#(and it's a little frustrating to have this blog in particular since 2018 and still feel so... outside it all?)

[blueheartedmayor]

OOC:

I think I'm going to make a wishlist post for the different blogs tomorrow. I've been here for years, watched this side of the community waver in activity, and in one way missed out on some things I want to do.

... I mean, there isn't a lot there, and I know my activity is slow... but still.

[louisisalarrie]

Hi i wanted to ask something. So many old vet larries like Srslycris and Ssfoc left and came back and said that Harry is an awful person (fame hungry and all) and used Louis. Some of their theories do make sense because it does look like Harry used or misled Louis to have a better career. Also, in 2018 things changed so many vet larries left....I really think because they either knew something we don’t or because they also thought it was going South.....what do you think?

Hi lovely. This turned out deeper with more feelings than I thought! But im a bit cooked wearing a 1d shirt so it was bound to happen, and now here we are. Welcomeeeee to the show!

Many of the vets have left, unfortunately. There are still a solid amount of us left, but tumblr was such a different place back in the day. There’s only so much kind of… non evidence and stunts and hate you can take. This fandom is very toxic at times and we all encouraged each other to take a step back (I did too! But more because life got in the way… but also because it’s easier when you’re not being constantly fed larry content like in the 1d days) to keep our mental health solid and not subject ourselves to all the NEW hate we were/are getting.

Because, as Larries in the 1d days, we got hate from antis, and antis only. It was one fandom, split up between two sides (with the third being neutrals which there weren’t a lot of because you kinda were expected to pick a side).

After the boys started releasing solo music, we didn’t just get hate from antis. We now get hate from solo harries (which there are SO many of), solo Louies, and other solo fans who’ve been here since the 1d days who now just Stan one of the boys. So many larries turned and picked a side because it’s just… easier. Being a larrie these days is no easy thing. The hate and back and forth and lack of evidence is really difficult and well… it’s a lot easier loving the boys from afar, that’s for sure.

But it’s also because tumblr 1d stans are such a smaller community now. Whether you’re a solo, anti, or larrie, there are so much less of us. This platform has been on the down for yeaaaaars (unfortunately), and it’s not what it used to be. It’s just… different now. And Twitter has made a weird comeback but it’s very extreme solos and larries and antis. It’s not a space you can talk about your interests/theories/beliefs without one or the other finding you and just hating on you hardcore. The Tumblr larrie community is fucking wonderful, but Twitter Larries are so different and it’s all just… a different world.

Also, be mindful about our ages at the time. A lot of Larries and 1d fans were similar ages, right in that peak demographic. Around 2018, a lot of us had hit an age where we were really becoming adults and sorting out careers, moving out, having partners… not having time to focus on larry with such little evidence/content coming our way. If 1d were still together? Sure. A lot of us would’ve stayed. But I took a step back in that time too, and I get it 1000000%. Loving an artist and listening to their music, going to concerts occasionally, and buying some merch here and there, is so much easier than running a successful or even a lowkey blog on a (sadly) declining platform. Plus dealing with an influx of fans who don’t care about the lore. Or 1d. It’s just… frustrating when the new kids take their media images as gospel and don’t look into their development as artists and people from the start. No matter how you feel about 1d.

Hell, I find it frustrating. All these new solos who don’t like 1d/don’t care about ot5 make ridiculous claims and start a witch-hunt against the vets (non-larries who are just ot5s/ot4s included). The shit I’ve seen on Twitter in particular is filthy. And a lot of these fans are younger, have a different relationship with social media, and interact in an entirely different way because they haven’t experienced a proper solid fandom and what that means/meant to us (many other fandoms like supernatural, doctor who, Sherlock etc who were also massive on tumblr at the time have dealt with a difference in it too, I’ve noticed). So it’s a lack of fandom dynamic and understanding and experience too (not that this is a bad thing if you’re new to fandoms/the 1d fandom, quite the opposite, you’re always welcome here!!! but an observation of the younger kids who are solos/antis and haven’t been in a fandom before).

That’s not to say that all new fans are of a younger generation, far from it. There are a beautiful amount of larries, one direction, and solo fans who are older and have embraced the fandom life and either support larrie or stay tf out of this shit. And it’s just people leave because they simply are just… growing up. Life gets in the way. Many found it harder to be on a platform where the most influential larry blogs, who have so many receipts and thoughts and theories and stories and followers and love to give, start disappearing. It makes people lose faith.

I cannot express how deep in this fandom was during this time. How incredibly trusting and loving we were of the bigger blogs. How we looked to them as gospel. And it’s bizarre to me now having a lot of followers and getting lovely anons like yourself, because I was the one reaching out to the bigger blogs to talk to and get reassurance and to listen to, back in the day. But the larries who are still here are carrying that torch and we are the ones still fighting, with a beautiful new group of Larries with us.

And don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the Larries who left. It’s tempting at times. It’s easier and it’s just about enjoying the boys and their music for what it is. So don’t feel disheartened. It was a bit of a chain reaction and it comes down to so many variables, but not larry being untrue. People give up. People’s lives get in the way. People remove themselves from hate. People don’t wanna deal with an influx of younger fans (not baby Larries no matter the age, im talking about antis/solos here) who don’t know their lore and come in guns a-blazing, when we’ve watched the boys and larry unfold in real time with our own eyes.

Plus, larries have always (the majority now, too) been the most supportive section of the fandom. Larries are 99% ot5s, or at least ot4s, and with one d going on their “hiatus” and no reunion in sight, it’s super disheartening. Im sure a lot of the other vets can agree with me here. It’s just… not the same as it was (pun intended), but it is what it is (double pun intended).

I think when we start getting larry content again, tumblr and Twitter are gonna go through the roof. A few of the vets who have left, who I still talk to on occasion, are still larries, but aren’t gonna involve themselves again until something larger happens. Until something brings the fire back and makes it (this sounds awful, it’s always worth it) worth fighting again.

Anyway, that’s my take. And the longer larry are forcibly closeted, and the longer 1d distance themselves from each other (which seems to be less in the past two weeks, thank fuck), we aren’t gonna see a resurgence of fans. But I think there will be a lot of big larries coming back and saying “I fucking told you so” when it happens.

Anyway, to actually answer your question because sometimes im just really good at going on long tangents, is that im not 100% sure on the theories you are referring to (I had taken a step back at the time) and would be interested to see, but Harry’s solo career and image can definitely make it look like he used Louis. But we know he’s not that kind of person. His managers are godawful and will do anything it takes to get their cash, and that encourages the idea that he’s baiting (whether it be queer or larrie) fans and dropped louis when he went solo and got bigger. Solo louies HATE Harry so much, and solo harries HATE louies so much, and it’s just… yeah. I have no reason to believe Harry did anything out of line of his own choice, and had been groomed and manipulated by those awful gross dudes, into doing what’s “best for his career” which is unfortunately, squashing 1d.

While I still can’t tell you what I do, I can tell you that Harry’s team are very fucking smart. As awful as they are, as much as they pull out every evil trick in the book, they are excellent at publicity and his managers fight for his worth and get him the best deals possible, and have built his image so differently to what we have known him as. He’s always been incredibly marketable, and they’ve taken that on and exploited it exponentially and made a pretty penny. He’s not a bad guy, he didn’t use Louis, and shit just looks very different to what it did back in the day.

Thanks for reading if you got this far through my ramble! Hahaha

[ask-botwot]

Hello everybody!

I don’t know if anyone who follows this blog is still active, or even remembers that this blog exists (fair, seeing how long ago I posted here) but I wanted to make a final post here.

A final post because I want to officially say that I am never coming back to this fic, and BOTWOT will not be updated.

I left the Sanders Sides fandom in early 2021, with a final fic that was my longest one shot ever written, which got much less response than my usual fics. This is not why I left the fandom, I was already losing interest and growing frustrated with Thomas Sanders, and was just pushing through to finish that fanfic. In fact, I’m sure half the reason that that fic got so little traction was because the fandom as a whole was declining.

At the time, as you can see from previous posts on this blog, I wanted to finish “Best of Todays/Worst of Tomorrows”. I don’t like leaving projects unfinished. And I had/still have a fully written outline for how I expected every part of this series to unfold until the very end.

But I needed time away from the fandom. It was toxic. Toxic positivity. Toxic tone policing. Issues with paying artists what they were worse, and declining content both in terms of frequency and quality from Thomas himself.

I half expected for my interest in Sanders Sides to be rekindled. When the next video came out, I may gain new interest and write the rest of this series as quickly as I had the first parts.

But as everyone who is still in this fandom knows, there has not been an episode since I left nearly 2 years ago. There hasn’t been an episode in going on 3 years. And I’m never going to be interested in Sanders Sides like I was again.

I really did like the series. I really did love the characters. And for a time I really loved the fandom. In 2018-2019 this fandom was and still is the most responsive, and open fandom I’ve ever been a part of. I don’t think I’ll ever see a fandom that was that uplifting of fan content again. I don’t think the Sanders Sides fandom is even still like that now.

I’m not over tagging this post, because I don’t want anyone who doesn’t care for this particular fic, if anyone still does, to worry about this post. I just thought it was important to update anyone who still might care. Because I do value you and I thank you for all the love this fic got. This is still the only fic I’ve ever written that garnered fanart. I don’t want to be like certain other creators that leave people hanging. I’m sorry that I have for this long.

I will try to post my outlines to ao3 in one final part of BOTWOT sometime this week, to give anyone subscribed to the fic there some closure. I will be deleting this blog around that time too.

Thank you for liking my writing 💜

-Lora/romantichopelessly

[oimeunacosa]

Canciones pequeñas,  grandes antiheroínas  - nuestros brazos son todo lo que tenemos / Little songs, big antiheroines - our arms are all we’ve got

Fotografía/Photograph: Julia Russo Martínez

eng ↓

Lavo los platos de anoche, la mano derecha agarra el detergente ala amarillo, la mano izquierda sostiene la esponja, abajo en la bacha los platos me esperan, de fondo suena:

What can I give that is all for you? My heart's no good 'cause it's split in two What can I give that is all for you? These arms are all I have *

Y la verdad que la tengo dando vueltas hace unas semanas ya. Estos brazos son todo lo que tengo. Desde el amor hasta el trabajo, la frase aplica a todo. Porque una puede besar, tocar, acompañar, compartir con y a mucha gente, pero ¿entregar los brazos? Eso no es tan sencillo, mi ciela. Y no hablo sólo del amor romántico, porque como dije antes, lo pienso en relación al trabajo y 'estos brazos son todo lo que tengo' me dispara una catarata de ideas que no me alcanzarían los caracteres para desglosar.

En febrero en un hostel en el que trabajaba conocí a una de mis actuales amigas, y las primeras cosas que me dijo fue que ella no es de abrazar. El otro día (ya estamos en agosto) vino a mi cuarto sólo para abrazarme. “hace mil no nos abrazamos, boluda” y se fue. De esto hablo. My heart is no good 'cause it's split in two, entonces me quedan estos brazos, son todo lo que tengo.

Reescucho la canción en loop. Ya son las seis y media y salí a caminar, la cocina quedó impecable después de que -con estos brazos- haya refregado un rato largo. Cómo me gusta que este tema tenga tan pocos versos, que esté tan concentrada la información. Necesito caminar y escuchar, concentrarme en esas dos acciones. La síntesis me ayuda a no distraerme. But I'll hold you like I do love you y pensé dos traducciones: 'Pero te voy a sostener tanto como lo que te amo' es una, y me armé una que me gusta más a mí, que no es exactamente la que dice la canción, pero yo quiero que la canción diga esto: 'Pero te voy a sostener como si de verdad te amara'. Porque otra cosa que me hace pensar es en esa vez que salí con este pibe de tinder, y le conté mi vida, y me contó la suya, y a las 2 a.m. en Bustillo y Furman nos despedimos con un abrazo de esos que le das el peso de tu cuerpo a la otra persona y la otra persona hace lo mismo con vos entonces se equilibra. Y la verdad que no lo amo a este pibe - de hecho no lo vi nunca más - pero lo sostuve como si lo amara... qué se yo.

Vuelvo a pensar en la arquitectura del tema, y esto no es ningún tipo de información demasiado objetiva, sino lisa y llanamente gusto. Me liquida la economía de recursos. Si todo esto estuviese acompañado de una bandaza no sería tan potente el mensaje. Lxs que me conocen saben que soy fan de los temas a guitarra y voz (mi hermano da fe de eso) y pienso en un colador: una vez que se larga toda la información, es necesario colar y que quede lo sólido. Claramente el colador acá fue preciso y precioso: la canción es una patada en el pecho que se agradece.

Venir sola a otra provincia, empezar de cero sin casa ni amigues, y construir con lo poco que se tiene un plan que entusiasme. Mi corazón no sirve porque está partido en dos. De a poco abrir los brazos, darlos , que otras personas te den los suyos. La continuación del heroico “quién dijo que todo esta perdido? Yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón”**¿Qué pasa cuando ese corazón está partido en dos? ¿Cuando ese corazón no sirve? Acá te doy mis brazos, y te voy a sostener tan fuerte como lo que te quiero, como si de verdad te quisiera, seas mi mejor amiga o uno de tinder que recién conozco.

Canciones: Arms – The paper kites (2018) – Yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón – Fito Páez (1985)

Si te gustó esta nota, podés invitarme un cafecito en www.cafecito.app/agoslesz

*¿Qué podría darte que signifique todo para vos? / Mi corazón ya no sirve porque está partido en dos/ ¿qué podría darte que sea todo para vos? / estos brazos son todo lo que tengo **El tema de Fito es mucho más heroico, y creo, por eso trasciende generaciones. Hay un punto en donde me cuesta identificarme con eso tan grande “Y hablo de países y de esperanzas / hablo por la vida, hablo por la nada /hablo por cambiar esta, nuestra casa “ Ahora pienso que me faltan años de vida para entender esta canción. Quizás sea lo que las nuevas generaciones vengamos a darle al repertorio de los clásicos: canciones no heroicas. El cansancio, la frustración y el intento constante y claramente fallido de alcanzar esos ideales tan grandes ¿nos estará haciendo entrenar la economía de recursos? ¿Las canciones pequeñas serán el legado que dejemos a las generaciones venideras, en caso de que no explote el mundo antes? ¿Derribaremos la figura del héroe a fuerza de canciones pequeñas?

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I wash last night's dishes, my right hand grabs the yellow ala detergent, the left hand holds the sponge, below in the sink, the plates await for me while a melody plays in the background:

What can I give that is all for you? My heart's no good 'cause it's split in two What can I give that is all for you? These arms are all I have

And, to be honest, I can't stop thinking about it since a couple of weeks ago. These arms are all I have, from love to work, this phrase can be used for anything. Because we may kiss, touch, escort and share moments with a lot of people but, to give our arms? Is not that easy, baby. And I'm not only speaking about romantic love, because, as I've said before, If I think about it related to work, the phrase 'these arms are all I have' triggers me a bunch of ideas that this document's characters would never be enough to elaborate.

Last February, while I was working in a hostel, I met one of my current best friends and one of the first thigs that she told me was that she's not that kind of person who likes to hug people here and there. Some days ago (we're already in July) she came to my room just to hug me: “It's been a long time since we last hug each other, boluda” and she left. This is what I'm talking about, My heart is no good 'cause it's split in two, so these arms are really all I have.

I listen again to the song in a never-ending loop. It's half past six and the kitchen is now spotless after – with my arms – I've scrubbed for a while. How I like that this song has just a few verses, that the information is super condensed. I just need to walk and listen, just to stay focused in these two actions. The syntesis helps me not to get distracted. “But I'll hold you like I do love you” and I thought of two possible Spanish translations: 'Pero te voy a sostener tanto como lo que te amo' is the first one, and I've made another one that I like better, that's not exactly what the song really says, but, who cares? This is my blog. I really want the song to say this: 'Pero te voy a sostener como si de verdad te amara'*, because another thing that came to my mind was that time that I went on a date with that tinder guy who told me everything about his life and I told him everything about mine, and at 2 a.m. In the corner of Bustillo and Furman avenue we said goodbye with a hug, with that kind of hug in which you let your body weight to the other person, and the other person do the same, so you both reach a sort of body balance. And I don't really love this guy – in fact, I've never seen him again – but that night I held him as if I truly loved him.

I'm still thinking about the song's architecture, and this is not a particular kind of objective analysis, just my taste: The lack of elements thrills me. If the song had been played by a grand band, the message wouldn't have been that powerful. Those who really know me already know that I'm a big fan of guitar-and-voice- songs (my brother vouch for that) and I can only think of a strainer: once that the information was freed, it's necesary to strain and keep the solid part. The strainer here was clearly precised and precious: The song is a kick in the chest that we are thanked for.

Coming to a new provice alone and starting from scratch without a house or friends was a risk taken just to build with the few things that one's got a thrilling plan. My heart is no good 'cause it's split in two. Bit by bit,  I've started to open my arms, to give them, and to recieve other people's arms. The follow-up of the heroic “quién dijo que todo esta perdido? Yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón” **** What happens when that heart is split in two? When that heart is now useless? Here you have my arms, and I'll hold you like I do love you, as if I really love you, even though you're my best friend or a random tinder guy that I've just met.

Songs: Arms – the paper kites (2018) – Yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón – Fito Páez (1985)

***But I'll hold you as if I truly love you

****Who said that everything's lost? I've came here to offer you my heart. Fito Paez's song is much more heroic than The paper kites' song, that's why it goes beyond generations. Somehow it's difficult for me to empathise with such a big deal. “Y hablo de países y de esperanzas / hablo por la vida, hablo por la nada /hablo por cambiar esta, nuestra casa“* now I think that I don't have enough years lived to understand this song. Maybe that's what we -new generations- will contribute to classic's repertoire: non-heroic songs. Are tiredness, frustration and the constant -and clearly failed- attempt to reach those big ideals training us in saving resources? Will little songs be the legacy that we are leaving to coming generations, if the world do not explode before? Will we tear down the hero's figure by dint of little songs?

[minijenn]

Universe Falls turns 5 years old this week

I was 19 when I started it and still in college, in the throes of depression bc I hated college and wanted out even during the start of my sophomore year. I was homesick and had only a handful of friends bc I was shy as fuck back then and terrified of rejection (and had gone from a small pond back in high school where I was fairly popular to being an absolute nobody in college). I really, really fucking hated it during my freshman year and in particular and begged my dad to let me come home and go to college there instead of thousands of miles away. But for better or worse he made me stick it out even though I was absolutely miserable. But if there was anything that got me through that horrible freshman year it was my discovery of two shows: 

Steven Universe and Gravity Falls

I binged SU first, having seen it when it first aired back in 2013 but then got back on the bandwagon for it around the time its first season ended, which was when I became a devout fan. GF was something I discovered through tumblr, I watched it not long after Not What He Seems premiered and fell in love hard and fast. I would spend hours watching and rewatching these episodes, reading fics and fan theories, speculating on what was going to happen next. Never before in my life had I ever discovered two shows that brought be so much joy and comfort until these two came into my life. I loved these characters, felt like they were the friends I knew I was lacking even though they were fictional. But they felt real, they felt alive to me. 

So fast forward to August/September 2015. I had just started my sophomore year and so far wasn’t having any better of a time than I had when I was a freshman. I still clung onto GF and SU as new, very exciting episodes were airing for both (that was the month we got the Last Mabelcorn and Catch and Release, for reference’s sake). And then, one night, while I was falling asleep in my cramp dorm room I shared with a roommate I couldn’t stand, the thought occurred to me: 

What if you brought these two things you loved so much... together?

It was a random thought, almost insignificant, but in the days that followed, I just couldn’t shake it. And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to see these characters interact, the more I wanted to see their plots intertwine, the more I knew I was the one who had to write this since GF and SU crossovers were pretty scarce back then (unlike they are now in the new wave of SUF and GF crossovers that I don’t much care for). 

I was in the midst of a writing funk at the time, my ongoing Zelda fics all on hitaus while I began a new year at college. I had more or less lost passion for most of them, with the majority of them except my HW fic receiving low numbers of reviews and feedback (back then I didn’t really know how to promote my fics like I do now). Even so, I started planning on this new project, but not without a bit of hesitation since I’d never really worked with GF or SU characters before. But I began plotting out a chapter list (the original UF chapter list has been lost to the ages, I wrote it in an old homework planner during class), and I had decided that I wanted to try my hand at making this thing a comic. A hand drawn comic. And given that my drawing abilities were... subpar at best, yeaaaaah it wasn’t the best idea....

Still, I got through two parts of UF’s “first chapter” and posted them on here (they’re still up somewhere if you wanna go back and cringe hardcore at my bad old art). Still, it had taken me a loooooong ass time to draw them and even more crazy was the fact that my laptop had crashed during that span of time, leaving me with only my shitty iPad to work with. Frustrated, I decided to forego the stupid comic altogether and write the damn thing as a fanfic, knowing I could get chapters out way faster than I ever would have by drawing it. 

So I wrote the prologue and posted it on September 29, 2015. And let’s just say right off the bat people were excited. I’d never seen so many reviews on the first chapter of one of my fics before and those numbers only started to go up the more I posted. I was jazzed up to work on this fic, pushed on by this encouragement as I decided to build my relatively reblogging-heavy blog up around it. Toward the end of the year, when I was nearing the end of arc 1, I decided to get myself a drawing tablet and download Sai so I could begin drawing my own art for the fic, leading to me first passes of character designs and UF’s old fugly cover lol

Still, I kept going with it into 2016, getting through both arcs 2 and 3 as the fic only began to grow more and more with more engagement from its fans. AUs were made, fanfics and fanarts of my fic were created, it was a glorious time to be alive, even going into 2017, 2018, 2019, and now. And all the while I kept at it, coming up with sequel plans, taking breaks every now and then to refresh and recoup, and to give the new pet project I started in 2019 (Keys to the Kingdom) some time to shine. But I’ve still never truly lost passion for UF. It’s something I tend to see through to completion, no matter how long it takes.

Fast forward again and now its 2020. I’m 24 years old and still going strong with it, having just completed RMD, an arc ender that I always hoped would be my magnum opus for this fic (and I’m so incredibly proud of how it turned out). Both GF and SU have ended, their stories both told and their endings inspiring me in so many different ways. And while those stories are over, I still strive to keep these characters, or perhaps, my own unique takes on them, living on to tell new stories, to have new adventures right alongside the canon ones. To keep their flames going in the same spirit and hopefully try to follow, even in some small way, in the footsteps of Rebecca Sugar and Alex Hirsch, two of my absolute heroes in the animation world. 

So UF turns 5 this week. It’s half a decade old and it’s nearing its 100th chapter. Its passed the 1 million word mark quite some time ago and I’m sure it’ll pass 2 million before its all said and done. It’s accumulated thousands of reviews, hundreds of followers/favorites, plenty of incredible fan interactions across the board. It’s 9th arc is about to begin, leading the way into 2 more before its all said and done. And from there it’ll only grow when I eventually write UF2 and UFF sometime way down the line. All things I could have never imagined doing as a lonely college sophomore back in 2015 when I was just starting this fun little experiment off. But as for where we are with it no, well, I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

So here we are in the future. And, well, for UF at least, I’d say it’s pretty bright. 

[jaerie]

Alpha Seeking Alpha (E, 4k, abo) Maybe it’s taboo, but Louis can’t stop thinking about a strong alpha holding him down and filling him with a knot. Louis may be alpha himself yet there’s a corner of the internet where he can get what he wants. He finally has the courage to do it.

And the Truth Shall Set You Free (Maybe…) (E, 18k, abo) Betism: A religion based on the belief that the beta gender has been chosen by God to protect and defend the purity and dignity of the human race by resisting and condemning the lustful ways and flawed biology of the alpha and omega

Harry is a Betist and Louis is an alpha who runs with a bad crowd. This is what happens when two worlds collide.

Captain Jack (E, 32k, abo) Louis has been searching for something and Harry is there to give it to him. Drugs, sex, disappointment, and the tangled web they’ve woven that keeps them trapped in the same cycle.

Everything Comes Back To You (10k, abo) Louis was only seven when he found himself in a hospital bed alone and scared, confused about what was happening. When another little boy climbed into his bed to comfort him, Louis never thought that they would be meeting again later in life. He also never imagined that their roles would be reversed the second time around.

Everything I need I get from you (M, 10k, abo) In a world where music and sound are just as vital to health as food, Harry is stuck in a town that thinks professional music is a scam and a relationship he never wanted. One chance event changes his life.

Going Live (E, 15k) Harry has only done this cam thing a handful of times when another camboy pops in to view his stream and unintentionally stirs things up a bit.

Or Louis and Harry are both camboys for some extra cash and meet each other in an unconventional way

I’m Sure It Happens To All Alphas (E, 4k, abo) “It’s okay. I’m sure it happens to all alphas at some point,” the omega beside him said which only embarrassed him even more.

The thing was that this was not how Louis expected their first time together to play out. Especially after he’d been fantasizing about it for so long.

But let’s jump back to the beginning.

or Louis has trouble popping a knot

Just Jump (E, 10k, abo) Finally, after years of suffering alone, the insurance plan at Harry’s new job covered omega heat services. As a grown omega adult, it finally felt like the right time to try it out. And, since taking an entire week of heat leave would really put him behind at work, using a service to shorten it seemed like a responsible decision. At least that’s how he rationalized it. He was nervous about his decision but it was too late. The doorbell rang.

“Hi!” The alpha said again and Harry took the hand he offered and shook it firmly. “I’m Louis from Omega Services. It’s nice to meet you.”

20 more fics below... 

Knot Safe For Work (E, 6k, abo) The world is magical, Louis is a wizard, Harry is a Were, there are spells for lube and supernatural kinks are definitely a thing.

Merry Birthday (10k, abo) Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson have unfortunate soulmarks branded onto their skin. The first words their soulmate will ever speak to them are two of the most common greetings, so common that they don’t even notice when it finally happens for real.

A Christmas soulmate AU.

OmegaVision (E, 24k, abo) Tomlin Networks Presents: OmegaVision starring Louis Tomlinson! The world’s first 24/7 reality channel available in over 150 countries worldwide following the life of the first male omega born in over a century. Follow Louis through his daily routine, the ups and downs of growing up or just leave him on for comfort. There are many reasons to tune in but, no matter what yours may be, there’s always a part of Louis that is just like you!

Or a Truman Show au that nobody asked for where Louis is Truman and Harry just wants to be his mate

Out of the Wild (E, 21.5k, abo) Louis has spent most of his life as a wolf in the wild, Harry has spent most of his life as a human in the city. Their worlds collide during the audition process for the hottest new singing competition. What happens next should have expected.

Out With The Old, In With The New (E, 7k, abo) Harry becomes the pack’s new alpha and Louis can’t wait to be bred

The Post-War BP (E, 18k, abo) The eight year war has left the country’s birthrate severely stunted with a lack of virile alphas left to bring it back up. To ensure the survival of the country, the government opens The Breeding Program where young omegas can apply to carry an alpha’s child in exchange for benefits. Louis’ family is struggling and the BP is one of the only ways to secure a roof over their heads. Harry was drafted at the age of eighteen and spent six years of his life defending a country he doesn’t recognize when he returns home. The government made the bed but it’s Harry that has to lie in it.

Restless Lane (E, 15k, abo) Louis had grown used to his boring life back in Mississippi as a stand-in father figure to his siblings. He never expected his childhood friend to show up on his lawn with the heat of summer or that he would remind Louis how much of himself he'd tucked away and neglected. He also never expected to find himself caught up in a tangled web of feelings or secrets that just might break him. Maybe he had never known Harry at all.

Save Some Luck For Me (E, 10.5k, abo) Louis arrives at the 2018 Winter Olympics to make history as the first omega to win a gold medal at the games. Harry, his oiled up crush from the Summer Olympics, just happens to show up to sabotage him, but maybe helps him win in the end.

Sisterwives (E, 33k, abo) This was it, the moment Louis had been waiting for his entire life. Giddy excitement bubbled up as he held hands and stared up at his soon-to-be alpha and husband and grinned. The ceremony was small and simple, but Louis didn’t mind. Fresh flowers pinned into his hair and a brand new outfit was all he needed to feel special in front of their few witnesses. It was just some members of his family and a few of the church elders in attendance as was customary for any marriage beyond the first wife within the faith.

First wives were the ones to have elaborate weddings with the whole community involved. An alpha’s first wedding was a celebration of an their coming of age, his first steps into fulfilling God’s prophecy. There were many glories for an omega that came with being a first wife but also many responsibilities. Louis had never aspired to be a first wife or even a second. He wasn’t experienced enough to be the leader of an alpha’s many wives and children and he didn’t think he’d be up to the task.

Louis was just fine in the position he was stepping into as the seventh.

Or Louis thinks he's getting everything he's ever dreamed of. Harry helps him find what makes him truly happy.

Stay Close, Hold Steady (E, 27k, abo) Found on the banks of the Mississippi as an toddler, Harry goes on a quest to find his biological family. Louis tries to be supportive, but maybe he just doesn’t want to be left behind.

Take What’s Mine (E, 15k, abo) Years after he is kidnapped, his life altered forever, Louis goes through the motions in a way that barely feels like living. Harry is a wild card, a forbidden fruit that Louis swore off of before he even had a chance to experience it. Maybe, in the end, Harry holds the key to being reborn. Louis just has to be open to the idea first.

Tell Me That You Want It Cause I Already Know (E, 3.8k, abo) Who knew all it would take was some good ole porn for Louis to discover his friend, Harry, is a wolf and for it to awaken an urge that would bring them together in a way he hadn’t anticipated.

Tiny Exaggeration (E, 4k, abo) Louis is frustrated that they've been dating for months and still haven't taken their relationship to the next level. Sometimes the foolishness of the past lingers in the present. Louis wants that to change.

Was It All Fake? (E, 4k, abo) Unmated omegas are second class citizens. Expected to provide for themselves yet paid so little that they often are overworked or forced to sell their bodies just to keep from starving. Louis’ luck turns around when he meets Harry, the rich heir to a fortune. After their bonding ceremony, things aren’t exactly what Louis expected.

Where Do We Go Now (E, 10k, abo) Louis goes off to college ready to start a fresh life away from the oppressive alphas of his pack. The odds aren’t in his favour when his new dorm mate turns out to be an alpha. Louis hates alphas.

The Wilds (E, 13k, abo) The creatures that Louis observed every day weren’t exactly human, but yet they were. Researchers had plucked some of them from their secluded island and transplanted them into an enclosure against their will like a bunch of zoo animals. Louis didn’t think they were. But he was only paid to do the yardwork, he didn’t have any say about the wilds that lived there. That was until an unfortunate accident changed his life forever and made one wild in particular his top priority.

Woke Up Feeling Knotty (E, 8k, abo) Beta Louis has a kink for knotting and the secret aesthetic porn blog he runs about it is more than proof. When he accidentally finds out his alpha best friend Harry is one of his biggest fans, he knows he has to come clean after everything that has already happened between them. Harry just might be willing to help him out anyway.

You Gotta Swim, Swim For Your Life

Swim When It Hurts - Part One (M, 12k, abo) Harry never thought he would find himself battling cancer. Louis never thought he would find himself so attached to one of his patients.

Swim When It Hurts - Part Two (E, 6k, abo) Harry never thought he would find himself battling cancer. Louis never thought he would find himself so attached to one of his patients. Neither one of them thought they would find love in such an unlikely place.

Swim When It Hurts - Part Three (E, 7k, abo) Harry never thought he would find himself battling cancer. Louis never thought he would find himself so attached to one of his patients. Neither one of them thought they would find love in such an unlikely place. Maybe things weren’t ideal, but finding strength in a new kind of normal together may be just what they need.

[harley-sunday]

The Draw (01)

Summary: The whirlwind starts at the 2018 ACE Comic Con in Phoenix but you’re not sure where it will end...

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x reader

Warnings: None so far, but this is a super slow burn. Bear with me.

Word count: 4521

AN: For those of you have been around a little longer - this story was originally published on my secondary blog Leijona Writes, but then taken down again, so you may have already read it :) Either way, please let me know what you think! Also, I mention a picture somewhere in the story, I’ve put a link in the text just to give you some reference as to what I’m talking about :) And last, I don’t have a taglist, but if you follow Harley Sunday x Sebastian Stan you should see any update I post.

Tante = aunt in Dutch amongst other languages. A little nod to my mother tongue and hopefully a way not to have to use the dreaded (Y/N).

Masterlist

December 2017

“Oh, am I the best aunt ever, or what?” you mutter to no one in particular as you click the ‘buy now’ button on the ACE Comic Con website, adding two Marvel VIP tickets to your online shopping cart. After you finish the transaction, you pick up your phone just as the email confirmation of your order pops up on your screen. Finding your brother’s name in your contact list you hit the call button, printing out the tickets while you wait for him to answer.

“Hey loser,”

“Not a loser when you hear where I’m taking Jake next month,” you answer, almost giddy with excitement.

“Didn’t I tell you to stop spoiling the kid?” He lets out an exasperated sigh and you can just see him pinch the bridge of his nose in the same way your Dad does whenever he doesn’t know whether he should be mad or grateful.

“He’s my nephew,” you argue, knowing very well that what you’ll say next will win your brother over, because it’s not the first time you’re having this argument, and you have pretty much perfected your persuasive powers over the years. “I know you guys don’t get to spend as much time with him as you’d like, what with Sarah working night shifts at the hospital and you running your own business, and I want you to know that it’s not about that, ok? But he’s as close as I’ll get to ever having a kid of my own, Nate. I’ve been single since God knows how long, I don’t have anyone else to spend my money on and I really like spending time with the kid. Will you please let me?”

“You need to breathe,” Nathan grumbles.

“And you need to ask me where I’m taking him,” you counter, smiling even though he can’t see you.

“Fine,” he sighs. “Where are you taking him, tante?”

“The ACE Comic Con in Phoenix!” you exclaim loudly. “We’re meeting Captain America, Falcon, and the Winter Soldier!”

“No shit,”

“Yeah shit,” you laugh. “I got tickets for a photo op with all three of them. It’s for Saturday afternoon, so I figured we’d fly out there Friday night and back on Sunday morning, make a weekend out of it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Nathan agrees, “I just have to check with Sarah, but I think it’s ok.”

“Alright, but don’t tell Jake, ok? I want it to be a surprise when I pick him up from school that Friday,”

“I hate to say it,” your brother mutters, “but you really are the best.”

“What was that?” you ask with a grin, before laughing out loud when you hear the sound that tells you your brother has ended the call.

January 2018

“Hi bud,” you smile as you see Jake running towards you. You hold out your arms, wanting to pick him up, but he just high fives you.

“What?” you feign surprise. “Can I not give my favourite nephew a kiss anymore?”

“I’m your only nephew,” he deadpans with so much attitude it’s hard to believe he’s only seven, “and we’re on the schoolyard, tante, everyone can see us.”

“Oh right,” you nod solemnly, “because it’s now a secret that I’m your aunt, I got it.” You throw him a wink for good measure before you take his hand and lead him to your car, “You ready for our weekend, bud?”

He nods, “Dad said I have to listen to you and hold your hand,”

“Hmm,” you hum, “that’s good advice, I suppose.” You unlock the car and open the door for him, taking his backpack as he climbs into the car seat, “Did Dad tell you where we’re going?”

He shakes his head, “No, just that we would go on a plane somewhere,”

“You excited about that?”

“Yeahah,” he says, nodding enthusiastically, “I’ve never been on a plane before.”

“You have, but you were very little, bud,” you say while struggling with his seat belt. “Mom and Dad took you to New York for Christmas when you were one, when Grandma and Grandpa were still living there.” You let out a groan, frustrated that you can’t get this to work. When Jake holds out his hands you hand the seat belt over to him and are shocked when he fastens it in just a matter of seconds.

“Well, then this is the first time I’ll go on a plane where I can remember it,” he answers and you can’t really argue with that.

“Do you want to know what we’re going to do?” You watch him nod and can’t help but smile, “We’re going to meet some of your favourite superheroes, bud.”

His eyes grow wide, “Really?”

You nod, “Yup, we’ve got a date with Captain America, Falcon, and the Winter Soldier tomorrow.”

His mouth drops, “No way!”

“Way,” you reply with a grin, “and we even get to take pictures with them.”

He holds his out his arms then and you lean into the car, letting him hug you, placing a kiss on his head when you pull back, “Let’s go.”

“Tante?”

You let out a quiet groan and open one eye, cursing silently when you see the clock on your phone reads 6:15, “Yeah bud?”

“Is it Saturday yet?”

You turn around and see him sitting up in his own bed next to yours, looking all too awake, and so you wonder if you’ll get away with it when you say, “It’s still night, buddy, try to go back to sleep, ok?”

“Ok,” he shrugs and lets himself fall back onto his pillow, a giggle escaping him when he bounces back a little.

You smile at him even though he can’t see you in the dark and wait for his quiet snores to fill the room again, your heart bursting with love for this amazing little person.

“What time is it now?” Jake asks for about the fifth time today, getting more and more nervous each time.

You look at your phone, “It’s 4.15, bud, so after you’ve been to the bathroom we’re going to get in line, ok?”

He nods, but then gets distracted by a cosplayer dressed up as the Hulk, his head turning as he lets out a quiet, “Wow,”

“Cool, huh?” you agree. You point your thumb at his chest while holding his hand, “Not as cool as your Captain America sweater though.”

He looks up at you, an uncertain look in his eyes, “You think Captain America will like it?”

“Definitely,” you nod. You reach the bathrooms then and agree to wait for him outside, after he argues that he is seven-and-nine-months and knows how this works, thank you very much.

“I even washed my hands,” you hear behind you when Jake comes out, looking extremely pleased with himself.

“I’m sure Captain America will appreciate that, bud,” you smile and take his hand again, leading him towards the line of the photo booth. Your slot is at 4.45, so you are a little early, but the girl waves you over anyway. You hand her your tickets and she scans them, handing them back to you with a sad smile.

“Chris Evans had to call in sick,” she explains, “so it’s just Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan, I’m afraid.”

“Oh,” you reply, feeling your heart drop a little, knowing how much Jake was looking forward to meeting Captain America.

“If you could just wait over there,” she nods to her right, “and then we’ll call you in with the rest of the 4.45 group, ok?”

You nod and gently pull Jake with you, mentally preparing yourself to give him the news that his favourite superhero won’t be able to make it. But then he sees someone dressed up as Superman and before you know he’s explaining all of Superman’s powers to you with so much enthusiasm that you don’t have the heart to interrupt him, and so by the time you get called into the waiting area you’ve forgotten what you were supposed to tell him.

You’re first in line in the waiting area, six teenage girls behind you, all giggling non-stop, excited to meet their celebrity crushes no doubt. The waiting area really is just a roped off area next to the little podium where the pictures are being taken and you watch as the last two fans of the previous group exit the stage, when Jake tugs on your hand. You look down at him and see a confused look on his face, “What’s wrong, bud?”

“Where’s Captain America?” he asks, his eyes scanning the stage.

You silently curse yourself as you squat down, making him look at you, “Captain America couldn’t make it today,” you see his bottom lip start to tremble and your heart drops some more, “I’m sorry, Jake.”

Tears are falling then, big fat tears, and of course it’s then the girl calls your name. You look up at her and shake your head, “I’m going to need a minute,” you gesture to the girls behind you, “can’t they go first?”

The girl nods and you’re happy she’s willing to help out. You scoop Jake up in your arms, and step aside. You let him cry for a while, because you know how much he was looking forward to this, rubbing his back to help calm him down. When the second group of girls make their way on stage you whisper a quiet, “Hey, bud,” to get his attention.

He pulls back a little and looks at you, tears streaking his face. You try to smile at him but fail and so you set him down, sitting down on your knees so you’re at eye level with him, “I know this is not how we planned things, but Falcon and the Winter Soldier are still here, ok? We should at least go say hi to them.”

“Ma’am?”

You look up to find the waiting area empty, the girl with the clipboard nodding her head towards the stage. You send her an apologetic smile, “Just a second, please?”

“But I’m wearing my Captain America sweater,” Jake mumbles, letting his head drop, plucking at the fabric.

“I know, bud,” you ruffle his hair, not really knowing what else to say. It’s then you see someone approaching you from the corner of your eye and you let out a small gasp when you see Sebastian Stan coming your way. You only know him as the Winter Soldier, so you’re surprised to see him in a casual combo of jeans, sneakers, and a brown leather jacket, but it suits him.

Jake’s eyes grow wide once he has followed your gaze and sees who’s there.

“Hello, Captain,” Sebastian smiles, saluting Jake, “Falcon and I were wondering if you could help us out?”

Jake just looks at him in complete awe, unable to say anything.

“You see, we were supposed to take pictures with Captain America today, but he had somewhere else to be,” he lowers his voice, “he said something about a super secret mission, so don’t tell anyone ok?”

Jake nods, mouth still agape.

“So, uh, we wanted to ask if you maybe wanted to take a picture with us,” he gestures at Jake’s sweater, “since you’re already in uniform, Captain.”

Jake moves his eyes to you, a questioning look in his eyes.

You smile at him and shrug, “What do you say, bud?”

He nods slowly, “Ok,”

You let out a sigh of relief and watch as Jake takes Sebastian’s outstretched hand, walking on stage with him. You stand up, smiling when you see the scene unfold in front of you.

Anthony bumps fists with Jake when he gets on stage, “Good to see you, Cap,”

Jake giggles at all the attention, smiling widely now, his tears drying quickly.

Sebastian asks him what he wants to do for the first of the three pictures they get to take and Jake knits his eyebrows together for a moment, his nose scrunching in the way both Nathan and you do as well when you’re thinking about something hard. He looks up at Sebastian then, “I wanna do the tough guy pose, you know, like this,”

You let out a laugh when he crosses his arms in front of his chest and sticks his chin out, trying to look tough, but Sebastian and Anthony follow suit tough and the photographer take a couple of pictures before they’re onto the next pose. You hear Anthony suggesting something about doing a salute for their next picture and then they do, Jake standing proudly in the middle.

For the last picture you see Sebastian give the photographer a sign right before he picks Jake up from behind, holding him against his chest as Anthony start tickling him. Jake’s laughing for real now, his head falling back as he lets out one of his rare, roaring laughs and it’s then the photographer takes the picture.

You can’t help but smile as you watch Sebastian put Jake back down. Anthony gives him another fistbump before excusing himself to go to one the panels, waving at you when he exits the stage. You nod at him, hoping it will convey your thanks.

Jake bounces towards you then, but stays on the stage, his cheeks red from all the excitement, “Did you see that, tante?”

“Yeahah,” you beam back, your excitement matching his. “Did you have fun?”

He nods enthusiastically.

You look up then, seeing Sebastian coming towards you, “Oh, listen, thank you so much! You really-”

“I was just wondering if you wanted to get a picture as well,” Sebastian asks with a smile.

“Oh,” you shake your head in confusion, “Isn’t the next group waiting for their pictures, though?” but it’s then you realize that there’s no one in the waiting area but you.

“You were the last group of the day,” Sebastian explains, “and I don’t have anywhere else to be, so I’m up for it.”

“Yeah!” Jake cheers, jumping up and down in excitement, “Can I tell you what to do, please?”

“Ok,” you reply with a smile, taking Jake’s outstretched hand as he leads you on stage. You can’t help but smile at his confidence now that he’s feeling more at ease. You drop your purse in the corner and stand next to Sebastian, looking at Jake who’s standing in front of you, “Tell us, bud.”

Jake’s scrunching his nose again before his face lights up, “I want you to look scared.”

“Scared?” you echo, unsure why he thinks it’s a good idea.

“Yeah,” Jake nods, offering no further explanation.

You look at Sebastian who simply shrugs so you agree, “Ok.”

Facing the photographer you widen your eyes, as though you’re seeing something scary across the room. Staring straight ahead you can’t really see what Sebastian’s doing but you hear Jake giggle right when you feel someone standing behind you. You hear the photo being taken and turn around to find Sebastian half hidden behind you and you can’t help but laugh.

Once he’s standing beside you again Sebastian looks at you, a mischievous look in his eyes, one eyebrow raised, “Alright, what’s next?” He must see the confusion on your face because he’s quick to add, “You get three pictures, just like everybody else.”

“Oh, ok,” you smile before you look at Jake for more ideas, but you find him talking to the photographer about why Thor is better than Loki, so you try to think of something when an old picture of Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz comes to mind. You take your phone out of your back pocket and hold up one finger, “Hold on,”

You show him the picture once it comes up on Google and he grins, “Perfect.”

He gets the attention of the photographer and takes your hand in his, looking at the picture again before he mimics Sophia’s pose while you take on Bethany’s after you’ve put your phone away.

Jake’s laughing at you when the picture is being taken and you can’t help but laugh either. It’s time for your last picture then, and when Sebastian suggests to get Jake on stage as well, you can’t help but agree so you motion for him to join you.

You watch as Jakes climbs on stage and stands in between you two. He looks up at you, “We should do one for your wall, tante.”

You nod appreciatively, “Good thinking, bud.” You turn to Sebastian to explain, “It started as a joke back when my brother and I were still kids, because well, we liked to screw up as many family photos as we could, but now I have this whole wall full of pictures where everyone’s looking away from the camera,”

Sebastian chuckles, “I wish I could see that, it sounds awesome.”

“It is,” Jake beams, “I’m in there too! Eight times!”

“Wow,” Sebastian nods, giving him a high five, “way to go, Cap.” He looks at the photographer who lets him know he’s ready, “Alright, let’s do this.”

You see Sebastian looking up ever so slightly, as if he’s seeing a bird fly by, so you decide to look just to the right of the camera, a confused look on your face as if you don’t know where you are, while Jake turns around, his back to the photographer and you bite your lip to keep from laughing because the kid is a genius.

The photographer holds up his thumb, “We’re done,” and tells you they’ll email the pictures to you next week.

You let out a laugh then, patting Jake on his back, “Good move, bud.” Turning towards Sebastian you smile, “Thank you so much for this,” you nod towards Jake, “you made his day.”

Sebastian shrugs, “It was the least I could do,”

Jake leans into you and you wrap your arm around his shoulders, “We have to go, bud,”

He nods and looks up to Sebastian, “I think you’re my favourite superhero now,”

“Better not let Captain America hear that, buddy,” Sebastian chuckles and gives Jake another salute, “Thank you for helping us out, Captain,”

You take Jake’s hand and grab your purse as you walk off the stage, but not before you throw Sebastian one last look and mouth a quiet, “Thank you.”

“You ok, bud?” you ask, taking a sip of your drink. You watch as Jake’s playing with his food, having only eaten a little of the hamburger and fries you got him. You’re back at the hotel after taking a cab back from the convention, convincing Jake to order room service instead of going into town to eat because honestly, what’s better than room service?

He nods slowly, “Just thinking,”

“Hmm,” you hum, “Whatcha thinking about?”

He lets out a sigh, “I don’t think the kids at school will believe me when I tell them what happened today, they’ll probably just bully me again,”

Something pulls on your heart the second you hear him talk about bullying, “What do you mean, bud?”

Jake continues to stare at his plate, “When I wore my Captain America sweater to school they teased me because they don’t like him.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“The boys in my class,” Jake explains, “They say he’s not a real superhero.”

“Well, they obviously don’t know what they’re talking about,” you try.

Jake shrugs, “They told me it was a stupid sweater and that they didn’t want to be my friends anymore.”

“Oh Jake,” you sigh, feeling yourself getting angry at these little brats.

“It’s ok now,” Jake continues, “they haven’t teased me for a while now. I think we’re friends again.”

Not knowing what to say you keep quiet, studying him as he takes a sip of his drink. You bite your lip, “Do Mom and Dad know about this?”

He nods.

You shake your head, now getting mad at your brother for not telling you this. But then you realize it’s not helping Jake in anyway, so instead you get up and sit down next to him, pulling him into your side, “Well bud, I think everyone’s going to be jealous of you when you show them the pictures.”

“You think?” he asks, looking up at you expectantly.

“Oh yeah,” you say, trying to sound confident, “I mean, Falcon and the Winter Soldier? They can’t argue with that, right?”

“Did you say ‘thank you’ to tante already?” Sarah asks just as you’re grabbing your coat, ready to head home after dropping Jake off.

He shakes his head and rushes towards you, throwing his arms around you waist, mumbling a quiet, “Thank you,” into your stomach.

You ruffle his hair, “You’re welcome, bud.” You look up at Sarah, “I’ll forward you those pictures once they send them to me, ok?”

She nods and gives you a hug, “Drive safe,”

“I will,” you put on your coat and take your car keys out of your pocket, “Tell my idiot brother hi from me once he gets home, ok? And then whack him in the head for working on a Sunday.”

Sarah chuckles, “Will do.”

You kick your shoes off the minute you come home from work that Tuesday, already over this week even though there’s still three days left. You head straight for the fridge, taking out the bottle of wine you put in there last night, and pour yourself a glass. Hearing your phone chime, you take it out of your back pocket as you sit down on the couch. There’s a new email alert and you smile when you see that they’ve sent you the pictures from last weekend.

Opening the attachments your smile grows wider when you see Jake posing with Falcon and the Winter Soldier, letting out a giggle when you come to the pictures of Sebastian and you, because the picture you tried to replicate has turned out to be even better than the original. The last picture is the one of Jake, Sebastian and you and it’s amazing and definitely going up on your wall.

You forward the email to Sarah, adding a smiley for good measure.

You’re about to get started on dinner when your phone rings, Sarah’s number flashing on your screen, “Hi,”

“Tante?”

“Hi Jake,” you smile, “Did you see the pictures?”

“Yeah, Mom showed them to me,” he replies, “I’m going to take them to school tomorrow,”

“You should,” you agree, “Tell everyone you got to step in for Captain America.”

“Yeah,” Jake says. You hear Sarah say something in the background before Jake ends the call with, “Mom says dinner is ready, bye!”

“Bye, bud,” you say but the line is already cut off.

When you call your brother later that week you’re greeted with an all too familiar, “Hey, loser.”

“You’re the loser,” you counter almost automatically, but then you remember why you’re calling and you add to the sentiment, “You really are, Nate.”

“Why?” your brother exclaims. “What did I do now?”

“Why didn’t you tell me Jake got bullied at school?”

“It was one time,” Nathan explains, “it wasn’t a big deal.”

“It was to Jake,” you respond, “he told me about it Saturday.”

“Well, I can assure you he’s over it,’’ Nathan says, and you can almost hear him smile, “he took those pictures with him on Wednesday and all the kids went crazy. It’s like they think he’s part of the Avengers or something.”

You let out a sigh of relief, “Oh good, I was hoping that would happen.”

“Yeah, no it’s fine,” your brother assures you, “Listen, I have to go, but I guess I’ll see you at the parents next weekend?”

“Ugh yes,” you say, thinking about upcoming family dinner, celebrating aunt Carol’s seventy-fifth birthday.

“I have a feeling Jake might be coming down with the flu by then,” Nathan chuckles.

“Don’t you dare bailing on me, loser,” you shout, but by then he has already ended the call.

You’re quietly humming along with the radio as you drive back home from your parents.

As it turned dinner was manageable, aunt Carol enjoying the wine your Dad kept pouring her, which in turn kept her from making her usual crude remarks about your non-existent love life.

You spent some time talking to Jake, who assured you everything at school was fine, and that the other kids were nice to him. He seemed so much more confident than a couple of weeks ago and when you asked him about it he told you it was because he was friends with the Winter Soldier now.

As your mind wanders back to the Comic Con you attended with Jake an idea starts to form in your mind and when you get home you open your laptop, opening your email program and google, looking up ways to get your message across. You find an email address that belongs to the agency he’s signed to and you know it’s a long shot, but it’s all you have, so you sit down and start typing, the words flowing out effortlessly:

Dear Sebastian,

I’m not sure this email will ever get to you, but I just wanted to let you know that I now consider you a real-life superhero.

My nephew Jake and I met you a couple of weeks ago, at the ACE Comic Con in Phoenix. You must have met a lot of people that day, so I doubt that you remember us, but just before we got to take our picture with you Jake was upset because Captain America wasn’t there. You came up to us and comforted him and asked him if he wanted to help you and Falcon out by taking a picture with you guys, making him believe you needed his help instead of it being the other way around. The pictures turned out great by the way!

Well, he took those pictures to school with him later that week and the kids that bullied him for liking Captain America before (God, kids can be cruel, can’t they?), now think he’s a part of the Avengers and all want to be his friends now.

Jake has gained so much confidence from meeting you, and all I can do is say thank you for taking the time for us that day. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the pictures that were taken that day, but I’ve included the last one we took together with you.

Thank you once again!

(Y/N)

You hit ‘send’ before you can change your mind and lean back in your chair, not sure what to make of the fluttering sensation in your stomach.

April 2018

You’re at work, scouring the web for a birthday present for Jake, panicking just a little because his birthday is next week and you’ve yet to find anything, when your phone chimes, signalling that you have new email.   

Your eyes widen in shock when you see the sender’s name.

Sebastian S.

[richincolor]

Crystal’s Favorites of 2018

This year was a busy one. I read more than fifty of the books we've reviewed or highlighted on the blog, so it took some time to narrow down my list of favorites. Here are a few of the books I enjoyed this year in no particular order.

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo HarperTeen  [Audrey's review]

A young girl in Harlem discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world. Debut novel of renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo.

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.

So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.

Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram Dial Books [Author interview]

Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He’s a Fractional Persian–half, his mom’s side–and his first-ever trip to Iran is about to change his life.

Darius has never really fit in at home in Portland, and he just knows things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn’t exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. Sohrab introduces Darius to all of his favorite things–mint syrup and the soccer field and a secret rooftop overlooking the city’s skyline. He gets Darius an Iranian National Football Team jersey that makes him feel like a True Persian for the first time. And he understands that sometimes, friends don’t have to talk. Sohrab calls him Darioush–the original Persian version of his name–and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he’s Darioush to Sohrab.

By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Adib Khorram’s brilliant debut is for anyone who’s ever felt not good enough–then met a friend who makes them feel so much better than okay.

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan Little, Brown & Company [My review]

Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird.

Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that on the same day she kissed her best friend and longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life.

Alternating between real and magic, past and present, friendship and romance, hope and despair, The Astonishing Color of After is a novel about finding oneself through family history, art, grief, and love.

The Return by Zetta Elliott Rosetta Press [Author Spotlight]

After a devastating injury, seventeen-year-old Hakeem Diallo is leaving basketball and his life in Brooklyn behind to spend the summer with his grandmother in Senegal. Three years have passed since the earthquake of 2011 when Keem witnessed his girlfriend’s apparent suicide in the deep. Weeks later he received a mysterious text that led him to believe Nyla might still be alive, but her silence over the years has led Keem to believe that the girl he once loved is gone.

Keem arrives in Dakar determined to put the past behind him, but then Nyla unexpectedly returns and draws him back into her dangerous world. Once trained by The League, Nyla is now a fugitive with a mission to expose their corruption. As Nyla grows more and more powerful, she inspires both fear and awe in others. Keem cannot deny his love for her and yet he fears that Nyla has become a demon. When The League finally hunts Nyla down, Keem’s loyalty is tested. Is he willing to give his life for a girl who is no longer human?

Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith Candlewick Press [My review] [Author interview]

When Louise Wolfe’s first real boyfriend mocks and disrespects Native people in front of her, she breaks things off immediately and dumps him.

It’s her senior year, anyway, and she’d rather spend her time on her family and friends and working on the school newspaper.

The editors pair her up with Joey Kairouz, the ambitious new photojournalist, and in no time the paper’s staff find themselves with a major story to cover: the school musical director’s inclusive approach to casting “The Wizard of Oz” has been provoking backlash in their mostly white, middle-class Kansas town.

From the newly formed “Parents Against Revisionist Theater” to anonymous threats, long-held prejudices are being laid bare and hostilities are spreading against teachers, parents, and students—especially the cast members at the center of the controversy, including Lou’s little brother, who’s playing the Tin Man.

As tensions heighten at school, so does a romance between Lou and Joey—but as she’s learned, “dating while Native” can be difficult. In trying to protect her own heart, will Lou break Joey’s?

Down and Across: A Novel by Arvin Ahmadi Viking Books for Young Readers [My review]

Scott Ferdowsi has a track record of quitting. Writing the Great American Novel? Three chapters. His summer internship? One week. His best friends know exactly what they want to do with the rest of their lives, but Scott can hardly commit to a breakfast cereal, let alone a passion.

With college applications looming, Scott’s parents pressure him to get serious and settle on a career path like engineering or medicine. Desperate for help, he sneaks off to Washington, DC, to seek guidance from a famous professor who specializes in grit, the psychology of success.

He never expects an adventure to unfold out of what was supposed to be a one-day visit. But that’s what Scott gets when he meets Fiora Buchanan, a ballsy college student whose life ambition is to write crossword puzzles. When the bicycle she lends him gets Scott into a high-speed chase, he knows he’s in for the ride of his life. Soon, Scott finds himself sneaking into bars, attempting to pick up girls at the National Zoo, and even giving the crossword thing a try–all while opening his eyes to fundamental truths about who he is and who he wants to be.

[listoriented]

Burnout: Paradise

1. Burnout. Spinning wheels without moving. Antipodean slang. The smell of burned rubber.

The blank word document is another rounded bend. A few cars here and there loaded in. Driving these virtual streets is seeing ideas, tangents, discourse, thoughts spill off. In front is always nothingness. An inability to grasp on to anything coherent. Yes this is synecdoche, yes this is consumerism, a shiny shell of petromodernity – an actual critical theory term that I now take seriously - yes this is me, my life, my phd in miniature, the imperfect totalising open-world game, or yes this is a microcosm of the entirety of trying to play through the letter “B” of my steam library, stop-start, hopeful then despairing, takes longer than it should, yes this game is a magnum opus and I wish so hard to fill my lungs and release until my fingers are pinching some inflated balloon perfectly full of a graspable idea, or yes this game is fundamentally empty, a comment on a comment; at the bottom of all searches for purpose we find searches for purpose, etc. 

So I start and I start and I start again. I drive I drive I drive. Event after event ticks down, my license goes from learner to D to B to A and then I hit my goal, “Burnout license”, and still I don’t know what I’ll write. Something about driving, in general; driving as notionally relaxing, driving while thinking about other things. How do people write? Write things? My PhD is in pieces on the floor and in the computer and in my head. I drive around Paradise City and terrible emo from the mid-noughties plays, interspersed with long bouts of classical. Days pass, and in the game the day turns into night and back again, and I adjust the clock to make this happen slower, and the weather changes in Paradise City, a little – cycles of rain and cloud and sun - and here in Melbourne the weather changes too. It was the tail end of summer when I started, and we’ve been through the surprising highs and lows of autumn, now settling into winter, doing it all again. There are no roads leading in or out of Paradise City, and it’s a long drive back from the hills.

2.      Burnout. A series of arcade-style racers made for various platforms by Criterion Games [official site] between 2001 and 2011.

It’s a little uncanny, this pocket of 2008. It just looks real good to my rusty, unfussy eyes, like in visual terms it hasn’t aged in ways other games from that year age (though my friend James vehemently disagreed). It does the trick. It does lots of tricks. And it seems rare too, to say of a 2008 game that it’s a masterpiece, that it’s the best of its class, though of Paradise this is surely true, if all reports are to be believed with regards to all other open-world arcade driving games that have come since, including everything else made by Criterion.

Any doubts about its age are firmly put to bed by the soundtrack, though, which despite prominently featuring that Guns N’ Roses song from 1987 just screams mid-2000s at me, abundant “rock” guitars, masc whine and all, very of its time, salvaged by one timeless Avril Lavigne banger, a chunk of classical, and (to a certain extent) personal nostalgia for a time when this sort of soundtrack just seemed vaguely synonymous with “driving game”. There’s also the dated blemish of inane unmutable advice-slider DJ A(u)tomica, who at least has the good grace to (somehow) avoid repeating himself, even after seventeen hours of driving, at a clip of one quip every few minutes or so. There’s also the very 2008 nod to renewable energy via Paradise’s wind farm, harking back to that post- An Inconvenient Truth moment of progressive euphoria when we really all believed we could build towards a sustainable future that would also accommodate our oily desires, before another decade of resource-industry funded filibustering hadn’t proven this, again, impossible.

And yet Paradise stands up in ways that surpass the non-ironic soundtrack of fragile masculinity and the very 00’s DJ Atomica, despite or because of the people-less world, the flat and drab urban interior, the hardly even tokenistic ways of engaging with the city as function rather than form. I particularly like how B:P has not even the faintest hint of story, how even in terms of progression it purely becomes a game of exploration, winning events, checking boxes. It melds (excuse me for a second) form and function and manages not to get in the way of itself – the story is what the player does in the game, where the player goes. It’s kind of breathtaking, rare for any game before or since. (Hopefully it’s clear that I’m not advocating for the dissolution of narrative in games, only that the lack of narrative pretence here is very suited to this particular game, and very preferable to the kinds of irrelevant and bloated narratives that are thrown over e.g. other driving games).

Ah, 2008. It was just there! And yet so far. I played Burnout Paradise for a running total of seventeen hours over nearly three months. During this time, I also played forty-two hours of Tetris99. Everything in its place. Criterion recently announced they’ll shut down the Burnout Paradise’s online servers in August, though Paradise lives on in Remastered (2018) glory, Origin only. 

3. Burnout. The act of refuelling the boost capacity of an engine by running out of boost.

Despite the time I’ve spent with it, the fact that I managed to complete its main in-game objective, and the running thoughts on time and place and representation of cultural norms, I feel I’m struggling to say much of definition about Paradise that fits easily into the scrapbook nature of this blog. Perhaps in some ways it's too close to life; a series of arbitrary checklists through which feeling happens (nebulously) around. I "liked" it but do not feel moved to thought, and I'm aware that that is the point – it’s a game that allows you to drive, endlessly, if you want to, think and do whatever. It won’t get in the way (barring DJ Automica butting in every couple of minutes – he literally cannot be switched off).

I do not drive much these days. Last year when Lauren and I moved to Canberra, we drove nearly 4000 kilometres across the country. The landscapes wound by, at the time fleetingly, but they piled on and left deep rivulets in my head, and though it was just five days and nothing really happened – we leant on the accelerator, stopped every hour, listened to music, stayed in nothing-motels quite literally hundreds of kms from anywhere else and ate forgettable takeaway - it feels immense, now. Driving is funny like that - you are never quite in a place, separated from it by machine noise and windows and infrastructure, the one activity you can do to facilitate thinking about something else. Still, impressions, motion, the sense of having moved, of having journeyed. Here in Australia, the fossil fuel lobby has won its third straight election in a row. Hope is eroding into nothing.

Probably my favourite hour or two in Paradise City was spent mucking around in the online section with Roy and James, trying to check off a few of the game's multiplayer challenges. These involved such serious exercises as trying to do barrel a series of barrel rolls, or try and land on top of each other, or smash into each in mid-air, or drive on top of a parking lot to jump a ramp onto a shopping centre. It was very good, if a little eerie and dystopic, strewn with outdated real-and-paid-for advertising billboards, branded vehicles, quaint echoes of paused time and uncanny dilapidation.

The mill of the game I could never quite settle on - I “liked” it, I think, but it wasn’t without problems. I found the single-player events to be mindlessly enjoyable, ploughing other cars into crash barriers, or effortlessly holding down "boost" to accelerate down a straight and into a finish line, celebratory cutaway shot ensuing. Sometimes I crashed into too many grey girders that my eyes hadn't picked out and got frustrated, or sometimes I missed a critical turnoff and got frustrated. Sometimes they just felt like chores, and it was certainly sometimes annoying to not be able to restart events that I had botched, and it took me ten hours to learn you could opt out of races, stunt runs etc just by letting the car idle for a few seconds. And knowing this probably would have saved me a lot of time in the early game, because like I said it’s a long way back from the hills, where like three out of eight events end up at, and committing to staying in a race which after a couple of botched turns and unseen barriers you’re definitely not going to win, whose distant finish line is going to land you a long way from the nearest event (once you finally get there) can feel pretty dire, really, though there was also part of me that admired how Burnout refused to let you jump around the map, forced you to drive, take your time, see the city, see the sights.

I did appreciate the cracky coloured collectms of Paradise City, how they brought the city to life, sort of, or gave it the impression of being a well designed and thought-through playground, though I never got too completionist about them, the core exercise of the whole thing. Both John Walker of RPS and Chris Donlan of Eurogamer have written about Paradise’s fluoro crash gates, the impulse to reinstall the game every year and knock them all down from scratch. Along the way to getting my “Burnout license” I unlocked 36 of the 75 vehicles, jumped 35 of the 50 super jumps, broke 79 of 120 neon red billboards, and smashed through 353 of 400 aforementioned glowing yellow crash barriers. The game puts me at 55% completed. No steam achievements (woulda been nice, perhaps, given that Burnout Paradise is fundamentally a collectmup; nothing but metres and percentages). I’ve driven a little over 1000 miles, supposedly, which is certainly more than I’ve IRL driven over the past few months.

4.  Burnout. noun Physical and emotional exhaustion; breakdown caused by overwork. Commonly associated with “crunch”, “the video game industry”.

But here there is also pure hesitation. Procrastination. The fear of moving on, even at the end of this little step of what has ballooned into an impossible project. I can see the next letter waiting there, a new chapter, a chance for renewal. The one disappearing behind us has drawn out so far, encompassed a few years and a fair bit of change, and now almost petered into nothing at the final gate. I want to hit the ground running but I'm not sure I'm ready, and in the meantime various other deadlines swirl around, make it difficult to see the clear path ahead that I crave. And so it is that the temptation has been there to keep driving the streets of Paradise, its anonymous suburbs and abstract goals, continue delaying the inevitable, or the nearly inevitable, or the not-inevitable-at-all of writing this post and moving on to the next chapter, because it turns out this is a project I once made a choice to begin, and could at one point choose to stop.

There are nagging questions, of course. Who blogs, anymore? Who reads blogs anymore? How does one find a blog they like and then continue to follow it for the span of its natural life? Does anyone use “bookmarks”? What’s an RSS feed? I'm not even sure, in a broader sense, that I know where to find the kinds of writing about games that I want to read at the moment, at least not reliably, outside of say the occasional check-through of Critical Distance or Unwinnable. I look at the slate of games coming out and find it hard to be excited by anything much, the hype and the saturation. It is bountiful until it is not. The guilt element of playing games – something inherited from childhood that I’ve never been entirely able to dissociate - has become more and more prominent. I've increasingly used games as a tool for procrastination and a coping mechanism, a distraction from various (work/study and other) anxieties. I've also been aware of myself doing this, and in turn the kinds of gaming experiences I've relied on have been more focused on short term, low-investment distraction (hence the sudden unyielding devotion to Tetris, which really was just filling the hole left by an earlier act of self-discipline AKA uninstalling Rocket League; more recently, as I’ve managed to put the Switch away for longer periods, I’ve turned back to another simple but deceptive time-filler in Mini Metro. Choose your poison, basically). For a while it seemed Burnout would not only fill this role but do it responsibly: it seemed great for dropping into in short bursts - win a race or two, unlock a new car maybe – without quite the same dangerously addictive pull for me as those other games. But then I heard the GnR song "Paradise City" one too many times (it's mandatory with startup), or got sick of the menu loading times, and it lost this specific part of its appeal.

And then there's the subjective nature of this particular Sisyphean project - the knowledge that here I am pushing a rock up a mountain of my own making, one that exists only for me, entirely built out of and defined by the games and bundles I chose and continue to choose to buy, the rules I chose to set. Life is short, this task is absurd, and at the moment it's not even a joke I feel particularly happy about sharing. Sometimes I get to play great games here, games I may never have gotten around to; at other times I am playing shit games for this blog, and in the process there are inevitably other things I'm not doing. One choice erases another. Increasingly it feels like an isolated pursuit - playing games in general, not just the writing and making of this here blog. It seems like I know fewer people who play games these days, between falling out of touch with friends, seeing lots of other old friends give up games in one way or another, and playing games less frequently with those who I still know. I’ve accidentally become something of a game hermit. For years I've loved the camaraderie and easy familiarity of social gaming experiences even when I haven't loved the games that conduct them - the feeling of being connected to people even in a transient, shallow, goal-oriented sense, but even these I'm not sure I believe in anymore, or I find myself less and less willing to invest in the "right" titles to facilitate it.

I’m into my thirties now, and maybe this is just a feeling of age, life, I dunno, priorities finally shifting to where people told me they should’ve years ago. One of my oldest friends is about to have a baby, though he more or less quit video games over a year ago now. I'm extremely happy for him. Two of my younger cousins just had children, several hours away by plane – my uncle, a new grandfather to two babies, makes posts on facebook claiming climate change is a socialist hoax, and I can’t help but think of the kind of world his grandchildren are going to inherit. I'm mulling over a missed deadline that's been a thorn in my brain now for months, the single-largest hitherto unsaid reason why this post has taken so long to dig its way to the surface. This month marks the five year anniversary of another cousin’s sudden/unexpected passing; he was five years older than me, and though I’ll never be able to make sense of it, I feel like I get that there’s something sort of vulnerable about this age, when the things you want don’t quite work out, or when you’re a bit aimless and stuck in your patterns and feel like things aren’t going to change. He was so kind and gentle, a beautiful soul and a terrible Zerg, and I miss him so much. And one year ago I drove from Canberra to Melbourne and slept on the floor of this house I now call home while I waited for a truck with rest of my stuff to arrive. I’m very aware of the calendar, of change and inertia, of patterns and decay, of newness sprouting underfoot, but I don’t know how games fit at the moment, or I’ve lost the thread of feeling like they’re actually important, or why, amongst all the noise.

Burnout: Paradise is at the start, in the middle, and right at the end of all these things. It's a great game, part of me feels, or wants to say I feel. Playful, irreverent, childishly violent, simultaneously full of stuff and empty of matter. I'm happy I've played it, happy I can say that I've played it, happy to understand on an experiential level most of what it offers, happy I'll be able to remember it later, nod in some hypothetical conversation where someone brings up Burnout: Paradise and say I know what they mean, yeah. I get it. When we were playing it online together briefly, a couple of months back now, Roy told me that Burnout Paradise is the only game he ever one hundred percented twice - once on 360, once on PC - and that it was almost three times, because the first time he was almost done with it, someone broke into his house and stole his Xbox and all his games, and that Paradise was the only game that he re-bought with the insurance money, so determined he was to tick every box the game left open to tick, even if it meant doing it all again.

But maybe – counterpoint - I don’t get it. I’m finding it harder and harder to make good sense of this kind of experience, or feel like this kind of thing is (in some arbitrary way) a net positive, or that it’s okay to keep glossing over the emulation of destruction that games of so many different kinds fundamentally rely on. Outside there is so much suffering, so much to be upset about, and I no longer feel like there is time enough to sink into mindless (rather than meaningful, perhaps?) distraction. Or I’m finding it harder to get beyond the thought that this is an extension of the distraction/avoidance behaviour that I realised might actually be a problem in my life.

“Burnout” is, you’ll know, here in the great mess of the year 2019, a buzz word, particularly in the games industry. Games company employees have perpetually been expected to work unsustainable hours out of some sort of devotion to the industry, creating a cycle of talent depletion and toxic work cultures. But as is often the case with games, it’s a tip-off of what happens elsewhere, across the board. The mass casualisation of careers across all industries, the gig economy, pressures caused by un- and under- employment, the dissipation of viable faith, social-media and political stresses: all of these are leading to burnout, everyone has burnout, we are inundated with burnout. There is something ripe about the words or the idea of Burnout: Paradise, the very conceptual juxtaposition that seems to be two sides of the same coin, that feels very reflective of this moment, what we are all experiencing versus what we were promised. But what does this have to do with Burnout: Paradise, the game in which you pretend drive fake person-less cars around a virtual city, have horrific, visceral crashes from which you immediately respawn and “beat” by achieving a long series of arbitrary victories, collecting all there is to collect? Something, nothing, I don’t know.

“Burnout” means a lot of things, and the meaning of “burnout” the game adopts isn’t the other ones I’d associate with cars – a burnt out engine, or the smell of burning rubber - but one that exists only for the series, so far as I can tell: getting to keep using your boost because you’ve been continually using your boost. Keep going at all cylinders or bust, basically – except not, because the consequences for interrupting the boost are slim even on the relative scale of things that can go right or wrong, in this game where there is never really all that much on the line for the player anyway.

Paradise. n. Heaven. A place to await judgement. An enclosed park. Eden.

In Paradise City the grass is trim; the girls (all humans actually) are non-existent, unless you happen to be riding a motorcycle, presumably because a motorcycle without a rider would look very weird.

In Paradise City the cars are peopleless and drive themselves, so maybe it is an early vision of the tech bro version of Paradise. Or maybe the cars are driven by people who can only exist on the outside of the world of Paradise City, looking in across the matrix. Or maybe in Paradise City the people are the cars. This is Cars, the movie, sans dialogue.

In Paradise City all the cars emulate brands and models that exist in "the real world" but are called by names that exist only in the Burnout franchise.

In Paradise City all the cars ostensibly run on petrol, which is infinite but unnecessary, because going through a petrol station merely refills the car's boost capacity, whatever that is, rather than imply that your car would stop running if you at some point failed to “fill up”. It's very important that you know, though, that the cars run on petrol, because otherwise it wouldn't be a realistic representation of cars. Even in Paradise.

In Paradise City cars exist and then don't exist.

In Paradise City a lot more cars suddenly exists if someone decides they want to flip their car over and see how much monetary damage they can cause.

In Paradise City cars crash and crumple in a hyper-realistic way, but it's okay because the cars have no drivers and anyway all cars are all miraculously fine again after a few moments.

In Paradise City the railway has been shut down to give cars more places to hang out. 

In Paradise City the whole city runs on wind energy, because it's important to care about the environment too, because you can have both, promises the radio, though seeing as there's nobody there in all of Paradise's buildings it's unclear, anyway, what such energy would actually be running.

onward to Caesar 3

[historicallyace]

What Do You Mean, It’s Been Over A Decade Of This Shit: my history as an aroace

So this piece is something a little different for this blog: rather than a sourced, detailed, fairly-academic-except-for-the-swearing article, this is my own, personal history as an aroace person (but don’t worry, I’ve kept the swearing). My hope is that this will both give you all some context for the stuff I write and the personal opinions I include, and potentially also serve as an example of what it looks like, for me, to be an aroace adult.

This is my entry for the July 2018 Carnival of Aces. Here’s a link that will take you to the explanation post by the host of this month’s carnival. When the carnival wraps up, I’ll post a link to the roundup of responses. I’ll also be adding that link to this post under the Read More, so watch that space.

Running The Numbers

Seems like a good place to start, right? I like numbers.

I first encountered the concept of asexuality at the tail end of 2010 when one of my favorite webcomic artists at the time first posted about demisexuality. I stuck my toes into the waters of coming out by first publicly identifying as grey-asexual in 2012, though I think I first stuck that information on my blog without posting about it in late 2011.

I knew a long time before that, however, that there was something about me that was different. I think that the first time I admitted to myself that I was probably Not Straight was in middle school - so, circa 2002. I was in high school, probably around 2005 when I started identifying as bisexual, operating under the theory that I found the girls around me to be about as aesthetically pleasing as the boys, so that had to mean I was attracted to both genders. (Yes, I know this is a Bad definition of bisexuality. Yes, I have learned better since then. But also yes, I was an incredibly unaware teenager.) I was a freshman in college in 2007 when I learned about pansexuality, and decided that that must be what I was, because I didn’t really care about the genders of the people I hypothetically dated.

This is all without going into my complicated history of “what the fuck is a gender”. That’s fuel for a different post.

So in short, I have been identifying as some variety of queer for more than half my life (and don’t even start: by any metric you care to put forth, I’ve earned my place here and my right to identify however I damned well please). In that time, I have Seen Some Shit, kids.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

I've talked about this before, on other posts, most notably the “could you all maybe stop with your vilifying of innocent language” allosexual post. But I see, functionally, no change between the climate I came out into six years ago and the current climate on Tumblr.

Which is to say this:

Far and away, the vast, vast majority of people I have met, interacted with, or seen in passing on Tumblr are lovely, supportive, willing to listen and take my experiences at face value, and generally decent human beings.

A vocal minority of people are the personification of the feeling of stepping on a Lego. They are acutely invested in the idea that my experiences are not queer enough to count - in fact, they’re so invested that they frequently don’t even care what those experiences are, and they’ll go to great lengths to invalidate absolutely everything regardless.

The problem is that this vocal minority, because of how loud they are and how invested they are in their arguments and their vitriol, are enough to actively impede progress. Because there can be no progress without the ability to massively fuck things up occasionally. Like, lets just cite one example: the concept of (allo)sexual privilege. It’s a concept that was being discussed and debated when I started learning about asexuality. By the time I came across the conversation, it was a pretty widely held opinion among people whose opinions I came to respect that it was a pretty shitty concept, that a privilege/disprivilege model really didn’t fit the allosexual/asexual dynamic, and that we could and should be talking about negative things that asexual people experience because of our asexuality without implying that being allosexual was a privileged identity, since the real position of privilege was (heteroromantic) heterosexuality.

Just to be blatantly clear: this means that we put that issue pretty much to bed somewhere around seven years ago.

And yet, you will still see people arguing today, in the year 2018, that aces are trying to say that we’re more oppressed than other sexualities and therefore that other orientations have more privilege than we do.

It’s frustrating. I spend a lot of time wondering where we might be as a community if we didn’t have to spend so much time reacting to nonsense in order to feel safe, if we could collectively give ourselves permission to grow and change and make mistakes and learn from them.

I think that the current climate on Tumblr is preventing the kind of growth that I saw back when I came out. We keep feeling that we have to react to these people, and it’s keeping us stuck in one place.

But We Can Keep Growing

(Or, alternately, this section could have been titled “I’m ending this post on a positive note because fuck it I want to have nice things”.)

Here’s the thing.

Yeah, I’ve seen some shit. And it hurts, particularly because I know, intellectually, that there are spaces that are free of this shit, but this is the space I have access to, and I just have to keep putting in the work to try to clean it up.

But I’ve seen some really good things in the past six years too, and I can’t end this post on a sour note. I refuse. I am cleaning out the cobwebs and the dust bunnies and the fucking Legos and building a better house for us all here, goddammit. I refuse to give up on what could be a beautiful thing, because the bones of this house are strong, and the foundation is deep, and we have been living in it all along.

So let’s talk about how mainstream LGBT+ orgs are getting better all the time at talking about asexual issues and providing the kind of support that aces need, and how much of that is because we’re putting in the work to say “this is what we need from you.”

Let’s talk about representation, and the visceral feeling of relief even when you don’t consume that particular piece of media when you discover that someone is talking about people like you.

Let’s talk about how an entire generation of ace people is learning how to stand up and say ‘no, you’re wrong and you can’t do this any more’ to bullies.

Let’s talk about solidarity, about aces seeing the arguments that have been used against us are just reflections and reworkings of those that hurt our siblings in other identities, and learning to stand together because that is how we’re strongest.

Let’s talk about finding family, finding community, and holding on to those things with all your might, and not letting go just because someone else said to.

Let’s all resolve, here and now, to stop having the same fight over and over again with people who don’t want to listen. It feels like we’ve been on pause for years, in this space, and it’s time to start moving again. There is growth happening out there. I think it’s time to bring it here again.

If you enjoyed reading this, you might enjoy reading some of the other pieces of writing from the July 2018 Carnival of Aces. Here’s a handy link to the round-up post!

[rainelot]

GCF in Saipan- A Rant as of August 2018 (Posted December)

(Out in December since I wanted to get a more objective view on things and to edit it slightly. This is just as a memory record anyways so)

When I made this blog, it was meant to be a blog to rant about anything Bangtan that interested me. However, I recently encountered one of the most frustrating, interesting, and baffling two days of my life and I needed to address the cause of this with a rant (that I doubt people will read). The cause: Jungkook’s GCF in Saipan.

WARNING: THIS IS ALL IN GOOD FUN. I claim no rights to what is true or not. Don’t take this too seriously please. Will have Koomin/Jikook references.

To start it off, I don’t like real people shipping. I don’t really care if others do it (as long as they remain sane and logical) but I personally didn’t enjoy doing it for one reason: I don’t know them personally, so it isn’t any of my business. I enjoyed their interactions with each other platonically, using what they gave us upfront as fuel, and whatever else that might be happening to purely up to them. For BTS, I never before cared much for shipping, and just enjoyed every interaction as it is.

Then I watched GCF in Saipan, the catalyst to my descent into a brief insanity. What I can say about Saipan is that it is a theorist haven, perhaps why I’ve become so interested now. By “theorist”, I mean NOT REAL, and my opinions should not be taken as fact. These are all just observations that I personally took from the GCFs.

Perhaps what I should say before going into Saipan specifics is that I watched Tokyo in my early days as a fan. I did not know the context of the song, I did not know Jungkook or Jimin well, so I didn’t think much of it. Of course, I acknowledged it was fairly romantic in setting, but I took it to be interpreted either platonically or romantically, and even now I don’t think too much of it. The video itself has a personal meaning to me: reciprocal love, any shape of it available, with little accents and layers that can be tilted and shifted for the viewer’s own interpretation (as all art). I don’t have too much to say about Tokyo itself, because of how straight forward it is. Saipan is the one that makes no sense if I tried to take it in upfront. I’m not very good at reading behaviors, hence my inability to see what others see as “moments”, but I have done some (very unprofessional) editing before and I absolutely love art analyzing, which the GCFs very clearly are to me.

For this, I will be isolating Saipan in a fairly tight bubble, with little unrelated topics. I won’t be including much outside Jungkook’s art (except in the skeptic area). Some previous GCF mentions/comparisons, some outside views strictly on the films as well will be referenced in the rant itself. Not going to include any deep reading into their overall relationship, mostly an analysis of the GCF.

I watched Saipan (at this point after being a fan for long enough to care) first thinking that something was off. Something wasn’t harmonious with each other. The second time I watched it, I realized the dissonance was between the film and the music. Together, it wasn’t coherent, which is different than all of his work so far. Tokyo, Osaka, even USA though being equally promo-related, they all had more to build upon meaning-wise, the perspectives matched within the film. Saipan’s song both in mood and in subject clashed with the film from beginning to end. Of course, all in my opinion.

Here is the song:

Now, before I go any further, I had an intensive discussion with a mutual on twitter, who is a multi-kpop non-BTS stan. She doesn’t keep up with Bangtan, but she likes some of their songs and is a casual listener. She is also somewhat experienced and knowledgeable in video editing and had very interesting input for the factor of “film sound”, the information from a document which she paraphrased. This was her input through the DMs:

“The Pacific Cinematheque has stated that there two types of sound in film, Diegetic and Non-Diegetic. Diegetic is the sound that we would also experience in real life. Non-Diegetic is any sound we don’t experience in real life like dramatic orchestrated songs or musical score or sound effects like the screeches in the shower scene Psycho.”

“So why do directors use sound? Well (and here it comes) it is to do any of the following 1. add mood 2. add atmosphere to a film. How? By adding these soundscapes that Accent or add another Layer of meaning to the film. The filmmaker wants the audience to perceive the scenes in a specific way, and sound/music leg scenes be seen in the specific way that the director intended. Silence in a film can represent something very important or a turning point. Music, specifically in film, has various uses, but most commonly it is used to “guide the emotional response of the audience”. Music is the clue in scenes, it’s like a huge signpost directing (pun cause the filmmaker is a director anyways off track sorry) the audience on how to react to a scene.”

“So basically what I am saying is that of course Jungkook is aware of the music he’s using in his gcfs, and he’s also aware of the reaction he wants from the films. He used that song because he wanted a specific reaction from the audience, he wanted us viewers to see what his intentions are and at this point I’m insane too cause all I’m thinking is that he wants us to react to Jimin and to focus on that.”

(I may or may not have told her multiple times through out my discussion with her that I feel like I’m going insane. I calmed down before writing this though, for the sake of making any sense and neutrality.)

These are just the basics. If you still aren’t convinced how important a song is in context to a film, then remember: before Jungkook even began making the GCFs, he was doing mainly covers of songs. And he said, specifically to the fans, that the lyrics of his chosen songs are important. He usually chooses them for a reason (what that reason could be, up to the viewer, since he doesn’t outright explain the choices).

So we established that first, Jungkook most likely chose this song with actual thought and intention put into it (again, take that intention with what you may).

Of course, what interested me was Jimin’s parts. Mainly because he is my son (even though I am fairly younger than him), and also because of the teaser Jungkook released shortly before dropping Saipan. Truth be told, I wasn’t really expecting the silly dance nor the punches to be included, as I thought that Jungkook only posted that to show Namjoon and the fans what was going on in the “behind the scenes” video Namjoon posted the day before. Perhaps a little blooper insight. So yes, I was surprised that the scene was included at all, much less becoming a gap-clip repeating between alternating clips of the group and other members. I was also surprised at the amount of time Jimin was shown, as after USA being a very equalized group video, I was expecting the same from Saipan. Similarly to USA, it was very work-oriented and promotional, and also both (definitely USA as from Namjoon’s Vlive) were most likely commissioned by Bighit.

Jimin’s dominates the bridge. By dominate, I mean he is the only one with a completely exclusive part in this particular GCF. Verse 1 was Taehyung, verse 2 was Hoseok, and the choruses are a mix. Jimin appears the most not only through adding up all the small clips, but because he takes up two solid blocks of the song, both with the same context and lyrics. The reason why the it’s hard for me to link the others with their individual parts is because of the way they were shot, the clips that were chosen, all very aesthetically pleasing but difficult to find depth or flow in. Jimin’s parts almost had a story line. This is important to me because of the lyrics, which we shall visit now.

First the meaning of the song. John K. in an interview: He describes the bouncy track’s meaning as “[about] evolving through young love, admitting to past mistakes and committing to giving someone the best possible version of yourself.”

To be honest, this song is not as ambiguous to me as There For You, Troye Sivan, Tokyo GCF. Sure, Troye Sivan is a gay artist, and the song lyrics are directed at a boy. But the lyrics themselves I do think can be taken in any shape of love. For Best of Me, this is not the case. I think Verse 2 is the clearest reason for this:

Waking up next to you

Got you back in my arms

Don't it feel like it use to

Like we were never apart

Never thought I would see you

Now we're loving in the dark

We can't fight this feeling

While I’m a staunch believer in lyrics being universally interpreted and available to all versions of personal view (take Osaka as an example, which is another fairly straightforward GCF), to make it simpler for myself right now and with the tinfoil hat on, I’ll stick with what the song can be most basically understood: lovers who are loving in secret, but wants to be let free.

Here comes a bit tinfoil (not really shippy, but more reading into what it could mean artistically. Purely subjective interpretation):

Now, without going into the ship or anything at all first, here is my artistic interpretation of Jungkook’s editing: the lyrics may be directed at Jimin, but I personally can also intemperate that Jimin in the video embodies the lyrics, or the lyrics embody Jimin in the video. Either way works for me. This is interpretation in the same way people interpret the smile of Mona Lisa (purely individualistic), and it doesn’t rely too much on Jungkook’s true intentions here. Again, I don’t claim any of this as the true meaning, as to me there is no true meaning needed for me.

In the video, Jimin shows the rawest actions. He barely pays attention to the camera half of the time, and when he does, it’s for the sake of the cameraman (Jungkook). This can be seen when in the second bridge part, he shows Jungkook his own camera just off screen, and during the second chorus, he high-fives Jungkook, just off screen once more. I believe Jungkook also chose these parts intentionally, especially the sneeze during the second bridge that he zoomed in on. No matter if the purpose was just to clown Jimin (also possible), it still leads an interesting narrative for me (I know I repeated this multiple times, but no, this may not be the intentions of Jungkook, and it is my own view on it as an art form). The lyrics “I don’t wanna hide no more” building up to “Imma let you get the best of me” was in sync with the way how Jimin bursts from a serious expression into a silly dance, with the silliness continuing later after the chorus and verse 2 into the second bridge. He is true to his actions, letting go of inhibition, essentially not hiding, lying, nor acting anymore. All genuine, silly, honest moments, such as the sneezing, the off camera action, etc.

The editing for the dance part is interesting too. As I said before, I wasn’t expecting it, so it was interesting when it seemed Jungkook added a separate track and layered other clips on top of the silly dancing. This one might be a bit of a stretch, but I can see it like the clips of the groups randomly were “hiding” the silly dancing. No particular meaning needed really, just a technique used in editing that, to me, matches the lyrics in an unintended way. Those were just my thoughts when considering the possibilities of the lyrics, and the visual is pretty cool in the narration. I know from experience that it’s much easier to layer clips (BTS eating) over a longer clip (Jimin dancing) rather than cut them individually to fit around each other. So that’s just a neat observation lol. 

Artistically speaking, Jimin is the only solid narrative and character within the video because there seems to be an actual correlation between the actions he does chronologically with the lyrics given for him. I find it interesting how he and the lyrics embody each other as the video went on. Again, my personal take on a work of art.

Now here’s the ultimate tinfoil-kinda-shippy part of my post. ALL PURE SPECULATION.

This video can be conceptually all about the “hidden”. Looking at this as a GCF, in comparison to his two earliest works, it is a lot more promotional, like USA (I actually have some thoughts on USA and Bangtan as well, and may think about writing a post for it. It’s not gonna be as bad as this one though).

Perspective of GCFs before Saipan:

Onto the subject of music perspectives, Jungkook so far as established a trend of using the perspective within the songs to be directed at the people starring in it, most noticeably in Osaka, with the way the lyrics were directed/about either Jimin or Taehyung’s roles/characters in the film from a first person perspective speaking. Tokyo as well with the last few lines of “running running just to keep my hands upon you”, showing the camera in the perspective of being behind Jimin as he got farther away with the first person pronoun. USA with the “we” point of view, which is then including the film’s perspective as part of the “we”, especially noticed when Jungkook goes to shake Zedd’s hand. I assume then that Jungkook uses the music choices as a way to direct to the people or to include himself in it at some points, rather than being a passive outside third person view. Now that GCF in Newark is out, that is even more obvious, though I also find Newark to be a diverging path in his medium exploration, so the perspective is more centered around himself rather than those around him. GCF in Saipan was made with the same format as those before it so my thoughts on its techniques are the same (I will be ignoring Newark for now since it’s format is so radically different, as well as the fact that its creation doesn’t affect his previous works).

This is important in the case of Saipan being very dissonant with the the perspectives of the film and of the song. Beyond my personal artistic perspective above (which, in my interpretation, I believe is another layer to the narrative, as multiple meanings within art is always the best). Say that the lyrics are from the point of view of the camera as a character in the film (Jungkook), which so far it has been for most of the GCFs. USA’s perspective made sense in that it was a group song, and it’s about a "we”, including Jungkook, reminiscing the old days. Generally equalized screen-time for each member, first person plural perspective, you get it. Sure, the tone and mood of it was off, but at least the perspective made sense. Saipan’s perspective and mood both don’t make sense. As a whole, Best of Me as a song choice doesn’t make much sense, given the perspective of it. Very different to USA, which I previously thought Saipan was going to emulate for reasons already stated.

Saipan is biased to Jimin based on the film and lyric placement, as previously stated, and so narrative-wise, it is also Jimin-biased. The song choice itself is also strange in that Saipan’s song is very clearly not a group song. It is a song with a “me” and a “you”. During the bridges, it’s even more clear how the “me” and “you” works. With the camera being the perspective, the “me” is the singer speaking, and the “you” (if we base this off of how Jungkook’s use of perspective works thus far) is directed at whoever is on screen. The same way Tokyo was directed at Jimin, and in Osaka, Jimin and Taehyung appeared whenever the lyrics were directed at them (Taehyung appearing at “he’s taking your side of the bed” so he is the subject of the “you” in that set of lyrics, similar to how “running running just to keep my hands upon you” in Tokyo, the “you” was Jimin. Again, Jungkook uses the camera as part of the narrative, hence the use of communication between camera and “actor”).

Well, you may ask, why isn’t anyone else’s part in the going to be the same? Especially Hoseok’s part, which to be honest, I’m surprised no one mentioned much? They mentioned how the song had questionably romantic lyrics, and everyone freaked out about how beautiful Hobi was in the video (same though) but his part coincided with those questionable lyrics I mentioned earlier. Why doesn’t that indicate Jungkook proclaiming his undying love for Hobi? Well, the main reason is most likely “selective context”. That part by itself could allude to that, but as a whole, the film focused on someone else. So this is an example of taking parts of something to make a different whole. That’s why the structure of Saipan felt different than those before it. Tokyo was linear, Osaka was alternating between two, USA was group, and Saipan is... weird.

So, during the bridges, the “me” is the “I don’t wanna hide no more, I don’t wanna lie no more” and the “you” is “’cause what I found in you is so real”. Depending on who the camera’s perspective is, this can be taken in many different ways. However, USA makes me believe that the camera itself is really Jungkook (as I always assumed so) and not the fans, a third person, etc. If the “me” is Jungkook, and the “you” is Jimin -  well, I did sort of lose my sanity for two whole days.

In short, for an entire two days I was convinced Jungkook was in love with Jimin or at least had some sort of romantic connection with him in some way. Not that they were in a relationship, I was feeling something much too sudden for me to give it labels, and much too isolated to consider any “big picture”. And I felt like I was going insane because of how out of the blue my own reaction was. As I said before, I’m no shipper. So it was shocking and a little terrifying when I was so convinced. (I am calmer now, and have a relatively more neutral stance on the pairing once more, thankfully).

The main reason why I was so convinced previously was because of one reason: with input from my perspective analysis, I believe the GCFs are from Jungkook’s point of view (as we all believe). With the song choice and the clips chosen, it was a surprise to me when I thought about the film more carefully. I don’t ship BTS because to me, those are outside opinions on what’s happening, behavioral analysis videos, coincidence theories, etc. Sure, they can be interesting, sometimes cute, but I don’t see any need to support or pay too much mind to it. With GCFs, it was different because this was not outside perspective. This was Jungkook. This was his video, that he filmed and edited and spent time on. Like with his covers, as he had told us before, they (could) have meaning. They (could) tell a story, that may change the way you view his work. So what exactly could he be trying to tell us has been interesting for me to interpret. Of course, I still don’t think it matters much to have an absolute “True Meaning” unless he gives out one, and even then, art is appreciated in many ways, with so many facets and personal subjective connections. I don’t think I’m right, just that it’s what I perceived. And for me, it took me off guard how disconnected from the rest of the film the bridges were. They were so different in mood, in style, the bias, the commutative narrative going on. I couldn’t understand what Jungkook was saying, unlike all GCFs previous where it felt more coherent and I could at least somewhat figure out his message. And while perhaps Saipan simply doesn’t have a message, that’s hard to believe with this ongoing narrative.

This basically comes down to the opposing ideals in my mind. On one hand, I would hate to assume anything about someone I don’t actually know, especially when it’s something so personal and not-my-business. On the other hand, I would hate to dismiss anything that could be meaningful from an artist who put a lot of thought and handwork into a project of their’s. Something my art teacher of four years told me before “don’t be scared of being wrong about reading into an artwork, because they want you to see the things you are seeing”. Perhaps it’s all on purpose without any personal meaning? Maybe. I’ll stick with the “meaningful narrative but not necessarily romantic” for my own safety.

Who knows? Here’s some counterclaims to cheer you up and help me regain sanity.

Speculative counterarguments with responses and more doubt and speculation (my irl friend helped to come up with some of them, just in case):

Counterclaim:The song is meant to be taken platonically, with more focus on literal meaning on the chorus parts “Imma let you get the best of me”, aimed at either the members or at the fans. The song may also be promotional due to it having the same name as one of their own song. This means the entire video was focused more on promo (like the end “Summer Package” text).

Response: Jungkook does care about lyrics, and even with promo possibly being the main focus (which I do think it is a big part of it), I don’t think he will choose a song with the same name at random. However, it is possible he wanted to choose a song with the same name (promo, personal reason, who knows) and also thought the lyrics applied minimally (and liked it musically). As I said before, I am a big “lyrics can mean anything” person, so taking romantic lyrics and using them for platonic or other situations is something I can see happening. So yeah. This is definitely possible.

Counterclaim: Jimin is focused on for the bridge part because of the lyrics “I don’t wanna lie no more” tying to his “Lie” solo from Wings (my friend is the one who came up with this one)

Response: This one I find there is a low possibility of. Mostly because even if that was the case, why would Jimin dominate the entire bridge, including the other lyrics? Jungkook could have easily edited in other members, like the mixture he does for the verses and especially the choruses. Just put in a little shot of Jimin at the lie part and move on. So, this is unlikely (along with the fact that I really doubt Jungkook chooses songs and clips based on that) Which leads to the next counter:

Counterclaim: Jungkook very simply enjoys filming Jimin most, due to familiarity and Jimin being more comfortable with it. He’s at the bridges for content symmetry and also because there were simply more footage of him because of ease and accumulation. He sees Jimin as a very fun and goofy person, so he used the funny clips. There is no deeper meaning behind Jimin’s shots.

Response: Sure, I guess. This comes down to “how personal are the GCFs for Jungkook?”, which I would personally say very much so but I digress. They’ve already proven that Jungkook enjoys pointing the camera Jimin a lot in recent interviews (5th army mainly). I still think the most questionable parts of the video was how Jimin was singled out at the bridge parts and what the lyrics could possibly mean along with that, but I won’t rule this one out for the sake of accumulating other possibilities, no matter how much I believe in Jungkook’s artistic vision and my innate enjoyment in getting random meanings out of everything for fun. Again, platonic intention is possible to me. You may disagree, and that’s completely fine. I’m still neutral about this, because hey, anything is possible. So don’t get too carried away.

Counterclaim: So what about Osaka, if you consider the lyrics literally? Does that mean Taehyung, Jimin, and Junkook are in a love triangle?

Response: Honestly, I would like to do a personal analysis of Osaka in a separate post in the future (if I have time). Here’s a taste of what I think of it in a shorter answer to Osaka in general: it is actually possibly my favorite GCF, reasons being that I adore the the little no-music cuts Jungkook did, and also because Vmin is one of my favorite relationships in Bangtan. Due to sentimental reasons, Vmin has a very special place to my heart. Osaka feeds that part of my soul I suppose. Now, about the lyrics and the supposed love training happening, the thing is that Osaka is very different from Saipan in terms of use of perspective, use of cuts, screen time, etc. Personally, I see Osaka as a film about the maknae-line as a whole, with a smidgen of Jimin-bias. I don’t see the film about a love triangle, especially not a romantic one. Hope I can make a separate post detailing this.

Now that I’m done, I want people to not overthink it too much (unlike me). Of course, Saipan for me personally was just incredibly interesting because of how off and strange it felt to me in comparison to the other GCFs, but in regards to shipping, don’t invest too much emotionally. Enjoy what you get from all members, get attached to a pair maybe. But don’t let it completely take over your life. I like the speculative agnostic approach best (similar to my favorite blogger in regards to KM). Sure, Saipan had me go insane for two days straight out of the blue, but coming down from the insanity was a learning experience, especially returning to my neutral stance, which I enjoy greatly.

Making this more clear once again: this is not a post exposing Jungkook or anything. I do not claim any of this as his real thoughts. In fact, I don’t even believe any of what I’ve interpreted entirely. Those to me are “possibilities” to be thought, but not to be declared as truth. I think I’m probably wrong about a lot of this. Since again, why else do people still question what exactly Mona Lisa was smiling so mysteriously about? (she knows something we don’t, as the critics say).

If you want a more impartial opinion on GCF in Saipan, I recommend this director's outlook. I recommend using a non-biased mind to read this non-biased outlook. It is very interesting by itself as a professional's opinion. Please do not take the post as fodder for ships nor the definitive meaning of Saipan (if there even was one, who knows). We will never know for sure unless Jungkook ever decided to explain it if he wishes to. And if he never does, that’s fine too. Distinguishing what is reality, what is our reality, and what is someone else’s reality is extremely important.

Thanks for reading if you did! Hope it wasn’t the most awful thing ever. Tell me what you think about my interpretation, my opinions, counterarguments and counter-counterarguments. I do like KM as a ship now in some way, but again, all in good fun, and I don’t really want to give the relationship any labels. I don’t really want to take any of this too far other than a long rant to let out some parallel universe thoughts.

This was made also before I really got into any KM speculation, and it’s all very interesting. But I currently don’t really want to form a solid opinion on anything, or read too deeply. Maybe I will, one day. Or not. Since like I said, I’m not good at reading people.

It’s very likely no one will even see this, but as a personal record of my thoughts, it feels good to put them down.

💦 ☔💦

[blazehedgehog]

A few weeks before SAGE, I was interviewed by Corentin Lamy of french newspaper Le Monde. I answered questions about why I started SAGE, what I think makes Sonic unique, the origin of fan games, and various community history stuff. It was a lot of fun! You can click above to read the full article, which was published in french (translated, its title is something like "When There's No Good Sonic Games, Fans Develop Their Own"). Corentin also interviewed folks like Rlan for the article, too!

But, well, you know me: I’m long winded as heck. I ended up writing nearly TEN PAGES of text in response to my interview questions.  I went on some kind of deep dives. So, with permission, I have been told it’s okay to publish my responses in full here on my blog. Just follow me behind the “read more” tag...

Corentin: Could you tell me more about the fangame scene? Is it as active nowadays than it was 5, 10 or 20 years ago?

Back in the day, SFGHQ was a huge resource hub. It hosted things used to make games, like graphics and sounds, as well as games themselves. When Rlan (Ryan) moved on, SFGHQ slowly fell into disrepair for a long time. Maintaining the database of files was more work than most people wanted to deal with. The forum community was always active, but people were gradually starting to move on. Maybe not even move on, but spread out a little more. Back in the day, it was difficult to host large files by yourself, so submitting your game to SFGHQ was the only way to put your work out there. That was a big draw. As services like Dropbox grew in popularity, hosting your game on SFGHQ began to matter less, and you started seeing more fangame projects show up in other corners of the Sonic fan community.

As SFGHQ's forums began to slow down, some of the people in charge wanted to revive it by merging with other Sonic fan communities. At one point, SFGHQ merged with another forum called Sonic United, and there were also suggestions being floated about trying to make SFGHQ a part of Sonicretro.org (one of the largest, oldest Sonic fan sites). Eventually the Sonic United merger was undone after Sonic United itself was bleeding users and shut down due to a lack of activity, and Sonic Retro opened their own fan gaming subforum in partnership with SFGHQ, which kinda-sorta meant SFGHQ as a stand-alone entity ceased to exist. SAGE went on like normal, and even grew, actually. Big names started making guest appearances, like a Q&A sessions with Naoto Ohshima (original character designer for Sonic and Dr. Eggman) and Mike Pollock (the current English voice of Dr. Eggman).

SFGHQ itself laid dormant, with years worth of promises about relaunching the site. Last year, as part of SAGE 2017, SFGHQ finally, actually relaunched. Instead of having an administrator manually add content to the site, users are now free to publish and maintain their own files. Unfortunately, it's a forum in the year 2018, so it's been kind of quiet. Most of the discussion tends to happen in the SFGHQ Discord, which is almost always active.

Of course, this is just the Sonic side of things. SFGHQ had a knock-on effect and others tried to make their own fan gaming websites for other gaming franchises. I think the only one that's still around is MFGG (Mario Fangame Galaxy), which even today still remains very reminiscent of what SFGHQ used to be like back in its golden age.

Overall, I'd probably say the fangame scene is more active than ever, though. SFGHQ's rise to fame was helped by the availability of easy-creation tools like Clickteam Fusion and Game Maker. Now, there's even more options for first-time developers getting in to game development, what with Unity, Construct, and even stuff like Twine. Everybody makes games nowadays it feels like, and you can draw a lot of parallels between how a lot of professional creators got their start drawing fanart or writing fanfiction. The more tools there are to make games with, the more likely somebody's first game development project will be a fangame. These people may not all be centralized at SFGHQ anymore, but they're still out there.

Corentin: How big is it? Do most developers know each other? Help each other? Sometimes are jealous of each other?

Back in the day, when everyone was centralized in SFGHQ, everybody knew each other, yeah. We were like one big family (in both good ways and bad). Nowadays, with everyone so spread out, it's almost impossible to keep track of it all. There's always a bunch of games at SAGE I've never heard of before, because they come from Gamejolt or some other fringe community I don't frequent. As a result, I imagine the fan gaming community is fairly large.

People don't usually help each other very much. Not for any kind of rude or territorial reasons, but generally because fangames tend to be a very personal, focused thing, and most people have tunnel vision regarding what they want. Everyone's trying to fulfill their dreams and that usually means going it alone, as everyone else is doing the same thing, with their own dreams. There are always exceptions, though. For a long time, Sonic Epoch, a fangame that continued the 1993 Sonic Saturday Morning Cartoon, was a team of three or four people writing the game's script and two or three musicians. Sonic Robo-Blast 2, one of the oldest fangames still in active development, has probably had dozens of people work on it over the years (I personally worked as a texture artist for them briefly). I also helped out on Sonic Time Attacked, one of the most famous classic fangames. Its developer, Jamie Bailey, was nearing completion on the game, but was struggling to produce the small handful of cutscenes he planned to have. I was kind of known for having nice cutscenes in my games, so I helped him out. Also, nowadays, with the advent of Unity making 3D games more viable, teaming up with multiple people is starting to become increasingly necessary. Sonic Utopia is being developed by at least four or five people, I think. Sonic World, a fangame written in Blitz3D, has probably had a dozen contributors by now. You can't really be a solo developer on those kinds of games, they take too much work.

Jealousy is definitely a problem. It's unsurprisingly difficult to draw the line on what's okay when you're making games that are 99% made from content borrowed from official games. If we're borrowing sprites from Sega without asking, why can't we borrow sprites from each other? The answer was always because that person was a member of the community, and they went to great lengths to custom-make something for their game, so obviously they weren't going to let anyone else use it. But, then, nobody had ever asked Sega if it was okay, so why should any of it be okay? That was occasionally a debate, and never with clear answers. Regardless, there were always accusations flying about who was stealing what from where. In particular, I remember a huge war breaking out over the usage of sprites created by a user with the handle "N8Dawg." He had custom-made a set of sprites all by himself, practically professional quality, and after abandoning his own project, decided to turn his artwork over to the community. But he did not do so publicly; he selected a few individuals that he thought would benefit from his sprites, and very quickly, access to these graphics turned in to sort of status symbol in the community. It was a nightmare. There was a lot of arguing over who got to use those sprites, and who had obtained them officially and who had stolen them from another fangame. Eventually, I think N8Dawg agreed to just release them publicly to stop all the arguing. I still have the files.

Corentin: How do you explain than the Sonic fangame scene is so active? What make Sonic so special? Is that because of the characters? Of the mechanics?

Generally speaking, I think fans make content to fulfill a need they aren't getting from the source material in question. This is why you get fanfiction that is so centered around romantic pairings. If nobody is giving it to them, people will always make what they want to see. Fans started making their own Sonic games after the franchise was more or less put on pause for five years in the mid-1990's. Sonic Team stepped away from Sonic games after making Sonic & Knuckles to try and let things rest, but there were a lot of people out there that were clearly hungry for more. So, they simply started making it themselves. You saw the same thing more recently with AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake). By the time that project finished, it had been something like 12 or 13 years since the last 2D Metroid game. Fans just made their own, because that's what they wanted to see.

The funny thing about Sonic is that Sega hasn't really kept the franchise under control. There are many, many different versions of the character, each one unique to itself. The Sonic from the Saturday morning cartoon is a different character from the Sonic in the classic games, which is a different character from the Sonic in the Archie comics, which is a different character from the Sonic in the Fleetway comics, so on and so forth. What this ultimately means is that you have tons people who come to Sonic the Hedgehog for wildly different things. Even narrowing it down just to the games, the Sonic franchise has had enough variance that there's a lot of debate over which games are "the good ones." When you consider what I said earlier about people making things that they want to see, there are a lot of Sonic fans out there who feel as though they aren't being served. Fangames end up a very good way to work out those frustrations.

Unfortunately what this means is that everyone has a different answer for what makes Sonic special. For some, it definitely is the characters. A lot of people were upset when Sonic Adventure 2 was first announced, because early media implied Tails wouldn't be making an appearance in that game. There are people upset right now because characters from the canceled Archie Comics haven't made it over to the new IDW Sonic comics. Other people are more about the game mechanics. The biggest splits there are between people who like the Classic 2D Sonic games, people who like the Sonic Adventure games, and people who like the super fast modern games like Sonic Generations.

Sonic faces some very interest design challenges, I think. The controls in those classic 2D games are still very unique, even among today's games. I think that also contributed to the sense that some fans were being under-served, because for the longest time, through games like Sonic 4, Sega was quite clearly trying to replicate those old games, but they weren't getting it right. Because it's not an easy thing to get right, really. Sometimes, it can almost feel like Sonic is successful by accident, like the stars and the planets align in just the right way at just the right time to produce something that could never exist at any other point in time. That'd certainly explain some things.

Corentin: According to you, Sonic fan games are popular because it's been a while since the last decent old school Sonic game. That's probably a big part of the explanation, but that can be the only one : Metroid fan games aren't as popular, F-Zero fan games aren't as popular, etc. How do you explain than Sonic resonate so much with his fans?

Not to dodge the question more, but I think that’s the riddle a lot of people have tried and failed to solve, even Sega themselves. As I said earlier, Sonic almost seems to be successful by accident. There’s a long story to be told here about Sega in the 90’s, some of which was told in Blake Harris’ “Console Wars” book. The gist is that Sega of America and Sega of Japan didn’t get along. Information I’ve read suggests that Sega of Japan saw themselves as genius artists and Sega of America pushed back against their esoteric ideas because they weren’t seen as financially viable. The two sides were constantly disappointed by each other’s demands, and Sonic was born out of this clash of ideals.

The entire reason it’s been so difficult to nail down what makes Sonic special is because Sonic was not the product of a single person, a single art style, or a single anything. It was more like an inexperienced chef haphazardly adding ingredients to a meal and accidentally making something amazing, but never being able to replicate the recipe.

In Sonic’s case, by the time anyone asked what the recipe for Sonic the Hedgehog was, the whole thing had gained too much momentum to be stopped. When something gets popular enough for a long enough period of time, it ends up taking on a life of its own. Once enough fans embrace it, it cannot be killed or destroyed. Think about Transformers, and how sometimes there were many years between movies or TV shows, but were still Transformers fans out there on message boards or at conventions. There will always be Transformers now, in some form or another, until the eventual extinction of the human race. The same is likely true for Sonic the Hedgehog. I mean, the Sonic franchise has already weathered some pretty dark times, but it’s still here. You couldn’t destroy it if you tried.

If you really want me to define what I think makes Sonic special, I think it’s because there’s never been anything like it. Not in 1991, not in 1999, and not even now. It really comes down to two things:

One, Sonic was one of the first true “characters” in gaming. You had guys like Mario, or Mega Man, that were duty-bound to be heroes. They didn't have much personality beyond that, if they had any personality at all. Sonic had that smirk, he was always waving his finger at the player, or getting visibly impatient if you made him wait around. Sonic brought the next level of characterization to games. That continued through games like Sonic Adventure; having that many playable characters, each with their own narrative threads that wove together in to a larger story was unprecedented in 1999.

Two would be how Sonic plays. We've had games like F-Zero, or Burnout, games that are really really fast, but never anything like the way Sonic does it. Sonic gives you the ways to interact with the world that most fast games shy away from. The best Sonic games make you feel like you're driving a rollercoaster, combined with the controlled chaos of a pinball table. You're supposed to be bouncing off stuff, getting thrown into the air, and feeling a little overwhelmed at first. The danger of losing control is part of the fun, but it's a difficult line to walk, and it has to be in balance with the other elements like platforming or enemy combat. It’s a unique blend of high-speed action with a sharp personality that you can’t get anywhere else.

Corentin: What are the biggest difficulties of developing a Sonic fangame?

Specifically regarding Sonic games, the biggest hurdle is probably control. It's such a big problem that a lot of fans have banded together to write programming guides and even create collections of code to make it easier for newbies to wrap their heads around how it all works. The physics and momentum of how Sonic moves are so tricky to properly implement that not even Sega really does it right, for example with Sonic 4, and they're the ones that invented those physics in the first place.

In general, I also think a lot of people underestimate how much work it takes to finish a game, even when most of the coding is already done for you. A lot of fangames get started, but never finished, because people lose interest before they cross the finish line. Staying focused and keeping perspective are probably the two most important things when it comes to developing any sort of game. You have to know and respect your own limits. You aren't going to make a game in a weekend. Depending on how ambitious you are, you won't even finish making game over a single summer vacation. You have to be ready to commit for the long haul. The best fangames take years and years of work.

Understanding criticism would be another difficulty. Over the years as I've reviewed games at SAGE, I occasionally find someone who gets really upset when I criticize their game. If somebody doesn't like your game, you have to learn to not take it personally. Criticism is valuable data that can be used to make better games in the future, so pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and use that information to improve. There can always be a next time, so don't get discouraged.

Corentin: Few fan games come to fruitition. Do all developers of fan games hope they will finish their game, or are they aware that's very unlikely?

Yes, I think nearly all fangames are started with the intention they’ll be finished some day. I can only speak from my experience, but it really seems like everyone, including me and all my friends, initially gravitated towards fangames when we were young. Especially in that youthful innocence, you never really think about how much effort goes in to something. I remember sending letters to Sega in the Saturn era, 1996 or so, regarding the cancelation of Sonic X-Treme. I tried to give them reasons to keep working on the game, and the things I was suggesting were so incorrect it was beyond the point of comedy and was actually a little bit sad. How movies, or video games, or whatever actually get made seems like a kind of magic until you’re faced with the reality of it all. It’s easy to see how somebody might decide to make and finish a video game without fully realizing how long that’s going to take.

It also depends on your definition of what “finished” means, I guess. I’ve created fangames that are not complete, full games, but I consider the project done, because I finished what I set out to accomplish. Even if that was only a couple of levels and a boss fight.

Corentin: Is Sega ok with fangames?

They seem to be, at least for right now. A few years ago, there was an Unreal Engine fangame, "Green Hill Paradise", and the official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitch account left a comment in their stream chat congratulating them on a job well done and encouraging others to keep making fangames. Sega operates that account, so while it was not a legally binding document, it was at least some kind of official statement of approval.

But I say "at least for right now." Fangames are, according to copyright law, illegal. Technically speaking, so is fanart and fanfiction, because any unauthorized use of copyrighted content is illegal. Fair Use mostly covers educational or academic purposes, which don't apply here. So the only reason fangames, fanart, and fanfiction are okay is if the company in question turns a blind eye to the law. Sega is turning a blind eye to the law right now, but that might not always be the case. Obviously we've had decades worth of fangames at this point, but it only just recently lead to something like Sonic Mania. Hypothetically speaking, a few years from now, maybe somebody changes jobs and now there's a different person overseeing how Sega handles protecting their copyright. Then, this hypothetical person decides fangames are no longer okay and shuts the whole thing down. That could happen, and the law would support it.

Something like that actually happened very recently. Sega opened an online shop where they sell t-shirts and other merchandise, which triggered a wave of cease & desist notices directed at fans who were selling their fanart on shirts through sites like Teespring and Redbubble. Fans have been doing this kind of thing for years, even bringing their custom-made shirts to conventions and selling them there. Again, the law says this is illegal, but Sega never seemed to care before. They turned a blind eye to it. But now Sega is selling their own official shirts, they have manufacturing partnerships they want to protect, and the circumstances changed. They stopped turning a blind eye to it and shut the fans down. So, really, who knows what the future holds.

Corentin: In your Sonic Mania review video, you regret that Sonic Team relies too much on nostalgia. But doesn't nostalgia what drive you as a developer of fangames?

Not always. The very first fangame project I started back in high school was called "Sonic Infinity," which imagined a future where Sonic was brought back to life with cybernetic implants in a world that resembled Mega Man X. I just wanted my games to be popular, so I figured by merging Sonic and Mega Man together, I could be popular in two places at the same time. That was around 1998 or so. I ended up getting bored of that pretty quickly, and a new project caught my attention: a fangame called "Sonic: The Fated Hour" which was to be a Metroid-style Sonic game where you'd explore an open world and find gear upgrades. I started that project around the year 2000. Everyone else was still making fangames that continued the story of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but I wanted something that felt closer in tone to the Sonic Adventure games, which were current at the time. So it had a lot of story and cinematic sequences with artwork I drew myself.

I spent nine and a half years on The Fated Hour trying to figure out the best way for Sonic to work as a Metroid game before I gave up. When you work on something for that long you start to forget why you even started the project in the first place, so I decided it would be best if I just moved on. I still think about that game from time to time, about ways I could do certain things, but I refuse to let myself get trapped in that cycle again.

Along the way there was also a fangame I was working on called "Shadow of Chaos" that would have parodied how self-serious Sonic games are sometimes. That game didn't even really play like a Sonic game at all. You controlled Shadow, who could shoot guns and drove a Vespa scooter. It was intentionally ridiculous. I ended up getting a lot of friends to help me make levels for that one, but I lost a lot of the files to a hard drive crash. Many years later I ended up finding a backup of those files, but by then, the moment had passed.

And those are just my games. In my Sonic Mania review I had footage of other projects from my friends. There was “Thirdscape”, which was part of a trilogy of fangames about an alien invasion. The game took place many years after Sonic Adventure, and featured a grown-up Tails that was taller than Sonic. After Sonic Adventure 2, a lot of fangames were Sonic and Shadow working together, like Aytaç Aksu’s “Chaomega” and Showoffboy’s “Sonic Ki”. Then you had truly weird games, like TLSPRWR’s “Sonic Bible Adventure”, which fittingly takes Sonic through the events of the bible, or RC’s “Crazy Cabbie Sonic” where Sonic must deliver pedestrians to their destination before time runs out, like in Crazy Taxi.

Then you even have games like “Freedom Planet”, which originally started out as a Sonic fangame starring “Lilac the Hedgehog” as she traversed Dragon Valley collecting gold rings. Now, Freedom Planet is an original game starring Lilac the Dragon, available to purchase on Steam, Wii U, Playstation 4, and soon, Nintendo Switch, with a sequel in active development.

The connecting thread is that these were all side-scrolling games, but that was more about the limitations of the tools than any real desire to focus on nostalgia. The fangaming boom happened because of easy-to-use game creation software, but that software was universally limited to making 2D games only. Making 3D games often meant knowing real programming languages. The only 3D fangame for the longest time was “Sonic Robo-Blast 2”, which itself mainly started as a mod for Doom 2. In the big picture, Unity is a fairly recent invention, and we’re only just now starting to see a larger number of fangames using it.

If there was a focus on nostalgia, it was largely because those old Genesis games are the most universally beloved. It’s like I said earlier, fans tend to create the things they want to see. So you had a lot of fangames over the years about returning to Green Hill Zone. I think it was that fact by itself that probably pushed Sega to invest so much more heavily in nostalgia with Sonic 4, which in turn sparked even more nostalgia-focused fangames from fans determined to right Sonic 4’s wrongs. In a sense, that’s sort of why we have Sonic Mania now.

Corentin: What are the 3 or 4 best fan games people should absolutely give a try?

Sonic Robo-Blast 2 is unique to fangames insofar as it’s big enough to support its own community. It’s worth looking in to just to see how far the development team has taken the Doom engine; they converted a first person game in to a fairly decent 3D platformer. There’s also a huge modding community for the game, and an active multiplayer scene. Though it’s not ready yet, the next big update to SRB2, version 2.2, will finally overhaul the entire game to add proper support for sloped surfaces, something Doom didn’t originally support. It’ll probably be the most significant update the game’s ever had in its 20 year development. (trailer for 2.2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cfK3EWnn2E)

I don’t want to be negative, but a lot of people would probably say Sonic: Before the Sequel or Sonic: After the Sequel. Those are two games by LakeFepard, who managed to crank them out in record time. Something like a year each, maybe less. They’re very creative games with incredible soundtracks that rival even official Sonic games. But something about them has always felt a little “off” to me in a way that’s hard to describe, and recently Lake has apparently had a falling out with SFGHQ. I’m not really in the loop on the drama, though, which is probably for the best.

I’d recommend Hez’s “Sonic Classic.” It’s a massive fangame that was inspired by Sonic 4. It can feel a little messy, but its heart is in the right place, and there’s tons of stuff in it. It was almost like having Sonic Mania before Sonic Mania even existed.

That’s already four, but gosh, there’s more. Petit Hedgehog is just a demo, but it’s a cute Sonic-Advance-inspired game with 100% original graphics. I’d also recommend OzcrashSonic’s Sonic World, which I mentioned earlier, because it’s so big and complex; it has something like 30 playable characters and 50 levels, it’s nuts. Sonic vs. Darkness is also just a demo, but it’s a fantastic game in the style of Sonic Rush. There’s probably more, but those are the games I think about a lot.

Corentin: Could you tell me more about SAGE? Why did you start it? You're not responsible of it anymore, right?

No, I’m no longer responsible for organizing SAGE. The people handling SAGE now still check in with me from time to time when they want my opinion on big decisions, but I mostly just cover the event by writing reviews for the games available. It’s been long enough that I my memory is a little fuzzy, but I think I did the first four events, two every year, until I gave it up. I was going through some difficult emotional things in my life at that time, and the additional stress of putting together something like that was having a negative impact on my life. Since then, it’s grown to become much bigger than something I could have accomplished on my own.

The first SAGE was on September 9th, 2000, one year after the launch of the Sega Dreamcast in North America. I was still in high school at the time.

I started it because it was hard to talk about my fangame projects with anyone who wasn’t already in SFGHQ. There was a long-running stigma fangames faced; many people thought they were a form of piracy. They were put in to the same category as pirated bootleg games you’d see on the black market. So it was impossible to have a conversation or get much coverage on gaming-oriented sites.

I think it was around this time I started reading a website called Insert Credit and learning of what Japan called their “doujin gaming” scene. Doujin is a Japanese word often used to describe fan-created content, and in Japan, you can sometimes find doujin manga sold on shelves right next to the official thing. Now there were doujin games -- Japanese fangames -- that were gaining traction on the internet. That kind of acceptance was fascinating to me.

So I started SAGE to try and bring that kind of acceptance over to what my friends and I were doing. I wanted to dispel the stigma that fangames were a type of piracy. Or, at least, not any closer to piracy than fanart or fanfiction.

It didn’t really work. We got a couple smaller sites to post a small blurb about the very first year SAGE launched, but nobody bigger than that would touch it. The stigma remained.

SAGE ended up being successful as a secondary function, as it gave the community milestones to orbit around. Instead of just making games and releasing them whenever, now people were working to get things ready to show at SAGE. Milestones like that are something professional studios use throughout game development to measure progress, and SAGE gave the fangaming community something similar to strive towards. It created a healthier structure for making fangames, and to be honest, it had done so kind of by accident. It wasn’t until many years after I stopped doing SAGE that I realized the entire reason it’s still around is because it became that anchor for development.

And, in the long run, I think SAGE lasting for 18 years did end up helping fight back against that stigma, even if it wasn’t immediately apparent back when I first started. The stigma still exists, you still get comments from people who don’t understand why someone would risk spending all of that time on a fangame that might get shut down, but at least the conversation is more open now than it ever has been.

Capcom sponsored a fangame a few years ago called “Street Fighter x Mega Man”. Microsoft has openly stated they’re fine with fan-content of their original properties, which has lead to things like the “Red vs. Blue” Youtube series and Halo fangames like “Installation 01.” Valve has been increasingly open with its fan community, even co-publishing a fan-remake of the original Half-Life, called “Black Mesa.”

And, of course, we now have Sonic Mania, whose team is made up almost entirely of old SFGHQ users.

Somewhere along the line, SAGE may have helped bridge some of those gaps. That’s pretty cool.

[kriscynical]

Retropalooza 2018

So as already stated, Bree and I went to Retropalooza this weekend and had an absolute blast as always. This was our third year to go, and we love this con to bits. It’s practically in my backyard, only 20 minutes away from my house. It’s big enough to have good guests and a sizable dealer’s room, but still small enough to be fun. I dread the day when that happy medium finally gets tipped because of growth. You always want a con to be successful but... you know. 

As a side note, if the con you are running is for retro gaming and started out as a swap meet, if you’re suddenly going to ban screwdrivers at the door, perhaps you should mention that on your website beforehand? Seeing as how screwdrivers are... you know... the only way to definitely check the authenticity of retro game carts? That way your attendees won’t have to sprint back out to their cars in 10000% humidity in end-of-September-in-Texas heat. Just a suggestion, guys. 

But anyway.

I don’t talk about it much on this blog, but I follow a lot of gaming YouTubers. I’m not as religious about it as some people are, but I enjoy listening to gaming content while I’m working, especially letsplays. Retropalooza always has several YouTubers I follow as guests, which adds to the fun factor. This year’s guests that Bree and I were into were Jirard and Alex of Super Beard Bros and The Completionist, Norman Caruso of The Gaming Historian, James Rolfe of The Angry Video Game Nerd, and Arlo. Every single one of them are super nice, although AVGN being there this year caused a bit of bullshit to happen which I’ll detail in a little bit.

I have a little third party NES/SNES console, the RetroDuo, which I’ve had my favorite YouTubers sign for the last three years, all at this con. It’s usually displayed on one of the bookshelves in my studio. This year’s additions were Arlo and James Rolfe. It’s pretty full now:

This is long because of several photos from meet and greets as well as my Zelda haul from the dealer’s room, so...

Arlo! I just discovered his channel over the spring and this was conveniently the first year for him to be at Retropalooza. His content is really fun, and I always look forward to his reactions and discussions to Nintendo Directs and E3. His reaction to the E3 Metroid Prime 4 teaser reveal in particular was priceless.

I’ve met Norman in years past, so we just went to his panel this year. His panels are usually a live version of a Gaming Historian episode along with some Q&A and a little game show based on information from his videos. His live episode was on Punch-Out. He usually does Jeopardy! as the game format, but this time he changed it up to Who Wants to be a Millionaire?... and the lady he picked out of the audience to participate didn’t know the answer to a single damn question. I don’t know why she even raised her hand, because it wasn’t like he even asked anything difficult in the first few questions! If you watched his videos even once you’d know the answers. Bree and I were frustrated because we probably could have gotten to the million dollar question. >:\

Later in the day was AVGN’s panel, and that’s where the bullshit comes in. From the time we first got to the con on Saturday Bree and I noticed that it was way more crowded than usual, enough to get her anxiety going. AVGN doesn’t make a whole lot of convention appearances, so obviously the uptick in attendance was due to him. The people who run this con know gaming, particularly on YouTube since all of their guests are YouTubers. They should have known AVGN was going to attract hoards of people. Did they prepare for that? Of course not. 

Bree and I go to the panel room he’s scheduled to be in 15 minutes before the previous panel ends, and we get our seats. Jirard’s Completionist panel is scheduled right after AVGN in the same room, so we plan to camp out for a little while. 

Right as the previous panel is ending con staff announces that AVGN has been moved to main events, and everybody exits in one mass trying to get over to main events as quickly as possible. We ended up stuck in a massive line that snaked down the hallway and back, and before we know it it’s 1:15... 15 minutes past when the panel was supposed to start. So now we know that if we get IN to this panel, we’re going to have to miss a good chunk of it because for both of us it’s more important to see Jirard’s panel than AVGN. We’re also afraid that AVGN’s panel running over is just going to decimate Jirard’s numbers. 

Con staff comes back and says there won’t be enough chairs for everyone but there’s basically unlimited standing room, which isn’t great for me or my back. They then ask if anybody has a condition that won’t allow them to stand for an entire panel, and I raise my hand. I tell them I had back surgery a few months ago and they say okay, we’ll get you a chair. Which they did. Once they started letting people in they pulled Bree and I out of line and escorted us to two chairs behind the back row, one for me and one for her since she was with me. 

She proceeds to post this to her Snapchat:

This was what the room looked like when the panel started, at 1:25:

We still can’t believe the con didn’t anticipate this. This was the dealer’s room. Meaning the acoustics sucked ass. We couldn’t understand a single thing that was being asked or answered, nor could most of the people in the back of the room. As a result, several people left within the first 10 minutes (and the overall crowds at the con dropped like a ROCK after that panel was over, thank god!). At about 1:45 we gave up and left, too, to go grab seats for Jirard’s Completionist panel, which worked out well because we got front row. Thankfully the room was mostly full by the time the panel started, too.

The Completionist panel was the best of the weekend that we attended, imo. Bree and I were smiling and laughing through the whole thing because it was just that much fun. He had nothing planned because he’d been in Japan until a couple days before that, so it was just a laid back Q&A. He called on both of us to ask questions, and my question (“Given what you just said about Sleepy Jirard, would you say it’s a cure for Jirard Syndrome?”) got quite a bit of an audience reaction as well as a reaction from him, followed by “That was a good question.” with a laugh after he answered. Bree and I hope we can find video of this panel on YouTube soon.

After his panel we went back to the dealer’s room and found him and Alex at their guest table, they recognized us from years past (“Oh hey, guys!”), we chatted for a bit, took pictures, and I gave both of them some little goodies I’d made based on the Kaizo episodes of Super Beard Bros:

These are buttons Bree wanted of the designs I made. I gave both Alex and Jirard keychains of “Ladies and Gentlemen: The Bullet”, then gave Alex “The Goochy” and Jirard “This is not how I end”. They both liked them a LOT and Alex said he was going to put the bullet on his keys, which made me ridiculously happy. These will be available at next year’s A-Kon. 

Before we left for the day on Saturday we saw that the line for AVGN wasn’t too bad, so we decided to give it a shot for autographs and pictures. Thankfully it only took about ten minutes to get through the line, and even though the con had fucked up his panel royally, James was super nice when we got to meet him.

I didn’t realize he had made that face until I saw the picture afterwords. If I had known, I would have made a face, too, dammit! >:\

On Sunday we brought along my mom so she could 1) see what a retro gaming con was like since she’d only been to anime cons, and 2) see the Beard Bros panel/meet them because I had gotten her into their channel over the summer via the Kaizo videos. I introduced her to them separately since they were each talking to different people, and when I said “I recently got her into Super Beard Bros” both of them independently said “I’m sorry” as a response without having heard the other do so. lol 

I’m posting this picture again because I love it. Y’all can deal with it. You’ve read this far.

I had printed out a shot of the Beard Bros title card so my mom could get it signed, and she did. She said she thoroughly enjoyed herself at the con, and I’m hoping she can come out on Sunday next year, too. She bought an NES cart of Classic Concentration, a game that she and I played together on my NES all the time when I was a kid. I wish they’d bring it back on TV because it was a good game show, dammit. 

My Zelda Haul:

The three game box covers are mounted on 1/2″ foam core and I plan to hang them over the TV in my studio since that’s where all of my retro gaming stuff is set up. The BotW box art is layered 3D cutout in a shadow box frame. The Hylian Shield is a new pillow to add to my gaming chair. Not pictured: a Sheik Amiibo that the seller gave me a good price on after some haggling, and a replacement gold Wii remote to replace the one the batteries destroyed a couple months ago. I got that for a really good price, too, from a different seller. He was selling it as a bundle with Skyward Sword, and I of course didn’t need the game. 

“Will you sell this by itself?”

“I was selling it as a bundle, but sure.”

“How much?”

“What will you offer me?”

“Uh... I dunno? I don’t know what it’s going for online right now.”

Bree said, “I’ll check.” and pulled out her phone. I had only seen it in one game shop here in Arlington for $80 and hadn’t tried looking online yet. She turned her phone to the guy and said “On eBay it’s going for anywhere from $45 to $82.”

So then the guy says to me again, “Okay. So what will you offer me?”

“$50?”

“Cash?”

“Yep.”

“Done.”

Yaaaaaaas.

THIS THING is the crown jewel of my haul and I love it to pieces. Guh. I picked it up on Saturday.

Just LOOK AT IT. I bought it from the same seller as the Sheik Amiibo, and I referred to it as “my baby” for the rest of the day and carried it in front of me in its box quite proudly. I had several people tell me it was badass and that was satisfying. Every time I had to get into my backpack for something I told Bree, “Hold my baby.” before handing it over. 

I think I got him for a great price, too. After reaching a deal on Sheik I asked the guy how much the figure was, and he said $100 but asked what I would offer for it. He’d had it up on eBay but pulled it after a week because it wasn’t selling. I’ve only seen it for $110-120+ online, but I went ahead and tried to haggle some more because why the hell not. I asked if he’d do $80, then he asked if I’d do $90 because he gave me a good deal on Sheik (he really did... $10 off of his asking price which was almost a third total!), and I agreed. He said that made him happy because he’d rather the figure go to me “because it looks like you’ll take care of the box” to which I told him yes, of course, I keep all of my boxes in a safe place, and his buddy said “That’s the way to do it!!”. 

And that’s that. I spent the most money this year of any year before now, but I don’t regret a cent of it. Especially on my baby. Bree and I already can’t wait for next year!

[thatyorkshireguy-blog]

I’ve Fallen For Another Lady

Hola, como estas?

It has been a week or so since I last updated you about my arrival in Santiago, Chile, on November 27th 2018.

So far, I have settled into my new home, fell even more in love with my lady, met the familia AND got my tiny narrow ass back to training.......(looking to get back fighting mid 2019 should injuries get better)

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A post shared by Liam Grady (@yorkshireguyinchile) on Dec 13, 2018 at 2:24am PST

This part was really important to me, as i’ve previously mentioned, this sport and the fitness required, gives me as much mental strength as it does physical. Great to train with Gonzalo Barone from Alkimia BJJ. Lucky for me he just so happens to be a new family 'cousin’. 

Oooooossssss.

Let’s get back to the main part of what I want to talk about. 

Just over a week ago, something even more incredible happened. 

We had visited Fran’s parents on the weekend (where Fran’s dogs live, so this is going to be a regular thing) and we proceeded to take the three crazy amigos for a walk.......going via a supermarket for water! It was crazy hot that day.

Near this particular supermarket there is also a vets and a few friendly folk who look after any homeless or street dogs the best they can. 

So... you do tend to find a few dogs circling for food, water and shelter. 

Fran left me with the dogs as she went inside to get some supplies for the walk. It was then I locked eyes with a sad yet beautiful little girl. May I add she also had a tail, paws and a dirty blonde furry coat.

This little girl was laid down about 20 feet away, looking so sad but stared right into my soul.  We didn’t take our eyes of each other for a good minute. 

Fran came out with the water and after she quenched the thirst of the three stooges, I asked Fran to go and see the dog I was looking at before.

The dog was immediately scared and ran away from Fran, but I decided to have a walk up to her anyway. It was weird, I just felt instantly connected to this dog. 

I sat down slowly a few feet away, she looked scared for maybe two seconds, and then.......she just came slowly up to me and buried her head into my body as I crouched to greet her. The dog just wanted to be close and I just broke down. I couldn’t help it...the situation broke my heart. 

This was the dog when we found her....

Fran knew straight away what I wanted to do, and it was no secret that I wanted a dog to join the family. Fran also said that we would never buy one, and that the dog would choose you (me, us).

So, the wise chilean one said “Lets see what happens when we leave.”

We walked off........and this one followed......all the way!

Then came a swift kick in the pink plums :-) 

I’d spent the entire walk getting excited, asking if we can give her a home and take her with us. Obviously we had a few variables to consider.....if she was lost and belonged to someone for a start. 

The walk was coming to an end and we went back past the supermarket. It was at this point the dog just ran off back towards where we found and the other dogs were........ and she left without even looking back once hahaha. What a bit*ch :-) 

I have to be honest, I was instantly sad because i thought we just connected, I couldn’t explain it but it was like an instant love. Fran saw that and said to me we could come back and see her tomorrow.  So....with my head down like a kid who got f*ck all for Christmas, we started walking back home. 

But oooooooo movie twist alert.

After walking about 50-100 metres from the supermarket (with my constantly turning my head to see if the dog was going to come back) ............. the furry little beaut appeared looking for us.  This dog followed me and Fran back to her parents. We found a tattoo in her ear, which is the mark that she has been spayed.

Can I present to you........... the dog.... aka..... Donny (Named after my home town of Doncaster). 

I’d named her...... I wanted to keep her but we still had to go through some processes. We spoke to the vets and they believe she had been on the street near them for about 4 months. The poor poor thing. Until we knew more it was decided little Donny would stay with us.

Donny was a little shy for the first couple of days but she wouldn’t leave mine or Frans side, so thankful straight away. But it only took a couple of days to see the true beauty of this animal. Once she realised that we were not going to leave her.....she came out of her shell.  We took her for long walks, fed her the nutrition her body needed and gave Donny a well needed bath! A new dog was instantly re-born. 

We have one happy puppy but another little snag hit us. Already in just 7 days both myself and Fran had grown so attached and we had a little family. 

But we had to take her to another vets to find out more......

There it was..........a scan........and a f*cking bleep!

She had a tag fitted and was registered at an address.

It felt like i’d been punched in the throat and someone had died. Fran held it together better than I did but I knew she felt the same way too. Legally the vets had to contact this other address and they had 10 days to come forward.  Donny could also have been chipped by someone at a foundation for dogs, and might not have ‘an owner’ as such.

On one hand.....Donny could have a loving family looking for her....and been looking for months. But on the other, some utter scum bag got bored and dumped her on the street.  Selfishly.......I didn’t want to lose her. Donny was so happy, and so were we. 

Today is Wednesday and no-one has called the vets back yet, so I am leaning towards the scum bag notion. This loving four-legged amazing animal deserves better and we want to give her that. Sunday can’t come quick enough. Because we absolutely adore this previously lost soul who has already made our lives better. I believe we found each other. 

My family....

I’ve done some crazy sh*t this year and some amazing sh*t.......but this has been by far the most rewarding, rescuing our Donny. I will update you when I can on this one. 

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE....

So everything might seem pretty awesome in the world of Santiago....but despite me settling into ‘life’ and enjoying things greatly.... I am find the language barrier quite frustrating.

I mean, I am learning but I am not ‘practicing’ enough in real situations. On a couple of occasions now I have been in a room full of people, who don’t speak english. This is my fault and no-one else’s ...it just something that isn’t sticking as quick as I would like!  

It is the only thing that has knocked me off my good mood here and i’ve had a minor ‘wobble’ about it earlier in the week. Fran is doing what she can but we are apart from each other for most of the day, and most of the day I am on my own working.  

Not to be disheartened too much and after a few more wise words from Fran...I took myself off to a language school............

Turns out they didn’t teach Spanish, they taught English....(Oh the irony)

I ended up speaking with a nice gent at Best Work called Jonathan (not the most Chilean name i’ve ever heard) anyway about what I wanted, why I was in Santiago, the issues I was facing and what I wanted to help people with! 

Well.... I don’t even know the outcome to that chat but maybe in the next blog I will know more and hopefully I will be able to speak better Spanish. Just 1% better every day will do! 

Roll on Sunday and fingers crossed for Donny.

Thanks for reading. 

Time for another walk...

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A post shared by Liam Grady (@yorkshireguyinchile) on Dec 9, 2018 at 7:34am PST

[fibula-rasa]

August 2018 in Review

I have a weird memory. It’s highly pattern-driven and very visual. This means that my memory of films I’ve watched is based on images and series of images that made an impression instead of plot points. It’s why I rewatch movies so often. Even though I’ve been tracking my movie viewing habits for two and a half years, that doesn’t mean I’ve created strong memories for all those movies. That’s why I’m gonna start doing monthly roundups of the new-to-me films that struck me, one way or the other.

[If you wanna know all the films I’m watching, I keep full lists on letterboxd and imdb.]

The reviews below are essentially transcriptions of the notes I took right after watching the films. Because of Summer Under the Stars and my cosplay challenge, this month was pretty TCM heavy for me.

Full Roundup BELOW THE JUMP!

Teen Titans Go to the Movies (2018)

27 July 2018 | 84 min. | Color

Directed and Written by Aaron Horvath and Peter Rida Michail

Starring Greg Cipes, Scott Menville, Khary Payton, Tara Strong, and Hynden Walch

I’m already a fan of the show and the movie kicks it up a notch with its humor and style. [If you liked the original series, give TTG a chance already.] TTG to the Movies is a great superhero movie for anyone who’s down for superhero stories but is fatigued by the current spate of offerings. Grain-of-Salt warning here because I think Superman III (1983) is great.  

Fun that they included some gags here and there for the parents out there who’ve had to hear the Waffles song a few too many times. Also, one of the best ending gags for a kid’s movie ever.

Where to Watch: Still in theaters, but I’d imagine Cartoon Network will be playing it soon.

Doctor X (1932)

27 August 1932 | 76 min. | 2-strip Technicolor

Directed by Michael Curtiz

Written by Earl Baldwin and Robert Tasker

Starring Lionel Atwill, Lee Tracy, and Fay Wray

I made the statement that Darkman (1990) is the most comic-book movie that isn’t adapted from a comic book. I hadn’t seen Doctor X yet though.

The set pieces are phenomenal. Each shot is artfully constructed and the way the shots are strung together makes the most of the production design. If one were to do a comic adaptation, it would take some imaginative work to not just mimic the film. The 2-strip technicolor is particularly effective in the laboratory scenes in creating an eerie aura. Sensational.

Lee Tracy is playing, as usual, a press man and he’s doing so perfectly. Tracy is so underrated.

Where to Watch: Looks like the DVD is out of print, so maybe check your local library or video store. TCM plays it every once and a while and, since Warner Bros has a deal with Filmstruck, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up there eventually.

The Half-Naked Truth (1932)

16 December 1932 | 77 min. | B&W

Directed by Gregory La Cava

Written by Corey Ford and Gregory La Cava

Starring Frank Morgan, Eugene Pallette, Lee Tracy, and Lupe Velez

You might very well think Lee Tracy was a featured TCM star this month. (Maybe next SUTS? Pretty please.)

Lupe Velez is so talented and natural it was nice to see her in a film where her wits were matched. I’ll be honest, I’m a big Lupe fan but, for most of her films, she’s the only good reason to watch them. This wasn’t the case here! There are a lot of wonderful moments with small movements and gestures that make Velez and Tracy’s relationship feel very real, as if they’re actually that caught up in one another. Eugene Pallette, Franklin Pangborn, and Frank Morgan round out the ensemble. The running eunuch joke might not be all that funny, but it’s a masterclass in not saying what you mean. Also, very cute chihuahua.

Where to Watch: The DVD is available from the Warner Archive. (So, once again, local library or video store might have a copy.)

The Cuban Love Song (1931)

5 December 1931 | 86 min. | B&W

Directed by W.S. Van Dyke

Written by John Lynch, Bess Meredith, and C. Gardener Sullivan

Starring Jimmy Durante, Lawrence Tibbett, Ernest Torrance, and Lupe Velez

Lupe is wonderful in this. She plays a Cuban woman who sounds an awful lot like a Mexican woman--which might be something you have to overlook to enjoy the film FYI. Lawrence Tibbett has a shocking dearth of charisma in the lead, but Jimmy Durante, Ernest Torrence, and Louise Fazenda take the heat off him well. It’s a little hard to root for Tibbett’s character and the ending is disappointing. (Spoiler: privileging of the affluent “white” couple.)

The songs are great. I love the habit of placing people in musicals so that they are singing full force directly into each other’s faces. I don’t know why I find it so funny, but it’s not a mood ruiner for Cuban Love Song. The editing is fun and energetic. Until the war breaks out, there’s a lot of solid humor.

After watching so many Lupe films this month, I’d love to sit down with people who do and don’t know Spanish to talk about her films. There seem to be some divisions on social media and across blogs about Lupe’s films that might be attributable to whether or not one understands Spanish. I myself understand Spanish reasonably well and I think knowing what Lupe and others are saying makes almost all of her films funnier. And boy, does Lupe like calling men stupid animals.

Where to Watch: This one seems kinda rare. Looks like there may have been a VHS release, but you may just have to wait for TCM to play it again!

The Night Stalker (1972)

11 January 1972 | 74 min. | Color

Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey

Written by Jeffrey Grant Rice and Richard Matheson

Starring Carol Lynley, Darren McGavin, and Simon Oakland

and

The Night Strangler (1973)

16 January 1973 | 74 min. | Color

Directed by Dan Curtis

Written by Jeffrey Grant Rice and Richard Matheson

Starring Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland, and Jo Ann Pflug

I loved that these films are exactly like the Kolchak TV series. My SO and I have been watching the show weekly as it airs on MeTV and so he surprised me by renting the movies that kicked off the series. Honestly, watching backwards may have made the movies even more entertaining. How is Kolchak still working for Vincenzo in Las Vegas?? The answer is in Seattle.

The TV movies were intended as a trilogy, but after the success of the first two films, it was developed into a series instead. It’s cool to see how every piece of the Kolchak formula was in place immediately and how firmly Darren McGavin had a hold on the character. His chemistry with Simon Oakland (Vincenzo) is spectacular--a great comedy duo TBH. If you like their shouting matches on the show, Night Strangler has a humdinger to offer you.

Night Stalker is a pretty straight-forward vampire story, written by Richard Matheson, one of the great spec-fic writers of the 1960s and 1970s. Matheson also wrote one of the best undead novels of all time, I am Legend. What elevates the film over the basic mythology, aside from the great performances, pacing, and editing, is that the story’s really about how suppression actually goes down--how mundane and frustrating it can be even in the face of the supernatural.

Night Strangler is a little more creative with its monster. They integrate the nature and landmarks of Seattle in fun ways. The stripper characters are delightful. Jo Ann Pflug gives a truly funny performance and feels like a natural contender for Kolchak. Even his romantic relationships should be affectionately combative. The ditzy lesbian, Charisma Beauty (Nina Wayne) is hilarious and Wayne’s timing is impeccable. (BTW: they don’t explicitly call her a lesbian but it’s still made very overt.) There’s also a wonderful cameo by Margaret Hamilton.

As far as I can tell, it’s easier to get access to these films than the series. They’re worth seeing even if you haven’t seen the Kolchak TV show. They’re also a good pick if you’re a fan of X-Files, as Kolchak is the mother of that show. Even though I’m an X-Files fan and grew up watching it, Kolchak is edging it out for me lately. Maybe because if you’re telling a story about fighting for truth against the suppression of information, you undercut yourself by making the protagonist a fed.

Where to Watch: Kino Lorber is releasing restored editions of the films on Blu-ray and DVD in October!

The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)

1 July 1944 | 95 min. | B&W

Directed by Jean Negulesco

Written by Frank Gruber

Starring Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Zachary Scott

This was great! I loved Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet together. If you’re looking for a mystery story that flows and escalates well and presents a parade of interesting characters and locales, Dimitrios is for you. It’s also always nice to see Lorre in the lead.

Where to Watch: The DVD is available from the Warner Archive. (So, once again, local library or video store might have  copy.)

Strait-Jacket (1964)

19 January 1964 | 93 min. | B&W

Directed by William Castle

Written by Robert Bloch

Starring Diane Baker and Joan Crawford

I mentioned in my Joan Crawford CUTS post that I’d been meaning to see this for years. My enjoyment of the film didn’t suffer a bit from that length of anticipation.

I like William Castle’s movies a lot. I like the campy humor and quirky stories. This one is campy still, but not as heavy on the humor--unless you have a real weird sense of humor. That’s not a strike against Strait-Jacket though. Castle builds so much tension that by the end of the film, you feel like anyone could be axe-murdered at any moment, which becomes absurdly fun. The ending might be a little predictable, but it’s fun to go along for the ride. I didn’t particularly like the tacked on ending but I guess every JC movie needs to end on JC?

Largely unrelated, but if you’re a Castle fan, have you checked out his TV show Ghost Story/Circle of Fear? The first episode, The New House, in particular is top notch.

Where to Watch: It’s on Blu-ray and DVD from Sony (your local library or video store might have a copy) and it’s for rent on Amazon Prime. It’s also still on-demand via TCM for another few days.

One I didn’t write up: Cairo (1942). I brought up in my Jeanette MacDonald post that I was hoping to find a MacDonald film I enjoyed watching on her Summer Under the Stars day and I did!

[becomethevoidstuff]

November-December 2018 Featured Creator

What is a Featured Creator?

Write Way Studio’s “Featured Creator” segment is my way of showing appreciation for the creators of the world.  Creative outlets are limitless, because there is no end to human imagination.  Every month shows the succeeding featured creator.  If you would like to be a part of this collaborative project, contact me at studiowriteway@gmail.com!

My thirteenth guest creator is an artist known as Neri!

Introduction

This wonderful person goes by Neri.  She became twenty-six years old this September.  At her request, I will provide only a basic idea of what she does in the real world:  being an adult and building up her portfolio for the workforce.  She has graduated from higher education with a concentration on visual arts.  However, she did realize with Contemporary Art that it was a field not too aligned with her personal goals.  The style is “too limited and specialized public” while she wishes for her creations to be “more open to [the] general public.”  Despite her thoughts on the field, she still appreciates and values the experiences she learned along the way, such as printmaking and textiles.

Now, with her blog?  She mostly creates fan art and a few original pieces.  Because it is mostly fandom-oriented, the blog is separate from both her personal and professional lives.  She values her privacy a great deal, which is why most of her work on the blog lacks personal commitment.  She has participated in fanzines (better known as fan magazines) as well as related projects.  To name a few:  Present Mic Zine, Love Is . . ., BNHA Tarot Project, and What Makes a Hero Zine.  Until the projects are completed, she cannot disclose any more details about them!

What Sparked the Creator Passion?

O Ye of Powerful Spite . . . Or Was it Fandom?

Believe it or not, spite was a powerful force for Neri when she was younger!  She always felt an urge to control the world around her any way she can, and the only safe way to do so was by creating her own pieces, from custom logos, newspapers and more.  But there was is also the innocent yet obsessive beauty in fangirling.  She evfrusten went to the point of producing a family portrait with everyone in classic Sailor Moon apparel!

Eventually, her spite evolved into a deeper appreciation for the world around her.  The frustration persisted, though.  Creating is a part of her now, nothing else to it.

Taking It Seriously

However, it would be a while before she realized she truly placed more effort in her work.  She noticed other people at school being passionate just like her.  They worked together on improving their craft and extended invitations for others to join the drawing club.  Her best friend at the time introduced her to the realm of fanfiction forever ago.

Since then, she has become a fandom sponge, becoming inspired by anything in her spectrum, like dreams, patterns, and synesthesia, to name a few.  A few artists and mediums have also inspired her along the way.  Takehiko Inoue, Dave McKean, and Akemi Takada list a few figures of hers and they are all from the Eighties and Nineties.  The same period’s fashion sense helps too!  The artistic backgrounds in animation (especially by Aleksandr Petrov) and darkwave music sneak their way in as well.  All of these features help create an atmosphere, the most important thing for Neri (except maybe the subject matter). 

Future Projects

In concerns for the future, she does not have any immediate plans that do not involve fan creations.  The account she uses for her lovable fanatics is just meant for fun, after all!

Where To Find You? Support You?

Neri is found on a few places on the World Wide Web!  If you are interested in a commission or just have any questions, let her know right away!

Social Media

Tumblr @rubeedo

Pillowfort as @nerirubeedo

Remember, every little bit counts if you would like to support her work!

All about Commissions!

Support her with a cup of Ko-fi!

Last Tidbits

When Neri creates her artwork, she can imagine the music that would accompany it immediately.  She had previously been invested in music, including creating an orchestra as a teen!  It may also just be a natural occurrence for her – her mind matches colors to particular music notes and other details, such as textures and astrology.  The sensations never really turn off either.  She also can imitate fonts by hand!

Important Notice

Please understand that some information will not be shared by the creator’s request.  If you cannot understand that, there is not much more I can do to help you.  Safety is a top priority here, and I am here to help the creators, not instigate negative behavior.

Collaboration Disclaimer

The information provided in my Featured Creator articles is, in fact, from the real people, not some random Internet bot.  I do not use random stock photos to fill an imaginary photo quota.  Any photos in the Featured Creator segment are provided by the creators with permission to use them in this manner.  I want to support the original person behind the work, not a random online copycat creeping around.

To Neri,

Thank you very much for your patience with me on this!  I know I’ve left you waiting in the dark during a lot of it.  If you must blame someone, blame my college education – I have to get my graduation stuff together a semester early (a new thing they started this year apparently!)  I know that is not much better, but it’s something?

Honestly, I think you are a wonderful person and I am very happy to have this opportunity to work with you.  I love your work and its flair.  The potent energy you slip into each one is brought out by the bright colors and contrasts with the distinctive thickness of lines that I just adore.  It generated an adventure to look at your work.  I hope you have the best time in the future with your personal goals, whatever they may be!

Sincerely,

Jasmine Love

MLA Citation (8th edition)

Neri.  Personal E-mail Interview by Jasmine Love. November-December 2018 Featured Creator Collaboration, 26 October – 19 November 2018.