’s cool that you don’t act how people expect you to, or see the world like everyone else does. But...I don’t know, I guess it’d be a lot easier for the rest of the team to be on the same page as you, if you choose a book that you can read together. If that makes sense.”

Orion considered Carewyn for a moment, his unreadable black eyes trailing over her face.

“It does,” he said at last.

He looked up at the stands.

“It appears that our ‘guest’ has arrived,” he changed the subject dryly.

Carewyn looked up. Sure enough, she saw the very tall, broad-chested Hufflepuff Quidditch Captain, Ulrich Dylan, confidently striding across the stands and plopping himself down. He rested his arms on the edge of the stands as he stared down at them. Carewyn’s eyes narrowed up at him.

“As has the rest of our team,” added Orion a bit more pleasantly.

Sure enough, the rest of the Slytherins -- Skye in front -- flew out onto the pitch to join them.

“Hey, Orion,” greeted Crockett brightly. “Hey, Carewyn. Looks like you’ve both got a...‘broom with a view?’ Eh? Get it?”

Carewyn couldn’t help but wince, even though she tried to smile.

“Will you lay off with the puns?” said Skye, rolling her eyes exasperatedly. “You stretch farther with those than I do trying to reach the Quaffle...”

“But it’s part of what being Keeper is!” Crockett said playfully. “Everybody knows that...and you know I’m a Keeper! All the ladies say so.”

“All the ladies except us,” said Lucky, who’d covered her face with her hand.

“And we have to be subjected to your jokes,” added King with a roll of her eyes.

Skye shifted gears as she looked at Carewyn, offering her a determined look. “Ready for practice, Carewyn?”

Carewyn forced herself to look away from the Hufflepuff Captain in the stands, giving Skye a confident nod. “Mm-hmm.”

“The time has come for our time,” said Orion serenely. “Our first exercise will be helping each other through sabotaging each other. Our Beaters and Seeker will play as opposition to our Chasers and Keeper, so that we may practice saving and blocking goals.”

Carewyn looked at Orion with a teasing smirk. “Sounds like a plan.”

Orion smiled very wryly at her in return.

~~~

Orion asked the rest of the team to stay after practice for a team meeting. The team waited around so long for the meeting, though, that they soon occupied themselves with idle conversation. Hufflepuff’s Quidditch Captain had left over fifteen minutes ago, and Carewyn was glad to see him gone.

Skye stretched her arms over her head and sighed tiredly. “Ugh...I’m going to give Orion a good smack for this. Asks us to stay after for a team meeting, and then completely forgets to start it...”

“You shouldn’t hit him,” said Carewyn reproachfully, her voice coming out a bit whiny despite her best efforts.

“Ah, come on, Carewyn, I don’t mean it like that,” said Skye with a shake of her head. She smiled. “So anyway -- what did I miss before? What were you and Orion doing here so early?”

Carewyn took her hair out of its ponytail, looping the red scrunchie around her wrist so she could redo it. “Orion taught me how to do this Quidditch move he created -- it’s called Inspired Broom Surfing...”

Skye grinned. “Ah yeah, that thing! I reckon Orion sees it as a future signature move for him, as a player. Don’t know if I’d go that far, but hey, it’s a fun way to waste time.”

“I don’t think it wastes time,” said Carewyn, frowning slightly as she put down her now much tidier ponytail. “I think it’s rather brilliant, actually. If we’re going to beat Hufflepuff, I reckon us looking confident and fearless to the opposing team would be pretty helpful.”

“The only thing we need to defeat Hufflepuff is Parkin’s Pincer,” Skye said confidently. “They might expect it, but they can’t stop it.”

Carewyn frowned. “But...if they do expect it, then they could still make a strategy to counteract it, right?”

“Not when we do it perfectly,” said Skye. “And you and Orion both know how to do it perfectly -- I’ve made sure of that.”

Carewyn couldn’t help but disagree, but decided not to push the issue. Instead she sighed.

“Well, I guess in the end, it’s really up to Orion -- he is team Captain. I guess I just wish he’d consider making more of a plan...I mean, I always feel better whenever I’m doing something difficult, when I know I’m prepared and I’ve planned ahead.”

I don’t think I would’ve been able to deal with the Ice Vault at all, if I hadn’t practiced Incendio with Bill first. And it felt good knowing that he and Ben were there to help me too, since they both knew the spell really well.

Skye’s face became a bit more serious. “Yeah, that’s really not Orion’s style.”

She brought a hand onto the smaller girl’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“Don’t worry your little red head about it, though,” she said with a smile. “Orion may be a weirdo, but he’s been known to make the right call, when it counts. You just focus on being a smashing Chaser, and let us more senior players worry about it. Nobody will be expecting the newest player to make any major decisions during the match anyway -- ”

“That’s it! That’s what we’ll do!”

Everyone gave a start.

Orion, without anyone noticing, had settled himself overhead on his broom, sitting on it as if it were a swing. As he leapt back down to the ground, however, sweeping his broom out from under him with a flourish, he was grinning as excitedly as a kid at Christmas, his eyes on Skye and Carewyn.

“Orion?” said Carewyn, startled. “When did you -- ?”

“Is the meeting finally starting now?” asked Lucky.

Orion brought his broom up onto his shoulders behind his head, still grinning broadly. “This is the team meeting. I simply stand back and observe my teammates interacting in an unstructured setting.”

Skye wrinkled her nose in revulsion. “Orion! Most people call that snooping!”

“I prefer the term ‘discovery,’” Orion said smoothly. “And sure enough, it put a spotlight on your idea...”

“My what?”

Orion turned to the rest of the team, his broad smile never shifting.

“My teammates, we shall do the unexpected, to win our first House match. Hufflepuff, as well as everyone else, expects me to make the big decisions -- but instead, our newest player will.”

His black eyes and white smile were both gleaming with determination as he turned to Carewyn.

“In this match, Carewyn Cromwell will call the shots.”

Everyone on the team was so taken aback that they all stared at Carewyn, and then Orion, and back. Carewyn herself had lost all of the color in her face.

W...what?

She couldn’t do anything except gawk at Orion in disbelief. She looked around at the rest of the team helplessly -- Skye looked almost more horrified than Carewyn, as well as angry.

“What?! Orion, are you mad!?”

“Not in the least,” said Orion breezily. “I’m quite content with my decision.”

“Orion -- you can’t be -- ” started Shacklebolt.

But the Quidditch Captain had already turned around, his lips upturned in a rather proud smirk as he rested his arms over the broom on his shoulder.

“Our new leadership will not be discussed outside of the Changing Room,” he said levelly, “lest our opponents catch wind of it. And when next we fly and Ulrich Dylan’s eyes are on us, we will practice as we always have.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Carewyn, his black eyes twinkling.

“You sang your commitment to us yourself, Carewyn. And now...we’ll take a chance on you.”

By the time Carewyn recollected herself enough to try to argue, Orion was already gone.

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #my writing #my art #quidditch #orion amari #carewyn cromwell #skye parkin #murphy mcnully #charlie weasley #andre egwu #penny haywood #yay more bb!Carion #they truly could've been such a 'power couple' if they'd been able to fly together on the same team longer #'power couple' in the platonic sense at first but then eventually lbh totally not #if bill and carey were the 'papa bear' and 'mama bear' of their friend group in carewyn's canon #then if carey hadn't been so obsessed with the vaults and she and orion were able to play together they would've parented their teammates #oh well at least they do both become parents as adults <3

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sciencespies · 3 years

Text

There's a surprising similarity between the babble of baby bats and human infants

https://sciencespies.com/nature/theres-a-surprising-similarity-between-the-babble-of-baby-bats-and-human-infants/

There's a surprising similarity between the babble of baby bats and human infants

“Mamama,” “dadada,” “bababa” – parents usually welcome with enthusiasm the sounds of a baby’s babble. Babbling is the first milestone when learning to speak. All typically developing infants babble, no matter which language they’re learning.

Speech, the oral output of language, requires precise control over the lips, tongue, and jaw to produce one of the basic speech subunits: the syllable, like “ba,” “da,” “ma.”

Babbling is characterized by universal features – for example, repetition of syllables and use of rhythm. It lets an infant practice and playfully learn how to control their vocal apparatus to correctly produce the desired syllables.

More than anything else, language defines human nature. But its evolutionary origins have puzzled scientists for decades. Investigating the biological foundations of language across species – as I do in bats – is a promising way to gain insights into key features of human language.

I’m a behavioral biologist who has spent many months of 10-hour days sitting in front of bat colonies in Panama and Costa Rica recording the animals’ vocalizations.

My colleagues and I have found striking parallels between the babbling produced by these bat pups and that by human infants. Identifying a mammal that shares a similar brain structure with human beings and is also capable of vocal imitation may help us understand the cognitive and neuromolecular foundations of vocal learning.

Vocal learning in other animals

Scientists learned a great deal about vocal imitation and vocal development by studying songbirds. They are among the best-known vocal learners, and the learning process of young male songbirds shows interesting parallels to human speech development.

Young male songbirds also practice their notes in a practice phase reminiscent of human infant babbling.

However, songbirds and people possess different vocal apparatus – birds vocalize by using a syrinx, humans use a larynx – and their brain architecture differs. So drawing direct conclusions from songbird research for humans is limited.

Luckily, in Central America’s tropical jungle, there’s a mammal that engages in a very conspicuous vocal practice behavior that is strongly reminiscent of human infant babbling: the neotropical greater sac-winged bat, Saccopteryx bilineata.

The pups of this small bat, dark-furred with two prominent white wavy stripes on the back, engage in daily babbling behavior during large parts of their development.

Greater sac-winged bats possess a large vocal repertoire that includes 25 distinct syllable types. A syllable is the smallest acoustic unit, defined as a sound surrounded by silence.

These adult bats create multisyllabic vocalizations and two song types. The territorial song warns potential rivals that the owner is ready to defend their home turf, while the courtship song lets female bats know about a male bat’s fitness as a potential mate.

Of particular interest to me and my colleagues, the greater sac-winged bat is capable of vocal imitation – the ability to learn a previously unknown sound from scratch by ear. It requires acoustic input, like human parents talking to their infants, or in the case of the greater sac-winged bat, adult males that sing.

The only other non-human mammal that scientists have documented babbling is the pygmy marmoset, a small South American primate species that is not capable of vocal imitation.

The greater sac-winged bat offered the first possibility to study pup babbling in detail in a species that can imitate the vocalizations of others.

But just how similar is bat babbling to human infant babbling?

Hundreds of hours of bat babbling

To answer that question, I monitored the vocal development of wild pups in eight colonies. During the day, S. bilineata find shelter and protection in tree crevices and outer walls of buildings. They’re very light-tolerant, and adults like to stay several centimeters apart from one another, making it easier for us to observe and record particular individuals.

To be able to recognize specific bats, I marked their forearms with colored plastic bands. I followed 20 pups from birth until weaning.

Starting around 2.5 weeks of age, and continuing until weaning around 10 weeks old, pups babble away between sunrise and sunset in the day roost. It’s very loud, audible even to the human ear because some babbled syllables are within our hearing range (others are too high for us to hear).

For each pup, I recorded babbling bouts – some of which lasted as long as 43 minutes – and the accompanying behaviors throughout their entire development. In contrast, adult bats produce vocalizations that last no more than a few minutes.

Scientists have known for a while that pups learn how to sing by vocally imitating adult tutors while babbling.

But our new study provides the first formal analysis that their babbling really does share many of the features that characterize babbling in human infants: duplication of syllables, use of rhythm, and an early onset of the babbling phase during development.

Just as human infants produce sounds that are recognizable as what are called canonical adult syllables – those with mature features that sound like what an adult speaker produces – bat pups’ babbling consists of syllable precursors that are part of the adult vocal repertoire.

And just as human babbling includes what are probably playful sounds produced as the infant explores their voice, bat babbling includes so-called protosyllables that are only produced by pups.

Moreover, pup babbling is universal. Each pup, regardless of sex and regional origin, babbled during its development.

youtube

Baby talk, from mom to pup

During my first field season, I noticed that during babble sequences, mothers and pups interacted behaviorally and vocally. Mothers produced a distinct call type directed at pups while babbling.

We humans alter our speech depending on whether we are addressing infants or adults. This infant-directed speech – also known as motherese – is a special form of social feedback for the vocalizing infant. It’s characterized by universal features, including higher pitch, slower tempo, and exaggerated intonation contours.

The timbre – the voice color – also changes when people speak “motherese” compared to when talking to other adults. Timbre is what makes a voice sound a bit cold and harsh or warm and cozy. Could it be that female bats also changed their timbre, depending on whom they directed their calls to?

The results were clear: For the first time, we’d found a non-human mammal that changes the color of voice depending on the addressee. Bats also use baby talk!

Our results introduce the greater sac-winged bat as a promising candidate for cross-species comparisons about the evolution of human language. Babbling is like a behavioral readout of the ongoing vocal learning happening in the brain.

When pups babble, they imitate the adult song – and provide us with insight about when learning is taking place. It offers the unique possibility to study the genes that are involved in vocal imitation.

And since bats share their basic brain architecture with people, we can translate our research findings from bats to humans. I’m fascinated that two mammal species that are so different share striking parallels in how they reach the same goal: to acquire a complex adult vocal repertoire – namely, language.

Ahana Aurora Fernandez, Postdoctoral Researcher in Behavioral Ecology and Bioacoustics, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

#Nature

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writingmyselfout · 3 years

Text

Because I Could Not Stop for Death - Chapter Five

Language: English

Rating: Teen+

Pairing: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter

Tags: AU - Canon Divergence, Reptilia28′s Don’t Fear the Reaper Challenge, Manipulative Dumbledore, Black Hermione Granger, Slight Ron Weasley Bashing

Prologue 1 2 3 4

Chapter 5: This Is My Now

Summary: Sorting Ceremony

THE ride to the castle is not as eventful as Draco predicted, despite the slight delay caused when Ron Weasley loudly complains that Draco took his spot and Hagrid, realizing that all other boats already have four students, redirects him to be the fifth in the next boat over. Harry is too busy admiring the sight of the giant castle before them, with what looks like every visible window lit up against the night sky, to pay Weasley much mind. He understands now what someone means when they say something is breathtaking, because he’s sure he stopped breathing for a moment when he first saw it, and isn’t sure he’s quite managed to catch his breath as the boats take off across the lake.

He’s not the only one fascinated. There is silence except for the sound of water lapping against the magically propelled boats as their journey starts, with whispers only starting up when they’re about halfway across. Their boat is in the lead, but the fleet of boats--which Hagrid informs them is nineteen out of the school’s total of thirty-six--are close enough that the voices of one carry over to the occupants of those closest. Granted, Harry thinks, it’s possible that it only seems that way because Ron Weasley, in the boat just behind theirs on the left, is loudly complaining about Draco Malfoy having shoved him out of the way when he was going to sit with Harry Potter. A blatant lie that Draco scoffs at, but doesn’t deem to try to refute from this distance.

When they disembark on the other side of the lake, they are on a landing stage slightly sheltered by rock formations. Hagrid looks them over, making Draco smile at Harry knowingly when he picks Neville’s frog up from their boat and hands the animal back to him, reminding him to hold onto it this time. Then, when he’s sure that no student has been lost, he leads them up some stone steps. Harry thinks this must have been a cave at some point, rocky walls closing in slightly on either side with lanterns alternating from one side to the other to light their way, and he thinks it’s a good thing he’s not claustrophobic as the shadows they cast on the ceiling make it almost look like it’s moving down closer to them.

At the top of the stairs is a stone landing, similar to the one below they’d stood on after getting out of the boats, but the bright lanterns on either side of the door make the design on it clearly visible. The stones are gray, with a darker one used to create a capital letter H. The door before them, a large, sturdy-looking wooden door with metal bands across it and a small little hatch in the door. When Hagrid pounds his fist heavily against the wood, Harry expects it to open and a face to peer out, but instead the door opens completely, light flooding out from inside, and standing there is none other than the dark-haired witch, Professor McGonagall, in emerald green robes.

“Evenin’, Professor,” Hagrid greets. “Got yer first years here, all seventy-seven of ‘em.”

“Thank you, Hagrid. Come along then.”

They shuffle in after her and find themselves now in a brightly lit room. There’s a large rug covering most of the stone floor, and directly across the door they come in through is a large fireplace, with an equally large fire lit and blazing within. It makes the room pleasantly warm after the cool air they were just in. There are two long tapestries on either side of the fireplace, totaling four, each of them in different colors and with an animal displayed prominently in its center around a letter. To the left are some benches along the way, and some portraits of landscapes above them. To the right is a door, which is where McGonagall walks to as she waits for them to all come into the room.

Harry goes over in her direction after a brief glance around the room. “Hello, Professor,” he greets, a little shy. He’s never really been close to a teacher before, but while he doesn’t want his new classmates to think he’s a teacher’s pet, he rather likes the woman who helped ensure he could attend school.

“Mr. Potter.” She addresses him formally, but she gives him a small smile, which negates her stern tone and her previously stern demeanor. “I see you made it onto the train all right.”

Harry nods, and almost goes on to tell her about being moved into the smallest bedroom upstairs, but Hagrid closes the door then, signaling that all the students are inside. The big man makes his way around the students and out of the room through the door they are near, and Harry realizes this conversation will have to wait as the older witch clears her throat to draw the attention of all the students. Once all eyes are on her, she speaks.

“Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” she begins. “The term officially begins with a start-of-term banquet attended by the entire school, which you will be joining shortly over in the Great Hall. Before you can take your seats, however, you will be sorted into one of the four Hogwarts houses.” She gestures over towards the tapestries hanging on the wall by the fireplace.

The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each has its own noble history and has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are students here, your house will be like your family within Hogwarts. You will sleep in your house dormitory, study and spend free time in your house common room, and most, if not all, of your classes will be with the rest of your housemates. You will also work together with your house to earn points for your house. Your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose your house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to your house, whichever it may be.

“Now, the Sorting Ceremony will take place in front of the whole school, so I suggest you all smarten yourselves up while you wait.” She runs a critical eye over them, pausing here and there on specific students. “Now wait quietly while I check to see if they are ready yet.”

Without another word, she leaves through the same door Hagrid left, and voices erupt in her wake. Students asking each other what house they think they’ll join, and what the Sorting might entail.

“Harry.” He turns to see Draco just off to the side with a group that seems to already know each other, waving him over. Harry goes over to the group, which consists of two girls and three boys besides Draco, assuming that these are the friends he previously mentioned. Sure enough, once he’s reached them, Draco says, “These are the friends I mentioned earlier. Theodore Nott, Vincent Crabb, Gregory Goyle, Pansy Parkinson, and Millicent Bulstrode. Guys, this is Harry Potter.”

Others nearby hear the name and there’s a ripple effect through the room as it’s whispered back and forth. Harry tries to ignore it as he greets Draco’s friends. “Hi, nice to meet you.”

Theodore Nott replies in kind, but he’s the only one. Pansy Parkinson leans into Millicent, saying in a loud whisper, “ The Harry Potter, huh? Somehow not as impressive as the stories would have us believe.”

Harry feels his face grow warm while Draco scowls at her, but before either can respond, there’s a collection of gasps and a few screams. Looking around, they see what has startled some of the others, as a group of almost two dozen ghosts have come streaming through one wall. They’re just far enough that Harry can’t make out any conversations until a ghost in tights and ruff notices the students below them and asks what they’re all doing.

“New students!” The answer comes from the ghost the first had been speaking with, a pleasant looking, chubby man dressed in a long corded tunic robe of some sort. Harry isn’t sure what it’s called, but he’s certain the man is a friar of some sort. “I believe they’re waiting to be Sorted, yes?”

Various students nod. Harry looks over at Draco, and he hopes this isn’t a stupid question because it didn’t occur to him until now, but he wants to ask before McGonagall comes back. “How are they going to sort us?”

“Honestly? Don’t know,” Draco admits with a shrug. “Mother and Father wouldn’t say. It’s tradition to go in not knowing.”

“My brother Fred said it hurts.” They turn to see Ron Weasley, who’s clearly been eavesdropping.

“H-Hurts?” Neville Longbottom, using one hand to try to fix his robe which is fastened under one ear, stares at Ron wide-eyed. His grip on his toad goes slack and he almost loses it before Hermione Granger nudges him.

“I doubt it,” she responds once Nevile has regained hold on the toad. “It is a school, after all. They aren’t going to let us get hurt .”

“Okay, Miss Know-It-All, what do you think it is?” Ron grumbles at her, glaring. “Since you know more than me.”

She frowns at him. “I am just saying, it is highly unlikely that a school is going to purposely allow students to get hurt for, what, dorm assignments?” Neville next to her visibly relaxes, and there are a few murmurs of agreement. Ron’s face goes a little pink. “Now it doesn’t say in Hogwarts, A History what the Sorting entails, but I imagine it’s more likely a test of some sort.”

“Oh, ‘it doesn’t say in Hogwarts, A History ’,” he mocks, pitching his voice higher and causing a few kids to snicker. “That’s not even one of our textbooks. What kind of nerd does extra reading before school?”

Her darker skin doesn’t visibly change colors, but the way Hermione presses her lips together and crosses her arms reads to Harry clear as day as if she’s embarrassed. She doesn’t respond though, and Harry is annoyed with Ron Weasley all over again. He thinks of all the times he was bullied by Dudley in front of other students just before teachers came back, or in front of his aunt and uncle, leaving Harry unable to defend himself or talk back, and he decides he’s not putting up with it here. Even if the bullying isn’t directed at himself.

“Just because you can’t read doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t enjoy it.” Both Hermione and Ron look over at him in surprise, though Ron’s face turns a shade of red that almost matches his hair.

Then, to avoid getting caught in a confrontation on the first day by Professor McGonagall and because Neville was struggling one handed to fix his robe before he froze to watch the back and forth between Hermione and Ron, he goes over to him. “Want me to hold Trevor while you fix your robe?”

“Oh, yes, please. Thank you.”

Neville hands the toad over and adjusts his robes, just in time for McGonagall to return. She calls for them to get in a line and follow her, turning to lead them out. Hermione hurries to do as she’s told, very clearly trying to put distance between herself and Ron Weasley. Neville takes his toad back with another muttered thank you, hurrying to get in line as well. Harry follows suit so that Neville is in front of him, with Draco at his rear. They’re led across the large Entrance Hall, so big that he’s certain the entirety of the Dursleys’ house could fit in there, and the ceiling so far above that he can’t make it out despite the many flaming torches lighting up the room. They pass massive double doors to their right and a grand marble staircase to the left, towards another set of double doors.

There’s the dull roar of hundreds of voices on the other side of those doors, which grows steadily louder as they approach, and Harry swallows nervously as his mouth suddenly goes dry. What if it is a test? He read through the books, but it’s not as if he could practice any of the spells, and he’s never been good at instantly memorizing stuff. He’s always been a hand on learner, needing to put whatever was being taught to him into practice to really grasp it. How embarrassing if he fails out of the school before he’s even started?

The doors are thrown open and the voices die down to a silence as all eyes turn to look at the line of students being led inside. They walk between the center two out of four long tables, that start a few feet from the entrance and down across the large room almost towards the other end, from what Harry can see. He tries to not make eye contact with the students on either side of him, so instead he draws his attention up to the floating candles and the night sky above, half listening as Hermione explains to Neville that she’d read it’s enchanted to look like the sky outside. He thinks maybe he read that, but isn’t sure, and is tempted to ask how many times she’d read her books or if, unlike him, she has the kind of memory that allows her to read something once and just remember it.

“What is that ?”

Draco’s question makes Harry look down, and he sees that they’re approaching a platform that is shaped in a half circle. There’s a single step to get up onto the platform, and then there’s a stool set in the center, with a battered looking witches’ hat. Behind that is another two steps leading up onto a slightly higher platform where a table runs from Harry’s left to his right. There, a long line of adults are seated, and he realizes these must be the school’s teachers and staff. Before he can find Professor Snape to wave, he finds a pair of twinkling blue eyes staring at him, and he recognizes the face from his Chocolate Frog Cards. The headmaster is literally watching him.

Unintendedly, he stops in the spot as he’s overwhelmed with the most powerful feeling of mistrust he’s ever felt, and a voice seems to scream in his mind, Do not trust Albus Dumbledore!

Then Draco walks into him, not having noticed what he’d stopped, and they almost fall over. Harry quickly apologizes, face red, and hurries forward as McGonagall directs them all to line up between the professors’ table and the stool so they’re facing the rest of the school. Once they’re all lined up, they stand there for a moment, nothing happening until the hat suddenly begins to sing.

Harry’s eyes go wide and he is able to momentarily forget the headmaster behind him, astonished at this turn of events. Getting Sorted by a magic hat is better than anything else he’d imagined, and he’s immensely relieved. He claps along with everyone else when it finishes, and then listens as the first couple of names are called and students begin being sorted into the different houses. It isn’t until after each house has received one student that Harry remembers that he and Draco might not be in the same houses.

“Draco,” he whispers, turning to the other boy. Draco looks over at where McGonagall is standing, holding a long roll of parchment from which she is reading students’ names, and then back at Harry, a single eyebrow raised in question. “Remember, if we’re in different houses, we’ll still be friends, right?”

Draco blinks at him surprised. Hadn’t Harry asked him that right after they met, when they were first discussing the houses? Draco still isn’t convinced that it’s possible for them to stay friends, but he figures it won’t hurt for them to try at least. So he nods. “Sure, but don’t be mad when my house gets more points than yours.”

Harry just grins in response, looking back at the students being sorted in time to see Hermione Granger is still sitting on the stool. He wonders if it’s normal for it to take this longer before she finally gets sorted into Gryffindor. His parents’ house. It would be nice, he thinks for what must be the hundredth time, to be in the house they were in, and get to see some of the places they once spent time in. There probably weren’t any traces of them or anything, but it’d be one more thing he would have in common with them. Plus, he would already know his Head of House with Professor McGonagall, whom he already knew he could trust. The only other professor he felt that way about right now was Professor Snape. Granted, if he ended up in Snape’s house, Slytherin, that might not be so bad either. Draco was sure he’d be in that house, so at least he’d have a friend there.

Neville Longbottom also ends up in Gryffindor house after slightly longer with the hat than most other students, and he grins happily as he goes to join them. When it is Draco’s turn, the hat is set on his head and there is a few seconds of silence before he is, as he’d predicted, announced as the next Slytherin. Harry is happy for him, knowing that is the house Draco wanted, though it’s tinged with a bit of disappointment that he wasn’t last minute put in Gryffindor, like he himself hopes to be. Then he waits for his own turn to come. He tries to ignore the irrational fear that he won’t be Sorted at all, thinking it is just his nerves, but it isn’t easy. He still thinks it’s been too many good things after another, so surely the other shoe will drop soon.

When Professor McGonagall finally calls, “Harry Potter,” the room is overtaken by a deafening silence. He’s actually tempted to stick a finger in his ear to see if something is suddenly blocking all sound, because it’s such a drastic change. Instead, he takes a few slow steps forward, hoping he doesn’t do something embarrassing like fall flat on his face as he’s acutely aware of every eye in the room being directed in his direction.

He’s actually a little relieved to finally reach the stool and have the hat placed on his head, as it falls down and covers his eyes so he can no longer see all those faces staring at him.

Well, well, what do we have here? Harry startles, although after the singing, he’s not sure why the hat speaking comes as a surprise. Strange…

Suddenly, Harry’s certain the hat is going to tell him he doesn’t belong, and he feels his heart drop. Great , he thinks. I really don’t belong here.

Oh, but you do , the hat contradicts, surprising Harry again because of course it can read his mind. Plenty of talent here, good head on your shoulders, and quite a bit of courage, with such a thirst to prove yourself. Yes, no question, you belong here.

Then what is strange? Harry asks, curious now that the hat has assuaged his fears.

The hat is quiet for a moment, as if it’s searching or perhaps deciding how to explain. Then, it says, There is magic here unlike any I have seen in all my time, and I’m quite old. Yes, strange, varying magics are at work in you. How very intriguing you are, Mr. Potter. Harry wants to ask more, try to understand what the hat is telling him, but the hat moves on, asking, So where shall I put you?

Harry frowns in response, wondering that question himself. He has no real feelings towards being put in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. Based on the hat’s song, he thinks he’s loyal enough for the former and maybe not smart enough for the latter, but he’s indifferent to either. He hasn’t met anyone interested in either, or made friends among those already sorted into it yet, so it’s hard to muster any enthusiasm besides it meaning he will remain at Hogwarts so long as he’s sorted somewhere . Gryffindor, though, has most of the few people he’s met and liked thus far, besides his emotional connection to it. But Draco is now in Slytherin.

So Gryffindor or Slytherin, eh? Any of the Hogwarts houses could help you on your way to greatness, I’m sure, but these two especially.

Then where are you putting me?

I’m rather partial to Slytherin for you, but where would you like to be ? The hat counters.

If those watching could see his face, they’d see Harry blinking in confusion and surprise. Instead, he blinks at the inside of the hat, not having expected the question. I’m not sure. I mean, Gryffindor, I think? It’s just, I’ve a friend in Slytherin. He said those houses are rivals.

Hm . The hat is quiet for only a moment, before it says, Their founders Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin were rivals and friends, you know. For a very long time.

Oh . If the founders themselves could be both rivals and friends, surely Harry and Draco could manage that too, right? Gryffindor then .

You’re certain? Won’t have any regrets? Then off you go, to “GRYFFINDOR!”

Professor McGonagall removes the hat, and Harry blinks at the brightness of the room as he stands. The table on the far left has erupted into cheers, with many of them standing and clapping, and the Weasley twins chanting, “We got Potter!” repeatedly.

Harry makes his way over, noticing as he does that the rest of the hall is staring at him still as the next student is called to be Sorted. His face warms, and he wonders if he’ll ever get used to the attention as a boy with a badge comes over to shake his hand. His red hair is such a distinctive, familiar shade that he’s not at all surprised to learn this is another Weasley, and in fact the one he’d heard speaking with the woman at the station.

“Harry Potter! Welcome to Gryffindor. I’m Percy Weasley, one of the Gryffindor prefects. Such a pleasure to have you join our house!”

“We got Potter! We got Potter!”

Percy lets out a long suffering sigh before he turns and hisses at the twins, “Stop it! Do you want us to be the first to lose house points?” He shakes his head, then motions for Harry to follow him back to where he’d been sitting.

Harry sits to Percy’s right, returning Neville’s shy smile and wave with a nod. Hermione is sitting on Percy’s other side, shaking her head at the twins who were still chanting a few seats further down, although they’d brought their volume down. Presumably to avoid notice from the teachers.

“I wish people would stop staring,” Harry mutters, noting as he takes a seat that people are still looking over in his direction.

Neville, sitting across from him, replies, “Well, y-you’re Harry Potter . You’re famous, you know.”

“Well, that, and you’re the first hatstall in years,” Percy adds, taking a seat to Harry’s left.

“A what?”

“Hatstall. It’s what it’s called when the hat takes a while to place you.” Percy motions towards the hat where someone is almost instantly sorted into Ravenclaw. “Most people only take a minute or two. You three,” he motions to Harry, Neville, and Hermione, “took longer than most, but it’s only a hatstall if it’s more than five minutes.”

“Was it really that long?” Harry asks, surprised.

“It doesn’t feel that long in the moment,” Hermione muses. Neville nods his head in agreement.

They watch the rest of the students get sorted, cheering whenever another Gryffindor is added to their ranks. If Harry’s cheering is a little less enthusiastic when the youngest Weasley also becomes a Gryffindor, he doubts anyone notices over the brothers’ loud cheers. Percy gets up again specifically to congratulate him and then comes back, his brother in tow. Harry, seeing that the free seats are on either side of where he currently is, moves to his left to take the one Percy had previously been occupying. Hopefully, the older boy won’t think anything of it except that Harry is trying to be considerate, and not hoping to avoid sitting next to his younger brother.

Luck is with him in that although he doesn’t know what Percy thinks about the switch, not only does he not bring it up, but he takes Harry’s previous seat, leaving Ron to take the second one on his other side, so at least they’re separated. It has the added bonus, Harry thinks, to put him farther away from Hermione, who Harry thinks likely doesn’t want to risk another confrontation over dinner.

The room quieted as the old headmaster stood up to welcome them all, saying a few gibberish words and sitting back down to applause and cheers. Harry doesn’t pretend to join in this time, frowning at the old headmaster. He doesn’t see Draco across the hall giving him the same raised eyebrow he had on the train, curiosity piqued.

In any case, soon his and all the other students’ attention is drawn down to the tables as the golden place settings magically fill with food. He’s astonished, having never seen so much food in one place in all his life. Best of all, for only the second time in his life, he could eat to his heart’s content and no one would stop him or take the best for themselves, as his cousin often had. He filled his food with some of nearly everything on offer, and Harry is sure after a few bites that he has never had anything so good before.

While they eat, talk revolves around questions from younger students to the older regarding classes or when the first Quidditch match will take place. Some discuss how happy or surprised their parents will be about their Sorting, which draws attention to the three seated near each out who had taken the longest to be Sorted.

“What took the Sorting Hat so long to place you?” Ron asked, leaning around Percy to address Harry.

He shrugs but Neville responds with another question himself. “Was the hat trying to convince you too? Thought I’d end up in Hufflepuff, but it insisted. Gran will be really happy about it.”

“It was between here and Ravenclaw for me,” Hermione informs them, though she doesn’t look over in Ron’s direction as she answers.

“What about you, Harry?” Neville asks.

“Slytherin.”

Percy looks at him in surprise. “ Slytherin ? That, uh, well a bit of a surprise, really.”

“How come?” Harry asks.

“ You-Know-Who was a Slytherin, s’why,” Ron offers, mouth full of food. “So were a bunch of his followers.” Ron looks directly at Harry. “Including Malfoy’s dad.”

“He was found to be innocent and under the Imperius Curse,” Percy reminds his brother.

Ron gives him an incredulous look. “ Dad thinks that’s a lie.”

“Yes, well, the Ministry doesn’t,” Percy rebutts, mouth a thin line of disapproval. “So you would do well not to spread rumors about the Malfoys."

Harry puts away this bit of information, but refuses to give Ron the satisfaction of a reaction. Instead, he pointedly ignores him, turning back to his food. He’ll think about what he’s just learned and decide what, if any of it, to bring up with Draco later.

Talk then turns to their families. Neville tells them all to laughter about his uncle trying to get him to do magic, although Hermione gasps when he tells them he was dropped out of a window. Seamus Finnegan takes over then, causing more laughter when he explains the shock his father received the first time his son performed accidental magic, as it led to finding out his wife had secretly been a witch the whole time. Many others have parents who are both witches and wizards, so they’d expected coming to Hogwarts, while others had been caught completely off-guard like Hermione, whose parents were both Muggle. Harry admits he was raised with Muggles himself, and therefore hadn’t a clue about being a wizard, much less famous, prior to receiving his Hogwarts letters.

Many are surprised by this new and Harry, realizing he doesn’t want to answer any additional questions about his Muggle relatives or the parents he doesn’t remember, turns to Percy and asks about what they might expect from their first day. Percy is more than happy to tell them all about the things they’ll learn first year, his enthusiasm matched only by Hermione, so that Harry is drawn into talk of classes and schoolwork. It effectively makes everyone else lose interest in being a part of Harry’s conversation for the moment, and although he’s not nearly as keen on what Percy is telling them as Hermione clearly is, he nevertheless finds himself looking forward to getting to learn real magic for himself.

It is while Percy is telling them about starting off small in Transfiguration with their Head of House, Professor McGonagall, that Harry happens to glance over towards the High Table. At some point, the stool and the Sorting Hat were removed. On the closest end is Hagrid, drinking from a goblet, with Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore speaking to each other somewhere around the middle. Further down he sees Professor Snape, speaking with a man wearing a purple turban, whose back is currently to Harry. He wonders if it might be the same turbaned gentleman from Diagon Alley he’d seen Snape speaking to, but he isn’t sure just how common turbans are in the wizarding world to say how likely that might be.

Just then, Snape looks over and catches his eye. He nods his head towards Harry, who lifts a hand to wave when there’s a sudden pain in his forehead.

“Ouch!” He presses his hand against his forehead, surprised.

“Are you all right?” Percy asks while Hermione tilts her head to peer at Harry’s face.

“Oh, uh, yes. Yes, I’m fine,” Harry assures them, the pain in his scar already fading.

“Is it your scar? Does it often hurt?” Hermione’s gaze is curious as it runs over his forehead.

“No, actually. Never,” Harry admits. Which is true. It’s never once, in all his life, bothered him. “Say Percy, who is that speaking with Professor Snape?”

“You know Snape, do you? Let’s see.” Percy runs his gaze along the High Table until he spots the purple turban, just as the man turns allowing them to better see his face. “Ah, that man would be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Quirrell.”

The desserts disappear from the table then, and the room quiets as Professor Dumbledore stands up. He addresses the room to inform them of a few start-of-term notices, of which were included the information that the forests on the ground as well as the right side of the third floor corridor were forbidden to students, the latter coming with the warning of a gruesome death for any who did not heed the warning. Percy mutters about this being news to him, noting that the prefects should have been informed, just as the headmaster has them all sing the school song to whatever tune pleases them.

At no point does the man ever directly look at him, as far as Harry can tell, but somehow, he’s sure that the man is still watching him. It’s an unnerving feeling, and he’s glad when the Weasley twins finally finish their funeral dirge version of the school song and they’re dismissed to go to their houses.

Already, Harry has so much to think about, and classes haven’t even started yet. He thinks he’ll definitely need to get some sleep if he’s to be prepared for what tomorrow will bring.

Story Notes:

Chapter title is a Jordan Sparks song.

#Because I Could Not Stop for Death fic #BICNSFD #Harmony fanfic #HP fanfic #Harry Potter

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alolanrain · 4 years

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So we all know that in February, Lance is going to face of Leon for the title of the strongest trainer in the world.

Imagine Ash, and Gou, coming to Galar so Ash can cheer on Lance. Since he’s known the Kanto/Johto Champion for about 9-10 years now, because fuck canon age okay Ash is a big boy, and he just can’t help but pick a side. Soley because it’s Lance. And also the fact Aah wants to see Lance use the shiny Garados he helped the Champion catch all those years ago, that’s like the main reason he’s really here tbh.

And both Lance and Leon are talking to some interviewers and reporters. Suddenly Lance sees a familiar young adult with a Pikachu bouncing from shoulder to shoulder.

Ash is talking to Gou, who has Scorbunny on his head, and not really watching where he’s going though he’s easily dodging everything that might trip him because he’s so used to walking backward and talking.

A reporter ask’s both Lance and Leon a question, and Leon’s is answering half way, when Lance immediately surged forward. The very large crowd parts as they watch in concern and wonder where Lance is going. Until they see the two boys walking and not watching where their going.

Ash’s back hits Lances chest and the young man looks up, because he’s so fucking short, and see Lance. The man is looking down at Ash with a soft smile, taking off Ash’s cap so that it stops getting crushed between the twos body.

“Oh hey, Lance.” Aah hums happily. Pikachu excitedly greets the Champion as well.

Everyone else is like “who is this boy!?!? And why is he not showing the correct respect to Champion Lance!?!?”

Lance smiles and scratches at Pikachu’s cheeks. The mouse Pokémon had hopped onto his shoulders, and he looks back down to Ash. “You gave your mother a fright.” Was his answer.

Ash smile turned sheepish, “A fright... about what??”

Lance eyes narrowed as his hand came up again to card through Ash’s hair. “The fight with the three... Ultra Beasts.” Lance voiced wavered a little at his uncertainty. “The one before your final match with Professor Kukui.”

Ash let out a soft ‘oh’ before his cheeks burst with color. “You watched the Manalo conference!” He twirled around and pointed an accusing finger at Lance, “and you didn’t even tell me.” Mock hurt filled his voice. But a loud giggle fell from his lips as Lance rolled his eyes heavily.

“Your my Godson, Ash, I wouldn’t miss a single conference. Even if the world was dying.” Ash’s bright sunny smile made Lance’s own grown. Before a very slight blush covered his cheeks. “Plus your mother would have my head if I didn’t.”

“Ever the Ursaring,” Ash commented.

“Me or your mother?” Lance asked.

Ash just shrugged with a sillysmile as Lance reaches over to cuff the young man’s head lightly.

“Prat.” Lance joked.

“Old man.” Aah responded.

Both Lance and Ash stuck their tongues out at each other. Completely forgetting about everyone else standing before them. A large crowd had surrounded the pair and Gou, who was watching the interaction with bugged out eyes and quickly searching up Ash and the Manalo Conference.

Which quickly led him to Ash’s Champion page, and Gou sees that Ash is Champion of the Orange Islands and all of his other accomplishments. Gou soon flinches at the sight of some pictures that popped up, Ash was bruised and bloody. What looks like Kalos was in the background. Ash was giving the camera a tired peace sign as Pikachu, equally battered, was sleeping in his lap.

“You’re a Champion?!” Gou ask’s suddenly, cutting off the pair’s conversation.

Lance gave Ash a knowing look as the boy’s face burst with color again. “Yeah,” Ash stated, looking everywhere but Gou and the cameras, “it’s not something that comes up a lot, and I don’t really like how people treat me differently after they learn that tidbit.” His face falls, “it also makes traveling harder.”

“You should have signed up.” Lance butted back in, both of his hands falling on Ash’s shoulders. “It would have been amazing watching you battle against what the world calls their strongest trainers.” Lance pulled Ash closer and lifting a hand to the spreader sky.

“Ash and his original team, taking down challenger after challenger. Never wielding.” Lance was laughing as he was pushed off by Ash who wordlessly yelled ag him to back off.

“Their Pesudo-Gods,”Lance kept laughing much to Ashs dismay, “don’t think I haven’t seen you Charizard constantly fighting Articuno over the birds islands.”

“Charizard still isn’t letting go of their first fight.” Aah weakly defended. But that didn’t stop Lance.

“You’d kick my ass to be honest.” Lance tried soothing, though his laughter turned to chuckles. “Pikachu here could probably take down my whole team if it were angry enough.” Said Pokémon butted heads with Lances hand that moved to pet it.

“Whatever!” Aah huffed, face truly scarlet now. “Don’t you have a battle to get to?”

That made Lance pause, and fully recognize the surrounding people that made a semi circle around them. Leon was standing off to the side, more up the stairs, and his eyes held a fascinating glint to them as he watched Ash and Lances talk together.

“Shit.”

That got Ash and half the people to laugh. But before anyone could say anything, Lance unclamped his capes buckle and swung it in a flourished movement over Ashs shoulders. Pikachu once more jumping onto Lances shoulders, turning to look at his human partner with the black and red cape. The piece of clothing barley brushed the ground from Ashs height.

“Wha-“ Aah was about to ask before getting cut off by Lance who ruffled his hair once more.

“Be my good luck charm?” The other asked.

Huffing, it was Ash’s turn to role his eyes in amusement. “Been your good luck charm since I was ten.”

“How so?” Lance challenged.

“Garados.” Aah stated blandly. “That Pokémon is one of the sole reason why I’m here.”

“Cheering on your God Father is one of them as well?” Lance asked

“Don’t push it.” The other responded before grabbing Lances biceps and turning the Champion around and started pushing him past the crowd and up towards the stairs. Lance was laughing all the way as Ash manhandled him towards Leon.

“Cheer me on!” He called after Aah as the young man made his way back to Gou. He cackled as Ash flipped him off without looking back.

Gou soon hounds Ash, because it says here Ash has helped a lot of mythical and Godly Pokémon and also has challenged all the other Regions besides the Galar Region. But it’s more so out of mental concern for Ash because that’s a lot of stress for one person to handle, even so if it started out when he was fucking 10 years old.

Ash waves Gou’s concerns off and drags him to their seat, right between the two and down on the front row, and forcibly sits Gou down and plops both Scorbunny and Pikachu onto Gou’s lap.

“I’ll answer all your questions later.” Aah promised before the crowd roared as both Champions entered the pitch. “But for now,” a sly smile streached over his face as Ash looked back and Lance, eyes flashing blue briefly, “let’s enjoy the fight.”

And if Leon heckled Ash’s phone number out of Lance, than so be it. He just wanted to actually talk to the Chosen One without anyone spying on them.

#wolfy answers #ash ketchum #champion lance #champion leon #leon #lance #pikachu #scorbunny #garadose #i fucking mnow i spelt it wrong but im not going back and chamging it #hint of #hatshipping

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kehwie · 4 years

Link

Summary: Ron finds a magical object that sends him on a journey through various alternate realities. Along the way, he learns some important lessons about himself and his family and friends. (AUs will have various pairings, but the story will end with canon pairings.)

PART ONE

Chapter One

As stubborn and cantankerous as she was, Ron had kind of figured his Great-Aunt Muriel would outlive all of them. She did live to a ripe old age, but one unseasonably cool night in October, she died quietly in her sleep.

Her huge old house was filled to the brim; she’d practically been what Hermione said Muggles called a hoarder. Ron didn’t look forward to digging through it all.

But he’d never figured out how to say no to his mum.

“I need your help, Ronnie,” Molly said. “Aunt Muriel accumulated so much stuff over the years. And no one’s really sure what all of it is. Some of it might be priceless family heirlooms; it’s important to preserve those. But it’s all jumbled together with just old junk. We won’t know what’s what until we get in there.”

Which was how Ron Weasley found himself helping his mother sort through what seemed to be a couple hundred years’ worth of crap in Aunt Muriel’s attic.

He wasn’t sure what made him pocket the small item he found in a dark, grimy corner, buried underneath various odds and ends that they were able to conclude were useless and could be vanished. Maybe it was just that he didn’t know what the object was and didn’t feel comfortable vanishing it.

But even as he told himself that, he knew there was more to it. Something about the little silver globe drew him. He could’ve just asked his mum if she knew what it was. He should do that.

He didn’t.

Instead he took it home with him. And that night, as Hermione worked in the office she’d set up in their home, Ron took out the unknown item and studied it.

Just an ordinary silver ball. What was it that drew him to it so?

He turned it around in his hands, examining it more closely. Was that a dent? No, more of a notch. He ran his thumb over it.

The globe had been perfectly smooth other than that almost invisible notch, but once he brushed it a circlet opened up in the top. Ron could now see swirling liquid inside the orb. It looked almost like the inside of a Pensieve. He leaned closer, fascinated.

Since it was so much smaller, he couldn’t put his head in like he would’ve done with a Pensieve. He placed his right eye as close as he could get to the hole filled with the swirling liquid.

And felt the whole world shift and tumble around him.

It was the strangest sensation--almost like his sitting room melting away, dissolving around him, then reforming into something entirely new and different. He pulled the silver globe away from his eye and looked around.

He was still on a sofa. But not his sofa. He was in what appeared to be a sitting room. But not his sitting room. Panic began to swell within him. Where was he? What the hell had he done? “Hermione?” he called out weakly.

“Did you say something, dear?” A woman’s voice floated to him from another room. That was definitely not Hermione’s voice. What in Merlin’s name was going on here?

“Ron?” Crap, the voice was moving closer. “Is everything all right?”

And Padma Patil entered the room.

Ron didn’t think he’d seen her since...bloody hell, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen her. He didn’t see either of the Patil twins too often these days. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure how he knew it was Padma. The girls were identical, and it was hard enough keeping twins straight when you knew them well; Fred and George had always been proof of that. Ron had never known either Patil girl terribly well. And it wasn’t like Padma was currently decked out in Ravenclaw house colors. But somehow he knew for absolute certain it was her.

What he didn’t know was where he was or how he’d gotten there or what she was doing there with him. “Wh-where am I?” He tried, he really did, but he didn’t manage to keep the alarm out of his voice.

Padma frowned at him. “If this is one of your jokes, Ronald Weasley, I’ll have you know that it isn’t funny!”

“I’m not joking, Padma, I swear. I just...look, I’m really confused right now. Where am I?”

“You’re at home , Ron!” Oh, look. Now he wasn’t the only one panicking. Who even knew a human voice could reach that pitch.

“Okaaaay...this doesn’t look quite right...where’s Hermione?”

“Hermione?!” Now Padma’s expression was a bizarre combination of terror, bafflement, and a wee bit of ire. “Why would Hermione be here? It’s the school year! She’s at Hogwarts!”

“With Rose and Hugo? Did something happen?”

“Who? Ron, you aren’t making any sense!”

“Okay, back up. Why’s Hermione at Hogwarts?”

The ire melted, leaving only confusion and fear. “Because she teaches there! She has for years! Panju is in trouble with her almost daily!”

“Panju?”

“That’s it, we need St. Mungo’s.” Padma strode toward the fireplace. As she waited for the floo call to connect, she asked over her shoulder. “Do you remember hitting your head or anything like that? Did you get hit by some sort of spell?”

“You think maybe one of George’s jokes went wrong?”

“George’s jokes? Ohhhh, that might do it. Did you see him today?”

Ron stared at her. “I see him every day?”

Padma laughed. “Since when?”

“Uh...since I left the Aurors and went to work with him at the shop?”

“Work with him at the shop? Aurors? Ron, you’re scaring me!” Padma turned back to the floo as a head appeared.

The head in the fireplace was an older wizard, and St. Mungo’s emblem was clearly visible on what showed of his collar. “Yes?”

“Please, you have to help my husband! Something is terribly wrong with him!”

Husband? The world spun again, and this time, Ron felt himself plunge into blackness.

#fanfic #harry potter fanfiction #ron weasley #ron-centric #romione #complete #link to fic #first chapter

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gamersonthego · 4 years

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Blaseball: The New National Pastime

Blaseball is my favorite game to come out this year so far, and that’s kind of an odd thing to say considering Blaseball barely feels like a game at all.

Blaseball is a splort in which 20 teams compete under the Internet League Blaseball organization, day and night, rain or shine, and at the behest of us fans who vote to remake the league in our own image.

That’s what the Blaseball FAQ says anyway. Less cryptically, Blaseball is a browser game — a massively multiplayer one at that — in which a league of fictional teams play something vaguely baseball adjacent while we as fans watch from afar through the window of an ever updating list of box scores. We don’t actually play the game — the in-universe game rather — but we are able to participate in a number of ways, like eating peanuts, which...well, I still don’t understand what eating peanuts does, but it’s a thing you can do.

When you first log in to Blaseball, you’re asked to choose a team, with little to go on other than their name and logo. Dallas Steaks, Baltimore Crabs, Hellmouth Sunbeams (wait, where is Hellmouth located?): once you’ve chosen, you’re now a fan of that team and are given a small amount of coins with which to gamble (virtual currency only, this is one of those rare free-to-play games that is actually free.)

And that’s how you’ll be interacting with Blaseball most of the time: betting on the day’s games, Salty Bet style. Every hour, there are 10 games going on, and you can look at the next 10 games starting the next hour and place your bets accordingly. Blaseball developer The Game Band even helpfully puts the odds next to each team’s chances of winning, so you can make an informed decision.

The money you earn from gambling can be spent on a handful of items in the Shop tab, but the most important one is purchasing votes. Votes can then be cast in a weekly election that can affect individual players, teams and the entire league itself. This is where Blaseball truly shines, and it’s what takes it from a relatively straightforward clicker/idle game into something special.

Elections are split up into two categories: Decrees, which are often league-shifting decisions made by majority vote, and Blessings, which are drawn raffle-style to bestow benefits to specific players or teams. An early decree voted upon was “Eat The Rich,” which redistributes the coins of the top 1% of participants to the other 99% at the end of each week/season (Bernie would be so proud.) While a blessing like “Vulture” would let your favored team steal the best hitter in the league and add them to your squad.

Watching the league evolve week to week is engrossing. Elections give fans just that tiny bit of interactivity, tilting the splort in one direction or another, and watching the results with bated breath. It’s a phenomenon I haven’t experienced since 2014’s Twitch Plays Pokemon, and similar to that socially-driven experiment, the community has embraced the game wholeheartedly, creating a deep, crowd-based lore behind every little detail and enhanced by the developers’ sometimes light — and sometimes quite heavy — touch.

After the first season of Blaseball ended, the blessing “Max Out Hitter” gave then-Dallas Steaks’ Jessica Telephone a five-star rating in batting. Fans interacting on the Official Blaseball Discord Channel began to attribute this surge in power to Jessica’s bat, dubbing it The Dial Tone. The Game Band supported this, and by Season 3, where player items were officially added to the game, The Dial Tone now was called out in the box score whenever Jessica came to the plate — and later, on her player profile after fans voted to “lift the Microphone” so they could get to know the players better.

The give and take from developers and fans is a fascinating one. While sometimes the interaction is friendly and collaborative, like in The Dial Tone instance, others have a very SUPERHOT-style antagonistic tone to them (and it doesn’t hurt that they share a similar color scheme as well). An example of this comes from Season 6, where the concept of Idols were integrated into Blaseball. Fans could idolize one player from any team and their accomplishments (hits and home runs for batters, strikeouts and shutouts for pitchers) could net fans extra cash. Jessica Telephone, being one of the best hitters in the league and a fan favorite, easily topped the idol leaderboard. But then, in a targeted form of discipline that’s plagued fans in a variety of ways since Season 1’s opening of the Forbidden Book of Blaseball rules, Jessica Telephone was “Shelled,” literally trapping her inside a giant peanut that skips her in the lineup. How long is she stuck like this? Who knows…

But that’s the great thing about Blaseball: nobody knows. And sometimes, the developers seem surprised at what’s happening as well. A recent blessing stated that the team who won it would steal the 14th most idolized player in the league. Fans began a campaign to make sure pitcher Jaylen Hotdogfingers was number 14. While normally this wouldn’t be a issue, the problem was that Jaylen Hotdogfingers was actually dead at the time, having been the first player to be incinerated by a rogue umpire after a game (another of the disciplines handed down by the Blaseball Gods). This isn’t something that could easily be done. You couldn’t just navigate to Jaylen’s player profile on the Blaseball site. You had to know the specific URL to the profile’s page, which seems to support the idea this wasn’t something intended by the developers.

When Hotdogfingers ended the season as lucky number 14, he…she….it (the Blaseball community is mixed on this, and The Game Band is staunchly in the camp of allowing every fan’s canon to be valid, only making things like The Dial Tone official when they appear to reach a critical and consistent mass in the community) returned from the void and seems mostly ok…other than the fact that random opponents are sometimes hit by Jaylen’s pitches and become Unstable, temporarily affecting their stats for a number of games. Probably nothing to worry about.

It’s a beautiful mess of a game. A never-ending ant farm where every ant has a backstory and occasionally a random ant gets an exploratory surgery that increases their pitching stat by one star (sorry, kind of lost the metaphor there…)

There’s a 2018 interview with game developer Jade Raymond where she envisions what games might be like 10 years in the future:

Well, I’m thinking in the past maybe what we were trying to create was the Pixies concert or whatever. And now I think that we want to create this neighborhood bar. You could go and hang out and sit alone and read your book at the neighborhood bar. You could go and participate in karaoke night with your friends. You could go become a regular and everyone in the bar knows you, like in Cheers; you walk in and it’s like, “Norm!” You could be like the VIP. What you’re looking for out of that place can be very different, but it’s an appointment and a place you can go over and over again, and do pub trivia night with your friends if that’s what you’re into.

She goes on to talk about utilizing data to change the way a game works over time:

There’s some simple ideas, like, for example, if you take Game of Thrones, you know let’s say at one point in the story you’re going to have the Red Wedding. You know that at one point some family is all going to be obliterated. You can put these kind of big story beats there in your overall story. Then you could say, we’re going to do it based on data.

Let’s say you have a traditional faction system and let’s say players are really gravitating towards this one family, and they’re the most beloved. If you really want to shock the community the most, those are the ones you plug in to kill off — based on who players are really interacting with.

These are things Blaseball is doing right now, not 10 years as Raymond foretold, but in just two. Fans participate in Blaseball in a number of ways. Some make streaming audio broadcasts of the games, some share theories on Discord, some create incredible fanart and others just check in on the site every few hours or so. And as for the Red Wedding? Well, I told you about players getting incinerated and shelled, right?

So go play Blaseball right now, tell the commissioner he’s doing a great job and become a Hades Tigers fan to help my team win some blessings. It’s truly the cultural event of the season.

#blaseball

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achronologyofbits · 4 years

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GOTY 2019

I wanted to write a personal Game of the Year list, but I realized I really didn’t play that many games that were new in 2019. So I’m ranking them, but it’s less a “top 10” and more a “10 games I played and how I felt about them.”

10. Kingdom Hearts III

Kingdom Hearts III plays like a game from 2005.

I’m not sure I can fully articulate what I mean by that. Maybe I mean its combat is largely simplistic and button-mashy. Maybe I mean its rhythms of level traversal and cutscene exposition dumps are archaic and outdated. Maybe feeling like this game is a relic from another time is unavoidable, given how many years have passed since its first series entry.

But there’s also something joyful and celebratory about it all — something kind of refreshing about a work that knows only a tiny portion of its players will understand all its references and lore and world-building, and just doesn’t care.

Despite all the mockery and memery surrounding its fiction, Kingdom Hearts’ strongest storytelling moments are actually pretty simple. They’re about the struggle to exist, to belong, and to define what those things mean for yourself. I think that’s why the series reaches the people it does.

Those moments make Kingdom Hearts III worth defending, if not worth recommending.

9. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Admittedly, I only played about 10-15 hours of this in 2019. Perhaps fittingly, that’s about the amount of time I originally spent on Dark Souls when it released in 2011. I bounced off, hard, because I didn’t understand what it was asking of me. Once I did — though, it has to be said, I needed other people to explain those expectations to me, because the game sure as hell didn’t — Dark Souls became an all-time favorite. And I’ve played every FromSoft game since then, and enjoyed them all. Until Sekiro.

Part of it is, again, down to expectation. Dark Souls trained its players on a certain style of combat: cautious movements, careful attention to spacing, committing to weighty attacks, waiting for counterattacks. In every game since then, FromSoft have iterated on those expectations in the same direction in an attempt to encourage players to be less cautious and more aggressive. The series moved from tank-heavy play in Dark Souls, to dual-wielding in DS2, to weapon arts and reworking poise in DS3, to the system of regaining health by attacking in Bloodborne.

In some ways, Sekiro is a natural continuation of this trend toward aggression, but in others, it’s a complete U-turn. Bloodborne eschewed blocking and prioritized dodging as the quickest, most effective defensive option. Sekiro does exactly the opposite. Blocking is always your first choice, parrying is essential instead of largely optional, and dodging is near useless except in special cases. FromSoft spent five games teaching me my habits, and it was just too hard for me to break them for Sekiro.

I have other issues, too — health/damage upgrades are gated behind boss fights, so grinding is pointless; the setting and story lack some of the creativity of the game’s predecessors; there’s no variety of builds or playstyles — but the FromSoft magic is still there, too. Nothing can match the feeling of beating a Souls-series boss. And the addition of a grappling hook makes the verticality of Sekiro’s level design fascinating.

I dunno. I feel like there’s more here I’d enjoy, if I ever manage to push through the barriers. Maybe — as I finally did with the first Dark Souls, over a year after its release — someday I will.

8. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

In December, my wife and I traveled to Newport Beach for a family wedding, and we stayed an extra day to visit Disneyland. As an early birthday present, Aubrey bought me the experience of building a lightsaber in Galaxy’s Edge. And the experience is definitely what you’re paying for; the lightsaber itself is cool, but it’s cool because it’s made from parts I selected, with a blade color I chose, and I got to riff and banter with in-character park employees while doing it. (“Can you actually read those?” one asked me in an awed voice, when I selected a lightsaber hilt portion adorned with ancient Jedi runes. “Not yet,” I told her. “We’ll see if the Force can teach me.”)

Maybe it’s because I just had that experience, but by far my favorite moment in Jedi: Fallen Order is when main character Cal Kestis overcomes his own fears and memories to forge his own lightsaber, using a kyber crystal that calls to him personally. It’s maybe the only part of the game that made me feel like a Jedi, in a way the hours of Souls-inspired lightsaber slashing didn’t.

I think that’s telling. And I think it’s because so much of Fallen Order is derivative of other works, both in the current canon of gaming and of Star Wars. That’s not to say it’s bad — the mélange of Uncharted/Tomb Raider traversal, combat that evokes Souls and God of War, and vaguely Metroid-y power acquisition and exploration mostly works — but it’s just a titch less than the sum of those parts.

Similarly, as a Star Wars story, it feels under-baked. There’s potential in exploring the period immediately after Order 66 and the Jedi purge, but you only see glimpses of that. And I understand the difficulty of telling a story where the characters succeed but in a way that doesn’t affect established canon, but it still seemed like there were a couple of missed opportunities at touching base with the larger Star Wars universe. (And the one big reference that does pop up at the end feels forced and unrealistic.)

When I got home from California, I took my lightsaber apart just to see how it all worked. Outside of the hushed tones and glowing lights of Savi’s Workshop, it seems a little less special. It’s still really cool…but I sort of wish I had had a wider variety of parts to choose from. And that I had bought some of the other crystal colors. Just in case.

That’s how I feel about Jedi: Fallen Order. I had fun with it. But it’s easier now to see the parts for what they are.

7. Untitled Goose Game

Aubrey and I first saw this game at PAX, at a booth which charmingly recreated the garden of the game’s first level. We were instantly smitten, and as I’ve introduced it to family and friends, they’ve all had the same reaction. When we visited my brother’s family in Florida over the holidays, my eight-year-old niece and nephew peppered me with questions about some of the more complex puzzles. Even my father, whose gaming experience basically topped out at NES Open Tournament Golf in 1991, gave it a shot.

I’m not sure I have a lot more to say here, other than a few bullet points:

1) I love that Untitled Goose Game is completely nonviolent. It would’ve been easy to add a “peck” option as another gameplay verb, another means of mischief. (And, from what I understand, it would be entirely appropriate, given the aggression of actual geese.) That the developers resisted this is refreshing.

2) I’m glad a game this size can have such a wide reach, and that it doesn’t have to be a platform exclusive.

3) Honk.

6. Tetris 99

Despite the number of hours I’ve spent playing games, and the variety of genres that time has spanned, I’m not much for competitive gaming. This is partially because the competitive aspect of my personality has waned with age, and partially because I am extremely bad at most multiplayer games.

The one exception to this is Tetris.

I am a Tetris GOD.

Of course, that’s an incredible overstatement. Now that I’ve seen real Ecstasy of Order, Grandmaster-level Tetris players, I realize how mediocre I am. But in my real, actual life, I have never found anyone near my skill level. In high school, I would bring two Game Boys, two copies of Tetris, and a link cable on long bus rides to marching band competitions, hoping to find willing challengers. The Game Boys themselves became very popular. Playing me did not.

Prior to Tetris 99, the only version of the game that gave me any shred of humility in a competitive sense was Tetris DS, where Japanese players I found online routinely handed me my ass. I held my own, too, but that was the first time in my life when I wasn’t light-years beyond any opponent.

As time passed and internet gaming and culture became more accessible, I soon realized I was nowhere near the true best Tetris players in the world. Which was okay by me. I’m happy to be a big fish in a small pond, in pretty much all aspects of my life.

Tetris 99 has given me a perfectly sized pond. I feel like I’m a favorite to win every round I play, and I usually finish in the top 10 or higher. But it’s also always a challenge, because there’s just enough metagame to navigate. Have I targeted the right enemies? Do I have enough badges to make my Tetrises hit harder? Can I stay below the radar for long enough? These aspects go beyond and combine with the fundamental piece-dropping in a way I absolutely love.

The one thing I haven’t done yet is win an Invictus match (a mode reserved only for those who have won a standard 99-player match). But it’s only a matter of time.

5. Pokemon Sword/Shield

I don’t think I’ve played a Pokemon game through to completion since the originals. I always buy them, but I always seem to lose steam halfway through. But I finished Shield over the holidays, and I had a blast doing it.

Because I’m a mostly casual Pokeplayer, the decision to not include every ‘mon in series history didn’t bother me at all. I really enjoyed learning about new Pokemon and forcing myself to try moving away from my usual standards. (Although I did still use a Gyarados in my final team.)

As a fan of English soccer, the stadium-centric, British-flavored setting also contributed to my desire to see the game through. Changing into my uniform and walking onto a huge, grassy pitch, with tens of thousands of cheering fans looking on, really did give me a different feeling than battles in past games, which always seemed to be in weird, isolated settings.

I’m not sure I’ll push too far into the postgame; I’ve never felt the need to catch ‘em all. But I had a great time with the ones I caught.

4. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

I have a strange relationship with the Zelda series, especially now. They are my wife’s favorite games of all time. But I don’t know if I’ve ever actually sat down and beaten one since the original Link’s Awakening. Even with Breath of the Wild, which I adore, I was content to watch Aubrey do the heavy lifting. I know the series well, I’ve played bits of all of them, but most haven’t stuck with me.

Link’s Awakening has. I wrote a piece once about its existential storytelling and how it affected me as a child. I love the way the graphics in this remake preserve that dreamlike quality. It’s pretty much a re-skin of the original game, but the cutesy, toy-set aesthetic pairs well with the heavy material. If this is all a dream, whose dream is it? And when we wake up, what happens to it?

Truthfully, some of the puzzles and design decisions haven’t held up super well. Despite the fresh coat of paint, it definitely feels like a 25-year-old game. But I’m so glad this version exists.

Oh, and that solo clarinet in the Mabe Village theme? *Chef’s kiss*

3. Control

I actually haven’t seen a lot of the influences Control wears on its sleeve. I’ve never gone completely through all the episodes of the X-Files, Fringe, and Twin Peaks; I’m only vaguely familiar with the series of “creepypasta” fiction called SCP Foundation; and I have never endeavored to sit through a broadcast of Coast to Coast AM. I’m also unfamiliar with Remedy’s best-known work in the genre, Alan Wake. But I know enough about all those works to be able to identify their inspiration on the Federal Bureau of Control, Jesse Faden, and the Oldest House.

Control is an interesting game to recommend (which I do), because I’m not sure how much I really enjoyed its combat. For most of the game, it’s a pretty standard third-person shooter. You can’t snap to cover, which indicates you’re intended to stay on the move. This becomes even more obvious when you gain the ability to air dash and fly. But you do need to use cover, because Jesse doesn’t have much health even at the end of the game. So combat encounters can get out of hand quickly, and there’s little incentive to keep fighting enemies in the late game. Yet they respawn at a frustratingly frequent rate. The game’s checkpointing system compounds this — you only respawn at “control points,” which act like Souls-style bonfires. This leads to some unfortunately tedious runbacks after boss fights.

On the other hand, Jesse’s telekinesis power always feels fantastic, and varying your attacks between gunshots, thrown objects, melee, and mind controlling enemies can be frenetic fun. That all comes to a head in the game’s combat (and perhaps aesthetic?) high point, the Ashtray Maze. To say more would be doing a disservice. It’s awesome.

The rest of the gameplay is awesome, too — and I do call it “gameplay,” though unfortunately you don’t have many options for affecting the world beyond violence. The act of exploring the Oldest House and scouring it for bureaucratic case files, audio recordings, and those unbelievably creepy “Threshold Kids” videos is pure joy. The way the case files are redacted leaves just enough to the imagination, and the idea of a federal facility being built on top of and absorbed into a sort of nexus of interdimensional weirdness is perfectly executed. And what’s up with that motel? And the alien, all-seeing, vaguely sinister Board? So cool.

With such great worldbuilding, I did wish for a little more player agency. There are no real dialogue choices — no way to imbue Jesse with any character traits beyond what’s pre-written for her — and only one ending. This kind of unchecked weird science is the perfect environment for forcing the player into difficult decisions (what do we study? How far is too far? How do we keep it all secret?), and that just isn’t part of the game at all. Which is fine — Control isn’t quite an immersive sim like Prey, and it’s not trying to be. I just see some similarities and potential, and I wish they had been explored a little.

But Control’s still a fantastic experience, and in any other year, it probably would’ve been my number one pick. That’s how good these next two games are.

2. Outer Wilds

Honestly, this is the best game of 2019. But I’m not listing it as number one because I didn’t play most of it — Aubrey did. Usually we play everything together; even if we’re not passing a controller back and forth, one of us will watch while the other one plays. And that definitely happened for a large chunk of Outer Wilds. But Aubrey did make some key discoveries while I was otherwise occupied, so while I think it’s probably the best game, it’s not the one I personally spent the most time with.

The time I did spend, though? Wow. From the moment you wake up at the campfire and set off in search of your spaceship launch codes, it’s clear that this is a game that revels in discovery. Discovery for its own sake, for the furthering of knowledge, for the protection of others, for the sheer fun of it. Some games actively discourage players from asking the question, “Hey, what’s that over there?” Outer Wilds begs you to ask it, and then rewards you not with treasure or statistical growth, but with the opportunity to ask again, about something even more wondrous and significant.

There are so many memorable moments of discovery in this game. The discovery that, hey, does that sun look redder to you than it used to? The discovery that, whoa, why did I wake up where I started after seemingly dying in space? Your first trip through a black hole. Your first trip to the quantum moon. Your first trip to the weird, bigger-on-the-inside fog-filled heart of a certain dark, brambly place. (Aubrey won’t forget that any time soon.)

They take effort, those moments. They do have to be earned, and it isn’t easy. Your spaceship flies like it looks: sketchy, taped together, powered by ingenuity and, like, marshmallows, probably. Some of the leaps you have to make — both of intuition and of jetpack — are a little too far. (We weren’t too proud to look up a couple hints when we were truly stuck.) But in the tradition of the best adventure games (which is what this is, at heart), you have everything you need right from the beginning. All you have to do is gather the knowledge to understand it and put it into action.

And beyond those moments of logical and graphical discovery, there’s real emotion and pathos, too. As you explore the remnants of the lost civilization that preceded yours, your only method of communication is reading their writing. And as you do, you start to get a picture of them not just as individuals (who fight, flirt, and work together to help each other), but as a species whose boundless thirst for discovery was their greatest asset, highest priority, undoing, and salvation, all at once.

I don’t think I can say much more without delving into spoilers, or retreading ground others have covered. (Go read Austin Walker’s beautiful and insightful review for more.) It’s an incredible game, and one everyone with even a passing interest in the medium should try.

(Last thing: Yes, I manually flew to the Sun Station and got inside. No, I don’t recommend it.)

1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

If I hadn’t just started a replay of this game, I don’t think I’d be listing it in the number one slot. I started a replay because I showed it to my brother when we visited him in Florida last month, and immediately, all the old feelings came flooding back. I needed another hit.

No game this year has been as compelling for me. That’s an overused word in entertainment criticism, but I mean it literally: There have been nights where I absolutely HAVE to keep playing (much to Aubrey’s dismay). One more week of in-game time. One more study session to raise a skill rank. One more meal together so I can recruit another student. One more battle. Just a little longer.

I’m not sure I can put my finger on the source of that compulsion. Part of it is the excellence of craftsmanship on display; if any technical or creative aspect of Three Houses was less polished than it is, I probably wouldn’t feel so drawn to it. But the two big answers, I think, are the characters and their growth, both mechanically and narratively.

At the start of the game, you pick one of the titular three houses to oversee as professor. While this choice defines who you’ll have in your starting party, that can be mitigated later, as almost every other student from the other two houses can be recruited to join yours. What you’re really choosing is which perspective you’ll see the events of the story from, and through whose eyes: Edelgard of the Black Eagles, Dimitri of the Blue Lions, or Claude of the Golden Deer. (This is also why the game almost demands at least three playthroughs.)

These three narratives are deftly written so you simultaneously feel like you made the only possible canonical choice, while also sowing questions into your decision-making. Edelgard’s furious desire for change is just but perhaps not justifiable; Dimitri hides an obsession with revenge behind a façade of noblesse oblige; Claude is more conniving and pragmatic than he lets on. No matter who you side with, you’ll eventually have to face the others. And everyone can make a case that they, not you, are on the right side.

This is especially effective because almost every character in Three Houses is dealing with a legacy of war and violence. A big theme of the game’s story is how those experiences inform and influence the actions of the victims. What steps are justified to counteract such suffering? How do you break the cycle if you can’t break the power structures that perpetuate it? How do good people end up fighting for bad causes?

While you and your child soldiers (yeah, you do kind of have to just skip over that part; they’re in their late teens, at least? Still not good enough, but could be worse?) are grappling with these questions, they’re also growing in combat strength, at your direction. This is the part that really grabbed me and my lizard brain — watching those numbers get bigger was unbelievably gratifying. Each character class has certain skill requirement prerequisites, and as professor, you get to define how your students meet those requirements, and which they focus on. Each student has certain innate skills, but they also have hidden interests that only come to the surface with guidance. A character who seems a shoo-in to serve as a white mage might secretly make an incredibly effective knight; someone who seems destined for a life as a swordsman suddenly shows a talent for black magic. You can lean into their predilections, or go against them, with almost equal efficacy.

For me, this was the best part of Three Houses, and the part that kept me up long after my wife had gone to bed. Planning a student’s final battle role takes far-seeing planning and preparation, and each step along the way felt thrilling. How can you not forge a connection with characters you’ve taken such pains to help along the way? How can you not explode with joy when they reach their goals?

That’s the real draw of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, I think: the joy of seeing people you care about grow, while simultaneously confronting those you once cared about, but who followed another path. No wonder I wanted to start another playthrough. I think I’ll be starting them all over again for a long time.

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meeedeee · 5 years

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Vidding Linkspam May 28, 2019

I make monthly Vidding Linkspam posts on my Dreamwidth blog. Look under the “Linkspam” tag.

Announcements: Vid Recs: Submit Your Favorite Vids http://VidRecs.com Now open. Got Recs?

Announcements: LilacEdits — If you are a video editor on YouTube you can join... If you are a video editor on YouTube you can join my Multifemale collab I just started :)

Announcements: EoV | Elements of Vidding Contest | Round One: Why We Vid Remember that contest I was tweeting about a few weeks ago? Well, it's finally happening! Join now! https://t.co/9i9jK2UBZJ

Announcements: Looking for Vidders : Calling UK/Italian Vidders Looking for Vidders I'm at the early stages of developing a documentary on Vidding. I am looking for UK or Italian based Vidders willing to appear in the documentary and talk about their passion for Vidding. As a former Vidder I want to highlight how it can be entertaining for the audience to see their favourite shows in a new way and also how it offers the artists a chance to be creative as well. Many thanks, Carlotta Montella.

Conventions: FanWorks 2019 Vidding Panels! Vidding Panels at the Fanworks Convention, Aug 2019

Conventions: Looking for vids to Vienna Teng songs! https://fairestcat.dreamwidth.org/660760.html I'm VJing a Vid Show of vids to Vienna Teng songs at FanworksCon in August. I pitched it as "Come Out and Level Up: Narratives of Resistance as sung by Vienna Teng" but I'm taking a very broad definition of "resistance."

Meta: The mentor ship of vidding communities https://twitter.com/redimine/status/1128666188454801408 The mentor ship of vidding communities, either directly or through observation, is one of those things I really like about fandom I just wanted to draw attention to today. Thanks for the help and inspiration throughout the years!

Meta; "Vidding doesn’t have the accessibility of fan art or the group mentality of fan fic https://twitter.com/redimine/status/1131206313390805000 Vidding doesn’t have the accessibility of fan art or the group mentality of fan fic. Vidding asks a lot from it’s participants and, honestly? Unless someone already gravitates towards fan vids it can be incredibly hard to draw other’s interest.

Meta: "Vidding history is fascinating https://twitter.com/redimine/status/1131216530501451776 Vidding history is fascinating; in the begging my foremothers ran collectives because you'd need up to four or more VCRs and who could afford that?! Best to drag your fellow club members into learning how to trick technology into doing what you want.

Meta: vidders who see & hear music as movement & color https://twitter.com/Bonibaru/status/1132780458494910464 Reading it made me think of @Lumi_nation and other fellow vidders who see & hear music as movement & color, hear color as music, and so on. There are many of us. We don’t often talk about it outside of con suites and panels, but we exist in our special little universes

Meta: my youtube is almost to 500 subscribers... https://legalizesupercorp.tumblr.com/post/184993271630/my-youtube-is-almost-to-500-subscri… my youtube is almost to 500 subscribers....I’ve been making videos for like 11-12 years even though I took a break for like 4 years, but I’ve been working really hard, and even though I know that’s not a lot compared to the thousands other people have, but I’m really proud of myself for getting close to the milestone.

Meta: what is the ettiquette...… for making fanvids with fanart? https://skulkingwriter.tumblr.com/post/184443576987/dnd-and-other-mostly-audio-fandoms-wha… what is the ettiquette...… for making fanvids with fanart? What do you do, do you seek out and ask permission from each the artist to use their art in the vid? Is that a thing we do? Or do we assume if it’s online it’s OK and credit at the end? Asking permission seems like the polite thing to do. It also seems… very labour intensive.

Meta: making money from fanvidding is unethical. https://vimesbootstheory.tumblr.com/post/184950631342/hi-hello-making-money-from-fanviddin… #vidding #if I see another commissions post I swom to jon #it's not your goddamn footage

Meta: Vidder Feelings https://redscullyrevival.tumblr.com/post/185061507310/vidder-feelings I’ve got a lot of feelings about fan vids, as I am to have after finishing a project, and how it’s one of the

Meta: vid_bingo | Vidding Chatter https://vid-bingo.dreamwidth.org/3441.html Recently a lot of my DW and twitter feed have been discussing the Plotters vs. Pantsers approach to writing and it made me think about how I approach vidding. Sometimes I plan things out and sometimes I fly by the seat of my pants.

Meta: fail_fandomanon | FFA DW Post 1084 - Explain a canon from a vid/AMV https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/368136.html?thread=2150748168#cmt2150748168 I think we haven't played this game for a while. 1. Someone posts a vid or AMV whether it be accurate ore misleading regarding canon content 2. People who haven't seen the canon watch the video and try to explain what the canon is about

Meta: fail_fandomanon | FFA DW Post 1086 - Explain a canon from a vid/AMV https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/368886.html?thread=2153807862#cmt2153807862 Explain a canon from a vid/AMV Link a vid and others will explain the canon

Meta: Vidding Talk at Wiscon 2019 https://morgandawn.dreamwidth.org/1657257.html There’s nothing stopping fanvids, say, from being nominated for the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form at the Hugos. — SamHainPress reporting from Wiscon 2019

Meta: The appeal of fanvids (post from 2007) https://emily-shore.livejournal.com/119154.html?format=light Working on my list of ten desert island vids got me thinking about what it is that I love about vids. For me, an important part of the appeal is the chance that they offer me to see through other people's eyes.

Meta: Humble Opinions on Good Vidding (post from 2007) https://vidding.livejournal.com/1032639.html?format=light In my opinion, to understand how you make a good video, you have to take a step back and not look so much at what people have done but why.

Meta:Understanding Both Halves of Your Audience (post from 2008) https://morgandawn.dreamwidth.org/792472.html I have this idea for a panel...Vidders: Understanding Both Halves of Your Audience. And it would be a vastly over-simplified panel dividing the vidding audience into two "vastly oversimplified and somewhat random but let's just play along" groups: Kinetic Viewers and Narrative Viewers.

Meta: I’m frustrated with a vid project so I’m gonna https://redscullyrevival.tumblr.com/post/184509182140/im-frustrated-with-a-vid-project-so-… I’m frustrated with a vid project so I’m gonna blab to myself even though I’ve got my outline and concept written - maybe I’ll find some vein I’ve yet to tap this time around, I dunno. .....I’m making a ToS Star Trek vid with the concept being three layers of how the women of Star Trek are often times “bad”

Missing — I know this is a really long shot, but did you... https://mollyamory-again.tumblr.com/post/184790779123/i-know-this-is-a-really-long-shot-bu… did you ever happen to see a Pirates of the Caribbean fanvid set to "Walk the Walk" by Poe? I loved it

Technical: Best editing codec working in Lightworks & Windows? https://vidding.dreamwidth.org/390754.html For vidders who work in Windows and use Lightworks to edit, what codec works best for your editing? And what software do you use to convert your various kinds of source files into that desired codec?

Technical: Keeping Track Of Your Source https://teamhousestark.tumblr.com/post/185083799421/fanvideo-makers @ fanvideo makers Especially if your fandom has a shitton of source material (say, eight seasons, lol) how do you remember what episode different things happened in? Have you watched it a ton of times, do you keep a wiki open when making videos, or what?

Technical: The Ultimate Guide to Get Started As A Vidder (from 2016) https://thedailyfandom.com/vidding-ultimate-guide/ We have done plenty of research and added our own experience as vidders to create this super guide to get you started in this wonderful fan activity. This tutorial will help both beginners with no notions of vidding and pro vidders who are looking for some complementary tips and resources.

#vidding #fanvid #fan vid

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morethanonepage · 6 years

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thoughts on Keanu Reeves Constantine?

y’know this is an interesting question bc i actually have a lot of….if not affection for the movie, at least respect for some of the adaptation choices made. Like the most common line in re: film!Constantine is that it’s a good movie but it’s not a good Hellblazer movie and in a sense that’s right, it’s not – but it’s interesting. A noble failure, definitely.

What I think it hinges on is that it’s an American setting so they went full blown American with it – which is a mistake in my mind bc the point of Hellblazer is that it’s a quintessentially English story, and that’s why every run with an American writer in the comics is meh for me – but in the sense of “American AU Constantine” I think there were some really interesting/clever choices made.

Like starting with their John – Keanu is all wrong for original brand Constantine. His John is broody, he’s brunet, he’s Good At Magic. And comics!John is the opposite of all those things. And while comics!John can be broody, the important thing is the comics themselves tend to undercut that – there’s a lot of kind of snarky takes about John being in a sulk for whatever reason, some of it even from John himself. You get very little of that in the movie, and the movie itself is very TAKE THIS MAN’S PAIN SERIOUSLY about it, so. BUT in a sense that loner self flagellating thing is an American Male Archetype the way comic John has a very English & self deprecating sense of humor, so: ok, I can kinda see it, more as a translation (to American audiences) than an adaptation.

[READ MORE BC OMG WHY DID I CARE SO MUCH???]

They make John Catholic in the movie, which is another kind of interesting choice – in the comics he’s not anything specifically though I would imagine he would’ve been raised Church of England as likely as anything else. But they kind of commit to John’s Catholicism in the movie, most likely because it has more ~mysticism~ (and the association with exorcism in general) behind it. But it also kind of sets John up as An Other, because it’s the religion of a lot of the second class immigrants (like, the Irish initially, then Latinx Americans, etc). White Catholics have a bit of a different rep, but given that the film is set in LA in the late 20th century, for me it set up more of those associations than anything else. It’s also so much more about the SUFFERING and the MARTYRDOM and the REDEMPTION NARRATIVE, which is not so much a thing in the comics (where John often does/tries to do good things but usually NOT for the explicit purpose of ~cleansing his soul~, so it’s kind of notable/interesting that both American-based adaptations [TV and Movie] focus on that a lot more. It’s may also make more sense as an arc for the medium but y’know) but IS notably a big thing in the movie.

And the thing about John, even in the comics, is that he’s an Other but Normal Passing – with comics he presents in a very Proper English Man (which is why it’s SO IMPORTANT for me that he starts off on his adventures with his shirt properly done up and his tie right, and then as the day/his bullshit unfurls he gets sloppier) way, he’s white, he’s blond, he’s handsome etc, but he’s also a bisexual mess/working class disaster mage with a progressive bent, and in the movie he’s kind of a traditional American anti hero but also has his own stuff going on. It’s not as well executed as it could be – there’s not a lot of subversion in the film version, which is kind of the point of John – but at least you get hints of his potential sexuality and they go into his mental health issues (suicide attempt, etc) and his smoking, etc.

So John is an interesting translation – not perfect, but interesting. I would even argue that he’s the weakest point in the movie as a translation-not-adaptation (tho lol baby bear Chas Kramer is up there), bc he’s very basic supernatural protagonist with no flourish. Which is not the case for the rest of the film, which COMMITS to the genre it is and does it honestly very well.

For instance I love their conception of Ravenscar, the mental hospital John has A Bad History with – in the comics it’s got an old, spooky, mad house aesthetic from the 19th century, which fits the comics and John’s history and vibe really well. The movie version goes what I feel is a very modern American direction with it: one of the 20th century industrial monsters, a huge grey building, with the fear of mental health coming from that very specific post-war fear of anything ABNORMAL (including sexuality but y’know).

The setting of LA is great – a couple of (American) comic writers have given John’s arcs there, probably for the irony of CITY OF ANGELS etc, but I think it’s a really interesting choice/contrast to everything London (where John’s mostly based in comics, tho he does sometimes roam the countryside fucking things up) represents: superficial, modern, bright days, beauty, opulence vs the grey gritty grunginess of John’s London life, etc. So for that to be movie!John’s homebase is kinda neat, frankly, esp because of the cases John gets to work on there. The set design is also great – very colorful, very willing to pull in the florescent glare of a modern city, with the Latinx Catholic touches on the streets (look the votive candles and shrines are SUCH an easy go to for ~creepy urban flavor~ and it’s probably at least a little problematic for this film featuring some other really questionable racial choices I will get to later, but) in general it LOOKS great. Their conception of hell is also fascinating and very well executed imo.

I also think there’s ONE (1) thing I think the movie does better than the tv show: the setting is WAY more dug into the working class/legit poverty of LA behind the shiny surface Hollywood stuff. The show really only hit that point in the New Orleans ep and even then….didn’t fully commit to it, but it’s SUCH a key part of the comic universe. Like Chas himself (in the show) is pitch perfect but in the ep about his family they’re LIVING IN A BROOKLYN BROWNSTONE which, real talk, is worth millions of dollars. Literally millions. On a cab driver’s salary???? Ridic. Still mad about it w/e w/e. Baby Bear Chas Kramer with his shitty cab and probably shitty apartment, following John around like a stunned duckling, is way more comics canon accurate, probably.

Rachel Weiz’s character has a lot of potential – they make her Catholic too, to have some sort of connection with John, which is eh, and they also make her a twin, whose sister kills herself at Ravenscar. Given how much John’s early backstory issue are focused around HIM being a twin (whose birth killed both his mother and his (theoretically stronger) brother) that could’ve been a cool thing to allude to, but they don’t touch on it. And Angela (ANOTHER ANGEL THING) is p cool as a character – she’s unconvinced about the ~spooky shit~ stuff until she sees evidence of it, and then believes it, as a normal average human likely would. She’s brave, she asks questions, etc. She’s not just Love Interest tho there’s a bit of that. And anyway I love Rachel Weiz generally, she’s great, could’ve had more to do though.

Tilda Swinton shows up a lot in the gifs and it was a cool choice to cast her as Gabriel – they play up the androgyny and make her less obvious of a dick than comics Gabriel is (though she ends up being…probably more of one, or at least more effective). I think their Lucifer is good too – oily and weird and creepily gentle at times. He also doesn’t get a lot to do, but he doesn’t need to – he doesn’t in the comics, usually, either.

BUT the racial stuff – the supernatural macguffin that’s supposed to bring about the end of the world is found IN A MEXICAN DESERT and then SMUGGLED OVER THE BORDER to LA to bring about the end of the world, like, who wrote this, Donald J. Trump?? – is generally #bad. But this is something it shares with the show (GOD THOSE MEXICO EPS, I LEGIT ALMOST QUIT THE SHOW BC OF IT), tho at least they had an actual Mexican actress to temper that nonsense. NO SUCH LUCK from the movie – just lots of creepy zombish brown people trying to bring around an apocalypse, super cool.

And not only is meh as a metaphor, to impute such a conservative metaphor into a the Hellblazer Verse, with its infamous/classic DEMON YUPPIES FROM HELL and in general tips toward the progressive/pro immigrant ethos, is BAFFLING to me. I mean maybe more in tune with American sentiments about everything, which I have argued above is an interesting choice, but still, boooo.

Also the fact that John quits smoking at the end of the movie is such Hollywood garbage it almost outweighs the positives. I mostly imagine he and Angela date for like a month, he’s such a bitch when going through withdrawal that she dumps his ass, and then he goes back to smoking/sulking around LA doing bad exorcisms. That’s the real John Constantine, babey!!!

#oh god i scrolled up and saw much i wrote this is nonsense #more than you or anyone else should ever know about my feelings about constantine (2005)#constantine #hellblazer #waverly-earp

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loquaciousquark · 7 years

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Highlights from Talks Machina (Episode 105)

Again, covering for @eponymous-rose while she continues her international vacation! Sorry for missing last week--things got crazy! Tonight’s guests: Darin de Paul, Taliesin sporting a lovely scarlet mohawk, and Travis. Brian starts a story that ends with him forging several signatures, and off we go.

The new campaign guide comes out soon! Taliesin is now worried about messing up the history of a character he invented.

Darin loves D&D as a long-form improv exercise and is happy he was able to get moments with each of the cast members.

Right after college, Darin was an apprentice at the Burt Reynolds Theater in Florida (a year-long program for theater students). One of his co-apprentices was Matt’s mom, and Matt’s grandmother was the director’s assistant. Matt’s father was part of the writing room. During the run of Darin’s last show (Fiddler), a clarinet player said they were going to play D&D and invited Darin. Matt’s mother was also in the group; they were all new to the game, so they rolled on a table for names and played four sessions. Last year, Darin was hired by Blizzard to do various voices, which is where he and Matt became friends. Later, Matt realized his mom had a picture of herself with Darin de Paul, and discussion of that picture led to the conversation of their D&D game. It’s been 37 years since Sprigg’s original campaign.

Matt was worried about fitting Sprigg in until Darin mentioned he was a hermit. The hobgoblin TPK was canon! Sprigg, a chaotic evil illusionist thief, was the only one to survive; the last moment of that campaign had him fleeing on a cart with wolves chasing him, abandoning the rest of the party to their deaths. Travis and Taliesin ask if he really was chaotic evil; “Why do you think he was so interested in redemption, dear boy?”

The first episode Darin saw was the Trials of the Take episode when the carpet was destroyed. He’s wanted to be on the show ever since.

Symmetra’s voice actor, Anjali Bhimani, also plays D&D. My heart skips a few beats.

Vex and Percy eloped over the year break. Laura and Taliesin kept it secret out of pique at first (Taliesin doesn’t remember why they were piqued). He’s not surprised the others are annoyed.

Grog was extremely impressed by Sarenrae and hasn’t thought much about Kord giving him any boons.

Darin has been a fan of the show and watching for some time. Taliesin says he is the most prepared guest they’ve ever had.

Very few people were present at Vex & Percy’s wedding. They did not intend to ever bring it up on their own.

The plane of books is the worst possible plane for Grog. Only the plane of shopping would be worse.

As soon as Darin walked into the studio last Thursday, Travis immediately asked him if he was a god. Travis still thinks he might be.

Percy would rather have a thousand years with Vex than a thousand years with Ioun’s library.

Travis wants a “positive, upbeat resolution to all the drama that is a-hanging in the air.” Me too. Travis does not read the Player’s Handbook to help keep Grog dumb, so he never knows what’s going on.

Travis loves how prepared Darin was. He offered the Deck because he thought Darin was looking for something specific after Sprigg deflected the weaker offerings.

Darin loved the emotion in the room during the plane shift and the strong moment with Marisha in particular. He also likes the movie Gargoyles.

The hardest thing about playing Sprigg after so long was finding him again. Brian gets very sentimental about the long journey that brought Sprigg back to life, including Darin becoming friends and colleagues with Matt so many years later.

Darin will be back on the next episode and is visibly excited about it.

Darin used to read tons of D&D books (mentions Drizzt by name) and used to paint minis as a hobby. He still has some of the figures and wants to donate them to the show.

Darin’s wife was part of Taliesin’s parents’ circle, so he’s known her for a long time. Taliesin and Darin exchange memories of meeting Roddy McDowall, and Darin says part of Sprigg’s concept of memories being the most important came from a conversation he had with Roddy while Roddy was dying of cancer.

Percy’s current distrusting attitude towards the gods came directly from his interaction with the Raven Queen. However, he didn’t know there was a god of knowledge and has been “chewing on it a lot, and what it means to have faith in knowledge.” He sees the library as a testament to faith in humanity and the good works of life and how important memory is and is blown away by it. “Books have always been about finding meaning and this whole library thing has changed him.” Taliesin expected Percy to be much more resistant to Ioun and was surprised at how quickly the books sold him.

Darin felt as the scenes progressed that his role was to “illuminate” CR as to where they were and what they could be. Taliesin and Percy both wondered if he was Scanlan from the future. Darin had the choice of being Scanlan’s dad, but declined.

Percy picked Vesper because her namesake was the last person he’d talked to in real life.

The only place Travis can think of worse for Grog is if the books were replaced with clothing & a For Sale sign. “Grog has a beatnik poet inside him waiting to get out.”

Darin’s advice to Keyleth was total improv. He almost cried when she touched his hand. He loves funny characters that can become sad and/or touching.

Marisha has no idea how to get Keyleth out of her emotional nosedive. Watching Marisha break character from Keyleth at the end of an episode is one of Taliesin’s favorite things because they’re such different people.

Percy would seek out the lifebooks for all his family & ancestry because he’s fascinated with legacy, and Whitestone is full of ghost stories. He had lots of stories he’d planned to give as part of the gnomes’ tour, and tells one about a woman forced into a marriage who slowly poisoned her husband over a number of years.

Sprigg feels he is what Scanlan might become. He did not expect to survive the episode.

If they were really in Ioun’s halls, Travis would love to see the books of his family and of JFK. Darin would like to see his father’s book. Darin also likes wearing suits, which is why he wears suits. He only wears t-shirts at the gym. (At one point Darin’s family also owned 20 horses???). He wishes his parents could see him now because they were so supportive when he was growing up.

Honor! Justice! After Dark, After Dark, After Dark!

If the challenge for Ioun involves any physical activity, Grog will fight Percy for it.

Bucket lists: Travis wants to swim with a great white shark. (Darin’s biggest fear is great white sharks.) Taliesin wants to travel to India. Darin wants to learn to tap dance, and casually drops that he used to dance with Cirque du Soleil.

Darin’s favorite color is black. His favorite season is winter.

There’s a video somewhere of Darin de Paul and Steve Blum pretending to be zombies and running towards the camera.

Travis and Darin do Reinhardt “impressions” by talking in high-pitched baby voices. Taliesin does a pretty decent actual impression! Darin likes that there’s heroes for every playstyle.

Darin hasn’t told Matt’s parents he brought back Sprigg. He also used to have a crush on Matt’s mom.

If Darin could pick any character from VM to play, he would play Scanlan. Brian teases the entire world by saying he would play “the character Pike’s in love with.”

Darin’s twitter flooded after last Thursday and he wishes he could respond to all of the kind messages.

Darin once shared floss with Gilbert Gottfried as part of an old bit.

Darin feels his whole history has led to this moment last Thursday where he had the chance to create a story with people he loved.

Laura read the Game of Thrones books as they came out, well before the show started. Brian just found the copy of the first book she lent him in 2010, which he still hasn’t read.

If Sprigg could fight any D&D monster, it would be a hobgoblin.

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #vox machina #darin de paul #brian wayne foster #travis willingham #taliesin jaffe #reinhardt has been wasted by the new meta but i love him anyway #i adore darin de paul and don't care who knows it #i'm so sorry this is so long they were great about keeping it moving #long post for ts

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rockzone · 4 years

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The Best Song From Every Rush Album

Rush drummer Neil Peart (pictured above) passed away last Tuesday, January 7, 2020 (aged 67). He was also the main lyricist for the band. Some time ago I read an article by Ryan Reed posted on the Ultimate Classic Rock website taking a look at the best Rush songs from every album. The full text is available at https://ultimateclassicrock.com/best-rush-songs/

I have put together these songs in a Spotify playlist (link below) as I believe that this is a true representation of some of the highlights through time of this amazing band.

Spotify Playlist - The Best Song from every Rush Album

'Rush' (1974): "Working Man"

Without this head-banging fuzz-rock anthem, Rush's debut LP would be an afterthought – a demo-worthy stepping stone to their prog destiny. But "Working Man," with its Black Sabbath-styled riffs and blue-collar lyrics, is a stone-cold classic. After a primal, two-minute pummel, they tease an ambitious streak with wild guitar solos, triplet drum fills and tempo changes, climaxing with Alex Lifeson's grandiose fanfare of string bends. Rush had only one flash of brilliance, but they harnessed its power to forge their hard-prog path.

'Fly By Night' (1975): "Fly by Night"

Bristling with energy at a compact 3:19, "Fly by Night" packs more unbridled second-by-second fun than any other song in the Rush canon. Lifeson's crunching, descending guitar riff is instant joy – the sound of, well, flying by night and changing your life – and the rhythm section's torrent of proggy fills (Geddy Lee's chorus triplets, Neil Peart's splash accents) achieve a perpetual, cinematic tension, as you wonder when and how the next surprise will emerge. (Even the bridge is built on a quality hook, with Lee singing merrily through a trippy wave of phaser – an effect achieved by running his vocal through a Leslie speaker.)

'Caress of Steel' (1975): "Bastille Day"

This song is the sound of the titular battle, the hard-rock guillotine claiming her bloody prize. Surprises aplenty: the downbeat shift at 3:55, the climactic tempo slow-down and slow-mo guitar harmonies. Lee's voice is still high and shockingly shrill, but by this point he'd learned to utilize more restraint, picking and choosing moments to shatter glass with his high trills.

'2112' (1976): "A Passage to Bangkok"

2112 is a tale of two sides: Rush saved their silliest, most long-winded ideas for the title epic and turned the second half into a catch-all hodgepodge. "A Passage to Bangkok" is one of the sharpest vocal melodies the band wrote pre-1980, and it's a load of fun as a lyric – Peart's lighthearted (lightheaded?) fable about traveling via train to Thailand in search of the world's finest reefer at each stop.

'A Farewell to Kings' (1977): "A Farewell to Kings"

The intro to A Farewell to Kings' anthemic title track signals the changes afoot: Synth and glockenspiel flutter over Alex Lifeson's gorgeously plucked, stereo-panned classical guitar, ushering in a trademark thunderous hard-rock riff. There are surprises around every turn: funky bass-led sections, rhythmic shifts, 7/8 time. Their future was limitless.

'Hemispheres' (1978): "La Villa Strangiato"

Rush subtitled this instrumental powerhouse "An Exercise in Self-Indulgence" – ironic since, by their geeky standards, it never offers a moment to yawn or check your watch. This one's full of subtle, deeply emotive playing: the rhythmic shift at 3:33, with Peart settling into a funky hi-hat pattern; Lifeson's palm-muted guitar figure; a swinging, jazzy section ("Monsters!"), mind-melting bass and solos ("The Ghost of the Aragon"). Perfection.

'Permanent Waves' (1980): "The Spirit of Radio"

There's almost a punk edge to this breakout hit, which helped Permanent Waves peak at Mo. 3 in Canada and the U.K. and No. 4 in the U.S. Another track where Geddy Lee wrote himself a quality melody that stands separate from the riff. The reggae breakdown and climactic piano stomp gave this one a commercial appeal no one could have predicted five years earlier. Peart's lyrics are about listening to Toronto radio station CFNY-FM.

'Moving Pictures' (1981): "Tom Sawyer"

"Tom Sawyer" is the ultimate Rush song in several ways. It's their most famous piece, occupying a prime piece of classic-rock radio real estate for almost four decades. It's their cleanest, most seamless fusion of prog and hard rock, boasting some of their tightest ensemble playing and a guitar riff catchier than "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Like the entirety of 1981's Moving Pictures, it's also a fascinating crossroads between '70s and '80s Rush, arriving a few years after the knotty conceptual sprawl of Hemispheres and a few years before Lee became obsessed with synthesizers. The piece originated from one of numerous jam sessions during a particularly frigid winter rehearsal at a Toronto farm; Peart, meanwhile, developed his lyrics of rebellion from a poem he received from lyricist Pye Dubois based on Mark Twain's 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The result is the Rush masterpiece – a compact, four-and-a-half-minute summation of everything they represented.

'Signals' (1982): "Subdivisions"

Rush had given themselves over to synth worship, but it hadn't affected the quality of their music. "Subdivisions" is menacing prog-pop with rumbling, pitch-shifted vocals and some of the tastiest analog synth leads this side of a Stevie Wonder album. Peart contributes one of his jazziest, most complex grooves in the 7/8 section, which only makes the pattern more satisfying when he "resolves" the implied tension in 4/4. Still, Lifeson has bemoaned both the song's and album's production in the years since, specifically calling the mix for "Subdivisions" a "disappointment for me."

'Grace Under Pressure' (1984): "Kid Gloves"

Alex Lifeson wiggles to the forefront on "Kid Gloves," flipping the bird to Lee's synthesizers all the way. The guitarist's delayed, palm-muted 10/8 riff – which conjures Genesis' "Follow You Follow Me" with a proggier sensibility – is the highlight of Grace Under Pressure, offering some grit to an album that often gets lost in reverb. He sounds like he's exploding with pent-up anticipation on the guitar solo, which flaunts an Eddie Van Halen-like tremolo bar flair.

'Power Windows' (1985): "The Big Money"

Lee is one of a handful of prog musicians with the chops – and willingness – to get funky. And on this dynamo single, he smacks the crap out of his bass strings like they owe him a gambling debt. But "The Big Money" is more than just a killer groove – it's also easily one of Rush's most deceptively intricate radio hits, bouncing giddily from atmospheric synths to tribal tom-toms to arena-rock choruses. The band's early '80s sonic exploration – the brushes with reggae and ska and synth-pop – had coalesced into a color all their own.

'Hold Your Fire' (1987): "Time Stand Still"

Singer-songwriter Aimee Mann's breathy vocal adds a soothing femininity to this Top 3 hit, marking the band's first collaboration with a guest singer. "When we wrote that song, I just became obsessed with having a female vocalist come in and add a different nuance to it," Lee told A.V. Club in 2015. "We talked about a lot of different vocalists. At that time, I was a big fan of Kate Bush, and I’ve always been a big Björk fan. Somebody suggested Aimee Mann, and we listened to her work. Her voice is absolutely beautiful and really possessed a lot of the qualities that we were after, and she was thrilled to come up to Toronto and lend her talents to our song, which I think really elevated the track. She’s such an awesome person and we had a ball with her."

'Presto' (1989): "The Pass"

"All of us get lost in the darkness / Dreamers learn to steer by the stars," Lee croons on this cosmic power ballad, the single most emotional moment in the Rush catalog. It's a perfect symbiosis of music and lyric, as Lifeson's rippling guitar solidifies the poignancy in Peart's poetry about teenage suicide.

'Roll the Bones' (1991): "Bravado"

Rush go into power-ballad mode here, with Alex Lifeson's huge, ringing chords wafting over Neil Peart's jazzy drums.

'Counterparts' (1993): "Between Sun and Moon"

Counterparts marked a return to Rush relevancy – the point where songwriting caught back up to technique. Everyone's on fire here: Lee crafts one of his sharpest chorus hooks, and Neil Peart pounds out a funky tom pattern on his all-acoustic kit. (You couldn't blame the guy for experimenting with electronic drums, but a player this precise doesn't need any excuse to sound more like a machine.)

'Test for Echo' (1996): "Test for Echo"

"Test for Echo was a strange record in a sense," Lee reflected in the 2012 Rush book An Oral History, Uncensored. "It doesn’t really have a defined direction. I kind of felt like we were a bit burnt creatively. It was a creative low time for us." One rare exception to that rule is the instantly hummable title-track – a radiant blast of modernized alt-prog.

'Vapor Trails' (2002): "Vapor Trail"

Rush get full-on atmospheric with Vapor Trails' pseudo title track, another flirtation with radio-friendly alt-rock. Lifeson washes his hands of distortion, and Peart bashes a snare with a ringing, marching-band style tone.

'Snakes & Arrows' (2007): "Far Cry"

"One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel, and the next it's rolling over me," Geddy Lee belts, preaching a universal truth. It's one of Lee's strongest choruses of the modern era.

'Clockwork Angels' (2012): "The Garden"

A rare Rush song that will leave you reaching for the Kleenex, "The Garden" stands out in the band's catalog for its sweetness and simplicity, its clarity and control. It's an unusual arrangement for these guys, with Lee crooning softly over a David Campbell string arrangement, Jason Sniderman's twinkling piano and Lifeson's restrained acoustic guitar. And its decollate quality initially concerned producer Nick Raskulinecz. "Nick was a little wary of it getting too sweet," Lifeson told MusicRadar. "The demo was very acoustic. The piano parts were there, as were the strings, but everything was kind of soft. Nick wanted us to toughen it up some." Luckily, they didn't do much toughening. If this is how the Rush story ends – and by all indications it will be – this was a poignant curtain call.

#Rush #Neil Peart

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ginnyzero · 5 years

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Ideas! Squeaky Toys of Doom

As a writer, I like to talk about my writing. There are times where I don’t feel that I am a very interesting person otherwise, which is probably patently untrue. Other people seem to find me fascinating. I do like to ramble about my writing ideas, because they excite me and I want others to share that excitement. And there are a lot of times after I finish practicing my thirty second pitch that I get asked, “How do you come up with these ideas?” And this often comes from people who aren’t writers or artists and fortunately most the time they are equally enthusiastic about the idea itself. I needed those types of people in my life. They are doing important things with their lives and they were willing to listen and be supportive of the good thing in my life. And when I am published, these are the people who will have books dedicated to them and get free (signed) copies.

But the question, “How do you come up with these ideas?” Is very hard to answer in thirty seconds. I often try to pass it off as just being bored and overly creative. Trying to explain how I come up with an idea is like trying to catch a soap bubble without popping it.

It is a lot easier to explain to other people how I can come up with an idea for a fan fiction than to explain how I came up with an idea for an original work. A fan fiction is more self-indulgent writing. There’s a construct already given in the form of book, comic, movie or whatever I base the writing in. An idea for a fan fiction story can come from everything to “I want to see these two characters together,” or “I have a theory,” or “Wouldn’t it be fun/funny if,” fill in the blank here. There are even ones of “I don’t like the way the canon went after this spot, so I’m going to change it.” Fan Fiction is all about seeing something lacking in the original work and wanting it badly enough to write it yourself.

In a way, coming up with ideas in fan fiction writing is a good grounding point for coming up with ideas for original writing. Writing fan fiction ideas really helped me clarify what type of things that I found important to a story. What ideas in my fan fiction stories popped up over and over again? What was my style of writing versus the styles of everyone else out there? And how did these themes change over time? It was quite interesting for me to see for instance, that as my ideas of romance changed through the years, not only did my favorite pairings change, but I would change entire fandoms so I could use different characters to explore my new thoughts on romance.

Here we are four paragraphs in and I haven’t even explained what an idea is, so that we can all be on the same page. The dictionary definition of idea explains an idea is a notion, a concept, a thought or an impression, which really to me feels like synonyms. Ideas are a seed of an overall work. They are the very beginning thought that inspires the motivation to create something. They are the building blocks on which everything else is based. They can be extremely simple. “I want to see this!” or “I want a story with this type of character!” or “I like this setting.” Or they can be more complex. “What happens when I take these three things and mash them together?” (Usually hilarity ensues.)

But where do these ideas come from?

Nobody lives in a vacuum and there is nothing new under the sun. In fact, there are so many literary devices that some enterprising souls have spent countless of hours gathering them into one encyclopedia of time sucking webpages called TV Tropes. (You’ve been warned.) These ideas have settled into our subconscious minds and formed something called the universal consciousness of all mankind. It’s how the writer of the Hunger Games can write a book about children forced to fight for their lives in an arena for the entertainment of the masses without supposedly knowing about Battle Royale.

Ideas are all around us. They are in the media we consume. They are in our life experiences. They are in our likes and dislikes. They exist in overactive imaginations to see beyond the mundane world. The twisting of the subconscious in the realm of our sleeping dreams. They are there in our interaction with others (nothing is sacred to an artist.) Ideas are there in our sense of the absurd and what we view as humor. They are present in our culture or in other people’s culture. (Thus the terms culture appropriation.) And because of all these factors, you can give the same idea to three different people and they will return with three totally different things. There is a certain beauty and wonder to that.

Everyone could write a book if only they knew how to take the ideas and put them onto pages. But first they have to recognize that there is an idea to be written about their life in the first place. They have to be able to see and decide there is a story to tell. And for that to happen, they have to first think that way.

Coming up with ideas is an ability. It isn’t something that is automatic. I had to train myself to think that way and I am a naturally creative person! In whatever area a person has talent in, to come up with ideas to take advantage of that talent is a skill. The brain is like every other organ. It can be trained. It takes time to develop a pattern of thought to see the possibilities for stories, pictures, engineering, music or whatever your talent is, all around you. There are some writers who can spit out idea after idea month after month one right after the other. And then on the other hand, there are writers who only come up with one or two clear coherent ideas in their lifetime.

Ideas don’t come out of our heads fully formed, like Athena springing out the head of Zeus. It is more like a gestation process, first there is a nascent thought, a single idea and it splits off and forms another and those grow and form into a process and the next thing you know, holy shit, it’s a baby! Ideas are a process. They can be a plan of action. They have to be developed and worked on. In many cases, they need to be researched to make sure they are actually workable ideas. I find note taking to be essential when creating ideas. (And talking with Becca, lots and lots of chatting with Becca, then I take our conversations and copy and paste them into word documents to make notes with later.)

Now, this can take anywhere from several years to a few hours. Everyone works at their own pace. Some people doodle maps, others make lists of characters, some writers world build incessantly. And in the end, they all started from the same place with a tiny idea that grew out of control. Like weeds in a garden, ideas have to be pruned, hacked at and sometimes ruthlessly dug up or exchanged with new flowers so that the idea has focus and clarity.

Now, I wish I was one of those types of writers who could focus on one idea and stick with it. It just doesn’t work that way. Heinlein had it right when he wrote in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, that writing is like a disease that once you have it you can’t stop and it must be carefully managed. When a writer is in the thrall of a glorious idea it is just better to let them be and shove food under the door. In fact, it is safer for all concerned.

A lot of writers, especially those in fandom circles, talk about their ideas as rabid plot bunnies that hang out under their bed and multiply. I can relate. However, since everyone else has bunnies and I feel I must be different, I want to put them in a different context.

I lived out in San Francisco during my college years and had an interesting roommate. One of our favorite past times was to walk through the financial district to the ferry building, get sausage with spicy mustard on a stick and then go search for the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill. These birds liked to come down to the dock area for the same reason that the seagulls flocked to the area. Food. There was a little park near the Trans America building that they’d like to gather in where the trees were small enough that you could actually see them up close and if you were still, they’d come out of the trees and walk around on the grass. They’re mostly a bright lime green with a cap of red feathers over their eyes and sometimes a few dots on their necks. They were well fed so they were chubby little things, most weren’t any bigger than your average pigeon. But what made them stand out from all the other birds in the city was their call. They sounded like squeaky toys, deranged squeaky toys. So much so, that my roommate and I began to call them the Squeaky Toys of Doom. They were cute, funny little birds. They weren’t native to San Francisco. They’d come from somewhere else as pets, escaped and sort of took over.

This is how ideas are to me. I get one. And it’s cute, and it makes funny noises, and it is brightly colored and shiny and active. So, it’s fun to play with it and feed it for a while until it’s a big fully formed idea. And I’m usually very happy with my idea, until my traitorous brain comes up with another. Then another squeaky toy of doom walks into the scene and starts making loud noises so that I can’t ignore it. And the idea doesn’t work with the current squeaky toy I’m playing with and there is no way to reconcile them. They’ll just fight and peck at each other and nothing will get done. So, at the very least, I have to put my first squeaky toy down and make notes of this new squeaky toy or I get so enamored with the new squeaky toy that the first gets neglected until the shine wears off the new one. And if this happened once or twice it’d be no big deal. No, there is a whole telephone wire of squeaky toys of doom squawking their ideas and loudly demanding attention until it is so overwhelming I want to hide under my pillow and scream at them to shut up for a while. (If only my brain worked that way.)

Thus, I take notes and set it aside to open up and admire every once in a while or add a detail or two to make the feathers a little more prominent rather than a shapeless lump that just looks vaguely like a parrot and then I can go back to focusing on the first idea. And when I get tired of the first idea, there is always another idea to take out and play with for a month or two. And while not all of the ideas work out and may be tossed back into the general pool of ideas to be drawn from later, there are more than enough to keep my busy.

Notice, I didn’t say the ideas were bad that I discard, just that they don’t always work. I am firmly of the belief that there are no bad ideas. They are overly done ideas. There are lazy ideas. There are ideas that just don’t make sense. There are ideas that make me want to ask “But what are you bringing new to the table?” There are ideas that I just can’t relate to because they don’t interest me or that hasn’t been my life experience. None of these ideas are bad. The execution of these ideas can be bad, hackneyed or plain lazy. It is one thing to have an idea. It is another to execute it well in a manner that a broad bunch of people would find it interesting.

It would be exactly like going to TV Tropes, choosing half a dozen and writing the story exactly to those tropes. There is the rare writer or artist that can get away with it, but for most writers the story, despite the idea being good, is going to fall flat on its face. And it’s not always the idea that is the most original that becomes the cultural phenomena.

I won’t lie. There is a lot of hard work between the starting thought and the payoff at the end, when the idea is completed and you’ve got an entire project in front of you. To me, I like to know the origins of things. I like to know the thought process of how something got from that point A and ended up at point Z. There is awe and wonder in going “this came from what?” “This started where?” “That gave you the kick to the seat of your pants to start working, really?” What emotion moved someone to write the idea, was it laughter, or tears or just the urgent need to tell that story and only that particular story at that point in time. Most often, we get to see the end result and never know the beginning, even if it was, in the case of Twilight, just a dream.

Ideas are the start of something bigger. They are a catalyst to a larger work. They can come from anywhere and the ability to come up with ideas has to be learned and developed like everything else. You have to train yourself to see the possibilities in the world around you. You can get one idea or two ideas or they can take over one right after another like a huge flock of birds. Not all of these ideas will work and executing them properly will be hard work. But it can be very rewarding in the end when you’ve got something finished in front of you and you can say “I did that. I created that and it all started when…”

#writing #writeblr #writblr #ideas #writing ideas #personal

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