#[also first of these with the new post editor as a test run let's see]

[kaiowut99]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episodes 95 and 96 Subbed (Finalized)

(Previously: Episodes 93 and 94 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-95: A Ruthless Brotherly Duel -- Ryou VS Shou

Wishing for his kind and respectable brother to be himself again, Shou challenges the Hell Kaiser to a duel. But a callous Ryou conditions it on having a duel in which an electric current will rush through them with every drop in their Life Points. And so, a brotherly duel begins between Ryou and Shou. Shou does develop his dueling--respecting his opponent as always--but Ryou pounces on him, in full command of the Cyber Style's Reverse deck.

TURN-96: The Relativity Field! Judai VS the Genius Doctor

In order to take back one of his important keys, a Saiou struck by the Waves of Light once again sends in an assassin against Judai. The assassin is Zweinstein, a genius physics expert with a deck made logically--Judai's weakest point of all. Zweinstein activates his Relativity Field to start things off. He then summons* a Monster that negates Judai's Fusion, his forte, gaining an edge as the duel unfolds. *This is referencing Singularity Demon's effect in the episode, but he doesn't actually summon it; it's more of a hand-trap he discards to negate Fusion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Got my subs for episodes 95 and 96 all nice and finalized!

These two episodes are a great time, but 95 in particular is great. It's the culmination of those little bits we've had of Shou observing Ryou's fall from grace since his loss to Ed, knowing he'd face him one day and preparing himself for it, and the whole time they're dueling, he holds onto some hope that he can turn Ryou back into the big brother he knew--only to realize by the end that Ryou, after what he's seen underground, really is just focused on winning, willing to be as "cruel" or "foul" as it takes if it helps. You do feel for the little guy, moreso when this gets flashed back to in 137 during Season 3 (another favorite, as it's a big development episode for Shou). Also, Judai being a friend and watching over him knowing this was his choice to make, building him up about using Power Bond, rushing over once the duel's over--it's sweet.

96 is also one of my favorites because of the good art/dynamic animation, courtesy of Kyoung Soo Lee's animation team (especially those last few scenes after Judai destroys Relativity Field, but just the Solid Vision putting them in space the entire time). The premise isn't too bad, we check in with Misawa who's realizing that just joining the Society of Light isn't enough for him to make a name for himself, and he bumps into God Einstein Zweinstein who tells him that logic beats "coincidence," before he tries to convey this to Judai and prove his Grand Unified Duel Theory. I like the Dueling Physics idea and the Einstein parody (he won a Nobelly Prize!), and the match between his logic and Judai's intuition--and who doesn't enjoy the randomness of Misawa's extra Eureka moment, lmao. Still a bit meh on it being the last we see of him for a while, but it is nice seeing him when he does come back. (Also, I like how it's not at all mentioned how Ojin managed to get a recording of Chronos calling for Judai to trick him with... very GX lol)

Edit-wise, both episodes had a fair amount of animation error fixes I applied; 95 saw more card-related errors than the quick one in 96, while both had a fair share of more quality-of-watching ones with split-screens, incomplete footage frames, or miscolorings (and in Burstlady's case, another missing shoulder strap). Due to Tumblr’s dumb link limit in posts yeeting them out of the tags used for them and limiting their reach, and since I still wanted a visual element to it, I’ve made a separate post here with my usual fix/edit breakdown for the interested--altogether, that's about 26 between both episodes, which I think I hit sometime in S1 when doing double-releases for a bit, but since most were quality-of-watching things, they were pretty quick to work on for the most part.

Anywho, enjoy! Looking forward to revisiting 97 and 98 next as we circle back to the Pro Leagues and get Ed's best episode of the Season in the process; as Judai put it in 96's preview for 97, "Ed's Wheel of Fortune'll suddenly start to turn..."

[vaadazen-codes]

How To Get Started Making Visual Novels

Wanna make a visual novel? Or maybe you've seen games like Our Life, Blooming Panic, Doki Doki Literature Club, etc. and wanna make something like that? Good news, here's a very basic beginners guide on how to get started in renpy and what you need to know going in! Before you start, I highly recommend looking at my last post about writing a script for renpy just to make it easier on you!

LONG POST AHEAD

Obviously, our first step is downloading it from their website

thankfully, its right on the home page of their site. Follow basica program installation steps and run the program. I highly recommend pinning it to your task bar to make it easier to access.

From there, you're met with the renpy app, it's a little daunting at first but let's talk about what all these buttons are for.

Projects

This part is simple, it just lists the current projects in the chosen directory. You probably won't have any in there of your own. You should still see Tutorial and The Question!

Both of those default projects are super helpful in their own ways, i highly recommend testing out the tutorial and playing around with it just to get comfortable with some of the basics.

Create New Project

The first step to actually making your game into a game!

You'll be met with a prompt letting you know that the project is being made in English and that you can change it. You can click Continue.

From here, you'll be asked to input a project name! Put in your games title, or even a placeholder title since this Information can be changed later! (this is also the title the folder will be in your file browser, be sure to name it something you won't overlook)

Now we get to choose our resolution!

If you have no idea what to choose, go for 1920x1080! This is the standard size for most computer monitors and laptops, but it will still display with moderately decent quality on 4k monitors too!

You can choose 3840x2160 as well. This is 2x the measurements of the default, with the same ration. These dimensions are considered 4k. Keep in mind, your image files will be bigger and can cause the game to have a larger size to download.

Now we get to choose our color scheme!

Renpy has some simple default options with the 'light mode' colors being the bottom two rows, and the 'dark mode' colors being the toop two rows.

You can pick anything here, but I like to choose something that matches my projects vibes/colors better. Mostly because depending on how in depth you go with the ui, it minimizes the amount of changes I need to make later.

Click continue and give it a minute. Note: If it says "not responding" wait a moment without clicking anything. It can sometimes freeze briefly during the process.

Now we should be back at our home screen, with our new project showing. Let's talk about allll that stuff on the right now.

Open Directory

This just opens that particular folder in your local file explorer!

game - is all the game files, so your folders for images, audio, saves, and your game files like your script, screens, and more.

base - this is the folder that the game folder is inside of. You can also find the errors and log txt files in here.

images - takes you to your main images folder. This is where you wanna put all of your NON gui images, like your sprites, backgrounds, and CGs. You can create folders inside of this and still call them in the script later. EX: a folder for backgrounds , a folder for sprites for character a, a seperate folder for spirtes for character b, etc.

audio - Takes you to the default audio folder. This is empty, but you can put all your music and sound effects here!

gui - brings up the folder containing all of the default renpy gui. It's a good place to start/ reference for sizes if you want to hand draw your UI pieces like your text box!

Edit File

Simple enough, this is just where you can open your code files in whatever text/code editor you have installed.

Script.rpy - where all of your story and characters live. This is the file you'll spend most of your time in at first

Options.rpy - Contains mostly simple information, like project name and version. There aren't a ton of things in here you need to look at. There is also some lines of code that help 'archive' certain files by file type so that they can't be seen by players digging in code however. Fun if you want to hide some images in there for later or if you just dont want someone seeing how messy your files are. We've all been there

Gui.rpy - where all of the easy customization happens. Here you can change font colors, hover colors, fonts, font sizes, and then the alignment and placement of all of your text! Like your dialogue and names, the height of text buttons, etc. It more or less sets the defaults for a lot of these unless you choose to change them later.

Screens.rpy - undeniably my favorite, this is where all of the UI is laid out for the different screens in your game, like the main menu, game menu, quick menu, choice menu, etc. You can add custom screens too if you want, but I always make my own seperate file for these.

Open Project - this just opens all of those files at once in the code editor. Super handy if you make extra files like I do for certain things.

Actions

last but not least, our actions.

Navigate Script - This feature is underrated in my honest opinion, it's super handy for help debugging! In renpy you can comment with # before a line. However, if you do #TODO and type something after it, it saves it as a note! You can view these TODO's here as well as easily navigate to when certain screens are called, where different labels are (super great if your game is long, and more. It saves some scrolling.

Check Script (Lint) - also super duper handy for debugging some basic things. It also tells you your word count! But its handy for letting you know about some errors that might throw up. I like using it to look for sprites I may or may not have mispelled, because they show up in there too.

Change/Update GUI - Nifty, though once you start customizing GUI on your own, it isn't as useful. You can reset the project at any point and regenerate the image files here. This updates all those defaults we talked about earlier.

Delete Persistent - this just helps you delete any persistent data between play throughs on your end. I like to use it when making a lot of changes while testing the game, so that I can reboot the game fresh.

Force Recompile - Full disclosure, as many games as I've made and as long as I've been using Renpy, i have never used this feature. I searched to see what it does and this is the general consesus: Normally renpy tries to be smart about compiling code (creating .rpyc files) and only compiles .rpy files with changes. This is to speed up the process since compiling takes time. Sometimes you can make changes that renpy don't pick up on and therefore won't recompile. In these cases you can run force recompile to force it. Another solution (if you know what file is affected) is to delete that specific. rpyc file.

The rest of your options on this right hand side are how you make executable builds for your game that people can download to extract and play later!

Sorry gang! that was a whole lot of text obviously the last button "Launch Project" launches an uncompiled version of the project for you to play and test as you go! Hang in tight because my next post is about how to utilize github for renpy, so you can collaborate easier!

[wjbs-aus]

Hey you! Yes, you! Learn how to use GZDoom!

Also if you see this post, please reblog it if you think it's good, like I don't think Tumblr's algorithm (that kinda exists) will like it.

Hi, I'm Lynn "WJB" Beck, and I'm here to tell you about an exciting new old game engine that is extremely easy to use for not just making original games, but also mods and animations and stuff!

And this engine... is GZDoom.

GZDoom is an enhanced sourceport of the 1993 first-person shooter, demon-punching simulator and stress-test for pretty much any technology that contains a computer. As opposed to more low-key and/or "vanilla" sourceports like Chocolate Doom or Boom, GZDoom allows for a lot more options, including Build Engine-style voxels, several types of dynamic lighting, and even stuff that was originally exclusive to specific Doom Engine games, like Strife's light RPG mechanics, This means that it can be used to make extremely impressive "total conversion" mods, and even fully original games with entirely custom stuff!

This guide covers how to get started, and a basic overview of how certain things work (get ready to learn about lumps!).

Getting Started

Ok so before you can start Doing The Thing, you need to... install some software! Don't worry, it's only like 4 and they're fairly lightweight.

Go to this website here and download the most recent version of GZDoom. You will need this to actually run your game.

Go here and get Slade. You will need this to import custom graphics and audio, as well as to use text-lumps (which are basically necessary, even if you're making a basic custom level set, and I will explain why further down).

This ZDoom Forum topic is where you can get Ultimate Doom Builder. While there are other Doom mapping tools, UDB is what I personally use, and it's extremely beginner-friendly while also being fairly versatile. It even has a built-in script editor, so you can modify a script and then immediately jump into testing to see if what you've done has worked!

Finally, you need a copy of specifically Doom 2. You could use Doom 1, but in my opinion Doom 2 is better because it has a lot more stuff than the first game, and - let's be real - you'll probably be doing a lot of vanilla mapping to get to grips with the editor before you can start making your big ambitious game (which is what I'm doing over on my modding sideblog, check it out). I'll leave this one up to you. EDIT: I forgot that Freedoom exists. That's also good.

Mounting stuff into Ultimate Doom Builder

Next, you'll need to get UDB set up. This is fairly easy. First open UDB and, as soon as it starts up, go to the top-menu and click "Tools", then go to Game Configuration. Select "GZDoom: Doom 2 (UDMF)" and click "add resource"; using the attached file-explorer, locate the Doom 2 folder on your computer's file system and add DOOM2.WAD to the list of resources, then do the same with gzdoom.pk3 in the GZDoom folder (making sure to switch the "Add Resource" tab from "From WAD" to "From PK3". Click Ok, and you're done!

If you want to put your custom graphics into the game, you simply create a WAD file in Slade, put your graphics in (more on that later) and save it; then when creating a map in UDB, this box will appear:

If you click "Add resource" here, you can then select your custom wad and use any assets, code etc. in your map!

How Slade works

This bit is a bit more complex because it deals with multiple file formats and methods of importing stuff, but I'll start simply by explaining textures, flats, sprites and patches.

Before I do that though, I need to talk about Markers. To define images as a sprite, patch or flat, you need to put them between a pair of Markers with specific names, which you can create by clicking the "New Entry" button:

"Empty (Marker)" is selected by default, so all you need to do is name it. The naming format is [LETTER]_START to start a section and [LETTER]_END to end one; S_Start/S_End are for sprites, P_Start/P_End are for patches, and F_Start and F_End are for flats. You can, additionally, further subdivide this by making another pair of Markers inside a Start/End pair with a number after the letter, but I'm not sure if this does anything (my only experience with it is that the Doom 2 wad file does this).

Now to explain how these things actually work! First, sprites. A sprite is an image that represents an object or creature in the game, and a cool thing that GZDoom does is let you use generic PNGs instead of Doom's proprietary GFX format. Sprites use the following naming scheme: a four-letter identifier, a single character denoting what frame of the animation the image represents (the Arch-Vile, which has the most sprites out of any monster in Doom 2, has frames that go from A all the way to Z, and then [, \ and ]), and finally a number from 0-8 that indicates the angle the Thing (that's the technical term for a Doom Engine entity, by the way) is at. Using the Imp as an example:

The "0" angle just means that the sprite should look the same regardless of the player's angle; this is used for items, decorations, the death animations of all monsters (including players), and the two sprites used for Doom II's final boss.

A cool thing about sprite angles is that you can actually make a sprite work for multiple angles; by adding an extra frame-letter and angle-number after the first set, you can do things like have a monster whose left and right walking frames are the same but mirrored by formatting the sprite's name as something like NAMEA2A8 (in fact, the Imp uses this technique for all its sprites apart from its death animation).

Next up, flats! Flats are square textures that are designed to go on floors or ceilings (though you can use them anywhere, including as sky textures!) but lack the flexibility of patch-based textures. You literally just. Import your texture and put it between F_Start and F_End. That's it. That's how a flat works.

And finally, patches. Patches are complicated, but very easy to use when you know what you're doing. First, put your image between P_Start and P_End, then right click it, put your mouse over the "Graphics" dropdown, and select "Add to Patch Table". You will then be prompted to create a TEXTURES lump; click "Ok" with the default settings. This creates a Texture1 lump, and the "Patch Table" (which is just a list of patches, which I will explain soon), alongside P_Start and P_End if they aren't already present (and a dummy texture). Double-click Texture1 to open it, and then select "New Texture" (you can adjust the scale, too):

Once this is done, go to the top-right corner and click "Add patch":

By default, you only have access to any patches you have assigned, but a cool trick I use in my own mapsets whenever I want to modify an official texture is to copy its Texture1 entry from the Doom 2 WAD, then paste it into my WAD's Texture1 and rename it. This does create copies of the constituent patches in your own wad's P_Start/P_End section, but you can delete those and it will still work fine.

Both patches and Flats are limited to 8-letter names, so be warned.

The actual final thing to talk about is converting PNGs to GFX; this is a simple process, but it can cause issues with colour. Basically, Doom has a very specific palette:

While this can look pretty good, on images it wasn't designed for or that use colours it doesn't feature, it can look pretty bad. For example, if I put this random image I made through the conversion process:

Then it comes out looking like this:

All the more cyan-adjacent hues become more blue, it nuked the antialiasing, and some of the gaps in my colouring are now much more obvious (especially on the fifth character's head and legs).

My point is, only do this if you want your mod to be compatible with more vanilla sourceports, or if you want to reduce the filesize. Otherwise, you're better off just using a strict palette when making the sprites and keeping them as PNGs.

Custom palettes are possible, but like. Literally all you do is click "New Entry", select "palette", name it, click the "Import from" button (purple page with a diagonal arrow on the top-middle of the palette-view window), set the filetype on the file explorer to "PNG", and import your custom palette image (which should be square (non-square images get squished and lose some colours) and 16x16 at the smallest, though the images I normally use are 128x128 because for some reason they're scaled up by a factor of 8, even though they display the same when imported regardless of size). You can even test them out or add them to the in-built palette list, which is nice. If you want it to override the default palette when your WAD is loaded, name the lump "PLAYPAL", which is what Doom's palette is called.

Now we get to talk about text lumps! I don't have much to say. Do the "New Entry" thing, select "Text", and name the file. The ZDoom wiki - which I will be linking to at the end - has information on each type, so check those out.

Map making

This is the final main section of this, and I'll try keeping it fairly brief and simple. Doom maps use four main elements; Vertices, Lines, Sectors, and Things. A Vertex is, well a vertex; it's a point in 2D space that acts as a starting or connecting point on a Line. Lines can be either walls or walkover triggers, depending on how you use them. Sectors can be rooms or shapes on the floor, and have properties such as damaging floors, being "underwater" (the player can swim and sound is muffled), or even having different gravity. Finally, a Thing is any entity that isn't one of those, ranging from monsters to player-starts to decorations, plus some complex technical ones I can't even begin to explain.

Useful resources

I am not good with words, but these places are!

ZDoom wiki - covers both regular ZDoom and GZDoom, plus other sourceports like the multiplayer-focused Skulltag and Zandronum. It has guides about ACS and ZScript, two of GZDoom's most useful tools for scripting maps and Things, respectively, as well as the obsolete "DECORATE" language which ZScript incorporates many elements of.

Dragonfly's Doomworks - mapping tutorial resource. I use their portal tutorial a lot whenever I want to put portals in a map.

Doomwiki - good for looking up monster and weapon stats for if you're making custom Things.

[witchhuntress]

Fuyumi Ono Q&A (Part 1)

I fell asleep🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🤣🤣🤣Was so tired last night to edit/format this fsdfsdf There are a lot of questions asked so I estimate there will be 3-4 parts of this (as usual with the old scans I have, it 's rather hard to see some characters due to the state of the copy, so I will post by batches at a time besides posting other updates). I will post the fanarts in the future as well, but will have to see if I can get my old laptop to run ( it has become a slowpoke & troublesome throughout the years but hopefully I can retrieve my old files soon).

Shibuya Branch Office

I have finally cleared my workload and am ready to launch a *new series.

Truthfully, we should have launched it in March. Ho-ho.

However, we have not decided on the illustrator for the new series yet. Even if the manuscript is ready, it will not be published into a book, which is the main deal of all this, if we don’t fix that...

Q1: How do you decide who will illustrate the books?

The author usually makes the request first. After a discussion with people in the publishing house, they decide who they would like to work with and ask if they can work with them. The illustrators have their own circumstances, so it is actually very rare that the author’s request is granted easily.

…As that is the case, only god knows when the book will be released… Aha-ha-ha (powerless laugh)

Requests for illustrators are still possible right now ⭐️Write to this person! Come write a letter to “the editor in charge of Fuyumi Ono”⭐️

Q2: Will there be any new characters in the second part of the Evil Spirits series? (Also, will Madoka-san appear regularly?)

I am not sure if Madoka-san will regularly appear. She might not appear in Volume 1… I have a hunch… But… I wonder (this author is random).

A new character will appear. What kind of person they are is still a secret⭐️Let’s just take note that they will be Naru’s rival (laughs).

Q3: I have a question about “I Can’t Sleep Due to the Abundance of Evil Spirits”. Ubusuna-sensei cursed Naru with hitogata made through Enmi, and a passage says that “Kazuya Shibuya” was written on it. But I just realized that Naru is “Oliver Davis,” so “Kazuya Shibuya” should not be his real name. So why was the curse directed towards Naru? Is it possible to get cursed as long as the target is fixed, even though it is not their real name? This is one among many questions I have.

In such cases like curses, it is said to be more effective on an alias than a real name. That is why celebrities change their stage name according to **onomancy.

Q4: In “I Can’t Sleep Due to the Abundance of Evil Spirits,” various people like Silvio Meyer, Nina Kulagina, Edgar Cayce, and Jeane Dixon were mentioned, but do all of them exist in real life?

Each of them, ***except the Davis brothers, are real people. However, ****Taunus-san doesn’t exist in real life. A person named Taunus might exist though. ...I am really an idiot (;_;)

That’s right, I received many comments that the Fudō Myō-ō seal “may be wrong.” There are two theories on the documents I have on hand, and certainly, there is a strong possibility that they are indeed wrong in number (Ho-ho). Whether it’s a different view or an error in the documents themselves, it is currently being investigated, so please bear with it for a while (The documents are not to be read, but to be grappled with, aren’t they…?).

Q5: Is “Fuyumi Ono” your real name? One more question: What I’ll be asking might be unrelated, but you’re a woman, right?

“Fuyumi" is my real name. It has no meaning besides that I was born in winter. My sex is female. I have never had a DNA test done(^_^;)

Q6: What kind of clubs have you been a part of?

I have been in various clubs including track-and-field, theater, and brass band (I am a jack-of-all-trades…).

Q7: What is the length of the novels you write? For example, in “Sea of Wind, Shore of Labyrinth (1)”, how many hundreds of sheets of paper with 400 characters each are there?

Usually, it’s about 400 pages. I think "Sea of Wind~ (1)" is about 260 pages. Since the paper is thicker in WH, the book will be thicker than TH, even with the same number of pages.

Q8: Will you abandon a rejected manuscript? Naru and the others won’t save you even if something too good for a ghost shows up. Haha

I will not abandon it. I will use it when I get the chance.(^_^)

Q9: Will this newspaper continue even when the second part of the Evil Spirits series has been released? Will the short stories too?

It will continue. Rest assured.

🥰

NOTES:

*New series refers to Akumu no Sumu Ie at the time of this Q&A (around 1994?). This seems back when all the short stories have not been fully released as well.

**Onomancy is fortune-telling of a person’s name. The reasoning for why aliases prove more effective to be used in curses is probably due to the specificity that it is made or chosen. That is, one can have the same real name (same Chinese characters & character strokes for Japanese names, for example) as someone else, but those who have the same real names might have different nicknames, especially or uniquely referring to them. Onomancy helps in choosing lucky names, so that is probably why celebrities refer to it to make their stage names. 

***Ono-sensei is simply saying Naru and Gene are fictional characters (i.e., there are no Davis twins with psychic powers in real life), not that she didn’t base their surname and so on on a real person. In retrospect and at first glance, this seems to go against what I mentioned before—that Naru and Gene could be based on real people—but she did not refute that (confirmation by omission?😅😅😅the compound word she used that means “except” can mean “in addition to” or “besides” as well). She clearly meant the psychics the asker mentioned are real people. The similarities of Andrew Jackson Davis’s life and abilities with Naru and/or Gene’s are still there and hardly coincidental (A.J. Davis retired in Boston, which is where Naru and Gene were born. He was also a medium). Also, this connection between A.J. Davis and Edgar Cayce is interesting (and these two were popular psychics in their respective centuries, with A.J. Davis being born first). There’s also the bit about A.J. Davis having a “guiding spirit”—which if you think about it, parallels the situation with Gene being Mai’s guiding spirit and telling her info no one else could have accessed. I think it’s safe to say that there are obvious connections here and there.

****Not sure if I got the name Taunus correctly. It can be either Towners or Thaunus too. Some foreign names in Japanese syllabification have no ready equivalent, and authors might create their own Roman alphabet spelling of it.

Silvio Meyer was said to be a Swiss psychic who has PK (there are only a few mentions of him in a few articles, but not an encyclopedia online). It was said he could bend metals, but he was caught cheating (Ubusuna-sensei seems to be a parallel of him, isn’t she?).

Nina Kulagina was said to be a Russian psychic with PK as well, and was also caught cheating many times lol.

Edgar Cayce was dubbed as "The Sleeping Prophet" since he was said to be a clairvoyant. He founded a non-profit research organization.

Jeane Dixon was said to be an American psychic and astrologer who foretold the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Sea of Wind, Shore of Labyrinth is one of the volumes of Ono's other series, The Twelve Kingdoms.

I believe TH means Teens Heart and WH means White Heart. In full names, they are Kodansha X Bunko Teens Heart and Kodansha X Bunko White Heart; they are Japanese publishing imprints. TH has now been dissolved.

For fun, I ran onomancy on Mai and Naru's names! I will post translations of the interpretations soon as well since they seem interesting! I will also run the rest of the SPR gang's names XD See you on the next part!

[thevindicativevordan]

Why do you think DC wanted to boot PKJ off Action Comics ?

Anonymous asked: Expectations for Aaron writing Action?

Well I was working on a NYCC 2023 post, and unfortunately the damn thing suddenly deleted itself. Left me totally drained seeing all that hard work gone, so I'm going to keep it short this go around.

Aaron is a very similar writer to PKJ in both tone and style. If he were taking over for the long term I'd be cautiously optimistic - but he's only doing three issues. Doesn't matter if he sucks or is great, he'll be gone in a blink of the eye. Leaves me with no strong feelings regarding him.

Pitch sounds cool, it's the Multiverse Bizarro that Tomasi used. It will be darker in tone and Bizarro has a new power seemingly. Waid consulted and Aaron says he "passed the Waid test". Shows how influential that Waid has become that he's being brought in to help the other Superman writers. Once an editor always an editor. Timms on art is fine, he's not an artist I have strong feelings for but I liked his work on Son of Kal-El and his brief Superman run with PKJ. Given Bizarro was on the cover of Williamson's first issue but is showing up here, I wonder if this is just Williamson farming out a story to Aaron that he didn't have time for himself anymore.

After Aaron, Williamson takes over for "House of Brainiac" which is the big Superman crossover story. Brainiac wants to find his Queen and is unleashing his Bottled City of Czarnia to get her. Supes, the Superfamily, Lex, and Lobo team up to stop him. Great pitch - but Williamson writing another event by himself is a huge red flag. He's 0/2 on events thus far and my concerns had previously been soothed by the assumption that PKJ would help him this time, which sadly is not the case. If it's shit at least we get to see Sandoval draw the hell out of the fight scenes.

Next we will get at least two more creative teams, one of whom is almost certainly Waid and Henry doing the Phantom Zone/Aethyr storyline. Not happy to see Waid claim that story, his Silver Age sensibilities are not going to live up to what PKJ was building to. Huge disappointment at this chance to let PKJ flesh out the Phantom Zone like he did Warworld pass by. After Waid we have one more team, and if Tom King isn't shooting his shot by now he will never get on a Superbook. Turning Action into an anthology book feels like a last minute decision made to buy time while they try and get a permanent creative team, which I do think has a chance of being King.

As mentioned in other posts, PKJ claims he will still be writing Superman and I believe that means he's been tapped to write the Justice League relaunch. He was saying on Twitter that we would get to see his Warworld plot threads such as Kryl-Ux unfold elsewhere, and also he would touch on the backstory of the events we saw in the FS House of El one shot. Sounds exciting to me, the kind of story actually worth bringing JL back.

Oh and starting with issue 10, Williamson is doing a Superman arc that is a Western, expands on Moonlight's backstory, and brings in Terra-Man. Sign me the hell up for that! Redondo seems to have permanently moved to Superman from Nightwing which means I'm probably dropping Nightwing soon.

For other DC news I am ecstatic to see Spurrier and Campbell reunite for more Hellblazer, but otherwise it was a fairly muted showing from DC aside from one huge rumor that I'll cover in a separate post. Oh and I guess there was the Elseworlds announcement but since that was mostly Batbooks I’m not interested.

Apologies to all the Asks about the new Ultimate Universe, I did get them but they were deleted.

Ultimate Spider-Man - Pitch is perfect, a mid-life Peter inspired by Spiderverse Peter B. Parker is exactly what I want. Ideally this Peter will be married to MJ and a father to Mayday but we can't rule out Hickman throwing a curveball and having him be divorced or dating Liz Allen or something. Seeing DoomReed hold the spider in the vial that Maker had, plus the transition scenes of 6160 Peter wearing all the suits makes me guess that DoomReed will time travel back and give Peter his powers similar to how he and Tony used time travel to save Cap. Thus this Peter will have been Spider-Man for a while, in secret. Or it's setting up a bunch of variant covers and instead we will see what happens when Peter gets his powers much later than usual. Either way I am excited about reading Spider-Man comics again, no mean feat.

Ultimate Black Panther - Great choice for writer, Hill's run on Blade rules and his name dropping Dune as an influence has me hyped since I love the book too and it's influence is all over the work of Hickman and PKJ. Great artist in Caselli. Moss is the editor and that is not great. He edited the main BP book and his tenure has been a disaster. Hickman needs to be involved to protect Hill from Moss. Costume design is not great either, feels 90s in a bad way. Of all the new Ultimate books, this is the one I hope is most like the old UU in terms of updating T'Challa, his supporting cast, and Rogues Gallery for a modern era. Fine to start off with "Ultimate Moon Knight", but let's not wait too long to bring in traditional Panther foes like Achebe who need the spotlight and revamps.

Ultimate X-Men - Not interested. Momoko is a talented artist but I only care about the A-List X-Men. A bunch of OC mutants does not intrigue me. Easy skip.

No Ultimates is surprising but my suspicion is that Black Panther will tell the story of T'Challa housing the Ultimates in Wakanda and Hickman wants to push people towards Hill's book. Eventually the Ultimates will spin out of UBP I reckon.

Expect the same level of quality here as Orlando showed on the previous SW book. That said if this is not setting up the restoration of the twins being mutants, I find more Magneto drama tedious. Either pull the trigger and make them mutants again or keep them away from Magneto and the X-Line.

And that was basically it for Marvel announcements that I care about. Might check out the vampire event since McKay is writing, haven't decided yet.

[andrea-lyn]

The Recs (Less Travelled)

I’m excited to bring you the first installment of my ‘roads less travelled’ recs! I will be doing another round of this, probably once the Ted Lasso fic tag hits about 25 pages, and then I’ll also grab a couple more fandoms to collect in there! 

The Rules:

Each fandom/pairing was sorted on Archive of Our Own by completed works. Anything recced here was not in the first ten pages when sorted by kudos at the time of reccing. There may be some more well-known authors on this list, but the specific fics I’ve picked are ones that didn’t crack that top ten or just didn’t get much traction and I think deserve it, so hopefully I have also balanced it out with other under the radar (and still great!) works. As ever, I have a pinned post of my other recs (none have been duplicated from there), so you can also check those out! Under the cut you’ll find 10 recs in each fandom for:

Raven Cycle

Roswell New Mexico

The Old Guard

Inception

Star Trek (mainly Kirk/McCoy)

The Raven Cycle

savor all the little pieces by littlelionvanz

“Since when do you garden?”

Ronan snorted, “Since I grew up on a fucking farm, genius. Jesus who gave you permission to pursue higher education.”

the old grip of the familiar by littleseal

"There is a single black feather and a printed out picture of Gansey, Blue and Cheng standing in front of some fucking monument Ronan didn’t care enough to remember the name of. Gansey sent it to Ronan’s phone some time ago, but it sat in his messages until Adam picked it up and grinned at it so hard that, one afternoon later, Ronan cursed and kicked and glared his old printer back to life in order to print it out.

Fuck, he thinks, I’m in love with a hoarder."

Adam collects things. Ronan is in love with him.

No Sweeter Innocence Than Our Gentle Sin by gansey_is_our_king

Ronan Lynch has wanted to kiss Adam Parrish for a long time.

(alternately titled: four times that Ronan could have kissed Adam)

Cheers to Another Seven Years! by skyermirth

Adam left Henrietta for Harvard and never returned. Now, seven years has passed, and an unexpected work assignment has brought him back to a place and people he hardly recognizes.

Row, row, row your boat by emmerrr

“What. Why are you smiling at me,” he says suspiciously.

Adam shrugs. “You’re cute.”

“I’m not cute, I’m terrifying.”

“Terrifyingly cute,” Adam says.

and now the world is ours to take / and every single move is ours to make by thatlittleblackcat

"Adam was the scientist, Ronan was the data, and Orphan Girl was the key that explained the strange outliers that Ronan presented, his previously unexplainable actions."

//

Adam sorts out his feelings, Ronan helps him, Gansey is the number one dad friend, Blue is the number one mom friend and Henry tries to make Ronan smile. Otherwise known as the story of how Orphan Girl became Opal.

All These Things You Make Me Feel by SilverOpals394

It was late. Adam could feel the long day catching up to him as he left Boyd’s, all his energy exhausted. When he started his car, the tape deck whirred to life once more. He sighed and raised his hand to turn it off, but before he did a soft melody began to play.

AU in which the mixtape Ronan made for Adam only plays the murder squash song until Adam realizes he's in love with Ronan, too.

Ways to Communicate by Jalules

Blue Sargent reflects on an early memory (and gets busy with her boyfriends.)

(The two things are related, trust me.)

Hold Me Closer, I'm Safe in Your Arms by actuallyronanlynch

“You wanna tell me why I had to hear from Henry Cheng that my boyfriend was at the hospital?” Adam hissed, though his voice wasn’t as acidic as it could’ve been. Ronan took small victories where he could.

“You don’t have a cellphone,” Ronan pointed out flatly. “It’s not like I could’ve gotten a hold of you.”

arts and crafts and the inevitability of death by sunshineinthestorm

Adam comes to the public library in search of a study spot, not a boyfriend. 

But it must be his lucky day—because he ends up with a bit of both.

 Roswell New Mexico

a conversation between insignificant others by Bellakitse

“Hey…have you noticed that our boyfriends are madly in love with each other?"

“You noticed that too, huh,” she answers dryly, letting out a huff of reluctant amusement.

***

Forrest and Maria share a drink and a conversation and start a friendship.

Own Personal Hell by BeStillMySlashyHeart

Now that Isobel's getting the hang of her telekinesis, Michael decides to test out his telepathic abilities. It backfires. Badly. Now Michael's trapped inside his own mind and only one person can break him out.

Drop the Hammer by brightloveee

Max makes a new friend at the shooting range, who turns out to be even more bad-ass than he expected.

(Takes place mid-S1)

Boys Like You by forgadgetsandgizmos

Curly, dirty blond hair (the mere description ‘curly’ felt like an injustice) twisted in every direction off his head, a sharp contrast with the scruff darkening his strong jawline and scowl-ridden face.

Alex made a mental note to compliment Maria on her excellent taste in men.

—

Or, Alex has coffee with Maria's one-night stand, a man who he definitely does not have a crush on.

let's exchange the experience by lostin_space

Michael decides they need to quarantine.

OR

Michael floods Alex with love and care over and over and over.

This Is Hardcore by Anonymous

Michael makes a proposal. Alex accepts. Michael wonders what the hell he’s gotten himself into.

i don't know what to think (but i think of supernovas) by Milzilla

michael discovers that the console can talk. then, he discovers it can do far more than that.

iridescence on skin by Lire_Casander

In a world where (almost) everyone has a tattoo on their right wrist with one set of coordinates that point to the place where their soulmate is born, Alex thought he wouldn't be any different. He couldn't be more mistaken.

He has two.

The Real Thing by elliebird

Max checks on Michael the morning after Michael saves Max’s ass from Wyatt Long and his dumbass buddies. He sees more than he’s supposed to.

Written for a Tumblr anon who one of their friends walking in on them or anyone of them finding out about Michael and Alex in an interesting way 

Sundering by romancandles 

“You know it was just an Air Force balloon, right?” says Alex.

Michael smirks. “That’s what they want you to think,” he says, with a wink.

The Old Guard

Peer Reviewed by ishandahalf

[From:] Journal of Medieval Studies (jms.eds@jms.com)

[Subject:] Ad-hoc note from the editor

I have noticed an uncommon level of animosity in your responses to your reviewers (or rather, one reviewer in particular). I am writing to ask if you would please do your best to keep your interactions civil. In fairness, I have also sent a similar request to the reviewer you seem to have this friction with. I trust you will both try and remain more professional in the future.

Again, thank you for submitting your work to this journal.

Sincerely,

James Copley, PhD

Editor-in-Chief

Journal of Medieval Studies

An (accidental) academic epistolary romance as (inadvertently) documented via a (theoretically) rigorously blinded peer review process.[citation needed]

third for a word and the song keeps going Macremae

It was honestly shaping up to be a pretty uneventful year before the Vatican got on Nicky’s bad side.

Or: three times in 2008 that the team genuinely thought about killing Nicky if only to get him to shut up about the changes to the Catholic English Mass and his unrelenting opinions on them, and one time Nile did.

Apex Predators In Island Ecosystems (Freeman et al., in press) by Sixthlight

Palaeobotany PhD student Nile Freeman and her supervisor Joe al-Kaysani are invited to billionaire Stephen Merrick’s new project – a theme park full of cloned dinosaurs. What could possibly go wrong?

This Rough Magic by Marivan

When Joe came to Scotland to study the sea, he did not expect to also encounter a beautiful man claiming that A. he’s a selkie and B. they’re married because Joe picked up his scarf.

It sounds like a fairy tale and that’s a problem. Because Joe’s a scientist. And selkies don’t exist.

Wars for the broken by Yuliares

Five years into his exile, Booker is joined by a companion he never expected to meet. Together, they try to work on healing.

Sometimes they go down to the sewers just so she can scream and scream. “I like to hear it echo,” she explains. “Underwater, you can’t hear anything. Here, at least I can be heard.”

“I don’t feel like a warrior anymore,” she tells him, throwing bread crumbs at pigeons. “I feel broken.”

“You’re still a warrior,” he says roughly. “This is still fighting.”

a good (eighth) impression by deanniker

Over the next few months, Joe runs into Nicky every so often at the farmer’s market. Some weekends Nicky doesn’t make it, because of his work schedule - Joe doesn’t understand it because he doesn’t ask, though he does start to recognize when one of those missing weekends is coming up because Nicky will stock up on things with longer shelf-life. When they do run into each other, they make small talk and move through the stalls together.

Joe doesn’t mention it to Lykon when he stops by, because it is kind of weird, that Lykon’s ex-boyfriend texts Joe things like - If you’re here, the apples look particularly good this week and thank you for that recipe, I did not know what I was going to do with that much couscous

Or,

Joe wouldn't usually consider starting anything with his best friend's ex, but as long as they keep it casual, it shouldn't be weird... right?

get back to where you once belonged by tenderjock

Nile takes a sip of her cappuccino and closes her eyes.

(Booker and Nile get that coffee. Life happens, along the way.)

a house; a home by mehm

“Is this a kidnapping?” Joe asks as Nicky checks both their seat belts. “Like, I don’t mind. It’s just not quite what I expected for my birthday.”

In which Joe gets a birthday surprise, because that’s the stuff you have time for when you and the love of your life become mortal at the same time.

the ties that bind by damaskrose

“There’s a story I heard many times,” Andy begins, “in the Mediterranean. Threads of fate and three sisters. One to spin, one to measure, and one to cut.”

Clutter And Croutons by flawedamythyst

Joe and Nicky have an argument, and then Nicky talks to Nile about what it really means to be in a relationship for 900 years.

Inception

My Big Fat Slightly Annoying Wedding by jibrailis

Arthur and Eames elope for ~tax reasons. Certain people in their lives are not happy at the lack of a wedding.

Remember Sydney by pathera

When Eames shambles into the safe house outside of London, he finds a red light blinking on the phone.

For the inception_kink prompt:

Arthur is on a plane which is about to crash. No way anyone is going to survive. Instead of panicking he calmly calls the team's office and gets the answering machine. He hangs up before the plane crashes.

Give me Arthur's last message to the team.

 (TW: Character Death / Angst)

Of Such Deceitfulness and Suavity by delires

In which emotions manifest themselves in unusual ways.

YO, K2tog (it's like a code) by lazulisong

“Oh my God,” moans Arthur. “I’ve paid less for Somnacin. Good Somnacin.” A horrible thought strikes him. “How much is the yarn --”

“I want you to have an unguarded reaction,” Eames tells him, and pulls him up from the floor.

(They run an extraction on a knitter.)

hit the ground running by orphan_account

"I travelled halfway around the world for you. I dealt with the French for you."

Valley by wldnst

It's an old story: a knight, a prince, a kingdom in peril.

If This Is Rain Let It Fall On Me and Drown Me by Brangwen

We used to be so brave, Eames thought. Of the two of them, Arthur had always been the more fearless.

a gentle familiarity by jollypuppet

Two weeks later, Eames is on his doorstep with bad Italian takeout and a grin, and Arthur tells him he can sleep on the couch.

Your Crisis Cannot Be Completed As Dialed by sevenimpossiblethings

Arthur doesn't do snow, Ariadne is determined to be as Midwestern as possible, and blizzards make cell phone service unreliable.

Let’s Say I Do (I Do) by xsilverdreamsx

There were, perhaps some things worse that this, Arthur thinks, as he glares at the letter in his hand with his name printed clearly in bold ink, indicating his presence in two weeks for his esteemed marriage to one William H. Eames, III, at St. Catherine's Church in London, England.

Star Trek (predominantly Kirk/McCoy)

Show the World That Something Good Can Work by knune

Leonard McCoy is a doctor, not a personal assistant, and maybe that's why he can't stand working for Jim Kirk.

It's in the little things by winterover

Bones is bemused by a persistent secret admirer.

"Wedding" Away with It by pendrogon

One morning, Bones wakes up and he's single. By the same afternoon, he's married to Jim Kirk for Arbitrary Fic Reasons(TM).

How Long Will You Stay (For Your Whole Life) by withthepilot

Jim Kirk, deputy director of the Enterprise parks and recreation department, sees all of his hard work fall to pieces when budget specialist Leonard McCoy arrives from the state capital to cut Jim's budget and threaten the livelihoods of his colleagues. But thanks to a major parks project, Leonard finds a place in the department, as well as in Jim's life—and when all is said and done, Jim doesn't want him to leave.

All-Time Favorite by mardia

What to do when your best friend suddenly starts making new friends. 

Joy Ride by Cards_Slash

While running for their lives from an alien species Kirk had accidentally enraged, they come across a car. And well, if you were to come across a car while being chased by aliens that wanted you dead, and you possessed some lingering knowledge of how to drive a car similar to said car, you would have decided to drive it toward the nearest cliff too.

Also a gunfight.

Syncytia by epistolic

He’d signed up for Starfleet on an impulse, but Starfleet meant James Tiberius Kirk: the first – and second, and third, and fourth – big mistake of Leonard McCoy’s life.

Renovation by canistakahari

Jim has a whammy put on him by an alien death ray and he suddenly craves domesticity. He's crazy with longing to shop at space!Ikea and get potted bamboo and he starts looking into adopting AND HE HATES HIMSELF AND CANNOT CONTROL THE SHIT. Luckily, McCoy is drunk all the time and plays house.

17:08 by butterflycell

She'd watched the news holos with a sick feeling, searching for information that was completely obvious in its absence. Amidst the reports of the the Enterprise's miraculous recovery and the damages sustained, there had been next to nothing about the crew or her captain. Jim had been mentioned only in passing, his name shied away from as his first officer limited interaction to the bare essentials.

The Honey of Hybla by shrift

"Bones, prepare to be my date."

[askagamedev]

When I'm designing levels in various editors (Mario Maker, Tony Hawk 1+2, Bangai-O, etc.) they often feel so... arbitrary, for lack of a better term. Like it's just feels obviously like a set of miscellaneous obstacles set up for the player. How do you go about making levels feel more complete, and disguise the obviously-constructed feeling of amateur works?

What’s often missing from amateur level design is an overarching theme, a throughline that the entire level supports from start to finish. If you just have a bunch of disparate parts thrown together, the overall experience doesn’t feel cohesive and results in that arbitrary sensation. Solid level design is a layered approach that has multi-dimensional support of the space’s central theme - a good level feels like it is more than the sum of its individual parts because they are each contributing to a greater whole. A well-designed level takes multiple aspects of this central theme and runs with them over the course of the level, often converging near the climax. Let’s break down an example for this in a well-known game - Test Chamber 16 from Portal. Fair warning, this post contains Spoilers for the first Portal game.

The first Portal game is well known for its many (mostly) discrete levels. In each test chamber, you have an established starting position, an established finish position, and a puzzle to solve in between. In Test Chamber 16, the formula is mostly unchanged except there is something extra added - an extra chamber provides the player additional context for the overall game’s narrative when it is found.  Let’s break down the player’s expected path through this level.

We begin the same way each test chamber does - an infographic and some voiceover from GladOS. GladOS gives a warning that there will be firing turrets involved in test chamber 16, reinforced by the firing turret icon on the infographic. This is the first introduction of the player to sentry turrets.

The first room in TC16 repeats the turret firing icon from the infographic on the ground. 

We are also immediately introduced the first firing drone in a safe way - turned away from the player. This allows the player to experiment with the new content in a safe manner - the turret will not attack the player unless the player breaks the very visible red beam, and the beam is set by default away from the player. The turret is placed specifically to block the player’s path, encouraging the player to interact with it.

Once the turret is (eventually) dropped, it ceases function and the player is now required to deal with a new challenge - a turret that is facing toward her, with a very visible targeting laser:

Breaking the laser sight line does not immediately cause the turret to fire. Instead, the laser stops, there is an audio cue, and the laser resets if the line of sight is broken. 

Stakes are established - it is unlikely for the player to be killed immediately by the turret, but the danger is established very clearly - the turret is far away and cannot be approached by walking toward it. The player is encouraged by the concrete walls to use her portal gun to deal with the turret. A third turret rounds out the experience, again including the infographic icon on the floor:

The level then reaches a fork - to the right lies the next challenge established by the game and level design. The player clearly sees the next set of turrets and they will even react to her approach through the windowed glass:

But to the left is something different - a noticeably different piece of environmental storytelling. Specifically a wall seemingly jammed open with crates and a painted word “HELP” written on the floor:

The cubes are movable, and removing them (which are necessary to complete the puzzle, of course) opens access to a chamber where things are specifically very visually different from the rest of the game so far:

Nothing in this room is necessarily interactable, but it does provide extremely different visuals than the rest of the game so far. Furthermore, the visuals here provide significant additional context to the greater story of the game beyond simply the details in Test Chamber 16. The existence of this specific space within the level changes the perception the player has of the game world - the testing chambers’ clinical and hypoallergenic laboratory aesthetic is only a veneer set on top of a much more industrial looking base that may be breaking down. To hammer the point home, sinister music plays as the player explores the hidden room.

The player also notes additional details here - empty cans and containers, presumably for food and drink, plus the various details scrawled on the wall - a running count of something, the famous line “the cake is a lie” referring to the cake mentioned by GladOS, and other visual representations of portal use that the player should be familiar with. The player then returns to the test chamber puzzle gameplay, presumably by dropping the crates on the turrets (with ceiling drop points helpfully marked)

The next room allows the utilization and more experimentation with the crates as a shield and/or projectile:

The next room of the test chamber follows the same patterns as before - safe establishment of the room:

Tools presented (with audio cue and infographics to draw player attention):

And even a suggested solution with X marking the spot:

The final puzzle of Testing Chamber 16 allows some basic manipulation of portals through mesh netting to get behind the turrets:

You can see a full walkthrough of this level here:

This post has already gotten fairly long, so we’ll dive into more depth about how the different elements of the level work together to reinforce the themes present soon (hopefully sometime this week). As an exercise before then, try to think about the major themes that the level designer was emphasizing and consider how elements placed in the level and how the level was built and laid out reinforces one or both of these two major themes:

The scientific method (observe, hypothesize, test hypothesis, conclude) is how to proceed

The presentation of the world is not 100% genuine

We’ll try to break these down soon.

[incorrectsdkquotes]

Youtuber AU (warning: some spoilers)

(requested by @ladyofthelake13)

AU in which all (or most) of our favorite characters make a living as famous/semi-famous Youtubers/vloggers.

Yuya is a True Crime vlogger a la Buzzfeed Unsolved. Each week she researches old crimes and cold cases, adding in her own thoughts on the case and her thoughts on who really committed them. She started out the channel first as an extra credit project when she was still in pre-law but grew so popular that she started creating videos full time. She earns most of her money through merchandizing rights and by creating her own brand. Every now and then she delves into supernatural-type videos with her adopted sister Sakuya as co-host. Her adopted brother Nozomu helps out behind the scenes with editing videos and doing some camera work. One of the more popular aspects of her channel is when she brings her friends, other popular Youtubers, in as guests. There are even shipping wars among her followers on who she has the most chemistry with.

Benitora is a travel vlogger who travels all around the country trying out different local and specialized food/snacks, showing off various features in the geography and chatting with friendly locals. His prestigious family only allows his ‘frivolities’ under the excuse that he’s going out and building goodwill with the populace he will eventually be in charge of. Tora’s father is the leader of the country, something that Tora himself tries to keep quiet about. To finance his travels, other than the Patreon page he set up, Tora made a deal with his father Ieyasu: he can keep up a steady and consistent view count Tora can keep making his videos. As soon as viewership drops below a certain amount, he has to stop and resume his training to take over leadership. So far he’s been able to keep up his end of the bargain, but the looming future ahead of him is something that he’s never quite able to forget.

Okuni is a beauty vlogger who has inside access to some of the newest products about to hit the market. She regularly reviews the new and upcoming products, shares tutorials for both beginners and those who’ve been using makeup for a while on how to apply the perfect foundation, get expert wingtips, and how to match their particular color pallet for their skin tone. Okuni will bring in her friends, both women and men, to give them makeovers as well as to have them compete in different makeup challenges. So far, the most popular video on her channel is from when she let Hotaru and Shinrei give each other makeovers.

Yukimura’s channel comes across as half family drama and shenanigans and half prank channel. Saizo is largely his go-to camera man, but other members of his family take turns as well, lending to some...interesting footage that almost always ends up in the videos released to the public. Every now and then Yukimura will drop his own political takes into conversation, only to immediately start talking about something else as a distraction. There are rumors that he’s going to be running for public office as a bid to overthrow the current political power. There are also others who discount this theory stating that Yukimura’s not serious enough for the role and actually doesn’t have any interest in politics beyond his ‘hot takes.’ It’s goofy, fun-loving Yukimura, there’s no way. Yukimura himself loves to obfuscate this even further by going on regular shopping trips where he shows off the newest gifts he’s planning to get for his family...usually specifically for whoever’s holding the camera at the time, leading to a lot of back and forth with the cameraperson on exactly why they deserve these gifts in the first place.

Sasuke’s channel is largely an unboxing channel for various toys and other gadgets, usually ones he gets from Yukimura. He’ll also review the items based on how engaging or mentally stimulating he finds them. When Sasuke isn’t reviewing items he’s usually filming himself out in the woods exploring with his childhood friend Kotaro. The two friends run a side vlog documenting skateboarding, biking, and rollerblading tricks and stunts or hiking and camping trips they go on together. A popular series of videos the two friends have that has boosted their viewership considerably involves them showing off various sword stunts and tricks. Every now and then Benitora sneaks his way onto Sasuke’s channel, sharing travel tips and stories. Despite Sasuke repeatedly mentioning how annoying he finds the older man, viewers can’t help but notice that Tora’s never actually cut out of any videos he appears in. Every now and then Sasuke will post gaming videos that he plays with Kotaro and occasionally Tora; despite several requests, he insists he’s not a gaming channel.

Bontenmaru’s channel is almost exclusively dedicated to bodybuilding and workout techniques. Usually these videos include him trying to get his friends involved in working out or acting as their personal trainer. Some of his friends are more receptive to this than others. Whenever a new workout ‘challenge’ comes out, Bon will immediately make a video about it, either criticizing the challenge or pointing out the different ways that the challenge helps develop certain muscle groups. When he’s not making workout and bodybuilding videos, Bon can be found filming drunk hangouts with his friends. There’s a small subsection of his videos dedicated to reviewing workout clothes while trying to promote his own personal brand or workout clothing and accessories.

Akira’s videos are full of DIY tips and tricks as well as testing to see if other DIY videos hold up. More often than not the DIY videos he reviews are hilariously wrong, something he goes out of his way to prove and mock. When he’s not reviewing DIYs, he’s posting Let’s Plays to his channel. Akira is also a popular Twitch streamer, usually co-opting his friends into playing either Team Death Matches or pvps together. He likes to consider himself a cool and collected gamer, which admittedly he is to a degree. Whenever he has to be on the same team as certain ‘friends’ of his, though (Benitora, Hotaru and Akari, namely) he tends to lose his cool. If his friends annoy him too much, though, he’ll just bring them on as guests to try out the end results of his DIY videos.

Hotaru’s channel is about as chaotic and disfunctional as the man himself. His videos are almost completely unedited, excepting for a few special effects for when his brother appears on screen. He tends to get stuck with the label of ‘Travel Vlogger’ flor lack of a better description for his videos, which usually document the various places he finds himself whenever he gets lost. It’s become an in-joke and even a betting pool among his followers on where he’ll end up next with his videos. If he’s not out getting lost, he’s posting videos about random things that he’ll find interesting--various stray cats, an interesting bug he found, or even a few attempted prank videos on his brother Shinrei. For those who don’t get enough humor out of his videos, Hotaru’s twitter account is open and well documented, usually with various out of context posts or sporadic updates on where he is. He is well recognized on the Internet, if by name only, as a living cryptid.

Akari is well known as an influencer, posting her own beauty tips and tricks, local restaurant reviews, and even some humorous videos of her friends doing silly, stupid, and humiliating videos as a result of some kind of blackmail that she has on them. Every now and then her videos turn educational when she offers medical advice on how to treat certain wounds and injuries, usually because one of her dumb friends has that specific injury that she demonstrates with. Akari also has certain Opinions on a certain pharmaceutical company that she absolutely in no way has any connections with. She certainly never worked there at one point, and you can’t prove that she ever did.

Kyoshiro’s mostly known for his editing skills, being the go-to editor for his girlfriend’s sister Yuya’s channel. He has a few tutorials on how to edit videos together, though there are a few videos that are light skits that he does with his girlfriend Sakuya. He did a series at one point that was part tea-review and part gushing about Sakuya. He tries to stay out of the spotlight for the most part, but he’s not opposed to appearing on Yuya’s channel as a guest host...as long as Kyo’s not also guest hosting at the same time. He has a unique relationship with Kyo, where sometimes they appear to be best friends and in other videos as mortal enemies. No one’s quite sure what the relationship is between them, though there have been a few rumors floating around that the two are siblings. These rumors have yet to be acknowledged either way, however.

Kyo’s channel isn’t actually run by him. Every video that appears on his channel is something that one of his friends made and then uploaded for him. These videos usually take the form of boasting Kyo’s skills (usually made by Akira or Akari) or as group hangouts with his friend group. There are a few that were made by Yuya that are typically along the lines of “look what this guy did now” that are pretty popular and technically give Kyo the title of ‘influencer.’ Kyo is also known on the Internet as a type of cryptid, though not to the levels of Hotaru. Instead, he’s known as the kind of person you want to emulate, who men either hate or want to be like and who several women wish to date. There’s some speculation that Kyo may already be in a relationship with someone (typically Yuya, though she refuses to say anything about the subject). There’s some talk that there may be open warrants out for his arrest, but so far nothing about his alleged crimes or the man’s whereabouts has come to light.

[tarysande]

Hey, I see you reblogging adhd stuff every now and when. I hope you're ok with me asking, how long have you known you have adhd? I am currently wondering if I have it and am sups unsure what to do about it.

I’m always okay with people asking about things I post!

Of course, because of the ADHD, I’m not always great at answering ;)

I’m especially willing to talk about ADHD because I know my journey to getting a diagnosis doesn’t follow the stereotypical path, and I’d be thrilled if my experience ends up helping other people out there.

My family doctor was the first person to ever mention ADHD to me. I was 36 at the time. Maybe 37. I’m 40 (wtf) now, turning 41 in a month (haha, wtf). I’ve had depression most of my life. At the time, I was deeply frustrated because my depression was well-managed, but I still couldn’t focus to save my life. When my doctor asked if I might have ADHD, I laughed and said, “With my grades*? Yeah, no.” *I was a straight-A student from elementary school through to the end of my BFA. HOWEVER, at uni I had a handful of ‘lower’ grades: a B-, a B, a B+ in classes I found A G O N I Z I N G L Y boring. I was also never a disruption in class—mostly because I entertained myself by writing novels and reading under my desk and listening to music by keeping my earphones under my long hair. The key was to answer a question in class right away, thereby diverting the teacher’s attention and leaving me to my own devices for the rest of the time.

The focus issues continued unabated. Months later, a good friend of mine who was also diagnosed with ADHD as an adult brought it up again, and this time I did a lot more research. And ... yeah, puzzle pieces started clicking together. A lot of them. 

I brought it up with my doctor, and she sent me to the one (1) psychiatrist in Vancouver who was a) covered by provincial healthcare and b) would deal with a potential ADHD diagnosis in a patient of my (advanced) age *stares into the camera like it’s the office*. He was a Real Jerk, but I did his bevy of tests and he reluctantly agreed that I matched all the criteria except that I had never done poorly in school or been a nuisance in class**. **these criteria are ridiculously outdated, often don’t apply to girls (or those who have inattentive-type or mixed-type ADHD), and should BY NO MEANS exclude anyone from an ADHD diagnosis. If, like me, you’re what they call “twice exceptional” (where being intellectually gifted can often mask the struggles associated with ADHD, autism, physical/learning disabilities), it’s EVEN EASIER to slip through the cracks. 

The psychiatrist upped my anti-depressants, which helped, but still did nothing for my focus. By the way? ADHD, especially in adults, is FREQUENTLY comorbid with other conditions like depression or anxiety. It’s almost like ... when your brain doesn’t do what you know it should do, WANT it to do, TRY TO MAKE IT DO, and you feel like a failure who’s not living up to her potential ... it makes you REALLY DEPRESSED!! Who knew?? After almost a year, I finally brought up the focus with my family doctor again, who was like, “Okay, let’s try some things, then.” Finding the right dose of ADHD meds is ... trial and error. And it’s exhausting. And sometimes you think you’ve figured it out, but you haven’t. I still haven’t landed on the BEST POSSIBLE solution for me, but I will tell you this: the difference in unmedicated-ADHD-Tara and medicated-ADHD-Tara is like night and day, even when my meds aren’t optimal. 

To give a very specific example, I’m a freelance writer and editor. My income from my first (medicated) year of running my own business full(ish) time was almost three times that of the unmedicated year before. This year, even with COVID throwing a lot of wrenches in a lot of gears, I’ve remained booked three to four months in advance, my focus is better, my self-worth is better (i.e., I charge what I know I’m worth), I’ve stood up for myself, I’ve *gasp* started planning(???). I’m not rolling around in piles of money, but I’m above the Canadian median.

I also speak to my therapist every two weeks (she’s wonderful—and she’s online, which is both cheaper and more accessible for me). I’m slowly understanding the value of meditation (if you have the Calm app I HIGHLY recommend Jeff Warren’s How to Meditate 30-day program. I’m on day 13. There’s no BS or vagueness; I love him.) I made an effort to change my diet and spend more time moving around outdoors. (Exercise is even more important for ADHD brains, it turns out.)

Now, none of this has been a magical cure-all. I’m in the middle of struggling with med dosage at the moment, which is freshly irritating. Even medicated, there are good days and bad days—which is totally normal. I just finished an editing project that nearly destroyed me because it was SO boring and I couldn’t get out of it (because I’d ADHD-procrastinated too long). Learning how to function in the neurotypical world with an atypical ADHD brain is WORK. There’s also a lot of emotion—grief, anger, frustration, joy—as you process the new information and mourn the time you spent lost, underachieving, “failing.”

One really great, really accessible resource is the YouTube channel How to ADHD. For people who want to dig into the science, I recommend Russell Barkley (HE IS SO SMART) and Ned Hallowell. There’s also a ton of information on ADDitude. Anyway, this is a lot of information, I know. There are some good self-tests on the ADDitude site. If you think you have it AND IT’S IMPACTING YOUR LIFE***, bring it up with your doctor. Know that you might run into some resistance because most ADHD meds can be (and are widely) abused, and people with actual ADHD get caught in that crossfire. Even though it’s hard because of ADHD’s effect on emotions (TOO MANY!! TOO STRONG!!), be prepared to face some scrutiny.  *** they’re always going to ask about how it’s negatively affecting your life.

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Alright HERE WE GO...SOME PRESS!

By which I mean, Tom King was on ComicPop discussing Supergirl! So we have CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND INFO! WOO!

Gonna get into it below, but my recommendation, as always: the best way to have an informed opinion is to get the info firsthand, so don’t just take my word for it! Go forth! Watch the thing! (Language advisory, though. There is some swearing.)

Okay. With that out of the way, LET’S GO!

Gonna lead off with a summary of the Supergirl bits, as they discuss a variety of things, from Strange Adventures to Batman/Catwoman to the canned New Gods project:

How Tom King came to be the writer of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow:

King’s longtime editor, Jaime Rich, was moved from the Bat books to the Super books. 

King, historically, likes to take on characters that ‘need help.’ He cites the example of Kirby who, upon coming to DC, asked what their lowest-selling title was, which is how he ended up on Jimmy Olsen.

So, when King asks which character needs help, Rich, to King: Supergirl. We have trouble selling that book.

King, describing Supergirl: ‘She’s singular in a way Mr. Miracle and Vision are not.’ Says that if you ask any four year old who Supergirl is, they know.

Editors asked him, ‘what’s your take? what are you gonna do with her?’

King then discusses the difference between his approach to Bat people vs. Super people.

Bat people: It’s a deconstruction approach. King brings up Kite Man from his Batman run. You tear the character down and build them back up, a la Dark Knight Returns

Super people: It’s not about deconstruction. Let them be themselves. They’re wonderful, let them be wonderful. 

But he does mention sort of stripping down the character to their purest form; he describes it as chiseling off the barnacles that have built up on the character, over the years.

Additionally, he says ‘evil doesn’t work for the Super family of characters.’

He mentions Superman: Up in the Sky. He says that there’s deep stuff in Up in the Sky, but the theme of every page is simply: Superman is awesome.

King: “I don’t want to make Kara mean or sad. I want to test her.”

The host compares ‘angry Kara’ stories to ‘evil Superman’ stories in that there are many of them, such to the point that people think Kara is relatable because she’s miserable and angry all the time. 

The host: I don’t get that.

(Same dude, same.)

King talked to Steve Orlando

They discussed the fact that Supergirl knew her planet; the people who died were her friends, family, classmates.

King summarizes Kara’s original Silver Age origin: she witnessed three huge, traumatic losses of life. First, when Krypton exploded. Then again when the Kryptonite started killing Argo residents, and then again when the meteorites destroyed the lead shielding that was keeping Argo safe. 

King: “That’s some f-ing trauma! I don’t know if you’ve read my books, but I love the trauma in characters.”

King thus describes Kara as world-weary, she swears, ‘she has seen some sh*t’.

On the new character, Ruthye:

She’s a child on a vengeance quest.

She’s named after King’s niece, Ruthie.

The pronunciation for the comic character, though, is Ruth-Eye.

One of his sons told him to add the ‘e’ on the end to make it look cooler.

Further discussion of Kara herself:

King noted that there’s sometimes a tendency to be very precious with the character.

King: ‘Let’s not be precious with Supergirl.’

This is not the story of a sixteen-year-old girl discovering the world; King says that Supergirl has been that sixteen-year-old for a long time now.

He describes it more as a move from Supergirl to Superwoman.

Art and Influences:

Talking about the red sun planet that Kara visits for her twenty-first birthday, King says he was reading a lot of Conan, which influenced the look of that portion of the story.

The impetus for getting Evely on the book: King said his editor emailed him, ‘Hey, how about Bilquis?’ King: “And I did a happy dance!”

Evely sent King a mood board of the types of things she wanted to draw; Moebius, Kirby, Wally Wood, landscapes in particular. 

Also, King says Evely is fast! She’s already halfway through the book, art-wise, and King is confident the book will release on time.

The host asked him, following up on King’s description of the book as a fantasy/western, ‘Is this True Grit?’

King: “It’s True Grit inspired. The novel AND the movie.”

If asked to give the Hollywood pitch: ‘It’s True Grit in space with Supergirl as Rooster Cogburn.’

Details about this book, as compared to Other Tom King titles:

He’s using captions on this comic--he’d thrown out captions as a storytelling device after Batman, but he found a ‘good voice’ for this comic.

King was prepared to do his usual twelve issues, but they said no one buys Supergirl comics, so it’s eight issues.

King says that Strange Adventures, Rorschach, and to a lesser extent, Batman/Catwoman, were written at a time when the world felt very apocalyptic.

He considers them to be angrier books; they are about what happens when evil is in our life, and how we deal with that.

Supergirl is the start of the ‘next generation’ of titles. 

It was written during the pandemic, but King hoped that by the time it was released, the pandemic and this very dark time in our history would be past.

He says it’s a ‘roaring 20s’ book. Not about anger, or trauma, it’s about stepping into the future and kicking a**. 

THUS CONCLUDES the Supergirl portion of the interview. 

Okay, so! Now that we’ve been objective and presented the information in a straightforward, unbiased manner...SOME THOUGHTS AND OPINONS!

The thing I was most curious about was how King got the book, so I was EXTREMELY PLEASED to get the full story.

This wasn’t like. King desperately wanting to do a Supergirl book, nor was it DC coming to King like, ‘Take Supergirl!’

Sadly, it was, ‘which book needs the most help right now? In the Superman lineup?’

He even said that Supergirl was kind of just sitting around, no one was doing anything with her/there were no plans.

(So the idea that King stole this opportunity from a woman is not true. There were NO PLANS.)

(Also it’s not based on the FS stuff, I suspect they gave the FS team some ideas from his pitch to work with, as that entire event was sort of a stop-gap/fill-in as they hurried to relaunch their line.) 

Anyways!

My initial thought that this is DC’s attempt to sell some dang Supergirl books? Not that far off! XD

Boy, I hope it works.

(Important to note: This is not news. Supergirl has historically always sold poorly. I’ve heard from actual Supergirl writers that the trades do not sell, which is a huge problem.

So King, who is KNOWN for having really good trade sales, is as solid a gamble as they could probably hope for.

He said Superman: Up in the Sky is his third best-selling trade. A WAL-MART BOOK! Is just behind Vision and Mr. Miracle!

Basically: If this doesn’t work, I don’t know that anything will.) 

As for the specifics of King’s take in particular!

Again...I really want to see it, before I pass judgement on it.

I liked the Andreyko run! And that was pretty edgy! 

Also, we have never seen a twenty-something Kara, post-Crisis. She’s always been a teenager. Thus I’m pretty willing to go along with this approach because it’s entirely new territory.

And it does seem like King is enjoying leaning into the idea of a Super who swears and kicks butt and is just a little ‘done’ with it all.

It might not mesh with my ideal Kara but again. I need to see it, before I come to any firm conclusions. 

Honestly the thing that gives me the most pause? Is that King says this book really focuses on Supergirl, not Kara, which is a more recent identity for her.

(That is somewhat true! The ‘Kara Danvers’ identity is wholly new to the show; she’s always been Linda Lee, Linda Danvers, Kara Kent, or Linda Lang, when she has a secret identity. Sometimes she doesn’t.)

(Also of note: Tom pronounces it ‘Care-a’, like the cartoon.)

(PERSONALLY I like KAHr-a, like in the show, because it creates a phonetic consistency with ‘KAHl-el’ but that’s not really relevant to a comic book. You can mentally pronounce it however you choose! XD)

So, yeah, I like the Kara Danvers part of her identity, I like earth-bound Supergirl stories, but. This isn’t that. Which I’ll need to make peace with, I guess. XD

Otherwise? Tell me a story, Mr. King. Even if I hate it, Evely will draw it beautifully, Lopes will color it masterfully, and that’s half the battle, right there. 

I’m sad King didn’t mention the Gates/Igle run! But I also understand he’s probably been looking at more recent stuff; those Gates/Igle comics are fifteen years old, oh man, oh geez, how are they that old already.

King did confirm that this is 100% in-continuity, and will affect the character going into the future.

But, IDK, given the sort of. Grim beginnings of how this book came to be, what with the reminder that the Supergirl title doesn’t sell well...who knows what the future will look like, for Kara!

I stand by my guess that Kara will graduate to ‘Superwoman’ and the Supergirl mantle will pass to someone else, maybe Ruthye? She might be a bit young, though.

Mmm. What else, what else?

Oh, this is pretty funny, IMO: when King first teased the new character, Ruthye, a bunch of SG fans rushed to google to see if there was any clue as to like. What it could mean.

And they freaked out over some obscure connection where that name appears but hey, turns out! It’s just a made up name! Based on King’s niece!

It’s funny because SG fans never learn, man. Just chill out, read the dang book, then get all upset and huff and puff and blow your twitter house down.

They briefly mentioned the Peter David run; King said the PAD stuff was great.

He’s already teased that ‘treat’ and, okay. Time for some rumination on that specifically.

I’ve read the whole PAD run. It wasn’t my cup of tea, I don’t really like the DnD, angels and demons stuff. Also, it wasn’t Kara; it’s an entirely different character who uses the name ‘Supergirl.’

Also, stuff from that run didn’t age well.

And on top of that, PAD turned out to be...kind of a jerk! As so many folks in the comic industry are.

There’s also...an extremely weird, mean-spirited vibe through the whole back half of the run; I thought maybe I was imagining it at the time, but I recently went back to “Many Happy Returns”, the final story arc of the title, and David’s introduction in the trade...it doesn’t read like a guy who was in it for the love of the character, you know?

All of which to say! I’m not excited about connections to the PAD stuff. 

But I know a lot of fans who love that run, love that version of the character.

So like. Eh! Not for me, but to the folks who enjoy it, I hope it’s cool/fun, whatever it is.

(Still think it’ll be a variant or an easter egg or something, but we’ll see.)

(Oh, hmmm! Evely *did* post a WIP of like. Some creepy skull gate that they presumably encounter...hmmmmm.)

Okay, this is crazy long, and there’s no fun art or anything to go with it--OR IS THERE?!?!?!

BOOM. From Bilquis Evely’s twitter today. (GO. FOLLOW. HER. FOR THE GOOD ART.)

(LIKE!!! I look at this and I just! Can’t! Bring myself to not be hyped as all heck! LOOK AT THIS! AND iT’S JUST THE PENCILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

God, wish that Supergirl sold better, so we could get a full year of this. HNNNNGGGGGGG.

Oh! That was another thing King discussed in detail; that 8 is way different from his usual 12, in terms of pacing and story. The beats fall at different places (obviously) so it was a bit of a challenge for him.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it...maybe 8 will be good. Issue 10 just dropped for Strange Adventures, and wow, it has felt LONG. (I mean, the last four? Three? issues are also bi-monthly so that doesn’t help but. Still.)

(Superman: Up in the Sky was twelve issues but half the length, because it was a Wal-Mart book, so it was more like six.)

OKAY! For real, I’ve gone on long enough. XD 

SOON. Soon. June 15th, to be exact. Mark yer calendars!

[watusichris]

My Brilliant Career in Chicago Pro Wrestling: A True Story

Damn, I could have sworn I’d posted this 2015 Night Flight story, which remains the funniest thing I’ve ever written. Every word is true. ********** In the early 1970s, before Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation (today World Wrestling Entertainment) turned professional wrestling into a pay-per-view cash cow, pro grappling was a wide-open game run by maverick regional promoters and catering to lunatic fans. I got to experience this incredible world intimately: For two years, I served as “publicist” for the promoter in one of the biggest wrasslin’ towns in the country, Chicago.

I was fresh out of college back in 1972, and returned to my old room in my mother’s apartment in Evanston bearing a seemingly worthless bachelor’s degree in English and no immediate prospects for gainful employment. Fortunately, my father believed in nepotism.

After a long career as a TV executive that had garnered him two Peabody Awards, my dad was then the general manager of WSNS, a Chicago UHF station that broadcast on Channel 44. It was a low-rent operation that my old man helped legitimize by securing telecasts of White Sox games. (He loathed Sox announcer Harry Caray, who would get hammered out of his skull while working in the booth, and rightly thought major league screwball-turned-color man Jimmy Piersall was out of his mind.)

Though such questionable WSNS programming as a daily late-night weathercast delivered by a buxom negligee-clad blonde stretched out on a heart-shaped bed was a thing of the past, colorful holdovers from the old schedule remained. And thus my dad called me one day to say he could get me some part-time work doing PR for Bob Luce, the local pro wrestling promoter, who mounted the weekly show All Star Championship Wrestling on the station.

Naturally, I was hired on the spot at my first meeting with Luce, who was something of a legend in Chicago sports circles at the time. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bob Greene captured had him perfectly in a famous column in which every sentence ended with an exclamation point.

Stocky, florid of complexion, and as loud as his off-the-rack sport coats, the outsized Luce was the dictionary definition of the word “character.” You’d sit down with him in a restaurant, and the other diners would duck and cover. Constantly agitated and gesticulating wildly, his stentorian conversation was a manic torrent of hype and madness, punctuated by explosive laughter than sounded like a machine gun going off next to your ear.

Fittingly, before joining the wrestling biz, Luce had edited a tabloid, the National Tattler. Like the National Enquirer of that frontier era, the rag made its bones with totally fictitious “news” stories featuring lots of cleavage and outré bloodletting. At one lunch, to the very evident embarrassment of the neighboring clientele, Luce regaled me with the tale of one inspired Tattler cover story, which I will recount Greene-style. Imagine it at full volume: “I got this idea, see, for a story about a sex orgy! [He pronounced “orgy” with a hard “g,” as in “Porgy” of Porgy and Bess.] But it had to be a different kind of orgy! So I got my wife Sharon to take her clothes off and covered her with peanut butter! And we took some pictures, and the lights were HOT, and the peanut butter melted all over her! They were great pictures! We called it – ha ha HA! – ‘PEANUT BUTTER ORGY!’”

Luce had graduated to promoting pro wrestling events in Chicago and other Midwestern markets, in partnership with the American Wrestling Association’s star attractions, Verne Gagne and Dick the Bruiser, of whom more in a moment. (His sweet, funny, but definitely tough wife knew the business: She had wrestled under the name Sharon Lass.)

As the noisy host of All Star Championship Wrestling, Luce would interview the stars of his upcoming promotions, show footage of recent contests, and pump the next matches. Thrusting a finger at the camera in one of his windups, he would shriek, “BE THERE!!!” Ever the sales impresario, he also served as the show’s principal pitchman, appearing in tandem with some of his hulking charges -- and occasionally with special guest hucksters like former heavyweight champ Leon Spinks -- to spiel for a long line of sketchy local advertisers. They are among the greatest and most hilarious commercials ever made.

As Luce’s publicity rep, commanding a monthly paycheck of $200, I was charged with lightweight duty: writing and mailing press releases promoting the bi-weekly Friday night matches at the Chicago International Amphitheatre, assisting the WSNS camera crew at the gigs (sometimes by protecting their extra film magazines from flying bodies at ringside), and calling in the results of the matches to the local papers. (The last task proved to be the most onerous. I’d ring up the local sports desks late on the nights of the matches and harangue some half-drunk, bored assistant editor whose interest in the “sport” could not have been more infinitesimal. When I finally managed to get the Sun-Times to print the results of one match, I felt as if I’d qualified for a Publicists Guild award.) I also performed certain functions for Luce when he was out of town or too busy to handle them. One weekday afternoon I accompanied Superstar Billy Graham, later a big WWF name and a sort of proto-Hulk Hogan, to Wrigley Field, where he was interviewed by nonplussed announcer Jack Brickhouse between innings of a Chicago Cubs radio broadcast.

Every other week for nearly two years, I’d take the El down to the Amphitheatre, located on Halsted Street on the far South Side, adjacent to the old Chicago Stock Yards. (I held onto the job even after I secured a similarly nepotistic but full-time position – writing about cheap component stereo systems for Zenith Radio Corporation.) The antique, immense Amphitheatre had hosted big political conventions, auto shows, circuses, rodeos, and concerts by Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin, but Luce’s dates at the venue, as you will see, attracted a distinctly different class of customer.

The pre-match staging area, where I’d meet Luce and the crew, was the Sirloin Room of the adjacent Stock Yard Inn, not far from the site of the old South Side cattle slaughterhouses. This is where Luce’s employees and pals would also convene before the night’s entertainment began to swill a couple of cocktails and shoot the breeze. It was a cast worthy of a Damon Runyon story.

Luce employed a bodyguard, a towering ex-Chicago cop named Duke, who had reputedly shot six men before being relieved of duty by the PD. He stood about six-four and dressed exactly like John Shaft. He emanated an aura of extreme menace. Once, when I asked him what he would do if someone actually started any serious trouble, Duke wordlessly pulled back the lapel of his full-length leather coat to reveal a shoulder holster bulging with a .44 Magnum.

The promotion’s bagman, charged with collecting the night’s cash receipts, was a diminutive cat everyone called Bill the Barber. I never knew his last name, but he did in fact run a South Side barbershop. He’d invariably show up dressed in a sport coat that looked like a TV test pattern and a skinny-brim fedora, with watery eyes that sometimes flicked nervously above his pencil-thin mustache. He kept a .38 strapped to his belt.

Many nights, a mysterious character referred to only as “Carmie La Papa” would put in an appearance. This elderly Italian gentleman was always treated with great deference and ate on Luce’s tab. I never found out exactly what he did. But he looked a lot like the mobster played by Pasquale Cajano in Martin Scorsese’s Casino, and I thought it wise not to inquire about his line of work.

There were also bona fide wrestling groupies, well-stacked, slightly haggard old-school broads who draped themselves on the bar, sipping pink ladies. One night, Luce leaned over to me in the Sirloin Room and said, in a whisper that could be heard 20 feet away, “After the matches, these girls and the guys go to a motel up in Prospect Heights, and they have orgies.” (Again, pronounced with a hard “g.”) The most popular of these was reportedly Gloria, a tall, pneumatic redhead of uncertain but rapidly advancing age; Luce confided, “She will do anything.”

The matches themselves were something to behold. I’d usually watch them in the company of WSNS’s young, jaded camera crew, from the dilapidated press box high above the ring in the center of the Amphitheatre. The crowd – thousands of poorly dressed, myopic, malodorous, and steeply inebriated men – was a product of what may be called the pre-ironic era of pro wrestling. There was no such thing as a suspension of disbelief among these spectators. Disbelief did not exist. Though the matches were as closely stage-managed as a production of Richard III, these rubes accepted every feigned punch and bogus drop kick as the McCoy.

Pro wrestling is the eternal contest between virtue and evil, and the wrestlers were identified in equal number as good guys and heels. Most of the good guys on the undercard – there were usually half a dozen matches, with one main event – were young “scientific” wrestlers whose Greco-Roman moves were no match for the brazenly illegal play of the dirty heels, who almost invariably won their bouts with tactics that would not pass muster with an elementary school playground monitor, let alone a legitimate referee. About the only one of these “babyfaces” (or, alternatively, “chumps”) who was vouchsafed an occasional victory was Greg Gagne, son of the promotion’s star attraction and part owner.

By the early ‘70s, Verne Gagne had been wrestling professionally for more than two decades; drafted by the Chicago Bears and then rebelling against team owner George Halas’ prohibition of a sideline on the mat, he had chosen the ring over the gridiron. He was 46 years old when I started working for Luce; he was still in decent shape, and, unlike almost all of his opponents, he still had all of his teeth.

I only managed to spend time with him once. For some reason now lost in the dense fog of time, Luce dispatched me to meet Gagne at the elegant Pump Room of the Drake Hotel near Lake Michigan. There, as cabaret star Dorothy Donegan serenaded us on the piano, the 16-time world heavyweight wrestling champion of the world got me brain-dead drunk, and then poured me into a cab home. He was an excellent guy.

Many of the other good guys on Luce’s undercards were reliable patsies for the baddies. Pepper Gomez, one of the domestic game’s few Mexican stars, was a venerable attraction who was allowed the rare triumph; billed as “the Man with the Cast-Iron Stomach,” he once allowed a Volkswagen Bug to be driven over his gut on Luce’s TV show, where he was a frequent guest.

One of my favorites was Yukon Moose Cholak. Then a veteran of 20 years on the mat, Moose owned a bar not far from the Amphitheatre, but he still worked regularly for his close pal Luce in the AWA. Huge, pot-bellied, and benign, he boasted a ripe Sout’ Side accent rivaled only by Dennis Farina’s. He was hardly an exceptional combatant: He moved around the ring with the fleetness of a dazed sloth. He was a regular on Luce’s show, and often appeared with the host in his TV spots.

The only time I appeared as a guest on All Star Championship Wrestling, Moose was the victim of the on-camera carnage that was a requisite feature of the show. At the time, conflict of interest be damned, I was writing a column about wrestling for a short-lived local sports paper called Fans, and was brought in to lend something like legitimacy to the proceedings. Luce offered me a chair on his threadbare set to push a forthcoming match between Cholak, who appeared on camera next to me, and Handsome Jimmy Valiant, a new heel on the rise in the market.

I figured something ugly was going to happen, but I went about extolling the virtues of Moose’s nearly non-existent mat skills in the front of the camera. Suddenly, Valiant crept up from behind the black scrim behind us and whacked Cholak over the head with a metal folding chair. To this day, I believe my expression of outraged surprise was worthy of a local Emmy, but a nomination eluded me.

I was actually very fond of Valiant, whom I interviewed with his “brother” and tag team partner Luscious John Valiant for Fans. Jimmy was a peroxided, strutting egomaniac in the grand Gorgeous George manner, and he had some classic patter: “I’m da wimmen’s pet and da men’s regret! I got da body wimmen love and men fear! And you, you’re as useful as a screen door in a submarine, daddy!” A rock ‘n’ roll fan, he went on to a very successful solo career, appropriately enough in Memphis, the capital of all things Elvis.

After Gagne the elder, the AWA’s biggest attraction was the tag team of Dick the Bruiser and the Crusher. Bruiser had gotten his competitive start as a linebacker for the Green Bay Packers, but had been a top wrestling draw since 1955. Somewhere along the way, he had been converted from heel to hero, and the Chicago fans adored him. Among the merch sold at the Amphitheatre were Dick the Bruiser Fan Club buttons; measuring six inches in diameter, they could either be pinned on one’s chest or, with the aid of a built-in cardboard stand, be displayed as a plaque. I kept mine on my desk at my straight job to freak out my co-workers.

Early in my gig with Luce, I was taken to meet Bruiser in the locker room. He sat on a table smoking a huge cigar. When I was introduced to him, he exclaimed, “Hey, you’re Ed Morris’ kid? You got more hair than your old man!” My father, who was in fact almost completely bald, had been known to associate with winners of the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes. I was a little surprised that he ran in Bruiser’s circle.

The Crusher’s career in the squared circle dated back to the late ‘40s. I was even more impressed by him than I was by the Bruiser, for he had been the inspiration of the Novas’ wrasslin’-themed single “The Crusher,” a huge 1965 radio hit in Chicago for the Minnesota garage band the Novas (and later eloquently covered by the Cramps). Bruiser and Crusher were a unique combo: They were “good guys,” but they earned their keep by being badder than the “bad guys” they gutter-stomped.

The villains in that era of pro wrestling were often the object of atavistic xenophobia and hatred. Long before the U.S.’s conflicts in the Middle East, the Sheik (né Ed Farhat in Lansing, Michigan), who took the ring wearing a burnoose, was among the most reviled of heels. Some of the older fans were World War II vets, and they lustily booed Baron von Raschke, who climbed through the ropes with a monocle in one eye, draped in a Nazi flag. He was actually a U.S. Army vet born Jim Raschke in Omaha, Nebraska. His fake German accent was utterly feeble.

The AWA’s all-purpose villain, who would go on to bigger things as one of McMahon’s first WWF stars, was “Pretty Boy” Bobby Heenan, dubbed “the Weasel” by the Bruiser. Heenan was featured in his own matches, but he was most reliably entertaining as a manager, of the most duplicitous and cowardly variety, in another villain’s corner. You didn’t need a script to know what was going to happen: Just as it looked like the good guy was going to triumph, Heenan would leap into the ring and smash the apparent victor’s head into a turnbuckle or hit him over the skull with a water bucket.

Heenan featured in the most outrageous story I heard during my brilliant career in wrestling. One night I was sitting with the film crew when Al Lerner, the mustachioed, shaggy-haired, bespectacled WSNS sports reporter, entered the press box with a portable tape machine on his shoulder and a stunned look on his face. “I’ve interviewed people in front of burning buildings,” Al said. “I’ve interviewed people as they were jumping out of airplanes. But I’ve never interviewed anyone while they were getting a blowjob.”

It seems that while Al was in the locker room recording some audio bites from Heenan, a voluptuous girl standing nearby walked over to the wrestler, kneeled down in front of him, pulled down his trunks, and began giving him the kind of pre-match service Mickey Rourke probably dreamed of but never received. As she went about her business, Heenan continued to spout invective to Al as if nothing extraordinary was transpiring. With that moment alone, Bobby Heenan earned his place in the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame.

I visited Heenan in the locker room on a somewhat less eventful evening, but that night I learned the secret of many pros’ mat success. As I was talking to him, I noticed that his forehead was crosshatched with tiny scars, some of them new and still livid. I later mentioned this to one of the crew, and was told that these wounds – referred to as “juicing”  -- were actually self-inflicted, so that the wrestlers could easily draw blood during critical moments of violence in their matches.

As Heenan said in a later interview, “If you want the green, you gotta bring the red.” Gore was a staple of pro wrestling, and there was nothing like sitting in an arena filled with 10,000 or 15,000 crazed spectators and hearing a drunken chant go up as a good guy pummeled a heel to the mat: “WE WANT BLOOD! WE WANT BLOOD! WE WANT BLOOD!”

My last hurrah in pro wrestling was one of Luce’s rare alfresco promotions, a multi-bout 1974 card at old Comiskey Park, the White Sox’s stadium, which climaxed with a 16-man battle royal. I don’t remember who triumphed in the main event, but I do remember that someone on the crew brought a bat and some softballs along, and we ended the evening shagging fly balls under the lights where Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio once played.

The outlaw era of regional pro wrestling is a dim memory for most. The racket would get wilder after I left it: In an interview with Nashville wrestling figure Jimmy Cornette, Heenan said that a fan at a 1975 Amphitheatre match pulled out a pistol and began firing at him, but the shooter only managed to wound four people in the rows in front of him.

McMahon’s WWF brought the regional promoters’ day to a close, pillaging most of the big names in the game in the process. Today, the WWE has been displaced in popularity by the even gaudier UFC contests. Most of the stars I met – including Bruiser, Crusher, and Cholak – are dead now. Heenan, a throat cancer survivor, has been in poor health for more than a decade. Verne Gagne died this April; in 2009, suffering from dementia, he accidentally killed a 97-year-old fellow resident in a Minnesota assisted living facility. Even the old stomping grounds are gone: The Chicago Amphitheatre was razed in 1999.

Bob Luce passed away in 2007, but his wild-ass legacy may live on via an unlikely champion. There are many analogs between pro wrestling and rock ‘n’ roll, and this April, mat mega-fan Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins announced on Twitter that he had bought Luce’s memorabilia and an archive of 9,000 vintage wrestling photos. Maybe he and former Hüsker Dü front man Bob Mould, a fellow wrasslin’ aficionado who once worked for McMahon as a writer, can make something of it. That would rock. 

[dokidokivisual]

Gochiusa BLOOM episode 2 impressions

The second episode of Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka? BLOOM is now out, so let’s have a deeper look at some of the content presented in it.

In this episode: learn more about Japanese ghost tropes than you ever wanted to know, and the answer to the perennial question of nature vs nurture.

As usual, I spent a lot of time writing this, so any feedback is welcome.

The episode opens with a scene from Phantom Thief Lapin, an animated TV series for children which exists within Is the order a rabbit? universe (the technical term is “play within a play”, or 劇中劇 in Japanese). I’ve seen some people being confused whether it’s live-action or animated, since it’s not outright stated in the show, but in the manga it is referred to as “anime”. The show is inspired by existing properties featuring mysterious thief protagonist like Magic Kaito and Lupin III.

In the establishing shots of the museum we see bunnified versions of sculptures and artworks like The Thinker, Discobolus, Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa.

Soon, the titular Phantom Thief Lapin appears, and if you listen to the background music, you might recognize it as an instrumental version of the song which was originally released as part of Comiket-exclusive Phantom Thief Lapin set (here’s an old post with some photos of it).

As we see Cocoa and Chino reacting to the episode, the show’s credits can be seen in the background. Unsurprisingly it appears to have the same staff as Gochiusa itself. I was wondering if Aoyama Blue Mountain shows up in the credits as the original author, but she does not, however this fact is mentioned later.

After this “cold open”, we move on to the A part, which is based on chapter 2 of volume 5. We see Chiya trying to convince Sharo to participate in various scary activities with her, with Sharo having none of it. While horror movies are self-explanatory, the other two things are rather Japan-specific.

Hyakumonogatari (百物語) - a ghost story game, where 100 lanterns are lit up, and as each new story is told, a lantern is extinguished. It is said that a real ghost will appear if 100 stories are told, so the participants customarily stop at 99.

Kimodameshi (肝試し) - a test of courage where a scary location is explored. Literally translated as “trial of liver”, liver being associated with bravery for some reason.

You might also notice Chiya being dressed up as a ghost. Japanese ghosts have some specific concepts associated with them, which are well illustrated in this scene.

Shinishozoku (死装束) - a white sheet that a corpse is wrapped in before being buried.

Sankakuzukin (三角頭巾) - “triangle head cloth”, part of the burial costume. Also called 天冠 (tenkan, “heaven crown”). Triangle pointing upwards symbolizes ascent to heaven.

Urameshiya (うらめしや) - a phrase often said by a ghost. Indicates grudge (urami) towards the living. While a ghost holds this grudge, it cannot ascend, and must stalk this world.

Onibi (鬼火) - “demon fire”, a phenomenon (similar to will-o’-the-wisp) of floating blue lights, which are said to represent the souls of the dead. It is never explained how the flames behind Chiya are actually produced.

Soon Maya and Megu are introduced, as “Team Beans”. The name comes from the fact that “mame” means “bean” in Japanese. This nickname was previously used in the name of the group “Petit Rabbit’s with beans”. We also see Cocoa planning something, which is kind of a spoiler for the rest of the story.

Some facts are revealed about Maya and Megu, namely that they’re childhood friends, and the fact that Megu is almost as tall as a giraffe. The official height for Maya and Megu was stated to be 140 and 145 cm respectively, but they seem to be slightly taller here, which might be explained by them growing up?

Rize tries to hit Chiya with water gun but misses every time. This is a reference to season 1 episode 4 where Chiya was able to dodge any ball thrown at her. This supernatural ability is never explained.

Sharo explains to Chiya how she’s grown since the old days and will be the one pulling Chiya forward now. This is related to how Chiya called Sharo a coward in the beginning, which she apparently took to heart. Funnily enough, Sharo still gets scared by a bunch of toy rabbits (and Tippy).

Anyway, it’s revealed that Cocoa was the mastermind behind it all.

And she did is specifically to bring Chiya and Sharo together, which was a great success apparently. “Suspension bridge effect”, anyone?

After this there’s an anime-original bath scene with Cocoa joining Sharo and Chiya in Ama Usa An. Interestingly Cocoa and Sharo used this bath before, in episode 10 of season 1, but not Chiya. Both scenes also touch on Sharo and Chiya’s past, with Cocoa acting as an outside observer. This type of wooden bath called hinokiburo (檜風呂) is considered quite luxurious and can be encountered in upscale ryokans.

We move onto B part, which is an adaptation of chapter 6 of volume 5. Cocoa is good at imitating Phantom Thief Lapin, and we learn that Aoyama Blue Mountain is really the original author of Lapin, which might explain why Lapin looks so much like Sharo. Interestingly in the manga it is mentioned how Sharo actually morally opposed to theft (both in this chapter, and the chapter the first half of the episode is based on), but it was cut in anime.

notsureifintentional.jpg but both parts begin with somebody peeking through the window.

Sharo is apparently really bad at impersonating Lapin, to the point where Inspector is a more popular character among children. However in Sharo’s defense there are plenty of works where the main character is not the most popular character... including Gochiusa itself.

Meanwhile, Cocoa appears to be a natural at this role, and eventually gives a piece of advice to Sharo: it’s not enough to wear Lapin’s costume, you have to become Lapin. Sharo doesn’t own a TV, so she didn’t see much of the show. There’s also another element at play here, namely Sharo always having to pretend to be someone she isn’t in order to fit in at school, and then having to fake smile for customers at her cafe. There’s a running theme of Cocoa not taking Sharo’s words for granted in this episode, which might be related to that. The idea is that children, and very pure-hearted Cocoa, have natural mistrust of Sharo.

The girls gather together to watch the show, and we see a bit more of the Phantom Thief Lapin show (as well as an unnamed “hardcore” show about a gun-toting samurai). It is revealed that the inspector has tragic backstory, which moves Sharo and Rize to tears. Also if you weren’t sure up to now, Sharo’s vow to protect her wife and children confirms that she’s definitely very gay.

In the end Sharo figures out how to do Lapin’s poses exactly like in the show, and thanks Cocoa by giving her Lapin’s mask. Which reminds me, why is it called a mask if it barely conceals anything about the person? Is this some sort of Superman/Clark Kent situation?

Next this episode features, for the first time this season, the ending sequence. It has a bunch of Alice in Wonderland references such as Tippy being the White Rabbit, and Chimame’s outfits. It metaphorically retells the backstory of Chimame (seen in season 2 episode 12) and how Megu and Maya brought Chino out of her shell. At the end the latte art seems like it will be different every episode.

After the ED, we see Sharo showing off her new skills at Fleur du Lapin. Aoyama and her editor Rin can be seen in the background. By the way, what are the chances she named Phantom Thief Lapin after Fleur du Lapin, she seems like a regular there. Anyway, Cocoa comes up seemingly to support Sharo, but ends up stealing the show, guess you can practice all you want, but natural talent wins out at the end of the day.

So that was the second episode, hope you enjoyed the review. Next up it seems we have Maya and Megu going to an open doors’ day at Rize’s school? Let’s see if I can write faster next time...

[ambivalentman]

DIGGING UP THE MARROW (2014)

Butt-Numb-a-Thon, at least until 2017, was an Austin institution. The 24-hour movie marathon, held at the Alamo Drafthouse, was established in 1999 by Ain’t-It-Cool News creator and noted sexual miscreant, Harry Knowles, for the most narcissistic of purposes: as a birthday party. Despite this, the invite-only film festival had hosted a number of highly-coveted world premiere screenings, including: The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Magnolia, Knocked Up, V for Vendetta, 300, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Chicago, Dreamgirls, and The Passion of the Christ.

Adam Green, the horror filmmaker best known for the slasher series Hatchet, premiered his thriller Frozen at BNAT before it wowed Sundance. By 2013, Green was an established filmmaker, and he had a film he was just dying to audience test—a strange genre hybrid called Digging Up the Marrow. After running the rough cut by some of his more critical friends in the filmmaking community, Green sent the film to Knowles for consideration.

Knowles jumped on the film after watching the cut, which was little more than edited dailies that only included temporary sound and score, and zero visual effects work. Green was stoked. The audience at BNAT was not a typical one; it was a cross-section of the film critic community. Some were genre junkies, others not so much. If he was to finish this film, he wanted their blessing. And Knowles gave him the best opportunity, slotting Digging Up the Marrow at 6am. If the film played well, Green would know it wasn’t hype—that feeling would be in short supply by 6am after a night including the world premieres of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Any filmmaker would have been amped and nervous to have their film play for the first time at BNAT. However, Green was especially nervous. Digging Up the Marrow wasn’t any film to him; it was a personal project, one in which he had more than money and time and sweat invested.

The origin of Marrow dates back to 2010, shortly after Frozen’s premiere at Sundance. The film’s reception had his team ready to start a new project. They wanted to do something low-budget and very indie. The idea that eventually turned into Marrow arrived as a curious package from a die-hard fan. In it, this fan had curated a bunch of documents, photos, and maps to prove to Green that Victor Crowley, the slasher killer of Hatchet, was a real person, and that Hatchet had gotten his story all wrong. The maps and photos of swamps detailed all sorts of errors within the movie. Normal filmmakers might be terrified by this level of obsession, but not Green. He was inspired by the level of commitment and suggested heading to the swamplands with a skeleton crew to document this fan taking them on a tour to prove the “truth” about Crowley. As cool as the idea sounded, Green’s partners changed his mind by pointing out that with Hatchet II on the way in seven months, it might not be a good idea putting additional content on the market. Besides, who the hell knew if this fan was only trolling them or was a bona fide looney who might leave their bodies in a swamp, Crowley-style.

So, Green abandoned the idea. It would resurface about a week later as he flipped through a pamphlet given to him by a fan during a long day of signing autographs at a Los Angeles Fangoria convention. The fan hadn’t shared his name, but as Green looked over the pamphlet, the fan’s identity dawned on him. The pamphlet was for an art exhibit called lDigging Up the Marrow,” by acclaimed horror artist Alex Pardee. Fireworks went off once he realized the fan who gave it to him was Pardee himself! Pardee had built a reputation for creating horrific storytelling art exhibits. In “Marrow,” Pardee is commissioned by a Boston police detective named William Dekker to paint the real monsters he claimed to see while on the job. Green wanted to adapt this idea, but with a twist that in addition to Pardee, he would also be asked to capture the monsters on film. After meeting with Pardee, Green wrote the script within 3 months, and the film was ready to begin production.

Green told the expectant horror press that he was making an “art documentary” which made them immediately seek other stories for clickbait. He cast all the actors to feature as themselves, except for veteran character actor, Ray Wise. Wise had reached out to him on the strength of Green’s segment in a film anthology called Chillerama, wanting to work with him. After showing Wise the script, the actor signed up to play Dekker. The film was shot in Green’s offices, his editor’s basement, and on the property of a family in Santa Clarita who almost didn’t agree to let the production use their land for a cemetery set until the owner learned Green had directed Frozen. The decision was made early to create all of the monsters as practical effects, sculpting directly from Pardee’s art. Not exactly an easy process, namely because of the nature of Pardee’s art, which doesn’t adhere to the conventions of basic anatomy. Pardee put it like this: “I like imagining things I haven’t seen. If it’s a shape, if it’s a color, if it’s a tooth, if it’s a type of hand, if it’s a monster, if it’s a car . . . I like the way things shouldn’t be. I think that’s where the inspiration draws from. How can I make this . . . not.”

The production of Digging Up the Marrow went as well as anyone could have hoped. But things took a turn for the worst as post-production ramped up. Three months into the finishing process of the movie, one of the actors—and one of Green’s best friends—Dave Brockie, died of a heroin overdose. Brockie was best known as Oderus Urungus, the insane lead singer of heavy metal band GWAR. Devastated, Green had to be talked out of removing the footage of Brockie, which showed the singer in full GWAR costume, shouting “I am a monster, I’ve always been a monster, and after I’m dead I’ll be a dead monster!” Perfect for the movie, but not for Green’s heart. The thought of leaving the moment in wrecked him, but eventually he left it, if only for the sake of Brockie’s fanbase, whom he thought deserved to see Brockie’s final screen performance.

However, Brockie’s death was only the opening salvo. Three weeks after his death, Green’s wife filed for divorce and the couple separated. Like Brockie, she was also in the film, sharing a bed with Green and even sharing an on-screen kiss. Removing her was also the first thing on Green’s mind, but his team again had to stop him because of what losing her four minutes of screen time would do to their budget and story.

So Green suffered the heartache of editing and directing post-production by watching images of his dead friend and ex-wife over and over as his team constructed a rough cut of the film. He believed in the movie, though, and wanted to finish it. His filmmaking friends thought he was on to something with this one, too, and BNAT was the final hurdle.

Digging Up the Marrow was well-received by the BNAT audience, despite its 6am showtime. After the screening, Green knew he had something once he overheard people theorizing about his movie during the intermission. They were tossing out ideas about the Marrow, and speculating about Dekker’s life. This was the green light he needed.

Green finished Digging Up the Marrow and in late 2014 decided to circumvent the problems with film distributors—namely that they seldom turn a profit on indie features—by taking the movie on the road. Similar to Kevin Smith’s tour of Red State in 2011, Green and Pardee took the movie and Pardee’s art exhibit to five cities—Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, New York, and Austin. Press coverage was strong and audience reception overwhelmingly positive. The film turned a profit, and eventually Green put it to rest and moved on with his life.

Digging Up the Marrow is the best kind of indie film—it comes from something real, takes the energies of a ragtag crew of obsessives, and ultimately finds its audience among similar obsessives. Even if your take on the film is negative, Adam Green’s work is inspiring, if only for how he got it from script to a 6am screening for a bunch of numb butts.

[saastrac]

SamCart Review | The Right Shopping Cart Solution | Try a 14-day Free Trial!

If you are an avid Internet Entrepreneur then it is most likely that you pay attention to the shopping carts that people use. There are several platforms to sell your products online, but what suffices your requirement should be chosen among the best ones.

What is SamCart?

SamCart is one such high-end shopping cart for digital marketing professionals. It tends to be a simple, turnkey solution for marketers to sell their products online and generate professional-looking shopping carts. It also integrates with many known email service providers so that you may create high converting sales funnels.

SamCart is a web-based checkout stage that supports conversion-optimized checkout layouts alongside an order bump; one-click upsell, subscription, and installment plan abilities. With SamCart, you can easily run through and complete a checkout page within 30 minutes. It is very easy to use and perfect for marketers who would just set up their shopping cart with minimal fuss.

How SamCart Works?

Below are the basic steps that SamCart helps to sell your products online,

Add a product

Select the payment structure

Select the checkout template

Customize the checkout pages to match your site or brand

Add upsells,bumps,split-test,create coupons,etc.

SamCart Features

The biggest reason for SamCart’s steady growth is the vast features they offer that help online retailers make more money. Whether you run an online e-commerce business or sell any information products, SamCart features help you to make more money and have SamCart pay for it fairly.

One-Click Upsells

An upsell is a strategy that helps you increase the average order value. SamCart makes the process seamless by offering upsells where customers can buy your order in a single click. Upsells assist you to increase the overall value of your sale. You can customize your upsell pages to your liking and assign them to the main product. Customization includes upselling copy, adding videos, and other specifications of what you wish to see on your upsell page.

Check Out Pages

SamCart comprises 18 professionally designed templates that would surely push to convert customers. All templates have trust elements like testimonials, guarantees, security assurances, that give your customers the peace of mind they need to boost your conversions. You can choose a checkout page among the options and can easily customize it by changing the colors of the header, footer, buttons, fields, and custom bullet points to describe the product your customer is buying. All the pages are mobile responsive and also, they have a “sandbox” mode which gives you a preview that everything is working fine before going live.

Cross-Selling Bumps

Cross-Selling is a strategy to sell products that are related to a customer who already owns the product. This is as good as bundling. You can increase the profit and sale when you bundle the main product and the auxiliary products together.

One-Page Checkout

This unique feature allows you to add several different payment options to a single checkout page. The one-page checkout takes multiple payments to a whole new level because it keeps visitors on the same page while they decide how to pay.

A/B Testing

SamCart lets you run live split tests. It lets you change almost any setting you want, so you can test any variation that you feel is right. You can either change the template or remove some fields and more.

Once you have created some variations, SamCart automatically tests between your variations. You do not have to do anything manually until the results roll in. You can navigate to the “AB Test” section in the product’s settings to see how the variations perform. Once you can find a winner, SamCart allows you to easily disable the loser.

The only thing you cannot split-test with SamCart is your product’s price. But if required to do that then you will have to create two different products and run a test between those two products. When you run the A/B testing, you should first test the bigger details and then work down to the minute details.  

Subscription Saver

With SamCart, your subscriptions will be guarded against declined payments and expired credit cards. Whenever a payment fails, SamCart sends your customer an email on your behalf. The email has a link where customers can update the payment directly from their inbox.

If a customer is unable to update the payment information after several tries, SamCart automatically cancels their subscription. SamCart marks them as “delinquent” in your account so you know who they are and you do not try to reach out to these customers.

Affiliate Center

SamCart allows you to create your force of affiliates that will sell your products for you with the Affiliate Center. It automatically generates an Affiliate Signup page for you where others can apply to promote your products. You will get a link to this page, so you can send it out to potential affiliates, post it on your website, or send it out to your email list.

When any potential affiliate fills out your application, they will see a message that their account is a “pending approval” post which you will get a notification that they applied through email. You may choose to either approve or deny the applicant person’s application. You also have an option to automatically accept affiliates if you want. SamCart offers a default affiliate commission of 50%. However, you can customize this payout according to your requirement. You can pay your affiliates a flat rate commission or a percentage.

SamCart Integrations

SamCart allows users to sync with a bunch of tools, including email marketing automation, membership, and payment processing. Once you integrate your shopping cart with your email marketing autoresponder, SamCart will automatically add the customer to your email list. SamCart integrations for some email providers are:

ConvertKit

AWeber

Drip

GetResponse

Constant Contact

MailChimp

iContact

SamCart is also extended with membership site integrations. SamCart integrates with the following,

WishList Member

Post Affiliate Pro

MemberPress

Thinkific

Membermouse

Digital Access Pass

Kajabi

For users using marketing automation software, tracking tools, and other sales processing, the native integrations would be,

Intercom

Infusionsoft

ActiveCampaign

OntraPort

HubSpot

SamCart does not support any Webinar platform integrations which is unfortunate as many users wish to use Webinars to sell their products online.

SamCart is 100% legit and so millions of entrepreneurs and businesses rely on SamCart because of its efficiency and easy utility. The setup process is very easy and quick which allows businesses to spend more time on promoting and selling. The numerous attributes SamCart has made it a valuable tool for selling digital products and services.

SamCart Pricing

SamCart offers four monthly pricing plans.

$49/month for the Launch Plan

$99/month for the Grow Plan

$199/month for the Scale Plan

$399/month for the Enterprise Plan

The SamCart Launch Plan is majorly opted by online entrepreneurs who are launching their first digital product or physical product. It does not suit subscription business owners or those who want the one-click upsell or payment plan features. These features are unlocked in the next Grow and Scale plans.

The SamCart Grow Plan includes elements that the Launch Plan lacks. It includes many features like customer management, subscription charge reminders, advanced subscription cancellations, and more.

The SamCart Scale Plan is available with Advanced SamCart’s features. It includes all the aspects available in the Launch and Grows plan along with their built-in dunning tool, their Affiliate Center, cart abandonment, built-in A B testing, CRM integrations, webhooks, and priority email & chat support.

The SamCart Enterprise Plan is designed for big companies. This plan provides you with a dedicated account manager, integration setup, and everything you need to get started quickly.

SamCart pricing has a free trial option and a money-back guarantee.

Pros

User-friendly platform to see physical or digital products

Incredible checkout experience

Sales funnel functionalities- checkout popups, order bumps, one-click upsells to increase order value

Advanced Stats reporting like Lifetime Value

Easy to create coupon codes

Knowledge base has training resources

Cart abandonment after checkout

A/B Split Testing for Landing page

Built-in Dunning system attempts to update your customer’s payment information upon product/service renewals

Money-back guarantee

Cons

Limited payment options- Stripe and PayPal    

No digital sales tax calculation built-in

The affiliate system does not have a tracking ID

Conclusion

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Originally Published On: SaasTrac

About The Author

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[thoseindarkness]

DtD News Nov 2020

Thank you to anyone who came back for this nonsense. For brevity I have an announcement that I want to make up front. I didn't have room for it last month so I pushed it back, but I can't anymore. I had to make one major revision to the published story. I want people to know about it.

This is the TLDR version. I tell a more in-depth story at the end.

ANNOUNCEMENT

The summary: I had a bad outline walking into writing Mistrust Goes Both Ways. I ran into a problem mid-story. Instead of stopping and taking the time I needed, I challenged myself to creatively solve my way out of my problems. I re-started with about half of what I'd written, published Mistrust Goes Both Ways, and restarting my outline with high hopes.  I was proud of myself for rising to the challenge.

Despite my best efforts, it didn't work out. In the end, I had to scrap my outline. I was able to structure the end I was going for and spent the end of 2019 trying to link the first two stories to the ending I wanted. It wasn't working. Then TRoS. Then COVID. Here we are. In June, I started experimenting with scrapping Mistrust and restarting from Read Between.

Mistrust Goes Both Ways will not be part of the finished story when I'm done. I know some of you love it. I love it. I have no intention of taking it down. I might, for a short time, when I'm posting the final story. I'll let you know if that happens and it will go back up afterward. I don't have specifics as there's no point planning for it now.

For right now, nothing is changing on my AO3 account. Feel free to read and comment to your hearts content. I promise it will stay up forever to remind me that some mistakes are worth sharing with others. I learned good lessons from this mistake. It stays.

That being said I think I owe you an actual update on the progress of this story.

WHAT THE HELL I DID THIS MONTH

After my first update I needed to re-integrate with Reylo friends. Funnily enough, that pulled me into another fic. I've been working on that between following this election. Now that it's called I can get back to writing. I tried a couple of times since I voted on Oct 30th, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted to be thinking about.

Thankfully, I've also begun doing more social/political essays lately. I'm not sure what overall form or shape those may take and I haven't published any. Still, I was creative and I did plenty of writing. Interestingly, all this political focus is good for Deceive the Deceiver. Spinning and listening to conspiracy theories is a big part of weaving a world like this one. A great deal comes from my thoughts and perceptions of the real world.

WHERE DTD IS

As of right now I am in the process of first drafting the entire story with Read Between as the starting point. That is, every one of the short stories in the series. What I'm doing is somewhere between a history, an outline and random scene writing. All of these elements are currently strung together in one long, continuous, chronological, first draft. It's everything from the history before Read Between (which starts in the 1930's), all the way to the final scene of DtD.

I'm taking all the good ideas I've created in the last couple of years and re-organizing them into a first pass. It's the skeleton and some of the meat now. I'm slowly building out now that I have a blank-er slate. It's about choosing what works and what doesn't.

I call it accordion writing. It just gets bigger and bigger. This outline will later level up into the first full story drafts for each part. I've got so much history when I finish this I might… I'm getting ahead of myself. Don't want to give too many clues away.

Another interesting thing that's happened recently is I've started pulling bits of other fic ideas that I’m just not gonna finish. A big chuck of the history I stole from a modern/academia AU where Ben and Rey are history students specializing in the ancient Jedi religion. Another was a complication between characters came from a canon story where I wanted to paint the relationship with a new layer. We'll see if I can pull that off.

I spent a lot of time prior to this year focusing on the heroes but my villains hadn't gotten much love. Filling in the history has given me a chance to flesh out the villains. All their moves and countermoves, woven through the bits I already have, are spinning a pretty tapestry. Oh, the villains are so much fun to write!

This other fic came together in the same sort of accordion fashion and it's been fun working through the kinks in the process now that I've seen some of the weak points on a scale like DtD. I think I've mentioned, but this is a writing experiment for me and I'm most invested now in improving my process and clue-threading with DtD. This other fic is helping me test it on a smaller scale.

Not that this needs to get any longer, I'm just going to throw pretense out the window and go with complete vanity. If you don't give a wet shit about my life (and I don't blame you) you have reached the end of your journey. I hope to see you next month. If not, then I leave you with this parting:

May we meet again in our next fandom, through mutes and not as rival shippers.

The following is the ridiculous story of my ups and downs with Deceive the Deceiver. I figure if I explain to you how much I'm invested in this story some of you will stop worrying that I'm going to abandon it. Trust me. I'm not.

This tale stretches from NANOWRIMO 2018 and the prompt that started it, through the ups and downs of 2019 and 2020, to the writing of last month's letter. Buckle up. I love bumpy rides.

DtD: from NANO '17 to COVID-19

This story truly starts in December 2017 when I drenched the seat beneath me during Last Jedi. I'm a TLJ shipper. I got caught on the thirst train. It hit a time when writing was becoming a really big part of my life. I've been writing since I was a kid. I stopped for a while and came back to it. It's a long story. Ultimately, I'd started writing a lot a few years earlier. A mix of fic and originals but I was running into problems so I start reading a bunch of books to get better. TLJ lit the fires. NO joke TLJ came out on the 15th. I have pages of writing from the 20th.

2018 was Reylo year! I was already on Tumblr for my previous fandom (Batman comics). I found Reylo AU week which is in August. I submitted a story for that. It was the first fic I published for Reylo. Fast-forward August to November. I'm in the Writing Den on Discord and someone throws out this spy prompt. People start running with. Throwing ideas around. One of those was the snuggie in Mistrust! I have that conversation saved and story spots for each crazy thing they threw out. Finally, I said I'd do it!

Mind you, this is November 2nd. Nano has just started and the event is about "turning off your internal editor." This prompt consumed me. I was trying to keep up with SpaceWaffleHouseTM that first year. I did, btw. We both crested 100,000. It was my first Nano. Word count is not my problem. Organizing my crazy ambitious ideas is my problem. Some of that 100k was other stories, like Custard which I wrote half of in November and the other half Jan/Feb 2019. Most of it… probably 80k of it… was DtD.

Read Between the Lies is currently 33,710. I wrote at least 20k of that during that first Nano, as well as outlines and scenes for what I thought would be the starting point. I remember wanting to write Read Between to "get into their headspace" by writing their first meeting. I didn't think it would become a whole story. I was just going with it then. Any idea that came to mind.

I took December 2019 off for a few reasons. Some personal. Some burnout. I'm one of those people that can use writing to relieve stress, but I was so exhausted from that month-long writing sprint. By the last week I was dragging to get the final four or five thousand words to hit 100k.

Also, what I had by the end (no internal editor) was a bird nest of ideas that had too many beginnings, not enough middles, and endings to go around. I knew one thing right away: I knew I had more than one story. There were so many fun ideas. I figured, what the hell. I knew another thing right away: the prompt was at the end of the story. Like, the very end. Like, the last short story. Or the second to last short story, at the earliest. That hasn't changed. Ever. That's just where it ended up.

Between January and April of 2019 I touched DtD a few times. I kept coming back to it, reading through it, trying to untangle it. I made new notes on the stories. Expanded ideas. Tried to structure it. I figured out a bunch of good notes, but no real substance. The hardest thing was figuring out where to start! Did I:

(1) Start shortly before the prompt with Ben/Rey's relationship established and fill the story with the history?

(2) Start a lot earlier and build Ben/Rey's relationship from the beginning I'd written in Read Between?

If I'm being honest, Read Between was a lot better than I thought it would be and I didn't want to get rid of it. For a while I was thinking of publishing it last as a "prequel" if people liked the series.

Funny enough, the turning point happened May fourth weekend 2019…

In the week leading up, I was struggling through another story and decided to take a break for the weekend. I'd start writing again on Sunday when I met with my writing group. I met them through Nano. We used to meet at Panera. Now they meet on Discord. They mostly sprint though and I'm not a sprinter. I miss Panera. Anyway.

May 4th was a Sunday (look it up). I gave myself a writing break for the weekend and marathoned Star fucking Wars. It was nerd weekend. I was going to nerd out. I wore exclusively SW gear all weekend. I remember it well. It was the start of something fucking magical in my life.

Have I mentioned recently I really love this story. Trust me I will fucking finish it. Oh my god the demons won't leave until I do. Get them out of my head…

I had a pretty rockstar weekend. I believe the reason I skipped the PT that weekend was because I'd watched it the month before or so. Right after finishing the Clone Wars animated series (which is awesome and I strongly recommend both it and Rebels). I skipped them and SOLO.

Starting with R1, I went through in chronological order. I stopped at RotJ. I was with my family on Saturday and they were playing RotJ in the living room during the party. We talked about my marathon. My mom came over to my apartment after. We watched RoTJ properly. Then Force Awakens. It was too late by then to watch TLJ. I know I went straight to bed after my mom left on Saturday night.

Somewhere during or right after TFA I started thinking about Deceive the Deceiver. I don't remember what sparked it. I went to bed thinking about DtD. I know this with 100% certainty because I woke up thinking about again on Sunday and I thought it was quite odd.

I dream about this story in a way I have only dreamt about a precious few. Technicolor folks. It keeps me up at night.

I went to my writing group with (a) no plan for what to write, (b) a gordian knot that I had yet to untangle, (c) a sudden urge to re-read it. I opened my notes and read DtD through all our sprints. I read most of it during that writing session. We go about three hours.

That night I had Game of Thrones at my parent's. It was the (spoiler alert) episode where Arya kills the Night King. I remember because two minutes into the episode my brother's car broken down a few blocks from our apartment and we had to go help him. Derailed the whole night (this is foreshadowing).

Side note: I live with my younger brother and he's the best roommate I've ever had in my 35 years of life. Love you, Mo!

The episode was recording so we ran out. Had to leave the car in a parking lot. Someone had already helped him push it out of a puddle but my brother was soaked to mid-calf and the engine was shot. We dropped him off at home and I rode back to my Momma's crib to watch GoT. It was only the beginning of a wild night.

I went to bed late. I had to get up a few hours early to deal with the car before work started for either of us. I guess we were both hoping to avoid taking the day off. That wasn't going to happen. I drove home but I couldn't sleep. That crazy episode and the fact that my brain was already on fire with DtD.

I spent the wee hours finishing my re-read through the rough draft of Read Between the Lies. It saw my starting place. I started writing. I wrote through waiting in a parking lot, for the tow truck, in my car, at 6 am, with no sleep. I did a voice recording as I drove from the parking lot to the mechanic where the driver was taking my brother's car. I thought about it the whole way back. I sat on the sofa a wrote some more when we got home. I went to bed at 11 am and I'd written 10k more words for Read Between the Lies.

Somewhere between the chaos of May 5th and the official publish date on June 5th, Read Between got written. I know it didn't take too long. I remember sending it off to beta (by my amazing beta team on 1 & 2: Em, Jen, and Sai) and immediately pivoting to my outline. I slapped that together far too hastily and kept moving. I was going on holiday in the UK (I'm American and I'm ashamed) in early August so I planned on trying to publish Part 2 when I got back. At the very least I wanted it ready for beta.

Also some to admit, around the middle of 2019 I was fatigued with the fandom. We were hitting a lull. I was psyching myself up for the end and the exit. I was trying to clean house. I wanted to push out unfinished fics. To make them work. There was a lot of that mood from me in 2019. I was trying to make everything work. It's why Read Between came out, and that was a good thing. It's also why Mistrust came out, and that was a bad thing.

With that mentality looming, tough outline in hand, I started writing Mistrust before the end of May. I hit my snag sometime during the period I was publishing Read Between because by the time it was all done I knew I wasn't going to have a finished story by the time I left for London. I would figure it out when I got back. I picked up another project to distracted me from my problems for a little while. That is going to be an original if it's anything. One day…

At some point after I got back I started focusing heavily on problem solving. I had two stories already and a number of plot threads I had to resolve. I have heavy, heavy, heavy notes from September to December of 2019. Lots of possible ways to run this story. It sucks that a lot of that stuff isn't going to make it, but I'm recycling shit every day and I learned so much about the characters/story in that four month period. It really shaped the finished product in an important way.

This period is where I started to look at the bigger structure and how I was going to solve specific plot problems in each short story to bring the whole together. That focus on the different parts is important because it was the last thing on my mind when TRoS happened.

December 20th (the release date) is my birthday. My ass drove up to one of those Reylo-only screenings and I was surrounded by amazing people as I watched a movie that ruined my 35th birthday. Thankfully, I spent it in incomparable company. Thank you to all the hosts and super special thanks to Jen. Not only was she a DtD beta on both, she invited me. Thank you love! You are the reason I still remember that trip with joy.

Side note: I no longer hate TRoS. I've made my peace with it. I'm a far happier person now.

Needless to say, the only Reyloing I did in January of this year was venting frustration. Then I took a few weeks away from the fandom. I'd done my purging into the void. I knew other people still needed the space to vent but I had to get away. Once the toxin is out I couldn't let it back in.

What occurred starting in February of 2020 was a series of situations in which, every time I logged into Twitter I was faced with the kind of vitriol in the fandom that I don't need in my life. Some of it was still TRoS stuff, even as late as May. I'm not judging, I'm just saying, with the world on fire (literally), I didn't need it.

I don't think I have to explain why I've avoided social media like the plague since early this year. I live in America. If you heard anything about our recent President I don't have to explain any further what this year has been like. That has been par for course all over the world.

So here's my secret to happiness. I don't fux with the trolls. Do not engage. Sometimes that means radio silence. I'm breaking that silence because I want you to know 2020 has not destroyed DtD. It's only leveled shit up.

I have pretty much been working on this story consistently since March of this year. I go back and forth with reading, history, documentaries. I'm learning to wield many new weapons. They take time to settle in. DtD is the de-stressor I go to in between the real shit.

Sometime in June I was screwing around with the order of the parts. I had worked out the end but I was trying to bridge the gap between the ending I was certain I needed to get to and the two beginning stories I'd already published. I couldn't bridge the gap. It had been a year since I published Read Between and it wasn't working. Then I had an epiphany.

What if I got rid of Mistrust? Read Between is a pretty blank slate. I didn't want to re-write it and I still don't. I have no intention of getting rid of Part 1. I may clean it up and add some stuff at the very last minute, but it will be right before the new stuff drops as a pre-cursor to the flood of subsequent stories. I may add a few new clues or alter a scene or two, but I have plenty of room to move with it exactly the way it is.

What does that mean for Mistrust Goes Both Ways? To make a long story short, there was no good way for me to continue with what I'd published and still write the story in my head. I'm sure there are cool places to take the existing story, but that's not what I'm trying to do. In truth, I should have left 1 and not published 2 when I hit a snag. Lesson learned.

In June I basically threw Mistrust out and asked myself, "Now what?" I have months of great ideas rife for reshuffling and no restrictions on how to bridge the gap from 1 to the ending I wanted. But the end had shifted.

That brings us up to speed. The last thing I did before taking a much needed break was get through 90% of the history in my accordion outline/draft. I poured the foundation that was missing. I walked away in early October and let it set. I'm going to button up this other fic I'm working on and then go back to DtD and check the foundation I laid.

I'm very confident that not only will it hold, but that with fresh eyes and the fun side stories I've had the chance to lay to rest, I will finally be able to start building the finished products on top of it.

IN CONCLUSION

I'm still as excited as I've ever been for this story. It frustrates me all the time, but that means the medicine for my soul is working its magic. Change it painful, but pain is transformative. I've embrace changed. That ache is just a sign the muscles are getting stronger. Growing pains. As I learn to live with them in my family, my country, and my job, I find that life's lesson's often end up reflecting in every place in our life if we but open our eyes to look.

Growing pains exist in my writing process too. They are as transformative in this corner of my life as they are in every other. They have revealed as much about me as a person in my writing as they have in my politics. They have taught me how to compromise with my family as I learn to compromise with my characters. As I consider how people treat each other I am reminded that struggles in understanding our fictional counterparts may shine a light on our struggles to understand our truer selves.

Take care of yourselves. Once you've got that covered, if you can, take care of each other. Feel free to poke me and say hi. If not, until next month.

Fari.

[readevalprint]

Ichiran@home 2021: the ultimate guide

Recently I’ve been contacted by several people who wanted to use my Japanese text segmenter Ichiran in their own projects. This is not surprising since it’s vastly superior to Mecab and similar software, and is occassionally updated with new vocabulary unlike many other segmenters. Ichiran powers ichi.moe which is a very cool webapp that helped literally dozens of people learn Japanese.

A big obstacle towards the adoption of Ichiran is the fact that it’s written in Common Lisp and people who want to use it are often unfamiliar with this language. To fix this issue, I’m now providing a way to build Ichiran as a command line utility, which could then be called as a subprocess by scripts in other languages.

This is a master post how to get Ichiran installed and how to use it for people who don’t know any Common Lisp at all. I’m providing instructions for Linux (Ubuntu) and Windows, I haven’t tested whether it works on other operating systems but it probably should.

PostgreSQL

Ichiran uses a PostgreSQL database as a source for its vocabulary and other things. On Linux install postgresql using your preferred package manager. On Windows use the official installer. You should remember the password for the postgres user, or create a new user if you know how to do it.

Download the latest release of Ichiran database. On the release page there are commands needed to restore the dump. On Windows they don't really work, instead try to create database and restore the dump using pgAdmin (which is usually installed together with Postgres). Right-click on PostgreSQL/Databases/postgres and select "Query tool...". Paste the following into Query editor and hit the Execute button.

CREATE DATABASE [database_name] WITH TEMPLATE = template0 OWNER = postgres ENCODING = 'UTF8' LC_COLLATE = 'Japanese_Japan.932' LC_CTYPE = 'Japanese_Japan.932' TABLESPACE = pg_default CONNECTION LIMIT = -1;

Then refresh the Databases folder and you should see your new database. Right-click on it then select "Restore", then choose the file that you downloaded (it wants ".backup" extension by default so choose "Format: All files" if you can't find the file).

You might get a bunch of errors when restoring the dump saying that "user ichiran doesn't exist". Just ignore them.

SBCL

Ichiran uses SBCL to run its Common Lisp code. You can download Windows binaries for SBCL 2.0.0 from the official site, and on Linux you can use the package manager, or also use binaries from the official site although they might be incompatible with your operating system.

However you really want the latest version 2.1.0, especially on Windows for uh... reasons. There's a workaround for Windows 10 though, so if you don't mind turning on that option, you can stick with SBCL 2.0.0 really.

After installing some version of SBCL (SBCL requires SBCL to compile itself), download the source code of the latest version and let's get to business.

On Linux it should be easy, just run

sh make.sh --fancy sudo sh install.sh

in the source directory.

On Windows it's somewhat harder. Install MSYS2, then run "MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit".

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain make # for paths in MSYS2 replace drive prefix C:/ by /c/ and so on cd [path_to_sbcl_source] export PATH="$PATH:[directory_where_sbcl.exe_is_currently]" # check that you can run sbcl from command line now # type (sb-ext:quit) to quit sbcl sh make.sh --fancy unset SBCL_HOME INSTALL_ROOT=/c/sbcl sh install.sh

Then edit Windows environment variables so that PATH contains c:\sbcl\bin and SBCL_HOME is c:\sbcl\lib\sbcl (replace c:\sbcl here and in INSTALL_ROOT with another directory if applicable). Check that you can run a normal Windows shell (cmd) and run sbcl from it.

Quicklisp

Quicklisp is a library manager for Common Lisp. You'll need it to install the dependencies of Ichiran. Download quicklisp.lisp from the official site and run the following command:

sbcl --load /path/to/quicklisp.lisp

In SBCL shell execute the following commands:

(quicklisp-quickstart:install) (ql:add-to-init-file) (sb-ext:quit)

This will ensure quicklisp is loaded every time SBCL starts.

Ichiran

Find the directory ~/quicklisp/local-projects (%USERPROFILE%\quicklisp\local-projects on Windows) and git clone Ichiran source code into it. It is possible to place it into an arbitrary directory, but that requires configuring ASDF, while ~/quicklisp/local-projects/ should work out of the box, as should ~/common-lisp/ but I'm not sure about Windows equivalent for this one.

Ichiran wouldn't load without settings.lisp file which you might notice is absent from the repository. Instead, there's a settings.lisp.template file. Copy settings.lisp.template to settings.lisp and edit the following values in settings.lisp:

*connection* this is the main database connection. It is a list of at least 4 elements: database name, database user (usually "postgres"), database password and database host ("localhost"). It can be followed by options like :port 5434 if the database is running on a non-standard port.

*connections* is an optional parameter, if you want to switch between several databases. You can probably ignore it.

*jmdict-data* this should be a path to these files from JMdict project. They contain descriptions of parts of speech etc.

ignore all the other parameters, they're only needed for creating the database from scratch

Run sbcl. You should now be able to load Ichiran with

(ql:quickload :ichiran)

On the first run, run the following command. It should also be run after downloading a new database dump and updating Ichiran code, as it fixes various issues with the original JMdict data.

(ichiran/mnt:add-errata)

Run the test suite with

(ichiran/test:run-all-tests)

If not all tests pass, you did something wrong! If none of the tests pass, check that you configured the database connection correctly. If all tests pass, you have a working installation of Ichiran. Congratulations!

Some commands that can be used in Ichiran:

(ichiran:romanize "一覧は最高だぞ" :with-info t) this is basically a text-only equivalent of ichi.moe, everyone's favorite webapp based on Ichiran.

(ichiran/dict:simple-segment "一覧は最高だぞ") returns a list of WORD-INFO objects which contain a lot of interesting data which is available through "accessor functions". For example (mapcar 'ichiran/dict:word-info-text (ichiran/dict:simple-segment "一覧は最高だぞ") will return a list of separate words in a sentence.

(ichiran/dict:dict-segment "一覧は最高だぞ" :limit 5) like simple-segment but returns top 5 segmentations.

(ichiran/dict:word-info-from-text "一覧") gets a WORD-INFO object for a specific word.

ichiran/dict:word-info-str converts a WORD-INFO object to a human-readable string.

ichiran/dict:word-info-gloss-json converts a WORD-INFO object into a "json" "object" containing dictionary information about a word, which is not really JSON but an equivalent Lisp representation of it. But, it can be converted into a real JSON string with jsown:to-json function. Putting it all together, the following code will convert the word 一覧 into a JSON string:

(jsown:to-json (ichiran/dict:word-info-json (ichiran/dict:word-info-from-text "一覧")))

Now, if you're not familiar with Common Lisp all this stuff might seem confusing. Which is where ichiran-cli comes in, a brand new Command Line Interface to Ichiran.

ichiran-cli

ichiran-cli is just a simple command-line application that can be called by scripts just like mecab and its ilk. The main difference is that it must be built by the user, who has already did the previous steps of the Ichiran installation process. It needs to access the postgres database and the connection settings from settings.lisp are currently "baked in" during the build. It also contains a cache of some database references, so modifying the database (i.e. updating to a newer database dump) without also rebuilding ichiran-cli is highly inadvisable.

The build process is very easy. Just run sbcl and execute the following commands:

(ql:quickload :ichiran/cli) (ichiran/cli:build)

sbcl should exit at this point, and you'll have a new ichiran-cli (ichiran-cli.exe on Windows) executable in ichiran source directory. If sbcl didn't exit, try deleting the old ichiran-cli and do it again, it seems that on Linux sbcl sometimes can't overwrite this file for some reason.

Use -h option to show how to use this tool. There will be more options in the future but at the time of this post, it prints out the following:

>ichiran-cli -h Command line interface for Ichiran Usage: ichiran-cli [-h|--help] [-e|--eval] [-i|--with-info] [-f|--full] [input] Available options: -h, --help print this help text -e, --eval evaluate arbitrary expression and print the result -i, --with-info print dictionary info -f, --full full split info (as JSON) By default calls ichiran:romanize, other options change this behavior

Here's the example usage of these switches

ichiran-cli "一覧は最高だぞ" just prints out the romanization

ichiran-cli -i "一覧は最高だぞ" - equivalent of ichiran:romanize :with-info t above

ichiran-cli -f "一覧は最高だぞ" - outputs the full result of segmentation as JSON. This is the one you'll probably want to use in scripts etc.

ichiran-cli -e "(+ 1 2 3)" - execute arbitrary Common Lisp code... yup that's right. Since this is a new feature, I don't know yet which commands people really want, so this option can be used to execute any command such as those listed in the previous section.

By the way, as I mentioned before, on Windows SBCL prior to 2.1.0 doesn't parse non-ascii command line arguments correctly. Which is why I had to include a section about building a newer version of SBCL. However if you use Windows 10, there's a workaround that avoids having to build SBCL 2.1.0. Open "Language Settings", find a link to "Administrative language settings", click on "Change system locale...", and turn on "Beta: Use Unicode UTF-8 for worldwide language support". Then reboot your computer. Voila, everything will work now. At least in regards to SBCL. I can't guarantee that other command line apps which use locales will work after that.

That's it for now, hope you enjoy playing around with Ichiran in this new year. よろしくおねがいします！