#Bringing some representation and combining it with one of my favourite games

[jammboe]

I'm at a weird stage where i feel like my time as an artist is coming close to an end, idk what to do with it or where to take it. It doesn't feel nice at all 😭 i will try to draw again, but i just don't know when that will be unfortunately

[thestraggletag]

Silver Tongue, a Rumbelle fic

Summary: Based on this prompt. Royce Gold is determined to confess his secret feelings towards the librarian. Unable to do it in person he sits down to write a letter but a combination of liquid courage and a determination to truly unburden himself made him perhaps a bit too ardently honest. And a bit careless.

This might have a sequel.

Rating: NC-17 

It had taken a long time to arrive at this point, but now that he’d made the decision Royce Gold was oddly calm, as if having made the decision had magically ended the slow-burning agony he’d been in since the library had opened three years ago. He hadn’t much thought he would be affected by the event, and had privately thought it wouldn’t last. He could not see there being any need for a library in Storybrooke, a town where most people had last held a book in high school, if even then. He had thought it would not last long, one of Regina’s many pet projects that was abandoned when it did not justify its constant spending of town funds.

He had been wrong, in the end, because he hadn’t factored in the librarian. Belle French swept into town with her high-end, short-skirted fashion and noticeable Australian accent and he thought the moment he saw her that she wouldn’t last. Too foreign for a small town like Storybrooke. He had been wrong, though. She had soon made friends with the miners, and Granny and Ruby, and even a few of the teachers from the local school. She also made sure to make the library indispensable, organising book clubs and other after-school activities for the children, offering computer literacy courses for adults and a place for the knitting club to meet, as well as regular table-game nights that surprisingly became wildly popular with certain crowds. And had made Granny an unbearably-cocky backgammon champion, two years running.

So she had stayed, and soon he had begun to notice the danger in it. The way he could not stop staring at her in the diner, or as she walked down the street. They way he got tongue-tied when in her presence, and turned softer, kinder. The way his smirks turned to smiles around her, and he laughed easier. She was smart, and learned, and had a delightful sense of humor. Dark, like his. And yet she was a being of light. Kind, always ready to help, and willing to see beyond the surface. Beyond the drunken escapades of Leroy, or the scandal surrounding Miss Blanchard and Mr Nolan, or his own sordid reputation. And it was that thing that made her so dangerous, how unafraid she was of him, and how determined she seemed to be in getting to know him.

He had been half in love with her before he realised it. The attraction he could deal with- after all, she was a gorgeous woman, and he a man with eyes- but the feelings scared the fuck out of him. It was too late to stop himself, however, so he resigned himself to being a besotted fool… from a safe distance. Only the more they interacted the less he seemed reconciled with the idea until it felt like he was choking on his unexpressed feelings. 

That’s why he had decided, in a fit of uncharacteristic emotional bravery, to unburden himself. Confess his feelings, likely be politely refused, and put an end to the madness. Or perhaps, if fate smiled upon him, be rewarded with a tentative acceptance to a dinner date, and perhaps more. It was always a possibility, albeit a small one, but enough to give him the push he needed.

He had decided it would be best to write her a letter. He got stupidly tongue-tied in her presence, after all, and there was something whimsically old-fashioned about a written letter, which he was sure she would appreciate. So on Friday night, after dinner, he locked himself in his study, fished out his Waldmann Tango and his best stationary, and…

Drew a resounding blank.

It was difficult to start writing with a blank page, he reasoned, so he tried at first simply to write the opening line, immediately falling into a ten-minute debate on whether to address the letter to “Miss French” or “Belle” and what to put in front of it “Dear Miss French”, on one end of the spectrum, seemed too dry and cold, and “Dearest Belle” on the other, too forward and presumptuous.

In the end he decided on “My dear Belle”. There was no point in writing a letter declaring his feelings if he could not even bring himself to call her by her given name and the slightly possessive edge to his greeting might come off as ardent rather than off-putting.

The opening paragraph seemed easy at first: “I am writing to you in order to express certain feelings I am sure have gone unnoticed so far, given the pains I’ve taken to ensure they remained hidden, in part due to our mutual circumstances and standing in town…” yet after a few times reading and re-reading it he had the odd, sinking feeling he might be writing the slightly-more-modern version of Mr Darcy’s ‘In vain I have struggled’ speech and that hadn’t gone over well the first time around. Luckily for him, at least, Belle had no sister he could insult while he was at it. So he scraped it and tried again, but soon felt everything he wrote sounded too formal, stilted and lacking in emotion. He was laying it all down like it was a contract to seal one of his deals, and it was hardly conducive to romance, or reflective of his true feelings.

He stood up, going for the wet bar he kept in the corner of the office. He selected a half-full bottle of Lagavulin and poured himself a generous three fingers into his favourite tumbler, deciding to forgo ice altogether. He needed to loosen up and good Scotch always helped in that. He sat down again, downed the drink in one go, and took another shot at it. He wanted to sound… Passionate, he supposed. It was the whole point of the letter, after all, to confess his true feelings. And his feelings were… ardent. Powerful. All-consuming, at times. Like a small, flickering flame that had slowly built into a veritable inferno. Though he did not wish to frighten her, he did wish to unburden himself and leave her with no doubt regarding his feelings.

“There hasn’t been a day since you arrived in Storybrooke that I haven’t felt your presence in some small way. You’ve taken a permanent residence in my mind and my heart, and there are days when I can scarcely think of anything else. All it takes is a small conversation or even a passing smile and I’m rendered useless.”

He fetched the Scotch from the bar and poured himself another drink, deciding it would be best to leave the bottle nearby. He felt he was finally getting into the groove of things, building up to something that sounded less like a legal clause. He downed his second Scotch, feeling the pleasant burn as it travelled down his throat, and took his pen again.

“You need not be concerned if you do not share my feelings. I will respect whatever decision you make. I simply wanted to tell you of the warmth you inspire in me, the way you’ve torn through all the walls I’ve built between myself and the rest of the world. And yet I know you to be, above all things, kind. More beautiful on the inside that you are on the outside, if that’s at all possible. I know that I am safe in your hands, whether you choose to give me a chance or not. Thank you for treating an old beast with kindness and humanity and know that, no matter what the outcome is, you have a friend and an ally across the street from the library, if there is ever anything you need.”

He signed it simply “Yours” because it felt apt. He certainly felt hers, in any case. Below he signed his name, trying to make his signature a bit more whimsical, give it a tad more flourish. Afterwards he stretched, poured himself another drink, and read it. It was… Good. Not too dry, not too passionate. Solid. Respectful but a good representation of his feelings at the same time.

Well… to an extent. He gulped down his third glass of Scotch and poured himself another, ruefully acknowledging that the letter was not quite honest. It was a bit restrained. Or a lot restrained. It felt like the gentlemanly thing to do, to tone down some of the more unbecoming feelings, keep those more intimate urges locked up for the time being. But perhaps, he mused, he could let loose a bit, to try and see if a more emotionally-honest letter would actually be preferable.

He could tell her, perhaps, a bit more about how it was hard for him to keep his eyes off her when they were in the same room. How utterly beautiful she was, small enough to make him wanna crowd her in, whisk her away somewhere and lean over her, feeling her breath on his neck. How he adored her high heels and flirty skirts and wished nothing more than to-

He removed his tie, and scratched out that last sentence, automatically fishing for his drink to try and cool himself down. He was beginning to get inappropriate and, anyway, he did not wish to come across as if he was solely enamoured with her physical appearance. Though he very much was enraptured by it, it was her personality that had made him fall for her. Things like her kindness, her understanding, her insatiable curiosity. He wished to share everything with her. Wanted to teach her all the secrets of his trade, have deep discussions on books they mutually liked, bare his soul to her inquisitive eyes.

“In my dreams, over and over, I am a willing slave to your curiosity, your insatiable need to explore and experience. When I close my eyes I see us in every way two people can be together, entwined till it’s impossible to decipher where I end and you begin. You let me press my mouth against every inch of you, drink from your cunt till I’m satiated, but it’s never enough. I wish to vainly attempt to quench your curiosity anywhere and everywhere you’ll let me, at any time of day. Over and over till neither of us can walk and I cannot remove your scent from my fingers, my mouth, my cock.”

He stared at the paragraph, head tilted to the side. The paper looked a bit blurry, so he checked to make sure he was wearing his glasses. He was. Odd. He reached out for his glass of Scotch, surprised that it was empty. He refilled it, noticing the bottle felt surprisingly light. He re-read the paragraph, trying to figure out if it was a bit too risqué. But, he reasoned, Belle was risqué, in her attire, in her reading choices. Sure she would appreciate him being the same, going out of his comfort sort in order to convey the depth of his affection.

“I dream of fucking you for hours on end. Slowly, with the care and thoroughness you deserve, till we’re both numb and spent. I want to make you ache in places where the pain bleeds into pleasure, and convince you that only I am worthy of making you come. That none of the boys you might have had between your lovely legs were worth a second look. I want to become your favourite toy, there for whenever you might need me, eager to please, to make you sigh and moan and keen till you are hoarse.”

He was hard, he noticed, but it was hardly a surprise, though he thought he might have drunk a bit too much for his body to rise to the occasion. He thought about touching himself for the briefest second, but quickly dismissed the idea. He was on a writing roll, it wouldn’t do to jeopardise that. Instead he poured himself another glass of Scotch, surprised when he had to tip the bottle all the way. He didn’t remember drinking enough to empty it, but he must have. Shrugging, he turned his attention back to the letter.

“I want to take you against the stacks of the library, amidst the books you love so much. I want to fuck you in the backroom of my shop so your smell lingers there. I want to go down on you in my bed for ours, till the silk sheets are ruined beyond repair. I want to consume you anywhere, everywhere, knowing that I will never be truly satiated, that it will never be enough. Have you splayed across my dining room table so I could eat you out as many times as I wanted, as much as you needed. I want to do everything to you, and have you do everything to me, till I can’t scrub you from my skin, the same way I cannot seem to be able to erase you from my heart and my mind.”

It was a bit of a sappy ending, but he supposed it balanced the more physical emotions out. He signed his name at the bottom with a flourish, smiled in satisfaction and staggered to his feet, determined to make it to his bedroom. He would get a good night’s sleep, wake up refreshed, and deliver the letter personally first thing in the morning.

In the morning, once he was done throwing up and had managed to shower, he shook his head at the idea he could’ve ever thought he would wake up anything other than terribly hungover. He popped a couple of aspirin, forced himself to swallow a few bites of dry toast, and dressed himself for the day. Before going out the door he remembered the letter, wincing when he recalled specifically the second draft he had made, clearly in a state of drunken foolishness. He picked up the sheets of paper, thinking for a second about ripping them up. He stopped himself at the last minute, though. The letter might not be fit to ever be seen by Belle, but he fancied the idea of rereading it later. He folded it neatly into an envelope and fetched a second one for the original, much more suitable letter. He would slip that one underneath the library’s door on his way to the shop. 

He was startled by his home phone ringing, picking up to see it was the tip on the estate sale he had been waiting for. He jotted down the necessary information, went back to his desk to retrieve the letter and was out the door a few seconds later. He hurried to the library and, before he could convince himself otherwise, slipped the envelope with the letter underneath the doors, feeling a mixture of relief and anxiety afterwards. He had done it, and though he felt unbearably nervous about the whole thing, he was proud of himself for following through.

Or he was, until he opened what he thought was the unsuitable letter and realised it was the original first draft. He had switched them up by mistake. Ice flooded his veins, and he felt like someone had punched him in the gut, leaving him gasping for breath. This couldn’t be happening. Not to him, not with Belle. The more he thought about it the more his mind recalled fragments of the letter, lingering in its uncouth language and vivid imagery. He was fucked, totally and completely.

Unless…

Maybe she hadn’t opened the letter yet. Or she had, but hadn’t gotten around to read it all. The first page or so was quite reserved. Perhaps he could sneak into the library and retrieve the rest, or swap it for the correct letter. He had the keys to the library, as it was his property, rented by the town. It would feel and likely be a terrible violation of the librarian’s private space, even though he did not intend to go beyond the library, but it would be worse to allow her to be submitted to such basic thoughts as the ones he had written down the other night. 

With that in mind he took the library keys from his safe and went out into the night. Storybrooke, being a small town, was deserted at that time, which was a blessing. Less people to see him slip inside the library using the back door, or hear him as he rummaged around inside, trying to be quiet and not use his phone flashlight, lest that alert Belle upstairs in her apartment somehow. Tentatively he made his way to her office, sure she would have surely put the letter, hopefully unsealed. But when he got close he noticed light coming through the windows of the office, where the blinds were partially-lowered. It seemed that, given his fucking luck, Miss French was still diligently toiling away doing something or the other for the library. Nevermind. He would take a discrete peek, to see if he at least spotted his letter atop her desk, and if he did he would hide in some shadowy corner of the library and wait her out. If he didn’t he would cut his losses and go back home, to try and figure out how he was ever going to face Belle again. 

He approached silently, drawing one of the slats down to peer inside. He spotted Belle right away, leaning back on her office chair with an ottoman propping her feet up. She was reading something and for a moment he appreciated her face, eyes focused on the page, cheeks slightly flushed and lips parted. Then he registered the rest, the shirt tossed above the desk along with her bra, the black silk camisole making her hardened nipples visible and her left hand, which disappeared somewhere beneath her rucked-up skirt. She sighed, head rolling back as she whispered something.

He didn’t know what registered first, whether it was the fact that she was saying his name or that it was his letter she was reading, clutched tightly to her right hand. There was no doubt as to what she was doing, and yet he could hardly believe that Belle fucking French was bringing herself to orgasm in her office while reading his letter. He pinched himself, unwilling to believe he was seeing what he was seeing, but the sting felt all too real. It wasn’t a dream, it was, somehow, reality. Sweet, sweet reality.

He needed to get out. As much as he burned to just burst into the office and let his mouth do what Belle’s fingers were attempting, it wouldn’t do. By some miracle she was not offended or otherwise put off by his risqué letter, but she sure would be by him breaking into the library. Offended and perhaps scared, unsafe, which was the last thing he wanted her to feel, especially in his presence. He would sneak out, quietly, and swing by the library tomorrow afternoon, right after closing time. As much as it would embarrass him to bring up his letter he would know she reciprocated his feelings, or that at least she was open to them, and that would give him the courage needed to ask her out. 

It was a solid plan, a great plan. And it would’ve worked, he was sure, if he hadn’t knocked over a banker lamp as he backed away from her office. The  antique bronze made a horrible noise as it collided with the floor, and the green shade shattered upon impact, making a mess.

“Who’s there?”

Fuck.

[passionate-reply]

This week on Passionate Reply: We all know “Don’t You Want Me,” but the early Human League is a totally different beast, featuring a different line-up, and songs about killer clowns and wanting to be a skyscraper, on their debut LP, 1979′s Reproduction. Transcript below the break!

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums. In this installment, we’ll be investigating one of the most surprising debut LPs around: The Human League’s Reproduction, first released in 1979.

Pretty much anyone with a general understanding of Western pop will already know the name of the Human League, and associate them, rightfully, with their early 80s hits like “Don’t You Want Me.” For many, the Human League were the first genuine synth-pop that they had ever heard, and their work in the 1980s has been immeasurably influential in bringing the notion of electronic pop into the mainstream. But before they were hitmakers and game-changers, the Human League were a very different band.

Music: “Being Boiled”

“Being Boiled” was the first thing the Human League would ever press to wax, way back in 1978. In most respects, this track is everything that “Don’t You Want Me” is not: its pace is languid, its structure is shapeless and meandering, and rather than a simple and relatable love story, its lyrics offer us a strange and opaque condemnation of the tortures endured by silkworms during textile production. While fascinating, and endearing in its own morbid way, “Being Boiled” does not exactly scream “hit record.” The Human League were not only a different band in a stylistic sense, but also with respect to their personnel, driven by a creative core comprised of budding synthesists Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh. Prior to the release of the breakthrough album Dare, Marsh and Ware would abandon the group over creative differences, and go on to form Heaven 17 instead. It was vocalist Phil Oakey, and producer Martin Rushent, who would create the sound that their name is now so strongly associated with, and this early incarnation of the group is probably best thought of as an entirely different entity. This album, Reproduction, was their first full-length release, and is perhaps the best introduction to their pioneering sound.

Music: “Circus of Death”

“Circus of Death” had appeared as the B-side to “Being Boiled,” and was included once more as the second track on *Reproduction.* It has a lot in common with the other track it accompanied: a plodding pace, a dark and obtuse lyrical theme, and a sparse, fully electronic instrumentation. The Human League were among the first British groups to utilize a totally electronic sound, devoid of any traditional instruments besides the voice, though in this underground and more experimental context, it doesn’t present a threat to the status quo of pop the way that Dare would a few years later. Alongside fellow proto-industrial acts associated with "the Sound of Sheffield," like Clock DVA and Cabaret Voltaire, they dwelt on the fringes of good taste, crafting subversive music for subversive people. “Circus of Death” introduces us to a demonic figure called “the Clown,” who controls, and torments, human beings by use of a drug called “Dominion,” in a scenario that sounds a bit like Huxley’s Brave New World. It’s worth remembering that while younger generations are quick to think of clowns as icons of evil and terror, clowns were unironically beloved as bringers of joy for most of the 20th Century, and these early portrayals of clowns as killers were indeed shocking at the time. Preceding “Circus of Death,” and opening the album, is “Almost Medieval,” a track with some similar themes, but a rather different composition.

Music: “Almost Medieval”

While “Circus of Death” is slow and dirgelike, “Almost Medieval” showcases the more aggressive side of *Reproduction.* It opens the album with a starkly simplistic tick-tocking beat, reminiscent of an unaccompanied metronome, before bursting into its punk-like sonic assault--a musical representation of how seemingly predictable and deterministic machines can also create something outrageous and unexpected. The lyrics of this track seem pointed towards the past, with the narrator exclaiming that they “feel so old,” and as if they’ve died many times before. Juxtaposed against the thoroughly modern setting of an airport with tarmacs and jet engines, it might be taken as an expression of the horror a person from the past might feel if they were shown the world of the future, created by capitalism and high technology. While it isn’t very accurate, we have a tendency to think of the “Medieval” world as a barbaric, unclean, and uncivilized era, full of witch hunts, chastity belts, and the deliberate erasure of “ancient wisdom.” “Almost Medieval” turns that idea on its head, suggesting that perhaps our world is the one that’s truly barbaric. The image of its narrator, “falling through a rotting ladder,” can be taken as a rejection of the notion of a “ladder” of progress. Similar themes of open-ended symbolism, and the sorrow of modernity, can be found on “Empire State Human.”

Music: “Empire State Human”

Like “Almost Medieval,” “Empire State Human” is lively and faster-paced, with driving percussion. With its straightforward rhymes and repetitive structure, it readily encourages the listener to sing along, almost as if joining in some sort of ritual chant. It’s an idea that Marsh and Ware would return to in their Heaven 17 days, with tracks like “We Don’t Need This Fascist Groove Thang.” “Empire State Human” was the album’s only single, and thanks to this exposure, and its (relative) palatability compared to the rest of their catalogue, it remains one of the best known tracks from the early Human League. “Empire State Human” makes its concept pretty clear, with less ambiguous lyrics and an easy to follow mix that brings Oakey’s voice to the fore: the narrator wishes to become a building, and a mighty skyscraper no less, which might rival the achievements of the Pyramids of the ancient Egyptians. While it is clear that that’s what the song’s about, what we do with this once again high-concept subject matter is up to us. I like to think that this is some kind of perverse commentary on the unnatural and alienating experience of urban living, which may come with the feeling that the concrete and rebar structures that surround us are more significant to our lives than the people who may live or work in them. City life is addressed more directly by the track “Blind Youth.”

Music: “Blind Youth”

“Blind Youth” is probably the most “grounded” track on the album, in terms of its theme, making pointed remarks about “dehumanization” and “high-rise living.” It’s tempting to think of it as a sort of parallel to “Empire State Human,” with a broadly similar musical backdrop, and a more literal expression of the theme hinted at more obliquely by “Empire State Human.” With its focus on the experiences of the titular “youth,” “Blind Youth” can also be contrasted with “Almost Medieval,” whose narrator keens about feeling old. Where “Almost Medieval” deals with the disgust an older person feels at the decrepit state of the human race, “Blind Youth” shows the demented, unthinking joy of the youth, who have grown up in an industrialized and urbanized world, and don’t know different--or better.

While there have been many classic underground albums whose covers aimed to shock and displease polite society, the cover of Reproduction is one of the few that I feel would still be seen as offensive, over 40 years later. It was allegedly the product of a miscommunication between the group and the illustrator commissioned to create it; the band requested a scene in which people are dancing above a ward of babies in glass-topped incubators, and the striking angle, which seems to show people crushing infants underfoot, is an unintentional aspect of the design. Unintentional or not, this crudely violent aspect dominates the final composition, and lends it vileness and immediacy. Like the lyrics of many of the songs, the combination of the cover and title can be interpreted a number of ways. Perhaps it’s a glib commentary on human reproduction as fun and games: we partake in the “dance” of courtship and sexuality, and babies drop beneath our feet. Or perhaps it suggests a contrast between life’s enjoyments, like dancing, and its stressors, like the responsibilities of parenthood. It’s hard not to see so many crying, seemingly distressed infants without becoming upset oneself, and I think the deep instinctual revulsion that this piece inspires is part of why it’s remained so resonant in its subversiveness.

As I mentioned in my introduction, the Human League have gone down in history chiefly for the music they made later, which has largely buried this early period as part of their legacy--at least in the public eye and outside of the dedicated diggings of motivated enthusiasts. If you’re a fan of what you’ve heard from this album, you’ll probably enjoy their 1980 follow-up Travelogue, as well as their EP, Holiday ‘80. Given the emphasis on long-form albums among music aficionados, EPs and their exclusive tracks are quite frequently missed, but Holiday ‘80 is a gem from this short-lived line-up, featuring the fragile “Marianne” as well as a cover of the stadium favourite “Rock ‘N’ Roll,” made famous by Gary Glitter. Thumbing its nose at everything the culture of “rock and roll” stands for, and transposing this hymn to its greatness into an abrasive and sterile lunar landscape of synths, this is one of my favourite covers of all time, and seems to prefigure how a very different Human League would later become the archnemesis of all that rock fans held holy. It was also one of very few tracks to be performed on Top of the Pops, and subsequently see not a rise, but a drop in the singles charts!  

Music: “Rock ‘N’ Roll”

My favourite track on Reproduction is one that appears on its second side, unlike the other tracks I’ve talked about so far: “Austerity / Girl One.” Side Two of Reproduction is mainly focused on longer and more narrative-driven tracks, and this is no exception. Like the opener of the second side, “Austerity / Girl One” is a medley, albeit one of two pieces that are original compositions and not covers, as medleys usually are. This track’s story is both timeless and modern, a bit like a contemporary King Lear: the “Austerity” half deals with an aging father, incapable of understanding his children, dying alone and ignored, while the “Girl One” half puts us in the mindset of his daughter, a New Woman whose life is hectic, but also bleak. It’s a story that many of us will relate to, about people who try their best with what they’ve got, but still feel as though they’ve failed in life. Its simple, but effective musical backdrop of wan synth pulses allows the narrative, and Oakey’s evocative portrayal of it, to take center stage. That’s everything for today, thanks for listening.

Music: “Austerity / Girl One”

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: The New Mutants (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review the week following the movie first airing in the U.K, so if you haven’t yet seen The New Mutants do not read on until you have.

General Reaction:

A three year delay for the final instalment of a twenty-year franchise, was it ultimately worth it? Well as an X-Men fanatic I am always going to say yes, it wasn’t a swan song or a wrap up to the X-Men Cinematic Universe, far from as it was originally pitched as the start of a trilogy and does sew the seeds for that. However, while Dark Phoenix did feel like a sombre instalment not only for that “First Class” timeline but also the team movies as a whole, this had an air of sadness to it because this is the last time I will see anything X-Men related on the big screen for who knows how long.

In that sense, this was an emotional movie for me, more than just the fact that the emotion of fear is a running theme through the movie. However, in terms of my actual enjoyment of the movie, it was a very good movie for what it was.

When your very final movie is effectively an origin movie then there’s always going to be that sense of incompleteness, and what this movie teases both for these characters and who is the big bad behind all of this, it’s really frustrating to know it’s over before it truly starts.

With that in mind, The New Mutants is very slow to get started as there’s a lot of exposition and because it feels like it’s own branch of the X-Men Cinematic Franchise, similar to Deadpool, there is a level of “Beginner’s Guide to Mutants 101″ at play here with the explanation of what a Mutant is and when a young or “New Mutant” first discovers their powers that, to give this movie credit, I have never truly seen explored properly outside of the comics other than a quick explanation from Storm to Jubilee in the first episode of X-Men: The Animated Series.

It’s also disappointing to know that unlike X-Men: The Last Stand or Dark Phoenix, there isn’t a sense of finality for these characters as we have just been introduced to them. Outside of Sunspot who has briefly appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past, this is the first cinematic appearance for all of these characters. The X-Men are briefly mentioned and Professor X is alluded to quite cleverly but every character outside of Sunspot is debuting here and to know they’re never going to be seen in this continuity again with a chance to develop is very sad.

In terms of the “horror” aspects of this movie I have to say this is very comic-book horror as in how Blade in the late 90s was horror. If you know the jump scares in this movie are coming then there are no jump scares, so basically if you’ve seen the trailers you know the jump scares.

As a horror movie, it felt very much like It-lite in terms of the theme of bringing nightmares into reality, only without the hard R-rating of the blood and gore because outside of one maybe two scenes there is nothing truly horrific to look at here.

There’s also a great parallel to the Gentlemen from Buffy the Vampire Slayer shown from their episode in this movie and the Smiley Men who are Illyana’s nightmare brought to life. They’re creepy like them but they’re not as sinister as them...and that is a great choice of wording considering who the big bad behind the scenes of this movie is.

As an X-Men movie, which is what this is as the New Mutants in the comics are basically younger versions of the X-Men, as I say the first half of this movie isn’t that power heavy but is about introducing and establishing this team, the second half/last third on the other hand is power heavy. Not exactly Days of Future Past or Apocalypse heavy but still heavy for the powers this group of Mutants have.

Overall generally as both an X-Men movie and a comic-book movie, this was really a great movie particularly for the first new movie I have seen since lockdown.

Characters:

So this breakdown will be easy as there’s only really six characters to talk about but I’m going to make it a seven-character breakdown as the looming presence in the shadows of this movie deserves their own section.

Illyana Rasputin:

Alright so it is somewhat difficult to say if Illyana is my favourite or if Rahne is my favourite but I ultimately landed on Illyana for first as Anya Taylor-Joy is really in the spotlight the entire way through this movie. Every time she’s in a scene she commands the attention, and all five of the New Mutants have solo scenes so for Illyana to stand out the most, this is why she is #1 for me.

I’m not entirely sure where this movie takes place in terms of the overall X-Men timeline...but considering it’s supposedly in the revised timeline and Colossus is a member of the X-Men in the late noughties/early 2010s, I imagine this is either around the same time or can even be modern day (2017 or 2020).

Anya Taylor-Joy is as suited to the role of Magik as Channing Tatum would have been as Gambit in my opinion. Not only does she have a reasonable Russian accent but she just simply looks like how Magik looks in the comics.

I loved the rebel teen angst she had all the way through from when we first meet her to the very end, not only is it fitting for the movie but in my opinion it’s fitting for the character. This is a girl that literally goes through some resemblance of hell and is effectively a serial killer so of course she is going to have this icy dark exterior.

In terms of powers, I am slightly disappointed she never fully armoured up, it was always just her left arm that she had armoured complete with Soulsword, whereas in the comics her main look is her entire body. I guess the argument could be made the majority of it is simply a uniform and her arm is the only part armoured but I would have liked to have at least seen her crown.

But Magik’s powers for me here are an interesting combination of Zatanna and Nightcrawler which is a very good combination. The scene where she first appears through limbo fighting the Smiley Men was very impressive.

I would have also enjoyed it if we had spent more time in Limbo, given that we always saw cameo flashes of it whenever she manifested a portal, but we never actually had a full scene of her in her “special place”.

Not being too familiar with the comics however, I am almost completely unaware of Lockheed as a character. My only prior knowledge is his appearance in Pryde of the X-Men as a pest and I have to say I much prefer him here. The animation of both Lockheed and the Demon Bear were stellar.

As I say, I feel we have only just scratched the surface with where this version of Magik could go. I doubt very much Kevin Feige would bring Anya Taylor-Joy back if/when he does bring the character into the MCU because he doesn’t like playing with used toys but if ever there was an exception I would hope it would be her.

Rahne Sinclair:

It is slightly obvious to think of when Maisie Williams was filming for this movie as her hair, unless it’s a wig, is in that “Arry” phase of her Game of Thrones tenure.

Because of the current entertainment climate and the non-starting stance this movie finds itself released in, I think the lesbian romance between Rahne and Dani is going to go unnoticed. But considering this is the first major LGBT romance in a comic-book property I feel this movie will be cheated out of that representation in favour of what is to eventually come from Marvel.

Outside of the romance, I feel Rahne’s story rooted in her religion and mutation was fantastic. I love me some werewolf action and I feel I saw enough actual wolf to satisfy Rahne spending most of her time in “halfway form” as the character has been known to do in the comics.

The fact her nightmare was that religious leader branding her as a werewolf and thereby a monster, not only was it believable given her character but also the parallels to devout religious views on homosexuality were subtle but there.

I do feel the character spent way too much time screaming towards the end of the movie. This girl is a werewolf but spent most of the final battle as the screaming protector of her unconscious lover, I mean she was I guess helpful in waking Dani back up but never truly let rip like I feel the character could have.

I’m not entirely sure if Williams has any Scottish heritage about her but the slipping in and out of the accent was slightly distracting at times. When she was able to be loud the accent was often broken but in her quieter moments or longer dialogue scenes you could hear it.

I do appreciate keeping the nationality of the character from the comics, considering the mess they made of Banshee and Moira MacTaggert, and I do understand having an at the time name talent like Maisie Williams in the role, but there are surely Scottish actresses out there and the casting pool wasn’t exactly high for this movie.

Dani:

The main character in this movie, or focal character I guess as it’s an ensemble movie, is either Illyana or Dani, but because we start with Dani and are introduced to the other characters through Dani I guess she is the focal character.

Again, I give credit to the movie for keeping the nationality of the characters from the comics, but while Anya Taylor-Joy and Maisie Williams border on appropriation as they are not Russian or Scottish themselves, although Anya is of Scottish Argentine descent, Blu Hunt is at least Native-American as Dani is. I think they come from different tribes but I don’t think people are going to focus too much on that technicality.

Similarly to all these characters I don’t really know much about Dani so have no frame of reference to compare her to. I remember she appeared in one episode of X-Men: Evolution and I know her powers involve dreams, which similarly to the majority of the characters in this movie lends itself beautifully to a horror movie, but that’s about it.

I felt her relationship with Rahne was genuine and her own “survivors guilt” over being the only member of her family still alive after the Demon Bear attack was well explained.

I just didn’t understand why it was decided that Reyes had to kill Dani because of the severity of her powers, maybe it was the unpredictability of her powers because their limitations are literally the power of imagination, but I thought Reyes was responsible for sorting out those capable of being killers...surely the power to bring nightmares to life as many times as it takes to kill the person qualifies?

With the Demon Bear being tamed at the end of the movie, I kind of don’t see anywhere for Dani to go if they did continue, she still has the power to solidify nightmares, and I guess she can always call on the Demon Bear, but unlike Rahne or Magik I do not see any further development for her.

Sam:

Sam Guthrie aka Cannonball was an interesting one for me as I knew the character and I knew the actor, but hadn’t properly seen either one fully explored before. I have not watched Stranger Things so do not really know Charlie Heaton’s acting potential...but what I do know is he is from Yorkshire and cannot really do a Kentucky accent.

As for the character of Cannonball, I thought that early scene of him strapping himself to that weight while zooming through the air to either test himself or hurt himself was really well realised. There wasn’t enough of him going full cannonball throughout the movie, mostly it just came across as a sort of super speed which in a way I guess it is but projecting that force-field while he is zooming about is what makes the power set unique.

Similarly to Dani he had guilt over his nightmare which was him causing a mining accident which killed his co-workers and dad, but unlike Dani who never really developed the thought of it being her fault for her family’s death because of her conjuring the Demon Bear, Sam did at least hold a lot of guilt over what had happened...despite his nightmare being probably the weakest as the main effect it had was totalling a washing machine.

I also didn’t understand the back-to-back scenes of Sam suggesting he was meant to be in the hospital and felt he had to be there, but then in the next scene him trying to walk out saying he doesn’t belong there. Maybe it was the editing but it just seemed like a complete 180 from scenes that were literally back-to-back.

Roberto:

As I said this is Sunspot’s second cinematic appearance and I guess in the revised timeline he has gone from being portrayed by Mexican actor Adan Canto to now Brazilian actor Henry Zaga.

I didn’t feel the boys in this movie had that much to do, with both Sam and Berto it did feel like them simply coming to terms with their powers. I did like how both had that fear of hurting people and both had to learn I guess to push past that fear.

With Berto’s fear though, I do feel his power first manifesting in conjunction to him reaching sexual maturity was very well explored, because of course the combination of testosterone and becoming a living solar flare are not exactly two things anyone wants to mix. So when the result is burning your girlfriend to a crisp it is going to shake you.

Outside of his powers though there wasn’t a lot to the character and it is hard to remember a good line that he or Sam had that weren’t douchey, but for what we got he was a good character.

Reyes:

Wow this woman deserved to be eaten by the Demon Bear, which by the way I found almost as humorous as Katie McGrath being carried away by a pterodactyl in Jurassic World.

But yes, this doctor was the “villain” of the movie as she was the agent of the big bad Essex Corporation in charge of determining the new mutants’ powers and whether or not they’re worth progressing to their facility.

Outside of that I didn’t really think much of her as a character, she wasn’t a sympathetic character, she wasn’t believing to be doing this for the benefit of these young mutants, she was simply following orders.

It’s a deviance from the comics where Reyes is a hero and member of the X-Men, whereas here she is far from it.

Alice Braga is also regionally appropriately cast as she is Brazilian whereas the character is Puerto Rican, although whenever she spoke I kept thinking about Gal Gadot a lot, even looks wise there are similarities.

Sinister:

Now let’s talk about the looming big bad who I imagine would have been the major big bad of this supposed trilogy. Despite the new mutants believing the facility to be owned and run by the X-Men, it is in fact run by the Essex Corporation...Essex as in Dr. Nathaniel Essex, a biologist obsessed with evolution who became the Mutate supervillain Mister Sinister.

I want to see Mister Sinister in a live-action movie so badly it’s unreal, they’ve done Apocalypse so why they can’t do Sinister I don’t know.

This isn’t the first time Sinister has been alluded to as the Essex Corporation was in an end credits scene of X-Men: Apocalypse that acquired samples of Wolverine’s blood presumably to create X-23, but because those events took place in the 80s and these events take place in somewhat modern day it’s hard to correlate the two.

Obviously we are no longer going to get X-Men movies in this universe and continuity, but with the seeds being sown for Sinister more than once now, the baton has been laid down for Feige to finally bring this villain to life.

Reccomendation:

If like me you are more or less interested in just completing the twenty-year franchise because you love these characters and any interpretation of them then this is the movie for you. However, don’t expect wall to wall action, and I would recommend not getting too attached to these characters. It’s too late for me with Illyana I already love her and already feel Anya Taylor-Joy has set a high bar for whoever plays Magik next.

But for me personally, this franchise has been my favourite movie franchise and my favourite property. Even the bad movies I can at least find something good about them regardless of if the overall movies have been good or not. But just to reiterate, I do feel this is one of the good movies.

In a ranking of the 13 movies (not counting Once Upon a Deadpool), this ranks somewhere between #6-8 for me.

Overall I rate the movie a solid 8/10, by no means the best or a perfect X-Men movie but by no means one of the worst. The movie benefits from new characters (aside from Sunspot) but suffers due to the inevitability of this being the definitive end for the current franchise.

So what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews as well as other posts.

[crusherthedoctor]

Crusher Elaborations #1: Thoughts on the Aesthetic of Sonic’s World

If someone came up to me and asked “Which do you prefer, Classic Sonic or Modern Sonic?”, my answer would start off with “Well, technically Classic Sonic because...”, and then I'd get cut off by the other person immediately lecturing me on why I'm wrong and why I'm the worst kind of fan imaginable. Should they finish their rant, I would then explain to them in the midst of them basking in their flock of easy Twitter likes that I didn't necessarily mean it in the way they predicted.

If we were talking about the games, the characters, or the character design, I'd be fairly neutral, since I like both halves equally for the most part. In fact, when it comes to characters, Modern might actually have the edge believe it or not, since the sheer number of characters introduced from SA1 onwards naturally means a lot of my favourites were introduced from that point on, such as Tikal, Rouge, Gamma, Omega, Blaze... But then again, Classic introduced Eggman and Tails, and the Hard-Boiled Heavies are technically Classic as well despite being relatively new...

Anyway, the point is, I'm not talking about any of that today. I'm talking about the world that Sonic and his multicolored chums live in. Or rather, the aesthetic of it.

NOTE: This is purely about the game universe. While I do have my thoughts on Sonic’s world as presented in other continuities, that won’t be the focus here.

If you're familiar with my blog, you'll know that as a general rule of thumb, I much prefer colorful and creative worlds in my Sonic universe, and that rings true for my reasoning here. And I know what you're gonna say: “But Crusher, isn't there plenty of that in the Modern games as well?” Yes, there is, and I appreciate them very much. But this is why I feel the need to make a post of this sort to begin with, because I'm NOT saying “Classic cool, Modern boring” and calling it a day. There's a little more nuance to my tastes here.

When I say I prefer the Classic aesthetic for Sonic's world, I don't mean it in the literal sense of disregarding everything about the Modern aesthetic. Let's put it like this: when you're asked to paint a picture of these two sides of Sonic's universe in your head, a specific image will likely come to mind. When you think of Classic, you'll probably think of Green Hill first and foremost, whereas with Modern, you'll probably think of something like City Escape or Rooftop Run before anything else. In other words, when you think Modern Sonic, you're probably imagining the more realistic kind of locations first. And between the two mental images that come to mind, I personally prefer the Classic image. Shock, horror.

I wish I could swim in a sea that’s probably radioactive.

Now keep in mind, I'm not saying that City Escape, Rooftop Run, and all similar environments in the series look bad, because they don't. Unless they're painted with the '06 brush, they generally look fine, and the locations in Unleashed in particular are undeniably beautiful from an graphical standpoint. The problem is that although I can picture this as a world that Sonic could be in, I can't necessarily picture it as Sonic's world specifically. Because when it comes to the more realistic environments, I feel there's not much of an attempt to let it branch out as its own thing.

I know that might seem harsh, especially for Unleashed, since the real world angle was the deliberate theme of that game. And Sonic taking cues from real places is a fine concept, there's no issue there. I'm not gonna complain if there's a France Zone with an Eiffel Tower in the background. In fact, Sandopolis Act 1 has one of my favourite aesthetics in a Classic zone (mainly because the background is really pleasant to look at), and that zone is essentially Egypt Zone. But if you're making a Real World Zone, there needs to be more to it than that, otherwise you don't truly get a Sonic interpretation of our world... you instead have our world as it is with Sonic characters awkwardly stapled on.

When I look at City Escape, it may not be completely unfitting for Sonic (the posters and billboards in particular are actually a really nice touch), but when I look at it, I don't see Sonic's interpretation of San Francisco. I see San Francisco with Sonic shoved in. When they morph these places to Sonic's liking, they'll add rings, loops... and that's it. They rarely take the concept any further, which is a huge shame, particularly in the case of Rooftop Run, where I otherwise do like its visuals a lot, but it just doesn't go far enough with the concept for my liking.

At least you get to murder car owners, and give G.U.N. a legitimate reason to arrest you.

So which Modern games do I feel did the best job at making Sonic's world... er, Sonic's world? Well the truth is, most of them actually do a decent job in this area, regardless of the level design quality or the game’s quality period. SA2 has Pumpkin Hill, Eggman's Pyramid Base, and... SOME levels aboard the A.R.K (mainly the “outside” ones, like Final Rush). Shadow the Hedgehog, a game that reveled in how brown and gritty it was, still had highlights like Circus Park and Digital Circuit. Even '06 of all games had Aquatic Base, which was pretty cool from a conceptual standpoint. And although Unleashed as a whole might be a touch too vanilla in the creativity scale, it still had the glorious Eggmanland at the very end. But if I had to say which of the Modern installments did the best job overall...

- For starters, I'm gonna give a shoutout to SA1, because even though it was the first Modern game, and thus it was technically responsible for the more focused angle of realism in Sonic's world in the first place, it didn't take it quite as far as later games would, and although it may not be a perfect 1-to-1 representation of the world we saw in the Classic games, it does well enough with what it brings to the table that I can still accept it without any issue at all. Some of that has to do with the fact that you still have wilder areas like Windy Valley and Red Mountain to balance things out, but even with the other half, the game's use of colour is enough for it to go a long way, oddly enough. Take the At Dawn section of Speed Highway for instance:

From innocent times, when the radar wasn’t a piece of shit.

Technically, it's really not that different to the urban environments you see in SA2 or Unleashed. But something about the sleepy morning approach gives it a subtle, almost dream-like edge to it that I really dig, and despite it being pretty similar to the likes of City Escape, somehow I have an easier time buying into the idea of this place being part of the same world as zones like Sky Sanctuary.

And seeing how I already mentioned Red Mountain, let me compare it to Flame Core:

Yes, I know bringing '06 into this discussion at all is inherently and hilariously unfair, but let's put aside the game that Flame Core comes from for a moment. Aside from maybe the purple crystal caves indoors (and that's assuming you can even see where the fuck you're going in there), Flame Core is pretty boring to look at as far as Sonic levels go. Red Mountain is vastly more interesting, even though it's basically the exact same concept, and a lot of that has to do with - you guessed it - colour. Sure, it's day time, that's one thing, but you'll also notice that for a lava/mountain stage, it surprisingly has a few grassier sections, sort of like Hill Top in that regard. A little bit of green among the brown and red, and a great contrast to the volcanic nightmare you'll experience when you head inside.

Now this might seem like a fairly minor detail... and yeah, it is, but the thing that SA1 does so well is that it combines so many of those small details to make a complete, well-rounded package. This is why SA1 meshes well with the Classic style despite not being an exact replica, because just as the Classics excelled at, it wasn't afraid to use colour in interesting ways. It understood that a fire level could have more than just red and orange, in the same way that a grassy level could have more than just green and blue.

But of course, as I mentioned, SA1 is not an exception. There are other Modern games that did a great job on the whole...

- Heroes is an obvious answer, since it's translation of Genesis-style environments to 3D is probably one of the most recurring praises the game receives, and rightly so. Not much to say here, except that Hang Castle is still cool as hell.

And plenty of opportunity to admire the not-broken-in-half moon.

- Colours is another obvious one, though something of an ironic one given that the premise of the game involved going to other worlds, and those worlds were all converted against their will by Eggman. Yet, they did an equally superb job at creating fun, unique locales, and Aquarium Park in particular remains a favourite of mine.

Gotta love that red/blue contrast.

- The Riders series has a more futuristic bend compared to the rest of the series, but even when it's not all high-tech, it's got some pretty cool environments of its own, and I feel they even do well at mixing the real world side of things on top of that. Gigan Rocks comes to mind, as does Aquatic Capital.

Reminds me of when Perfect Chaos peacefully protested against Station Square.

- Regardless of my thoughts on the game itself, Secret Rings had some undeniable winners in this depertment. You tell me with a straight face that Night Palace doesn't look amazing.

A wonderful palace for a domestic abuser.

- And lastly, they might have had an early advantage since they're already 2D, but the Advance trilogy and Rush duology deserve a mention. They had some fantastic ideas for zones, like Planet Sonata Music Plant, and they did great with the colours as well. Hell, throughout these five games, the sky was practically every shade of the rainbow at one point or another.

Oh look, another completely whole moon.

Also, quick shoutout to another minor detail akin to the grassy sections of Red Mountain: these pink tunnel sections in Ice Mountain. No elaborate point to make here, just another perfect example of how much I adore these games' use of colour and contrast.

Seriously, I could go on for hours about good contrast.

Although I do bring up these small details for another reason, and in turn, another layer to my more nuanced take on Sonic aesthetics. By this point, we get the basic jist: Crusher likey when Sonic levels unique and pretty. But this can - and has - lead to a couple of misconceptions, so I'd like to address those and then laugh at them.

“So you want Sonic's world to be exactly like Mario?”

A common complaint that Lost World received was that it was too much like Mario, in more ways than one, and part of this was to do with the game's visual style. The zones may have been upbeat, but they often consisted of a bunch of things floating in the air and not much else, ala 2D Mario. While I didn't outright hate it, it’s definitely not what I have in mind for Sonic.

Of course, all complaints about being too much like Mario suddenly turn into praise when Eggette gets brought up...

And why is that? Because yes, I like my Sonic locations to be fun and lively... but I also want them to be firmly established within the context of this universe. The Lost World approach is fine with Special Stages and the sort, but outside of that... well, Studiopolis is a perfect example of what I'm talking about:

On one hand, it's very unique when compared to other cities in this franchise, and it's full of quirkiness, great use of colour, and all that good stuff I've went on about. But at the same time, it's grounded just enough so that it still feels like an actual city that the people of Sonic's world could feasibly live in, rather than a basic and empty video game level with a tacked on city background. Studiopolis may be a level from a video game, but you can totally believe it's a fully fleshed out place from its own perspective.

Naturally, this praise also rings true with the Modern games I listed earlier, and is yet another reason for why I approve of their settings.

“So you think Sonic can't have darker locations?”

It might be easy to take my compliments at face value, and assume that I'm immediately opposed to a zone that's not brightly colored. This is... very obviously false, as even the Classic games have their share of less-than-cheery areas, such as Scrap Brain and the Bad Futures in Sonic CD.

However, when you're making a grittier location in Sonic's world, regardless of the context, it still needs to be interesting. The problem with a lot of them in Modern installments is that they're boring. Crisis City is a generic city on fire. Westopolis is a generic city with aliens firing lasers from above. The prison levels in SA2 - and the indoor ARK levels not named Cannon's Core - are just grey hallways for the most part. That shit isn't exciting, and it doesn't get my mind speculating. It just makes me want to move on.

Let the eggsperts take care of this.

By contrast, Eggmanland is a prime example of how to do it right. Eggmanland is a magnificent theme park as envisioned by the good doctor, but it's also, at its core, a giant metal hellscape fueled by the energy of a dark entity, and it only gets more ominous the further you go through it or try to before you give up because it’s too fucking long and you died at the end. So it sets the mood to be sure, but it's still visually compelling to look at, and interesting to think about.

And since Eggman is apparently the only one who can show us how it's done, here's a shoutout to Titanic Monarch as well:

Like Heavy King, but Heavier and Kingier.

When comparing the final zones in Sonic games, I especially love this zone's visual approach, because it manages to be dark and colorful at the same time, and in a strangly organic way. It's got a spooky atmosphere, with a moody moonlight backdrop to match, and the titular robot is foreboding as hell as you climb up it and traverse through it... all the while having red floors, green and yellow wires, blue and pink buildings, and stained glass windows of Eggman and the Heavies for you to marvel at. So even putting aside the unique scenario of climbing up and then through a Kaiju-sized mech, the mood of the zone alone manages to be extremely memorable.

So what have we learned from all this? Aside from the fact that I’m way too interested in this subject? We now know that when I say I prefer the Classic “style” over Modern when it comes to the way that Sonic's world is presented:

- I don't mean that literally.

- There are certain qualities that although both of them possess, they tend to be more immediately associated with Classic in the collective consciousness, even within the fandom.

- The environments that I love the most in Modern games are often the ones that would also fit perfectly in the Classic style.

So whenever I express the basic nature of this opinion in the future... just imagine a small asterisk at the end of my sentence.

[docharvard]

docharvard’s stardew mega modlist v.2

howdy doody everyboody!

my last modlist did pretty well with regards to notes, but there have been some major changes to both stardew and my modlist since then, so i thought it was high time i made a new one! once again, this is mostly graphical overhauls, with a few gameplay tweaks and cheats here and there. most of these mods are fairly popular, so chances are you would already know them, but i hope this compilation finds its use anyway. now, without further ado, the list starts under the cut!

one final warning before i proceed, as of today 21st of February 2020, some of these mod’s official releases do not work with Stardew 1.4.5, but they do have unofficial patches floating around on the forums that update them to work with this patch, and i will be linking to those instead of the official releases for those mods (you will need a chucklefish forums account to download them). if you see this in a few months or weeks time from when it is posted, it is probably in your best interests to check the official releases for updates.

ENGINES/PRE REQS most of, if not all, the mods on this list will require some combination of the following engines to run. i know nothing about coding, so i cannot give an apt description of what they do or how they work, but trust me, you will need them. if you don’t download all of the mods in this list, you might not need all of them, check the requirements segment on a mods nexus page to see which of these engines you will need to run it.

SMAPI - SMAPI is the modding API for Stardew, necessary for all modding (besides old xnb mods).

Content Patcher

Custom Critters

Json Assets

Mail Framework Mod

More Grass

PyTK

SpaceCore

TMXL Map Toolkit

QUALITY OF LIFE mods that don’t change the game significantly, but slightly improve the base mechanics to make it easier/better.

Auto Animal Doors - automatically opens all barn and coop doors at a set time every morning, and closes it once all animals are back inside at night.

Big Silo - increases the hay capacity of silos to around 200k.

Casks Everywhere - gives the player the ability to put casks anywhere, instead of only in the basement of the house.

Crop Transplant - gives the player the ability to move crops and trees without destroying them.

Mod Update Menu - puts a handy-dandy extra button on the main menu that shows you your modlist and whether any mods are out of date. clicking on a mod in the list will take you to its web page, if you want to download the updated version. (sometimes, like SMAPIs console, it is wrong. occasionally will tell you a mod is out of date when it isn’t, but is more often right than wrong.)

No Crows - removes crows, no more losing crops to those thieving corvid so-and-so’s.

No Fence Decay - fences no longer decay and break down over time. they stand for time immeasurable, like the monolith in space odyssey, or the empty shell of a blockbuster video.

Safe Lightning - lightning will only strike lightning rods, or if none are available, it will not strike at all.

Stack Everything - gives the player the ability to stack every item in the game, items like casks can now be stacked instead of having a 1:1 ratio in inventory/chest space.

UI Info Suite - ui overhaul(ish) that adds things like being able to see if you’ve pet an animal that day, whether the travelling merchant is in town, what your luck is for the day, or how many days a crop/keg has until it’s finished, etc. this mod is a must have for any playthrough, even if you’re going completely vanilla. possibly the most useful mod that exists for stardew.

GAME TWEAKS things that add mechanics or change gameplay. immersion (i don’t know what else to call it)

Babies Take After Spouse - makes your children actually look like the offspring of your chosen spouse. also adds some more outfits for toddlers, if you’re into that.

Canon Friendly Dialogue Expansion - adds a metric buttload of new dialogue for all of the friendable characters, in case you’re sick of seeing the same four sentences on loop.

Cat Gifts - bit of a misnomer, makes your pet (either cat or dog) occasionally bring you gifts of random items. it’s pretty darn cute.

Climates of Ferngill - expands the games weather system, as well as tweaking the original one, to add new things like fog, and weather that changes over the span of a day instead of being one set thing.

Eemie’s Bees - adds bees! they hang around your beehives! very cute!

Lunar Disturbances - adds a rad lunar system to the game, including an overhead moon that goes through phases. also adds stuff like eclipses and blood moons.

Mizu’s Flowers - adds so many new flowers to the game. frankly, it’s quite homophobic how few variations are in the base game.

Oasis Greenhouse - completely reworks the greenhouse to be way bigger (on the inside, it doesn’t take up more space on the actual farm) and have more rooms in which to do greenhouse things, like spots to grow trees.

Seasonal Villager Outfits - stardew residents will now change clothes on the reg, including during different events, depending on the weather, and with the seasons.

Slime Hutch Winery - retextures the slime hutch to look Not Garbage, and adds a customisable inside space that you can combine with Casks Everywhere to make a usable winery.

cheats there is only one mod in this section but i couldn’t figure out what other section to put it in.

CJB Cheats Menu - it’s a cheats menu. for cheating. amongst normal cheaty things like infite health and stamina, gives you the ability to increase your movement speed, and harvest crops with a scythe, which i find immensely useful.

AESTHETIQUE who needs the orignal graphics when you’ve got soft pastel versions? most of these are by elle, aka junimods. she’s good at aesthetic overhauls, sue me.

Bathroom Replaces Spouse Room - replaces the spouse room with one of three nicer looking bathrooms, in case your spouse has decided to have an unchangeable hideous colour scheme that does not go with the rest of your house, like all of them do.

Better Artisan Goods - retextures the artisan goods (milk, cheese, fruits, etc) to look prettier/more accurate.

Elle’s Cat Replacements - highly customisable cat retexture, including fur patterns, and the colour of its collar.

Elle’s Critter and Butterfly Replacements - retextures the little critters and butterflies that hang around the valley.

Elle’s Dog Replacements - same as the cat replacements but for dogs. the nomenclature is difficult to grasp, i know.

Elle’s New Barn Animals - retextures of all the barn animals, with a whole bunch of customisation options to choose from for each.

Elle’s New Coop Animals - same as the barn animals one. shocker.

Elle’s Seasonal Buildings - highly customisable retexture of all the buildings on the farm. pick from a bunch of designs and colour palettes to make your farm the best representation of you it can be. or don’t, i’m not your dad, i can’t tell you what to do.

Flippsie’s Alternative Lamp Posts - retextures lamp posts to look a little more victorian and aesthetic-y.

Garden Variety UI - customisable ui colours! let’s you customise the look of all the menus, inventory bar, etc, from a buuuunch of different colours and designs.

Industrial Kitchen and Interior - retextures the kitchen appliances and benches to a softer aesthetic.

Starblue Valley - reshades the whoooole of stardew to make it colour gooder. greens are more green, blues are more blue, and the whole game looks a lot less yellow and harsh. much softer and easier on the eyes.

Wildflower Grass Field - retextures and adds a bunch of variation to the grass that grows around the valley. instead of one grass texture everywhere, there is now over 50 possible combinations, really makes the whole place look much more realistic and varied.

Yellog’s Wood Craftables - retextures and redesigns the craftables (chests, beehives, kegs, cheese press, etc) to have a softer palette, with a rustic wooden aesthetic.

and that’s that folks! i also use these two harvey dialogue expansion packs, but that’s because he’s my favourite bachelor, so i kept them off the general list. i hope y'all found this modlist useful, sorry it took me so long to get around to making/updating it. thank you so much for all the followers on this newer sideblog of mine, it’s really cool to see other people enjoying a game that i love so much. catch y'all on the flipside! ^-^

[spnfanficpond]

October Angel Fish Awards

Every month all of you fantastic writers work your asses off to post some truly incredible stories. Our Angel Fish Awards are the way for all of us, as a community of writers and readers, to lift each other up and give praise to those who have captured our attention and deserve a few kind words.

The monthly Angel Fish Awards are peer-nominated, meaning ANYONE IN THE POND CAN NOMINATE ANY POND MEMBER’S FIC. While the Pond was founded to support the Guppies, everyone in this community deserves to be showered with love and feedback, and we hope that by opening this up as a Pond wide system, we’ll be able to share the love as far as it can go.

NOTE: WE’VE BEEN HAVING OCCASIONAL PROBLEMS WITH ASKS GOING MISSING. Please use the Submit button when submitting your nominations and make sure you’re signed into Tumblr or your URL won’t show. (If the form asks for your name and email address, then you’re not signed in.) If you like, you can also send a message to Michelle or Mana to check and make sure we got your submission.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, HERE ARE OCTOBER’S ANGEL FISH AWARDS!

Nominated by @impala-dreamer​

 Lay All Your Love on Me (oneshot) by @idabbleincrazy​

Very very tasty Sam smut here. Love him just letting go and getting into it. Very good work!!

For Tonight (oneshot) by @dontshootmespence​ 

Amazing. Simple yet beautiful and oh the sweet pain. I loved it.

Nominated by Anon

Ride with Me by @katehuntington​

This story is amazing! Kate is weaving such an intricate little AU while still remaining true to the characters. Her descriptions are spot on and the dialogue just feels so…perfect. I adore the insight we are getting from Dean’s perspective too. This is such a unique story and now I just want to go on a trail ride (and find me a cowboy *winks*)!

Nominated by @manawhaat​

Dessert Then Dinner (oneshot) by @atc74​

HOLY SHITBALLS! I generally am not a slut for Rob, but this made me the absolute biggest slut for Rob. Oy vey. The inspiration was fucking there! That picture did things to me and the fic that followed definitely did things to me. It’s hot, it’s fucking ACCURATE representation of lust for the way a man is dressed. Ay ay ay, these words and image are just happen to be exactly what makes my brain explode. 

Witches Fuckin’ Suck (oneshot) by @crashdevlin​

This. Fic. Is. Fuckin’. Weird. It’s weird. It’s absolutely weird. IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY. OMG. I have never related to all parties in a fic so thoroughly. It’s hilarious. It’s ridiculous. There’s a funniness and curiosity that bleeds into sexiness in such a light and honest way. The way this scenario presents itself is so damn real within the realm of Jody and Donna and me. Fucking fantastic! 

Nominated by @slytherkins​

River (oneshot) by @thoughtslikeaminefield

Love me some Denny, but this one is almost better because it’s just implied. There are all sorts of references to Dean’s past, but they are subtle, and the fic itself is understated. It’s also hawt. :p And Dean is so in character. I just…I just like this. Is just good. Bittersweet and sexy.

Drabble #5 (oneshot) by @thegirlwhorunswithwinchesters​

I loved this drabble. It’s so understated. Big responses in these types of situations are great and all, but I think the fact that they were so reserved made it all the more touching. And particularly in character for Dean, imho. Read it! Be moved. :p

A Dangerous Game ch.6 (series) by @risingphoenix761​

Ooooooh Myyyyy Gaaaaaaawd. Y'all. New chapter. Smut…so hawt. Character dynamic…so fun. Crowley…so, so secksy. Magic…so magicy. :p Remusly, this series just blows me away.  

Nominated by @thing-you-do-with-that-thing​

About A Boy (series) by @percywinchester27​

I would like to nominate Ana’s About a Boy series. It has me on the edge of my seat already. Ana is such an insanely smart writer and she really knows how to build a story. She also know her character super well and she is wicked at writing them as kids/young adults. It’s not a reader insert which I know turn a bunch of people off which is a huge shame cause this one really deserves a lot of love and attention.

Nominated by @lovetusk​

A Little Hide and Seek (series) by @iflostreturntosteverogers​

Can I nominate this new series that Carrie is working on? She’s really growing as a writer lately, and so far this series really showcases that.

Nominated by @princessmisery666​

Blood In Bed (oneshot) by @slytherkins​

So I don’t support @slytherkins as much as she supports me and my writing so I wanted to read something of hers, even though it’s not my ‘usual’ cup of tea!!

And god damn I’m so f******g happy, scrap that, ecstatic that I did. This was fun, engaging, funny, sweet and heart breaking. I know she knows Crowley, she quite literally is his Queen 👑. She gets him spot on and this could quite easily be canon. I can see it happening.

I wish I had the words to tell you how brilliant this is, how much I really like it. Demon Dean is perfectly portrayed and I just can’t express how good this is. Mark as my favourite and one I will return to, many times.

Not Always The Way (oneshot) by @kittenofdoomage​

THIS WAS PERFECTION!! Yes I know I’m shouting but I need to!!!

Sweet, fluffy, smutty, perfectly Sam, cute and awkward and kind and patient and just yeah!

Nominated by @ellen-reincarnated1967​

A New Fall (series) by @iwantthedean​ 

It's autumn themed, full of the apple pie life, orchards, pumpkins, cinnamon rolls that you can eat as well as the human cinnaroll Jensen post season 15. The family history of the reader really puts you right at the farmer's market and you'll feel cozy. There's also a twist. Looking forward to the rest, but the chapters up now, are addicting like apple pie!

Nominated by @girl-with-a-fandom-fettish​

Blood and Water (series) by @crashdevlin​

This story is fan-freakin-tastic! I love everything about it. I’m all about Dark!chesters and Crash is killing it, especially since the boys still feel in character despite the whole ‘screwing their sisiter’ thing. Bravo Crash! Can’t wait to see what else is in store for these three.

His Property (series) by @negans-lucille-tblr​

How do I begin to describe this amazing work of fanfic? Dirty? Kinky? Delicious? Dramatic? Angsty? Smutty? Surprise conflict? On point characters in a very very alternate universe? Yes, I think one of those is a good place to start. Bottom Line: READ THIS FIC (and its sequel Yours)!

Mr. Impala (mixed media) by @evansrogerskitten​

I don’t even remember how I stumbled across this gem but I was shook! I totally thought I was looking at the real thing! And then I read the article, and I was absolutely reading the real AU thing! Such an awesome work of art and fic combined! I was blown away by the quality of it! Props to Ash (and all the other art people) for such an awesome piece and even more props for merging art and fic flawlessly!

Nominated by @stunudo​

Smokestack Lightning (oneshot) by @thoughtslikeaminefield

I’m nominating MJ’s awesome Sam/Rowena fic because it was what we needed after The Rupture. It is real, but also fun and flirty. She is a master at layering the emotions into her fics, especially the smutty ones.

Nominated by @wi-deangirl77​

Stages of Grief (drabble) by @plaidstiel-wormstache​

I’m nominating this drabble by my gal Jessie because it’s so different than a lot of the fics out there.  The way she coveys the pain and sorrow that the characters feel after such a loss is palpable.  And the way she jumps forward to the future that neither of the remaining characters could have even thought possible at the beginning of the story is very bittersweet. 

What’s Left of Me (drabble) by @waywardjoy​

Once again the Queen of Angst (as I’ve so lovingly dubbed her) brings it to the next level.  Writing it all from Sam’s POV she sets up this dark, DARK fic (heed the warnings peeps) for one hell of a ride.  You can’t help but feel as confused, scared and out of control as our hero Sam does as she takes you down the spiraling track that is the plot of this fic.  Well done, dear Joy…well done. 

Thank you all for the awesome work and great feedback!

As with the BFAs, these are not actual awards! This system is set up so everyone in the pond has a chance to share the love and promote a fic/author that has grabbed your attention. The more people that participate, and the more everyone remembers to submit their own fics after posting, the better this will be :D

THANK YOU ALL AGAIN, KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK, AND AS ALWAYS, HAPPY WRITING!

[iamthespineofmybook]

Book Sides

So, my partner introduced me to Sanders Sides recently and after I went home and watched some of it on my own, I decided I should bring up my own version that I had actually created several years ago (somewhere around seven or eight, I’m not sure).

Part of their creation was actually because of a combination of Harry Potter fics I’d been reading and fanfiction for the anime Bleach. Specifically, the idea of a mindscape; a representation of one’s mind in such a way as to embody the self.

As my tagline says, Stories are Core of Who I Am. I legit can’t go a day without experiencing some kind of story. These stories can range from books to video games to movies, and so my mindscape reflects this, as it is a stage-theatre with a massive bookshelf and TV on either wall. I was going to paste in a slightly edited description of said mindscape, but we’ll leave that for another post if people are interested. The important thing is that I kind of divvied up my Self amongst four facets that went on to inhabit this mindscape.

The main two are Yin and Yang, who are what they are named. My calm, feminine, dark, gentle, intellectual side, and my energetic, masculine, light, forceful, physical side. They look like me (or how I wish to look, since one’s male and one’s female, and I was only born with the one body), save that Yin is pitch-black in her entirety except for her eyes and mouth, which shine white, and Yang is the exact opposite. They share the stage, either individually or (once) together, and sometimes neither’s there.

Standing backstage is my logical side, who I patterned after my favourite Organization XIII member, Luxord. He always has a clipboard in hand that he makes observations on and he gives advice and that’s about it for his representation in my mindscape.

Half-asleep in the front row of seats is my emotions in the form of a half-fire elemental half-red dragon I named Ember. They (for they are fully non-binary) used to be asleep full time, especially in high school, because I didn’t want to deal with my explosive temper and sealed all my emotions away in the process. They’re only half-awake now because I now let myself fully feel my emotions, but I rarely show them.

I have contemplated from time-to-time adding a Side for my instincts, but I don’t really do anything instinctually, so it never took shape.

I actually was just thinking, partly while watching Sanders Sides and partly while typing this, that I should give my Yin and Yang their own names, much like the Sides have in said show, and I remembered a couple characters I made some time ago who used Yin and Yang as superhero names. And thus Yin is now named Yumi and Yang is named Hikaru. Because both of these names are one letter (the “u”) off from the Japanese words for darkness (Yami) and light (Hikari).

I’m a bit of an otaku. And I say that in full knowledge of the social stigma of the term in Japan.

Might also rename my Logic-Luxord-Side to Luthor. Because it’s Luxord minus the “x” and the “d” turned into “th” and then mixed around to look like a name. And also because someone used that for Luxord’s Other’s name in a fanfic I read ages ago.

[houseofvans]

ART SCHOOL | INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST KATHY AGER

Originally studying graphic design and illustration, Kathy Ager left the world of ad agencies and design studios to pursue something she’d had the bug to do back in design school–painting. Making 2 to 3 paintings a year, Kathy’s art career began to take off: Her Baroque-style still lives with a modern and personal take began to get the attention of collectors and galleries alike. We’re excited to find out more about Kathy’s artistic journey, process and about her upcoming solo show this summer, opening at Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City.

Take the leap!  

Photography by Kea Mowat 

Introduce yourself?  And where you’re from or currently residing?  I’m Kathy Ager, an artist and graphic designer. I’m originally from Vancouver, and just recently returned to Vancouver after living in Amsterdam (and a little bit in Barcelona and Lisbon) for the past 9 years. I originally moved to Barcelona – I’d visited a year earlier with my then-boyfriend while he was shooting with the Canadian skate team and fell in love with the mystery of the place. From there I hopped over to Amsterdam where things fell into place. Now that I have representation in LA and a lot of shows happening around North America I’m back in my hometown of Vancouver. Being back is definitely a trip! It’s a bit of a Twilight Zone experience — everything is the same yet nothing is the same. 

Tell us a little about your artistic journey–from graphic designer to painter! We read that you only started painting about 3-4 years ago? How did this come about, and did you pick it up naturally or did you find you had to change your approach vs. the way you had made art prior to it as a graphic designer?  I originally went to school for graphic design and illustration. I worked for many years in ad agencies and design studios both in Vancouver and Amsterdam. I’ve always hated having a boss and eventually I went freelance which was way more my style. There came a point when I was a graphic designer where I just didn’t feel like I was doing what I was supposed to do. I’d been a graphic designer for years and I still like it, but it just wasn’t enough. There was way more I wanted to say. I discovered painting back in design school and was especially encouraged by my teacher Kiff Holland. But I’d always been one to “do the right thing” and I followed the more solid path of graphic design. Finally, I found myself sick at home for the good part of a year – partially stress-induced I’m sure! That’s when I got back into painting.

It was a slow process of getting into it. I would fit it in between my freelance graphic design work, maybe making 2-3 paintings a year in my spare time. I had no agenda other than to just keep going with it. 

In the fall of 2015, I went to Lisbon for a couple months just to paint. It was the first time I showed up in a new place as an artist, not a graphic designer. That was big. The response and the welcome I received there was a big thing for me. It was the third time I’d dropped myself into a new city where I didn’t know anyone or speak the language. But this place was magical. I met some amazing artists and champions of my work and it’s become a sort of second European home, including a spot at the table with Portuguese grandparents for Sunday lunch. Portugal. It’s a dream.

In the last year and a half things have really picked up in terms of interest in my paintings and the response I’ve received is mind blowing. Sometimes I wish I’d come to the art game earlier, but I’ve always been a late bloomer — I mean, I looked like I was 12 until I was 20, for god’s sake! I don’t think I was ready to say anything at a younger age.

How would you describe your work to someone who is just coming across it?  I’d describe my work as Baroque-style still lives with a modern and personal take.  

Why the  interest in realist still lives and the way of the Dutch masters? What do you absolutely love about them, and what are some of your favorite still life paintings?  I originally started with just painting cityscapes and random images I liked. Safe things that I could practice with. At some point I painted a still life image I liked and it struck me how much of a story could be told with objects and light. The first couple of still lifes I crafted myself were so personal and revealing, I was too embarrassed to show them to anyone at first (Lonely Hearts Club and Can’t Get High Enough). I’m a pretty happy person on the outside (it’s no secret that I love a good laugh), and these paintings were exposing something no one knew I had in me. But the process of crafting these messages and selecting the right combination of objects and titles gave me such a laugh and a feeling of empowerment that it felt like I was on the right path.

Who and what were some of your early artistic influences? What artists inspire you these days? I came to painting mostly unaware of other artists. I didn’t go to fine art school and had little knowledge of art history. It’s only in hindsight that I see the influence of the art that surrounded me – the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese masters from the Golden Age. As I became more brave with the content of my paintings, I found it inspiring to discover artists like Christian Rex van Minnen and Sean Norvet who were doing things even more fucked up than I was. It was amazing! 

Take us through your artistic process? What’s a typical day in the studio like? How long does it take you to complete a painting from start to finish?  My process always starts with either a title or message I want to convey. I love music and books and I get a lot of ideas from lyrics and titles and beautifully written sentences. They’re these magically articulated truths and observations that just hit me so deeply. From there I usually sit on the idea for a while, working on how to solve it visually with objects I encounter. Some ideas might stew like that for up to a year. Once I have the idea set in my head, I visualize it through my own photography and also collaging from images online until it seems right. Only then do I start putting it on canvas.

I treat my painting process like a job. A day in my studio is typically 4-10 hours hunched over my easel. It’s not glamorous! My ideas come more organically, but the production process requires a lot of self discipline and stamina. 

A painting takes 1-4 weeks to complete, depending on the size. But the amount of thought that went into it before that can be months.

What are your essential art tools and materials?  I keep my materials minimal so far. A couple brush sizes and 5-6 colours of oil paint. I mainly like to mix my own colours from the primaries because I like to know exactly what goes in to each colour. 

You’ve been preparing for an upcoming debut solo show that opens in June at Thinkspace. Tell us about the work going into the show, and what you hope folks will  take away from it!  This is my first solo show, so it’s going to be the first time a larger body of my still life paintings will be out in the world. Before this I’ve only had a handful of paintings in group shows. All the paintings are deeply personal, but I love crafting them in a way that’s universally appealing. I hope people will get a kick out of it as much as I have. It’s dark, but it’s also meant to be beautiful and funny and I hope that comes through. 

The title of the show is Golden Age. It’s a reference to the style of paintings I’m referencing from the Dutch and Spanish Golden Age, but also a comment on our current times, my own personal experiences, and how we survive it all as sensitive beasts. 

Is there a favorite piece you’ll be presenting at the show, and if you could, tell us a little about the piece and why it is so special to you?  I think my favourite piece is the first one I painted for this show. It’s called The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, after the novel by Carson McCullers. Although the meaning of the painting has nothing to do with the book, I loved how perfectly this title described my feelings of loneliness and discouragement when navigating the current world of dating. One guy’s opening line to me on a dating app was “How are you enjoying this internet dumpster fire?” And he couldn’t have been more spot on, sadly. It’s a jungle out there – stay strong and bring enough snacks. The female bust in this paintings just gives me such a kick. She’s so fierce and strange. I love having her in my studio.

What are five favorite things you love painting in your still lives? Are they books, items from pop culture? Or is creating the composition of the painting more enjoyable?  Books from my bookshelf, flowers (although I have a love/hate relationship with them), sneakers, the tattoos of ex lovers, and random objects belonging to lovers and friends. I’m aways telling a specific story about a person, feeling or event in my life and I love the intimacy and sort of inside joke it creates. 

What has been the most challenging project or work you’ve battled through? How did you overcome those obstacles and what did you take away from it?  Definitely making the work for my upcoming solo show has been the biggest challenge! I went from painting a couple paintings a year to making 12 paintings in 10 months. I’m getting through it by just doing it. There’s no easy way around it. I’ve had to learn to have a continuous stream of paintings on the go and to trust my abilities. 

When you’re not painting or working on projects, how do you unwind and unplug? Music is a big thing for me. I just feel it so much. So listening to music and dancing are a big thing for me. Reading and travelling are also amazing. I’m just so curious about people and places and hearing as many experiences and adventures and ideas as possible. I’ve also been getting back into snowboarding and skateboarding after being away from the Westcoast for 9 years. Vancouver is amazing for random outdoor adventures with friends!

What advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps and pursue art? Just do it! There’s no way around it. Put the time and effort in every moment you can, even if there’s no one watching. It’s not glamorous. Sometimes I wonder where all the parties and rock and roll is. But if you’re putting in the time, if you’re making art for yourself and not what you think others will like, you’ll find yourself in the right place, attracting the right attention. 

Also, there’s never a perfect time for anything. Most of my paintings before this year were created alone in a tiny apartment, mostly fit in between design projects. Just ignore the discomfort and keep going. Oh and don’t quit your day job until you feel you’re getting momentum. It’s like surfing – you’ll just know it when you’re catching that wave and you can pop-up. Until then enjoy the space that’s created when you’re NOT focussing on art all the time. 

What’s your best Art School tip that you want to share with folks?  I’ll give you some very specific painting advice as told to me by my only painting instructor, Kiff Holland. I still feel like these are responsible for my painting success: 1. Paint what you see, not what you think you see. 2. Paint dark to light. Sorry if you’re not aiming to be a realist painter and find this completely irrelevant ;)

What are your favorite style of VANS? Right now I’m liking the CHIMA PRO 2. It’s the first pair of shoes I bought specifically for skating, so it has a special place in my heart! 

Anything you can share that is coming up? Other than my debut solo show in LA this summer, I have a bunch of group shows in cities including New Orleans, London and Miami. And more big things coming in 2020 which I’ll announce in the future on my instagram!

FOLLOW KATHY | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM 

[checkoutafrica]

Stonebwoy; A major player in Ghanaian Music

Every single month without fail African artists are constantly reminding us that they are in fact the kings and queens in this music game. So far in terms of music, this has really been our year and I could not be more excited! One album we cannot stop talking about here at COA is Stonebwoys ‘Anloga Junction’. This is his fourth studio album and a body of work that the Ghanian musician has been working on for the last 5 years. He describes it as a beautiful African scene with a touch of western experience and influence – Anloga junction is the juncture between those two contrasting perspectives.

Specialising in dancehall, reggae, and afrobeats Livingstone Etse Satekla is not only a major player in Ghanaian music but in African music as a whole which is why he will forever be one of the continents most celebrated artists. Having rose to international stardom after being the first artist of his kind to win a BET Award in 2015 and has subsequently won many other international awards such as Afrima, Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award as well as received nominations from MTV EMA, Grammy Awards and more. This man is not to be slept on!

Who was Stonebwoy 10 years ago?

I mean, I was still doing music …. I mean I was and still am a son, I come from a Christian family, you know? I have been doing music since I was 16, you know what I mean? It never stopped, I just kept going harder and harder. YHHH 10 years ago, I should be out of school, out of uni or something!

You create Afropop, reggae and dancehall, which one out of the three is your favourite genre and why?

I mean all three because, for me, it’s all the same roots but different branches. So when it all comes to me, I comfortably create either of the genres, I find it difficult to actually choose a main one. I think I always do all together because when you pick up any Stonebwoy song, you still feel all three; some dancehall, some afrobeats, some reggae – every single time you pick up any stonebwoy song. But you may notice that it is mainly the dancehall and afrobeat that you can feel everytime you hear any of my songs.

View this post on Instagram

Nominate challenge?

#AnlogaJunctionAlbum #TommyXLewis #BwoyFiger

A post shared by 1GAD (@stonebwoyb) on May 4, 2020 at 1:26pm PDT

You’ve worked with the likes of Kranium, Sean Paul, Burna Boy and of course the beautiful Ms Keri Hilson. Who has been your favourite to collaborate with so far and why?

You know, when it comes to this type of question – the favourites question, it sort of limits me in a way because every collaboration of mine is a favourite, they are all unique in their own ways, you know what I mean? So I can hardly pick which one stands out amongst all of them. However, the one that is making a lot of noise right now, making a lot of impacts and that one that needs to be very much appreciated at this moment in time is the one with Keri Hilson – Nominate. It’s so crazy, it’s amazing! The combination of afrobeats and RnB with some dancehall in there is just crazy, it’s really nice to hear.

How did the collaboration with Keri Hilson come about and should we expect more collabs in the future?

Uhmm what happened is that whilst we were recording the album we really planned to have an American collaboration on it, but the collab with Keri Hilson, it so happened that it was not planned, because if it was planned then that would mean that, that would sound like I called her up and said I wanted her on the album. But none of that happened, a friend of mine met Keri on a flight and that’s how beautifully it happened – we got introduced. My friend didn’t even know it was Keri Hilson until something happened and they got the opportunity to talk and so by doing so, the conversation turned to music, we ended up exchanging contacts right there and then and we gained some nice relationships. Then when I went on tour in America, it so happened that she invited me to the studio and then we cooked nominate as a beautiful song and here we are today!

What was the idea behind calling this album Anloga Junction?

I mean it’s my roots, the intention behind the album is to give it that identity you know? It represents the fact that I have gained some influences and a lot of things having learnt from the African perspective when it comes to the music and it is at this junction that it meets with the influences from the west as well. That is why you get the name Anloga junction.

You said the theme of the album is a beautiful African scene with a touch of western experience and influence. Can you go into more detail on what you mean exactly?

Exactly! Yeah, I just think sonically it is a beautiful African song, the sound and the way the musical wave has taken a diverse turn when it comes to African music and the way it’s been received by the western world lately. All that has influence because I am one of the people, I am one of the musicians, one of the new schools who have added their voices to that type of style, especially coming from mixing the afrobeats with the reggae and dancehall to create the afro dancehall which is what I have been known for these last 10 years. When it comes to the continent of Africa, I think that I am well representing for that African sound and wave, that is a representation of that sound. Plus the Caribbean sound and which is at large the Western sound, which is what I mean by that!

View this post on Instagram

Still on the JUNCTION…which music video should we drop next?

A post shared by 1GAD (@stonebwoyb) on May 22, 2020 at 5:47am PDT

Why did you choose to record the intro track (Le Gbs Gbe) in your home language “ewe”, what was the initial idea behind this?

Yeah, the intro track is in my home language because that is what the album is representing cause when I say Anloga you know that anybody who is going to pick up the record they have to find that masterpiece, they have to find that significance or that representation of the whole of the Anloga vice in there, that is why you find I speak in my dialect for the first track on the album, so it can truly represent what I mean with the album.

You said that some of the songs in your album are actually 5 years old, which of these are and why did you wait to include them in Angola junction rather than epistles of mama?

The reason being for that one is that there had always been a plan and I had known this particular song is timeless enough and that the project that I wanted to bring out was not yet, it was not yet due for that song and so you know as we’ve gotten here and as we started Anloga junction project, this one here qualified. That particular song is called “Nkuto” feat Kojo Antwi, track number 5 – that’s the one, that song is like 5 years old and bow down is like 2 years old. I take time to fix these songs, it took me a total span of 5 years to fix this body of work for the people.

Which is your favourite song from the album and why?

Track one, nominate and everlasting. But the whole album literally! I love the whole album, not going to lie.

You’ve worked with SA artists (AKA, Nasty C and Cassper Nyovest) in the past, do you yourself listen to SA music? If so what’s your favourite thing about their music/ artists?

Yeahh I do, I do. I love their sound and their whole African culture. You know the whole of Africa is culture – when you see Africa, you see strong accents, you see strong melanin, you see black, you see strong people. And all of that is depicted in our music when we sing so per the various places we have and the diverse cultures we have is well well enjoyable when you are a creative and span your scoop into all these areas. I listen wide to all these forms of music, I love south African music; their house, their kwaito etc.

How does it feel to be inducted into the Grammy museum sound of Africa exhibit?

It feels great! That was an exhibition that happened 3 years ago around 2016/2017 that they had to select some African artists who have won in that category before and those who are making strong waves and that exhibition, it was only meant to last a week but went on to last a whole year and it had me in there and legendary Kojo Antwi in there. So it was a coincidence to have him on my album and then for the both of us to be inducted at that level and that is one of the great levels that afrobeats music has been able to reach by the help of Ava Hall and the whole team who put together the BET international category. So thanks to the whole team who made it work!

What would you say is your biggest achievement so far in your career?

So far I still have a lot of things to do, I still have a lot of miles to reach, you know I’m just taking it easy now and I can only say that at this level it might even be difficult to choose my biggest achievement but I know that I must be the number one when it comes to afro dancehall and reggae and I am grateful for that.

What do you believe is the future of African music/ afrobeat’s?

In the next 10/20 years, African music is still going to be on the rise. You should understand that it can only get better and better. I pray that, not only musically but on the African continent that everything can work together for good because our arts and our creative industries are dependent on the governors of Africa. So in the next 10 years, we pray that Africa becomes more independent, more resourceful and more developed in the right sense and that way our music is going to go far. Big up to every African artist who is putting in the work!

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[naniblog-aut]

Reflective Journal

A Creative Technologies experience / studio project which was meaningful to me was the “Cards For Play” Assessment. This was the first project which we did in creative studios, also my favourite so far as it definitely sparked my interests and got me excited about the entire BCT course by showing me the variety the course had to offer with how different it is from other design courses, how exciting you can make it for yourself and especially the in depth thinking that goes into day to day choices which enhance the user experience aspect from a producer/designer standpoint. This studio project got me excited for the rest of the year by allowing me to stop and think before you create a certain product, or go ahead with a certain idea. The cards for play assessment was a project which had to be a game / experience using a card shaped product. Our team was full of entrepreneurial spirits and creative minds, we lost a few and gained some along the way, that being said it was always an exciting experience given the interest and contribution given by each team member. Our vision for this project was to enhance on three different pillars of user experience, which were the Discovery, Challenge and Fellowship pillars. Combining our mutual interests alongside these three pillars, we decided that a travel experience based game would be the most suitable and exciting. From the beginning of this project, we had several different ideas, however the concept remained the same. “Creating spontaneous and unforgettable travel experiences for like minded strangers”, this was the sentence which we turned to, in order to form most of our raw ideas when we got distracted or fell off the wagon while brainstorming. After days of brainstorming and writing down everything related to our topic on sticky notes, we finally came out with two main options for the experience. “Travel Roulette” and “Travel Tinder”. The Travel roulette experience focused more on the “Discovery” pillar. This was a spontaneous experience designed for solo travellers and backpackers who did not know where to go and what to do, or simply could not choose. It was an experience where the user spun an arrow on a card full of different activities around auckland and wherever the arrow landed would be the users new destination. This was purely to push through a spontaneous feature to the game. Travel tinder was an idea which focused more on the “fellowship” pillar. With this experience, you would have a pack of different cards which had various activities around Auckland, these cards would be placed in the reception of a backpackers hostel so they could pick the cards they wanted and hang the card on their door in the hostel. While someone else who sees the card / activity they would like to partake in, they would simply knock on the primary users door and initiate the conversation to go forth with that activity. After we got these ideas we were introduced to the concept “kill your babies”, which was hard at the time but understandable once we found our new concept combining both those ideas and building a more sustainable and better-flowing idea appropriate for this day and age.

This new idea was one that came out of the blue to one of our team members and after a very positive and energetic discussion led to a very impressive idea. The idea was a spontaneous experience with the factors of bringing discovery and fellowship into the overall experience. There would be a stack of cards, which includes four different categories; Outdoor activities, Sightseeing, Relaxation, and Nightlife. Within each of these categories, there would be an activity for each of the categories on each card. The card would show the name of the Activity and a QR code on the back of the card. When scanned, the code would link the user to a facebook post which reveals more information about the activity and allows the user to socialize and connect with different people who are interested in the same activity.

While analysing this concept, we came to a realisation that a visual representation of the activity on each card would speak to the user much more efficiently than just a name would. Therefore, we changed the cards from information about the activity simply to a photo resembling the what the user can get from this activity. This little adjustment improved user experience by massive margins as we started getting excited faces when testing our product. Alot of the adjustments such as these that we made along the way has affected our product in various ways, and looking back on it I feel that this was a case of having a set of people with different skills and a really raw hunger to develop and make headway with this idea into a working prototype. Due to the result of having so many creative minds in one space, ideas would still be bouncing around to make the product better and this would change the product with every step we took forward. For example, by the time we had finished our first prototype and was ready to test, we decided to get rid of the categories and let it all be an exciting, spontaneous experience where the user did not even know what sort of leisure he / she would be committing himself into. It would be a completely random pick from various kinds of activities. This of course branched out to another part of the game.

Reflecting back on the process of this project, we could have done things better in order to run smoothly, one of the major points of improvement we did actually pick up on was when prototyping the product. We went ahead to backpacking hostels to test out the product and we did get some positive feedback but we did not exactly go out looking for something to make our product better, we went with an intention to get a validation for the product by the market we would cater for. This was not the mentality that we should have had during the task of testing our product. There was an interesting theory that I came across after this project that we should have implemented more, the theory of MAYA (Most Advanced. Yet Acceptable). This outlines building for the future, but with a familiarity aspect to the product. In the theory of MAYA, You notice that with advertising comes a very important factor which ties in something people find their familiarity in, mixed with a level of new. The familiarity is needed because there is a sense of trust when you see something familiar, however; when you tie that with something that is new and advanced, to the right level. Your product would be of great value. This is ofcourse supported by The Pareto Principle (80/20), which means that 80% of a design would be new whereas the 20% would be a familiar face for the user. This would balance out the new and the familiar, in my opinion to achieve a very unique balance for your final product. I noticed that with our card experience, we brought in the familiar; which is a traditional deck of cards. The dimensions of the card, the same material, it all felt similar to the user. Tying into this, the new technology, QR codes have been around for a while but still is considered a new feature when introducing a card game like experience.

References

Dam, R. (2019). The Maya principle: Design for the future, but balance it with your users present.

Tracy, B. (2018). The 80 20 rule explained (a.k.a Pareto principle).

[fmpgabby]

Cosplayers

Cosplay is the art of dressing up as a particular character, often from fiction. People who create and model these characters are more commonly known as cosplayers. They use a variety of materials to represent their characters and will have a range of skill levels. The industry is so popular that certain materials have even been invented to help create the most accurate costumes. The following people are some of the cosplayers who I think create some of the most awesome armour and character representations. 

Kamuicosplay

Kamuicosplay is one of the most well-known cosplayers in the industry and creates some of the most professional looking costumes. She has even partnered with certain companies (including EA games, Blizzard and Bioware) who have commissioned her to create their characters’ costumes. She has released a number of cosplay books, youtube videos and pattern collections which are extremely useful to everyone who is considering starting cosplay or even people who are experts.  

Her current material of choice for her costumes is 5mm EVA foam although a lot of her armour in the past was made out of Worbla (a thermoplastic speficically designed for cosplay: see the costume below). She also works with resin to make lights and a high quality airbrush to make sure her paint jobs are extremely effective and help being the character to life. Her costumes are known for being incredibly accurate to the original designand look very clean and refined - there are no rough edges. She has also recently started 3D modelling and printing aspects of her costumes to speed up the process. She also uses a sewing machine to create bodysuits, gloves, shoe covers for her characters - everything is usually made completely from scratch. 

All of her content has been a huge help to me when I first started cosplaying and I aspire to achieve her level of professionalism someday.  

Gladzykei

Gladzy is a cosplayer who primarily uses worbla and fabric to bring her concepts to life. She is also a concept artist who likes to add her own twist to existing characters and then building their newly designed costumes. In some cases she even humanises animal characters into extravagantly decorated human equivalents - such as sylveon (see below) and Toothless (far below). 

Her designs for these characters make them look incredibly appealing and a lot more interesting than the original - she manages to incorporate the character’s signature details and make them look recognisable while also vastly different and elegant. I really like how she designs a lot of the costumer herself and I would like to do this in the future as it’s a lot more fun than just making other people’s designs. 

One of my favourite examples of her work is Warrior Moana - which was a design she created based on Moana if she was more of a queen with armour. This is the concept vs the cosplay she made of the design:

Inastes_tears

Inaste is a cosplayer who creates some of the most extravagant and massive worbla armour, mainly based on characters from the Dekaron game. Her armour contains an incredible amount of detail and accuracy to the original and are truly impressive to me because of their size. 

I really admire how she doesn’t shy away from complexity often found in designs and really managed to achieve the impossible - however large and impractical the original design may be. All of her work is intricate and doesn’t look rough or rushed anywhere  - her paint jobs are also spectacular. She also focuses on creating the character’s weapons and props as well as their main costume, which are as equally impressive.

Jessicanigri

Jessica creates a lot of cosplays of a variety of characters - ranging from those in bikinis to full scale body armour. Her speciality with cosplay is re-imagine the character with a sexier, more revealing aesthetic. Her Roadhog cosplay for example completely changes the character’s original look but it still just as impressive to look at and showcases her skill. Jessica works with a combination of EVA foam and worbla as well as a range of other materials and techniques (using a hot glue gun to create a frosted/dripping look, a soldering iron to make imprints in the foam, and Apoxie sculpt to create incredibly detailed additions to her armour.) She also builds a lot of her cosplays off things that already exist - for example things that she can modify, which is a really useful tactic I think as it saves time and a ton of resources. 

She adds a lot of her own details and touched to her character’s costumes to make them really unique and aesthetically pleasing to me. She also occasionally will design completely original characters and create costumes of them, which have very unique styles but are incredibly beautifully designed like the rest of her work. A few examples of this are with these characters:

Below is her cubone cosplay which she designed.

Zibartas_Cosplay

Zibartas is a cosplayer who creates designs which not only look incredibly close to the characters he recreates, but also contain robotics which allow them to function in the same way as the original. Unlike many other cosplayers, he actually uses metal to create a lot of his cosplays, as opposed to foam. His Doomfist cosplay is a fantastic example of this. It has metal plates as well as a robotic hand which is controlled by his fingers. The costume lights up and a lot of aspects of it move, including his back plates and arm flaps(?). His work really takes cosplay to the next level and is such a huge inspiration to me, he does a fantastic job at making his characters feel real and giving them a sense of authenticity, and is just overall stunning to look at. 

https://youtu.be/ewyL8rR9ZLY

[firstpuffin]

A summary of the Star Wars: Dark Forces series

-Notes= 

0.1 = I apologise about being late this week (not that anyone waits on me), I decided to go and get my own images for this article, only for it to take longer than I remembered. I was up until 4 AM playing Jedi Academy.

0.2 = I am fully aware and being open about that some of this piece is basically the same as in a previous article. I found that I was trying to put too much into the previous article and decided to write this one, reusing a few bits and pieces. Most of this is new though, so please give it a read.

I grew up playing Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast on the GameCube, the only game of the series that I had access to and I spent years craving the opportunity to play the sequel Jedi Academy. I played my favourite missions again and again; playing with and without cheats and played multi-player (against the computer) for hours at a time. I still remember convincing my friend to play with me, only for him to win using cheap exploits. He won, but I don’t think it was fun for either of us.

-above: multiplayer

   I was so obsessed that I would devour whatever information I could find on the next game, and I believe this was before Let’s Plays on YouTube were a big thing. I learned that you could design a character AND a lightsaber; could you tick ANY more of my boxes? I even downloaded a PC demo to, well let’s be honest here, fail at. It would be a long time before I started playing games on PC and that may be due to my experience with this demo. I knew enough about this game that I could call out a braggard at school; you know the type, that guy who has played everything you want to play and is cooler than you until you realise that he doesn’t know jack-all about what he’s talking about.

  When I finally started playing games on PC, I discovered that I had access to this series; in fact I think Jedi Academy was the deciding factor on why I started doing so. I found that the early games were too clumsy for a casual gamer like myself to play, although I was able to finish, and then cheat my way to different lightsabers and realistic dismemberment, that game from my childhood dreams. I love the series so much, and particularly the main character, that I have decided to take the time to write this. I intend for this to be a summary of the series rather than a review and is totally, one-hundred percent for fun; for me and hopefully those who read it.

  The first game was released in 1995 was a clone of Doom which had come out two years earlier, and the final game came out in 2003 so you can imagine the sort of thing that I am talking about.

-above: graphics from the first and final games of the series

Despite being called the “Jedi Knight” series, that title only appeared from the second game onwards, which makes sense considering the first game was, as I said, a Doom shoot-‘em-up clone; it was only in the second game that the protagonist begins down the path of the Force. Speaking of whom, the series follows the character Kyle Katarn, an ex-Imperial officer who was betrayed by the Empire over the circumstances of his father’s death and became a mercenary with ties to the Rebel Alliance. Katarn and his games are not currently canon (by which I mean an official part of the Star Wars story) thanks to 2016’s Rogue One, given that the very first mission of the very first game is to steal the Death Star’s plans. Before the new entries to the Star Wars universe plodded over and trampled down what was the Extended Universe and is now referred to as Legends, Katarn was popular enough to appear in literature, graphic novels, role playing games and the video game Lethal Alliance.

-above: Kyle Katarn in his first appearance

   Bringing my wayward thoughts back on track, the first game (Star Wars: Dark Forces) involved a very, boring Katarn shooting his way through his given mission of stopping the Empire’s Dark Trooper project, all of which is set to happen after the first movie. Thankfully Katarn improves as a character (personality-wise AND physically) as the series does. The game is separated into different missions, each with its own objective and usually on a different planet to the last. There isn’t much of a story outside of how the main goal is accomplished, with no real character dynamics or establishing of their backgrounds.

-above: the PlayStation cover for the game

The second game is called “Star Wars” with the subtitle “Jedi Knight” and… a second subtitle? I don’t get how this works but the game is known by the second subtitle “Dark Forces II” and I personally wouldn’t mind if the entire series was called Dark Forces which sounds badass; plus Dark Forces: Jedi Outcast is far less clumsy than Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast, but hey. Getting, again, back on track, Dark Forces II was released in 1997, two years after the first.

  The developers attempted to use live-action cutscenes to tell the story, bringing about an adorably quaint feeling through bad acting and even worse CGI. Katarn’s actor, Jason Court, was a major improvement on his design which would stick around for the rest of the series (in cases like this I always have to wonder what the actor thinks of the later representation of the character, if he cares at all).

-above: Jason Court as Kyle Katarn

  The story of Dark Forces II, set after the Battle of Endor, followed the pursuit of the Dark Jedi Jerec who is attempting to become the leader of a new Empire and who was revealed to be the killer of Kyle’s father. In a cutscene, Jerec kills Jedi Qu Rahn whose disembodied voice talks Kyle through the training needed to become a Jedi and who provides advice throughout the game, particularly before a boss fight. It is also Rahn’s green lightsaber that Kyle uses, and is his first out of three over the series. The rest of the story is pretty simple as Katarn chases down Jerec, all the way to a place called The Valley of the Jedi where a Force user can gain immense strength. The most interesting part of the story is how there are two endings: the Light side and the Dark side endings.

-above: Kyle with Qu Rahn’s lightsaber 

   The Light side ending is the canon (technically correct) ending where Katarn’s actions earn respect from one antagonist and whose yellow lightsaber becomes yours after Rahn’s is destroyed, and Katarn uses it to kill Jerec in the Valley. He eventually becomes a Jedi and trains with Luke Skywalker, although this isn’t established in-game. The Dark side ending has Katarn kill Jan Ors, the token love interest, and the voice of Qu Rahn stops talking completely, having abandoned you just as you did the Light side, and after killing Jerec, Kyle fulfils his goal for him, becoming the new Emperor with Jerec’s female companion alongside him, all the while retaining Qu Rahn’s green lightsaber.

-above left to right: The Light side and Dark side endings

  There was an expansion pack named “Mysteries of the Sith”, where the player got the chance to play as Mara Jade (who has quite a presence in Legends) and fight Kyle who fell to the Dark side. Set five years after Dark Forces II, Kyle has become a Jedi Master and is still using the yellow lightsaber he gained while fighting Jerec. During his time as a Jedi, and clearly after this game, Katarn builds his own lightsaber, putting aside the yellow one in favour of this new blue one with a much cooler hilt (although if you’ll entertain me, I’d like to say I’d prefer that he kept the yellow blade after changing the hilt as I feel that blue lightsabers kinda oversaturate the Star Wars universe; either establish blue as the colour of the Jedi or mix things up to keep it interesting, please).

  At some point before the third game, Jedi Outcast, Kyle’s fear of the Dark side is exacerbated by actually falling to it, and he separates himself from the Force and the Order, leaving his new lightsaber with Luke. During Jedi Outcast he returns to the Force when Jan Ors is kidnapped by Dark Jedi Desann (there are so many of these buggers), retrieving his lightsaber and relearning his powers. This game is a landmark in the series for the development of the unique and super-fun lightsaber combat system.

  This combat system made use of the agility of the Jedi, leaping off of walls, somersaulting and wall running to get the upper hand in fights and the fights themselves can either really drag on, leaving the player with stiff hands, or end in a single strike, depending on a combination of skill and chance. This method of fighting earned the game a Lot of praise and is largely considered to be the best lightsaber combat system of all time and was expanded on in the next game, Jedi Academy, where dual wielding and double-ended lightsabers were added, each with their own styles.

-above: mid-way through the game you can choose a new style

  On top of this there were options to cheat, allowing the player to decapitate and dismember their opponents (or themselves should they lose in a fight) and thanks to these cheats, Jedi Academy gave players the opportunity to pick up dead opponent’s lightsabers and use them; this allows the player to switch between single, double and duel sided lightsabers depending on what enemies they face. It’s so incredibly cool that one has to wonder why it wasn’t a part of the game already, especially as they can be unlocked with a code in the console (I don’t understand this well enough to explain, but it's basically accessing what’s already in the game).

-above: a red lightsaber taken from dispatched enemy (not shown)

  By the end of Jedi Outcast, Kyle has returned to the order and is an instructor during the events of Jedi Academy, the final game in the series. As Jedi Academy did really well upon release, yet it followed so soon after Jedi Outcast that some apparently considered it to be little more than an expansion and I assume there was some amount of Dark Forces exhaustion which may be why no further games were made. There may be other reasons, but they are not important for the purposes of this piece.

  Dark Forces IV: Jedi Academy (see how it flows so much better when you don’t say “Jedi” twice?) no longer directly follows Kyle, but instead follows Jaden Korr, a character whose species, sex and overall appearance are designed by the character, although there does seem to be a canon design as the character is mentioned elsewhere. This could be considered disappointing, but neither species nor sex affects the story in any way so it is debatable whether or not this matters. I believe that I mentioned this in an earlier article but the customisation options are limited and, in some cases, kinda weird. Clothes are specific to species and sex, while not all races have both genders even if that has been established; for example you can only play as a female Twi'lek. I assume there is a reason for these choices, although the clothes limitation seems a bit odd and, should we ever be lucky enough to have this game remade, I’d hope that future editions expand on the options. (I’d like male Twi’leks and a Togruta species, plus outfits that aren’t limited to species).

-above: Togruta female Ahsoka Tano from the Clone Wars cartoon

  The same applies to the lightsaber customisation. The player is understandably limited to three types of lightsaber: a single blade, two blades or a double-ended saber, but the blade colours are limited and the hilt has to be chosen from a pre-made select few. With today’s technology it should be no problem to expand these options. I have rambled on a lot about customisation as I always find it to be a favourite part of any game, but I’ll get back on track now.

  The story of Jedi Academy follows Jaden Korr, fellow disciple Rosh Penin (an absolute tool) and their master Kyle Katarn. While Kyle is technically training these two, Jaden is usually alone in their missions. Rosh slides to the Dark side as Jaden uncovers a plot to steal Force energy from particularly powerful places (what the hell even is the Force anyway? I might write a thought piece about that sometime). We discover that the perpetrator is a character who Kyle let live from the last game and Jaden can lean into either the Light or Dark side for a different ending, just like Dark Forces II, but the Dark side ending (also non-canon) pits Jaden against Kyle in a final battle.

-above: failing the final battle against Kyle (I did this a lot)

I don’t know how to conclude what is meant to be a simple summary of a series and doing so is probably made harder by the fact that I’ve already written about it from the point of view of how it could be remade.

  The Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces series is an amazing product unfortunately limited by its time. Of course I wouldn’t want it delayed to be made later as the same people wouldn’t be working on it with the same goals and intent; it simply wouldn’t be the same series.

[knowthatiloveyou]

Catherine Russell Interview for Diva Magazine June Edition

”WHEN IT COMES TO WHAT OUR BODIES LOOK LIKE, WHAT ARE WE DOING TO OURSELVES?”

When Catherine Russell announced her temporary departure from BBC medical soap Holby City, queer fans were in uproar. Together with Jemma Redgrave, she was half of the monumentally popular ship Berena – otherwise known as Major Bernie Wolfe (Redgrave) and Russell’s toughas- nails but impeccably stylish Serena Campbell. But while Serena was on a sabbatical, grieving the death of her daughter and making her beloved Shiraz in a French vineyard, Russell was delighting audiences in Joe Orton’s black comedy What The Butler Saw and taking a road trip around Europe. Now, Serena Campbell is back on the wards and about to be reunited with Bernie, but for how long? Catherine sat down with DIVA to talk feminism on the Holby wards, Serena’s coming out arc, and whether Bernie’s brief return to Holby means an end to Berena – or a whole new beginning.

“I’m very, very lucky in that Serena isn’t a one-trick pony… She’s not just the one canvas. So I get to do a bit of comedy sometimes. Sometimes I get to do a bit of angst with storylines like my mother having vascular dementia, and then the tragic storyline of Serena’s daughter dying. I get to do that. Then of course I get to do romance too.”

It’s the romance that totally hooked viewers to the already-popular soap. Serena and her leopard print scrubs were already established as a fan favourite, and then Jemma Redgrave brought her following from Doctor Who. The combination of two professional women in their 50s teaming up and supporting each other would have won audiences over even without the romance.

In fact, Holby now seems like a hotbed of feminism, which delights Russell. “When I first joined, there was basically me and Jac Naylor, and that was it really. Everybody else was either a nurse or an F1 (foundation doctor).

Now we’ve got a really fabulous strong team of women of a certain age, holding down positions of power and authority, and doing it really well. And also doing it without necessarily all bitching at each other. I’ve always said we mustn’t fall into the stereotype that because there are women in positions of power, they have to be competitive with each other. It’s just been done to death. I don’t believe it, I don’t buy it. That’s not what I see in my day-to-day life.”

Although she is back for good on the show – “That is if Holby want to keep me of course. Every year we have a new contract. It’s not a done deal, but if they do, I think I’d like to be there for a good few years to come yet” – Redgrave isn’t slated to return beyond the few episodes they have in the can. Which sounds a bit ominous for our favourite queer lady surgeons, right? “Basically Bernie comes back as a surprise, wanting to persuade Serena that it’s time for her to go back out and help set up the new trauma unit. Which needs two heads because it’s so huge. That’s essentially where we’re at, and Serena wasn’t expecting her at that point.”

Although the relationship has had to take place offscreen since Serena’s return, the show’s writers have made a conscious effort to keep it alive. But how sustainable is that? “I think up to that point it’s been tricky. I think they’ve tried very hard to do this long-distance, and I’ve think they’ve probably succeeded better than most people do at it, because of the age they are really… But it’s not easy, and I think some of the communication where Bernie’s been has been difficult as well. It hasn’t been straightforward; there hasn’t been great phone signal and stuff like that.

“There’s absolute delight from Serena that suddenly she’s there, but she turns up on a day that’s extremely busy with a very difficult operation that has to be done. So it’s tricky. I think people will really like it because it’s two episodes, and it’s a real rollercoaster. It’s an emotional rollercoaster but I’m pretty sure that people will be very happy with its outcome.”

Hear that, Berena fans? We can all release that breath we’ve been holding. Probably. Either way, Russell was delighted to be working with Redgrave again. “You never can tell with another actor, even if it works, whether there’s that sort of extra spark that’s undefinable.

It’s difficult. It’s a bit like mercury, you think you’ve got it one minute and you can explain it, the next minute it’s gone. There’s a certain amount of extremely friendly rivalry insomuch as the old adage, that if you want to learn how to play better tennis, well, play with somebody who’s a bit better than you. I think that quite often that’s part of the reason we work well together – because she’ll do a bit in a scene and I’ll think, ‘Bloody hell, that’s good. Ok, better up my game’. Then she’ll look at me and go, ‘Oh, I see. That’s good, I’d better up my game then…’ But there is also the air between the two of us that is difficult to explain. There is definitely something chemistry-wise that works.”

”WE’RE CONSTANTLY TOLD BUYING THINGS WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY. IT WON’T. IT’S BULLSHIT”

Although this isn’t Russell’s first time locking lips with a woman onscreen – she played Rachel in lush wartime period drama The Cazalets in the 1990s – the plot line quickly transformed her into a lesbian icon and she’s since appeared with Redgrave on the convention circuit to the delight of fans. Was she surprised by the way fans embraced the relationship?

“It would be disingenuous of me to say that I wasn’t. I was surprised at the strength of feeling, and I was surprised by the numbers. That’s just my ignorance more than anything else. I hadn’t really clocked how bad gay representation is, particularly for women. I have to put my hands up to that. So I hadn’t really understood quite how impassioned and important it was going to be. But as soon as I did, I was delighted.”

She’s determined to use her platform, both on social media and on Holby itself to talk about issues that affect women, particularly older women. “I’m slightly banging my drum at the moment, saying we should do a storyline about menopause, because that’s another thing. You turn the television on, you listen to radio drama, anything. It’s not there. 50% of the population are going to go through this and there are no stories about it. It’s very bizarre. So I do think that issues that aren’t seen and aren’t written about, and there’s a great chunk of the population that are going through certain issues, are vitally important.”

In a profession where women are constantly told they need to look young in order to work, Russell surprised viewers when she returned from her hiatus with grey hair. “I knew I had the nine months off. I knew I would need a wig for What The Butler Saw. I knew nobody would give a monkey’s what I looked like in a van. So I cut it all off, really short, just before I went into the play and I just let it grow out. I’ve been dyeing my hair since I was 28. I had no idea what was under there. I quite like it. When I came back to Holby I think that the producers were a bit…ok, really? Grey? But when I showed it to them, they liked it. At the moment, that’s where it’s staying.

“I really just don’t get the obsession with trying to look younger than you are. I get being thin, I get being fit, I get not wanting to have spots. I get all that, but the obsession with wanting to look younger, I find curious and I don’t really get it. I don’t want to have any more children, why do I want to look like I’m fertile still? It would be weird.”

She’s also passionate about a subject near to the hearts of many LGBT women – vaginas. A Twitter defence of the “full 1970’s bush” a few years ago is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to her one-woman crusade to normalise women’s pubic hair. “I think it’s there for a reason, you know? It’s healthy, it’s good for you, it should be there. The porn industry has a lot to answer for when it comes to what our bodies look like, in terms of hair and the whole designer vagina area of things. Again, really? What are we doing to ourselves? Come on, people. It’s very strange.”

Her current reading is The Wonder Down Under: A User’s Guide To The Vagina, and when she says she’s thinking about buying copies to leave on public transport, you don’t get the sense that she’s joking. “My daughter read it and she thought it was quite academic. I said, ‘Well, good’.

‘Medical’ was the word she used [and] that’s exactly what people need. For young women and young men, there are so many myths and notions of what’s normal and not normal out there. Actually, what we need are a few facts.”

Although Russell confesses she enjoys the fame that Holby brings – “If you’re going to be an actor, you can’t be cross if somebody wants to come up and say, ‘We really like watching you, please could you sign this photograph?’ It’s part and parcel, and it’s fun” – she’s refreshingly unstarry. Three months spent travelling around Europe with her husband in a van saw her embracing a minimalist lifestyle she’s reluctant to let go of.

“That was absolutely one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever done. It really, really was, and if anybody has the opportunity, take it. Those moments in your life don’t come along very often, and it was absolutely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and has stayed with me a huge amount.

Not least of which because I realised that we don’t need a hell of a lot of stuff. We think we do, and we think it’s important. We’re constantly being told to buy things, and it’ll make you happy if you own this dress or that pair of shoes. It won’t. It’s bullshit, and actually I could have done it for longer. Coming back to a house with all the stuff in it was difficult because I’d just spent three months never wearing make-up, never putting a brush through my hair really. Just having three sets of clothes to change into. It was just great. I loved it.”

So are we going to lose Russell to the road – or, after her hilarious turn in What The Butler Saw, the stage? Not likely, she says. “I had forgotten how arse-wettingly terrifying live theatre is, as I hadn’t been on stage for about five years. It’s a bit like having a baby. You hear people have a baby and they go, ‘I’m never doing that again’. Two years later they’re going, ‘Oh I’m going to have another’.

Have they forgotten? I think theatre’s a bit like that. You forget that it’s frightening and it’s hard work and all of those things. I do love to make people laugh, and so to hear an audience laughing at something you’ve said or done, or a turn of the head, was gratifying to say the least. But I didn’t get to the end of it and think, ‘Right that’s it. I must be on the stage forever, I’ve made a clanging error in agreeing to go back to Holby’. At all. In fact, I thought ‘Well that’s that itch scratched for a while. Jolly good, get me back to the hospital please.’”

So there you have it – Holby City won’t be saying goodbye to Serena Campbell any time soon. Russell is tight-lipped about how that will ultimately affect Berena, but it’s hard not to be glad that the formidable surgeon will be stalking the wards for a long time to come.

Still, if she ever decides to take her feminist politics to a bigger platform, she’s got our vote.

[morallygreywarden]

A few days ago, I was perusing the Dragon Age wiki (as one does) looking for info on Shale when I came across this archived thread from the now taken down Bioware forums. Dragon Age fans were posting their “random Dragon Age question(s)”, and for the first few pages of the thread, David Gaider would respond to some of them. Then I came across this question and answer:

[Image: David Gaider quotes a post by poster Alistairlover94:

“@Mr. Gaider: Was the Tome of Koslun based on the Qu'ran, the Qun on Islam, and Koslun on the prophet Muhammad?”

David Gaider responds:

“Not really, no. The Qun has nothing functionally in common with Islam, and the existence of a prophet or a book is hardly unique. The Qunari play a role in Thedas similar to Arabic cultures in Medieval Europe (combined with the Golden Horde, for good measure), which is where their Middle Eastern "flavor" comes from... but beyond that any similarities are unintentional.”]

Being a Middle Eastern Muslim person myself (specifically, I’m Palestinian diaspora currently living in Canada), this post caught my eye. And... not really in a positive way.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen the Qunari connected to Arabs. That was back on some Reddit thread or another, where someone suggested that the Qunari are comparable to Arabs/the Moors/the Turks because they are a “foreign race” with a “strange religion” who’d once enforced that religion across a wide stretch of land before being forcibly pushed back. 

My reaction at the time was “nah”. Maybe not a totally certain or comfortable “nah,” as I understood it’s possible that was what Bioware was going for, but more of a “nah, I don’t want to think about that, and I’m not gonna take that into consideration in my understanding of Thedas.” Fair enough, I thought, but having seen what Gaider said on the matter, I can’t really just write it off at my own leisure anymore.

I’m not the first person to talk about this. A quick search got me results like this in which people have expressed anger at this parallel before, as well as several threads questioning if the Qunari are meant to represent Muslims that make no reference to Gaider’s response in the thread I quoted at the start of this post. That said, though, I’d like to offer my own take on it here. 

I think the first and most obvious thing to point out here is that Qunari are grey, horned giants. While their obvious coding as POC in relation to their designs and the fact they are non-human characters have been criticized before, I think it’s an important thing to mention here as well. Gaider clearly states that the Qunari possess a “Middle Eastern flavour”, i.e. they’re not meant to be a direct representation of Middle Eastern people but rather have cherry-picked parts of Middle Eastern history to use as an allegory. Regardless of their intentions, clearly many people have picked up on the connection, and when you’re a person of colour desperate for representation, the knowledge that something that’s loosely meant to represent you or “play a similar role” to you comes in the form of-- well, grey, horned giants, isn’t particularly fun knowledge to have.

Now let’s unpack what Gaider actually said. 

First, he states that any similarities between the Qun as a philosophy and Islam are unintentional. I’m going to take him at his word for it; I don’t have any interest in trying to draw parallels between the Qun and Islam, except perhaps to mention that “Qunari” is only one letter and two rearrangements away from being the word “Quran,” which, yeah, real subtle. Reading too much into it? Maybe. I wasn’t originally going to bring it up here at all, but I find it kind of funny, so there it is anyway.

However, I do want to look at what the implications of that are. While there’s differing opinions on the actual subject of “Arabic cultures in Medieval Europe” (I think he’s referring to what’s popularly known as the “Islamic Golden Age”) that I’m not interested in getting into here (because while I do have some knowledge of the time period I think there are still things that I’m ignorant about due to only having heard the story from particular perspectives, and because during that time and in those regions Arabs/Arab Muslims were in the most positions of power, I don’t think it’s for me to try to assess the period with my limited knowledge), I think it’s safe to say that the actual religion of Islam was a major factor in it. And by that I mean Islam, specifically, for what it is. It played a particular role, and to look at it as simply a placeholder where any philosophy, no matter how disconnected, can be readily and thoughtlessly filled in is reductive of the religion itself. No, the Qun isn’t meant as an allegory for Islam, but it is meant to be an allegory of the role Islam played as being a central factor to the people who the Qunari are meant to be allegorical to, and I find the careless substitution here questionable. I get that this issue isn’t a unique one even within Dragon Age let alone outside of it, but it’s worth mentioning.

Now I think it’s worth it to look at the Qunari themselves and the role that they play in Thedas as it pertains to this allegory. One of the central tenets of the Qunari is that they are, as the Dragon Age wiki phrases it, “fanatical in [...] devotion, [and] prepared to wage war throughout their entire lives as part of their attempts to "enlighten" all other races in regards to their philosophy.” The Qun may have “nothing functionally in common with Islam” according to Gaider, but if the Qunari truly play a “similar role” to that of historical Arabs/Muslims, then we can’t overlook this element. (Particularly because this isn’t the first time Thedosian history has overlapped with Middle Eastern and Islamic history: the term “templar” references the Knights Templar, which was the name of the Catholic military order that fought the Crusades, of whom Middle Eastern Jewish and Muslim people were the primary victims, particularly in Jerusalem. Another example is in the name “Inquisition” itself, a reference to a group of Catholic institutions whose goal was to combat “heresy”. One of the most famous examples of the inquisiton was the Spanish Inquisition, that was formed around the decline of the Islamic Golden Age and specifically targeted Muslim and Jewish people. Several of the other inquisitions targeted Muslims as well).

The way the Islamic Golden Age has largely been depicted in the West involves the Orientalist idea of Muslims as barbarians who’d taken control of large regions with their “heretical” religion before their rightful defeat. The Qunari aren’t portrayed that much differently: they took control of sweeping regions of Thedas for a long period of time, forcibly converting masses of people to their philosophy, before being defeated by the Tevinter Imperium. The important difference here is that in real life, the details of the Islamic Golden Age were far more nuanced than that, and the labelling of Muslims as “barbaric” and Islam as “heretical” was a deliberate tactic to justify waging a war against them on the basis of their religion. In the Dragon Age universe, with respect to the Qunari, things are what they seem. While the notion of the Qunari being “barbaric” is specifically challenged, the Qunari really did convert people forcibly to their philosophy, and this is an undebated fact. 

This is a problem because this view of Muslims and Middle Eastern people still affects us today. One of the major justifications that white supremacists use for their islamophobia is the conspiracy theory of “Islamization”-- that Muslims have a master plan to convert the entire world to Islam and conquer. For the Qunari, this is literally true-- they actually do plan to conquer and convert the entire world to the Qun. The islamophobic caricature of a Muslim screaming “infidel!” to anyone who isn’t Muslim is still very much relevant today-- and the idea that Qunari view anyone who doesn’t follow their way derogatorily is a fact.  The characterization of the Qunari, as far as it is allegorical to Middle Eastern people and specifically Muslims, could be more accurately described as an allegory to islamophobic and racist portrayals of Middle Eastern and Muslim people.The existence of Qunari as a fictional entity does not challenge stereotypes, or offer a new perspective. It instead reinforces those harmful sentiments, the same ones that are echoed by those who commit hate crimes against us, and those who target us in politics and legislation. 

Like any other marginalized group, Muslim and Middle Eastern people don’t get a lot of representation. The Dragon Age series is one of my all-time favourites, and being able to see myself reflected in the Dragon Age series would be thrilling. But “representation” like this does more harm than good. While it wasn’t the intention of the developers to represent Muslims or Middle Eastern people by the Qunari except to give them a Middle Eastern “flavour,” that “flavour” is deeply embedded with a history of racism and islamophobia. It hurts twice: first, because it’s reductive of Muslims and Middle Eastern people, turning our history into something that can be cherrypicked from at the writers’ leisure without making any respectful effort to actually represent a marginalized group, and second, because that cherrypicking is imbued with stereotypes that have been and still are used to hurt us.

I hope that these concerns are considered in future work done with the game. While I’m not sure how this problem with the Qunari could be specifically addressed in the future, I think one suggestion that could help would be to make a better effort to represent Middle Eastern people in other areas of the game. @dalishious pointed out that we still don’t know much about a lot of the human cultures, such as the people of the Anderfels, and a sincere effort to write more positive and nuanced representations of marginalized people that the series has previously snubbed with human characters could help even things out more and potentially even do a lot of good.

Note: Thank you so much to @dalishious for letting me ramble about this and for looking the post over for me before publishing it! I really appreciate it :)

[mon-qi]

CYL 2 ranks, part 2

ok time to see where my more well-known and my underappreciated children ranked... I’m actually kinda nervous ;_;

the girl’s side of the voting was a much closer fight for the top spots, as expected.

Veronica beat out Camilla so closely! Wow, people really seemed to jump on it when they saw she had a chance! Good on you, Veronica fans!

Camilla did get more votes than last year overall though!

still crying a little for Marth fans because wow, that hurts, even me who doesn’t even really know Marth... counting his two appearances together, he’d be snugly between Hector and Celica...

even counting split votes for other candidates, I think Hector is the clear winner

I’m pretty sure Eirika lost quite some votes after her (honestly, really random) alt version for the SS banner was revealed DURING the voting.

would’ve been pretty cute to have both Eirika and Ephraim or Alm and Celica in the top 2 but alas

Tharja really fell far, I wonder what happened? Are her fans satured with her Heroes appearances after all? (interestingly this does not seem to apply to Camilla)

interestingly, many Awakening and even Fates characters seem to have dropped down, except for the ever-popular Camilla and Azura... and the Hoshidan princes? I guess that really shows players want more of THEM compared to the many Nohr alts (same with Leif and Myrrh in the intermediate results placing so high, I think people just really wanted them already!)

Reinhardt is 11th. DISGUSTING nothing against Reinhardt but he’s already cancerously widespread and strong do you really want that to be upgraded??

Nino and Lilina picked up in comparison to last year, which makes me very happy (12th vs. 39th and 25th vs. 49th.) as I love both of them

Owain in 26th. PLEASE GIVE US OWAIN ALREADY (and also Brady, even if he is in 346th...  ;; )

or for that matter, any Awakening children ####

Selkie seems to be the most popular beast unit at 21st UNLESS you count together Ranulf’s split votes, which would put him 33rd, between Ninian and Kliff! So I guess he wins this one? Honestly, rightfully so, he’s pretty important and likable AND good, he’d be a great choice for introducing beast units.

Eliwood crawled up 8 ranks to 26th. This pleases me.

Ninian also jumped from 100 to 32, shows how well Heroes worked out for her (unlike for some of the Awakening characters that were part of the starter/fodder units)

Kliff ist still most popular non-lord from SoV at 32nd. My echoes favs are different ones but I’ll take anyone they introduce. I wonder if they’d make him a mage?

Alfonse, Fjorm and Sharena are pretty close in their ranks around 40th , interesting. I expected Anna to be closer to them but I guess... it’s because she’s not strictly a Heroes OC?

Aversa shot from 100-something to 41, I think people really just want that GHB for a free red mage flyer (like I predicted but never happened)

a lot of (especially 3DS) beast units up in the top 50, let’s hope it sends a sign (and gives us Laguz too)

Sumia at 53rd and Maribelle a bit higher. I think people really want yet-unreleased Awakening characters way more than alts (me too, but... where’s my alt Lon’Qu I really really expected to happen ;_; )

Wrys at 56th. Meme voting #2 *disgusted noises*

Fae ranked much higher than before, well done my fav baby chicken!

Haar at 64, yes yes YESSSS give us our favourite Wyvern rider please

Louise at 72??? That’s??? a surprise??? but a GOOD surprise for me, I really like her. Interestingly, she crawled up MUCH higher than last year in comparison to her husband... who also gained votes but not as many, for whatever reason (Pent is 112th!)

NILS went frm 285 to 81 !!! People really want Ninian’s little brother and honestly I WANT HIM TOO. REUNITE THE SIBLINGS!!!

is Fae really the highest ranking echoes villager after Kliff? I don’t understand.

CANAS IS 89th!!!! he jumped up 24 spots since last year! I’m so happy, I really do have hope that they’ll add him...

Lon’qu barely made the top 100.... ;_; ...he dropped from 25th...

FE6 Hector (you know, bearded adult Hector) TRIPLED his votes from last year, shooting him from 217st to 101st... WOW (combining to almost 41,000 votes! That’s roughly comparable to Lucina’s last year...

Genny, Lukas, Conrad and Python crowding around the 100th places for Echoes representation! I really enjoy that (and voted Pythont too)... but where’s Forsyth D8 (ah, in 270th...  ;_; )

Ilyana in 131st!

Mila actually ranked 134th! No idea how they’d implement her but. YES. MILA.

Erk (135th) and Knoll (136th) so close together amuse me... maybe there’s hope after all

Florina dropped from 71st to 147th D8

Sain is 160th! Best represented Cavalier from FE7, I can live with that (bringing him in without his buddy Kent (327th) is unthinkable anyway and Lowen... I’d be in disbelief if they actually considered adding my boy OTL

Dorcas dropped to 185h but honestly, subtracting the unexpected memetic growth from last year, that’s still a really good spot for a barely-noticed FE7 character, likely because he’s a really great unit in FEH.

Legault and Leila both crawled a bit higher than before!

Brigand Boss in 212th. DISGUSTING.

Leon (Echoes) in 250th.... lower than Tatiana - I love her but this is surprising for me. Valbar is at 300! while Kamui is in 359th, rip Kamui D,: no wait RIP JESSE in 534th... WELL, one of those 205 votes is mine!

though, amazingly they all rank above Mathilda at 362? I thought she was really popular, maybe her Heroes appearance was underwhelming?

Stefan is only 339ths... this actually surprises me a little, I thought he’d rank higher (though he has 1003 combined votes...)

Oswin in 358th! that’s like 30 ranks lower than last year! NOOO!!

I was gonna say that villains ranked pretty good in this one, but just... comparing unplayabable one-level Awakening Boss Mustafa at 473, just one rank above Tobin from the recent Echoes... wow.

Tormod in 381st, Muarim in 431st... well, not far apart at least?

Amy got in 461st and Elena (Ike’s mom) in 423rd... wow

if Gatrie’s votes got combined he’d be at 410 or something... but they aren’t. He got pretty evenly voted for for both games he’s in though! I honestly do not get why Shinon is so much more popular lol

THERE HE IS. LOWEN. in 503rd with 238 votes, some of those from me. he... lost around 100 ranks and votes compared to last year. I’m very sad, but not at all surprised.

Jarod is at rank 551 with 181 votes, omg @konfuse

Geitz in 568th, aaah..

aaaand that was it for what I really wanted to know I guess

Oh man, Lowen, mah boi