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simsillie · 3 years

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AshuEverything BUT Normal Legacy Challenge!

Hey everyone! I wanted to create a fun little challenge for me to play on my own time when I am not playing my main household but I ended up liking the idea so much that I decided to make a challenge if others were interested!

I wanted to clarify that I am not sure if a legacy challenge has been created like this before, so if there is please let me know so I can promote their challenge in this post as well! Since this challenge is occult and adventure based, I will be updating it as the Sims 4 franchise is updated with more occult and adventure content (hopefully). Edit: An anon told me that there is a challenge that is similar to mine so I wanted to give it a special shoutout! You can check it out here. The Supernatural Legacy Challenge was made by Ashubii.

This challenge utilizes the following packs: City Living, Get to Work, Island Living, Snowy Escape, Get Famous, Realm of Magic, Jungle Adventure OR Journey to Batuu, StrangerVille, Vampires, Paranormal Stuff

If you are interested in reading more about this challenge (as it goes through generations) the details will be under the cut!

Basic Challenge Rules:

1. Every generation must start off with a young adult 2. No money cheats (unless specified) 3. Can be played in any lifespan length (preferred is long lifespan or customized) 4. Must complete every aspiration (unless stated otherwise) 5. Must have at least one child in each generation (unless specified) 6. Have fun!

Generation One: I Fell in Love with a Ghost?! Your whole life you dreamed about making a successful career as (an author or a chef), little did you know how much your talent would prove useful. With very little to your name thus far, you moved into the bustling city of San Myshuno, you were able to find a great deal on an apartment located in the Spice Market at 18 Culpepper House. However, it didn’t take long for you to notice something strange... things being misplaced, noises that called your name. When you finally uncover this mystery, you find what appears to be a ghost which left you with two questions: “How do I handle a ghost in my apartment?” and “Why are they so good-looking?”

Generation One Rules: - Your sim must have the jealous and creative traits - Your sim must have the ‘Bestselling Author’ aspiration if playing an author OR the ‘Master Chef’ aspiration if playing a chef. - Move into historical lot in Spice Market of San Myshuno and add the ‘spooky’ lot trait - After moving your sim into their apartment, bring their simoleons down to 10,000 to furnish - Career must be an author if the aspiration is ‘Bestselling Author’, if you chose ‘Master Chef’ aspiration then they must have a career as a chef. - Must date the ghost haunting your apartment - Feel free to use paranormal stuff pack - Must either write the ‘Book of Life’ (if an author) or create ambrosia (if a chef) to turn your ghostly significant other to a human - Once ghost is human, you must marry them and live in Glimmerbrook happily ever after!

Generation Two: Magic is in the Air... You were born in raised in Glimmerbrook for most, if not all, of your life and how boring of a life it is. There’s never anything to do and your only friends are your neighbors. How could life be so dull? Well that was until you found a portal not far from where you live, how could something so plainly obvious be so hidden? Now was the time to change the course of your life into something a tad bit more interesting, so you enter the portal and what you found was not what you expected... a realm to a magical world was set before you- flying animals, flying people! And wait, are those your neighbors..?

Generation Two Rules: - Your sim must have either the good or evil trait - The aspiration must be ‘Spellcraft and Sorcery’ once they reach young adult - Must have a freelance career - Become a spellcaster via talking to a Sage and completing their quest - If sim is good all spells must be used with good intentions and perks must be positive (for example; as a good sim, you will not be able to obtain the ‘Mischief Master’ or ‘Tame the Untamable’ perks) - If sim is evil must cast points into perks ‘Mischief Master’ or ‘Tame the Untameable’ and can use magic for any purpose that serves them - Sim must conceive at least one child with another spellcaster - Sim must stay in Glimmerbrook

Generation Three: Changing the World Without Spells! How frustrating it is to grow up in a world where magic is makes life so easy! Being born into a family of impressive spellcasters, life doesn’t have any risk and reward, so what’s the point? Life is meant to be challenging and that’s what you plan on making it! Without any second thought, you demanded that one of the Sages removed your magical bloodline and once that was done, you left Glimmerbrook forever... But where is it that you planned to go? Maybe you would go sightseeing in Mt. Komorebi or be one with nature in Granite Falls! No, you wanted to see the world, change it and make life worth living...

Generation Three Rules: - Your sim must have the adventurous trait - Make money through selling artifacts and/or odd jobs - Your sim cannot have the following traits: materialistic, paranoid, self-absorbed, snob, neat, squeamish - Must have ‘StrangerVille Mystery’ aspiration - Must move into StrangerVille (preferably a trailer home) - Complete and solve the StrangerVille Mystery, following the aspiration guidelines - Next aspiration must be ‘Jungle Explorer’ (if playing with Jungle Adventure) or begin with one of the four aspirations that come with Journey to Batuu - Must complete ‘Jungle Explorer’ aspiration or complete all four aspirations that come with Journey to Batuu - Settle down in Sulani with the ‘Beach Life’ aspiration and complete it

Generation Four: The Sims 4: Just Add Water Growing up in the beautiful sandy shores of Sulani is one thing you have always been grateful for and this experience has given you so much to be appreciative for. The island has always felt like home, but nothing makes you feel more alive than swimming in the vast ocean beyond the beach. When you aren’t floating around in the waters, you explore your island and help it stay clean, this is how you choose to pay respect to the spirits that roam there. However, you didn’t expect your life to change so soon- when you found a strange little plant that resembled kelp, it called to you, begging for you to consume it and so you did...

Generation Four Rules: - Your sim must have child of the ocean and loves the outdoors traits - Sim must have ‘Freelance Botanist’ aspiration - Your sim must find mermadic kelp from either diving or through the hidden cave - All money must be made from either plants, selling beach findings and/or through odd jobs - Must adopt at least one child (adopt an alien if possible) - Have three children

Generation Five: The Infinite Universe You were adopted into a loving and close-knit family home, one that you will always stay connected to, but your alien life form was one you happily identified with, even though it had stayed a secret for most of your life. You couldn’t help but wonder what was out there and who were your biological parents? Maybe it wasn’t as important as you thought it was, either way you were determined to investigate your lineage and from where you came. Even if it meant leaving the only planet you ever knew and the family you love so much...

Generation Five Rules: - Cheat sim to be an alien when they are adopted (cheat can only be used on selected sims: traits.equip_trait trait_OccultAlien) - Your sim must have the family-oriented and paranoid trait - Must start off with ‘Nerd Brain’ aspiration - Must be in the scientist career - Must live in either Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, or Newcrest - Stay in human form when out in public, can change to alien form at home, with family, or sims you trust (such as good friends) - Travel to Sixam - Have sim make friends with at least two other aliens (you can make these sims the biological parents if you’d like) - When ‘Nerd Brain’ aspiration is completed, select ‘Big Happy Family’ as the next aspiration - Be happily married and all children must be adopted

Generation Six: True Power and Success Your family bloodline at one point had power, but it has been several generations since that power has returned, you plan on being the next defining figure in your family’s lineage. The world will change because of you. But, you are only human... how would you even go about this? In order to have power, you must have success and what better way to go about this than being the face that everyone looks up to! However, not everything goes according to plan, sometimes you find a new a way to true power...

Generation Six Rules: - Have self-absorbed trait - Be in the acting career - Start off with ‘World Famous Celebrity’ aspiration (you don’t have to complete this aspiration) - Ask to be turned by a vampire or play as a vampire temporarily to turn your sim - Change aspiration to ‘Master Vampire’ once turned - Be good friends with at least two other vampires - Once aspiration is completed, if your sim chooses to have babies change aspiration to ‘Vampire Family’ otherwise, complete the ‘World Famous Celebrity’ aspiration

I am not sure if anyone will play this challenge but if you do tag me in your founder’s post so I can like and reblog it (and to just see your cute ghost-loving sims)!

If you like this idea, I’d appreciate a reblog or a like just to get the challenge out there!

#sims 4 #sims 4 challenge #simblr #everything but normal legacy challenge #ebnl challenge #new sims 4 challenge #occult challenge

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wromwood · 2 years

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With the revelation that Ghosts BBC version is getting another season do you suppose Ghosts CBS version will match the same amount of episodes at least closely enough?

By "match" the same amount of episodes, I assume you mean "match" the plot points and general storylines, as the CBS show has WAY more episodes.

If so, that's a good question, and one that I wondered about before the CBS show began airing. After all, the producers of the BBC show also help produce the CBS version, so it wouldn't be surprising for there to be even more overlap.

However, the more I watch the CBS show, the clearer it is that the American show's strengths lie in how it's different than the BBC show. Well, at least half the time. In my opinion, the BBC show is still the better program. The characters and humor just "click" more for me, and I think the CBS show is sometimes bogged down by a tropey American sitcom feeling, although that feeling has waned a little as this current season continued.

However, the CBS show shines in doing things that the BBC show can't. It's got unique characters with their own situations that are distinct from the characters of the BBC show, despite parallels. Thor parallels Robin, but they're two different people with two different histories. Trevor parallels Julian, but they're also two very distinct people. Hettie parallels Fanny, but they also have their differences. You see where I'm going with this. When the CBS characters try to "do" their BBC counterpart, I can only think of how I'd rather be watching the BBC version. (I think that's why I still have a little trouble with Pat and Pete) But when they utilize their differences for unique stories and character moments, THEN it's a compelling show.

In fact, I'd say having an adaptation is a welcome invitation to NOT be like your original. As long as your storytelling is good, fits with your established characters, and utilizes the base premise creatively, then you can be as different as you want.

Also, the CBS show is doing things so differently that it wouldn't make sense to match the BBC show. The CBS show has a much wider cast of ghost characters (the British soldiers and now apparently a teen girl ghost) to utilize, and has shown that it's not afraid to take Sam's ghost-seeing powers outside the house as well.

I'm not saying it would be bad for the CBS show to follow what the BBC show does or has done. If they do it well enough, the two shows could play off each other well. I just think that the CBS show has grown into its own by utilizing its unique qualities, and that following the BBC show would be limiting.

However, I will say that I wonder how the two shows will end. The BBC show mentions getting sucked off a few times, but it doesn't seem to be setting up any interest in "redeeming" or emotionally completing its characters enough for that to be a goal. The CBS show, on the other hand, establishes that achieving redemption (and even damnation) are legit possibilities, and I highly expect that the show will end with at least most of Woodstone manor getting sucked off.

Thanks for the ask!

#asks #cbs ghosts #bbc ghosts #ghosts #princess-unipeg

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lastsonlost · 4 years

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All this over the Japanese liking a game they don't like...

Ghost of Tsushima opens with a grand wide shot of samurai, adorned with impressively detailed suits of armor, sitting atop their horses. There we find Jin, the protagonist, ruminating on how he will die for his country. As he traverses Tsushima, our hero fights back the invading Mongolian army to protect his people, and wrestles with the tenets of the Bushido code. Standoffs take advantage of perspective and a wide field of view to frame both the samurai and his opponent in something that, more often than not, feels truly cinematic. The artists behind the game have an equally impeccable reference point for the visuals: the works of legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa

“We really wanted to pay respect to the fact that this game is so totally inspired by the work of this master,” director Nate Fox said in a recent interview with IndieWire. At Entertainment Weekly, Fox explained how his team at Sucker Punch Productions suggested that the influence ran broadly, including the playable black-and-white “Kurosawa Mode” and even in picking a title. More specifically, he noted that Seven Samurai, one of Kurosawa’s most well-known works, defined Fox’s “concept of what a samurai is.” All of this work went toward the hope that players would “experience the game in a way as close to the source material as possible.”

But in embracing “Kurosawa” as an eponymous style for samurai adventures, the creatives behind Ghost of Tsushima enter into an arena of identity and cultural understanding that they never grapple with. The conversation surrounding samurai did not begin or end with Kurosawa’s films, as Japan’s current political forces continue to reinterpret history for their own benefit.

Kurosawa earned a reputation for samurai films as he worked steadily from 1943 to 1993. Opinions of the director in Japan are largely mixed; criticism ranges from the discussion of his family background coming from generations of samurai to accusations of pandering to Western audiences. Whether intentional or not, Kurosawa became the face of Japanese film in the critical circles of the 1950s. But he wasn’t just a samurai stylist: Many of the director’s films frame themselves around a central conflict of personal ideology in the face of violence that often goes without answer — and not always through the lives of samurai. In works like Drunken Angel, The Quiet Duel, or his 1944 propaganda film The Most Beautiful, Kurosawa tackles the interpersonal struggles of characters dealing with sickness, alcoholism, and other challenges.

His films endure today, and not just through critical preservation; since breaking through to the West, his visual ideas and themes have become fodder for reinterpretation. You can see this keenly in Western cinema through films like The Magnificent Seven, whose narrative was largely inspired by Seven Samurai. Or even A Fistful of Dollars, a Western epic that cleaved so closely to Kurosawa’s Yojimbo that director Sergio Leone ended up in a lawsuit with Toho Productions over rights issues. George Lucas turned to Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress in preparation for Star Wars; he’d eventually repay Kurosawa by helping to produce his surreal drama Dreams.

Ghost of Tsushima is part of that lineage, packing in action and drama to echo Kurosawa’s legacy. “We will face death and defend our home,” Shimura, the Lord of Tsushima, says within the first few minutes of the game. “Tradition. Courage. Honor. These are what make us.” He rallies his men with this reminder of what comprises the belief of the samurai: They will die for their country, they will die for their people, but doing so will bring them honor. And honor, tradition, and courage, above all else, are what make the samurai.

Except that wasn’t always the belief, it wasn’t what Kurosawa bought whole cloth, and none of the message can be untangled from how center- and alt-right politicians in modern Japan talk about “the code” today.

The “modern” Bushido code — or rather, the interpretation of the Bushido code coined in the 1900s by Inazō Nitobe — was utilized in, and thus deeply ingrained into, Japanese military culture. An easy example of how the code influenced Imperial Japan’s military would be the kamikaze pilots, officially known as the Tokubetsu Kōgekitai. While these extremes (loyalty and honor until death, or capture) aren’t as present in the myth of the samurai that has ingrained itself into modern ultranationalist circles, they manifest in different yet still insidious ways.

In 2019, to celebrate the ushering in of the Reiwa Era, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party commissioned Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano to depict Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as a samurai. Though described as being center-right, various members of the LDP have engaged in or have been in full support of historical revisionism, including the editing of textbooks to either soften or completely omit the language surrounding war crimes committed by Imperial Japan. Abe himself has been linked to supporting xenophobic curriculums, with his wife donating $9,000 to set up an ultranationalist school that pushed anti-Korean and anti-Chinese rhetoric. The prime minister is also a member of Japan’s ultraconservative Nippon Kaigi, which a U.S. congressional report on Japan-U.S. relations cited as one of several organizations that believe that “Japan should be applauded for liberating much of East Asia from Western colonial powers, that the 1946-1948 Tokyo War Crimes tribunals were illegitimate, and that the killings by Imperial Japanese troops during the 1937 ‘Nanjing massacre’ were exaggerated or fabricated.” The Nippon Kaigi, like Abe, have also pushed for the revision of Japan’s constitution — specifically, Article 9 — to allow Japan to reinstate its standing military.

This has been a major goal for Abe as his time as prime minister comes to a definite close in 2021. And from 2013 onward, the politician has made yearly trips to the Yasukuni shrine to honor the memory of war criminals, a status of which his own grandfather was accused, that died with the ethos of the modern Bushido code. Abe’s exoneration of these ideals has continued to spark reactionary nationalist sentiment, as illustrated with the Nippon Kaigi and their ultranationalist ideology. These traditionalist values have encouraged xenophobic sentiment in Japan, which was seen in the 2020 Tokyo elections with 178,784 votes going to Makoto Sakurai, leader of the Japan First Party, another ultranationalist group. Sakurai has participated in numerous hate speech demonstrations in Tokyo, often targeting Korean diaspora groups.

The preservation of the Bushido code that was highly popularized and utilized by Imperial Japan lives on through promotion by history revisionists, who elevate samurai to a status similar to that of the chivalric knight seen in Western media. They are portrayed as an honor-bound and noble group of people that cared deeply for the peasantry, when that was often not the case.

The samurai as a concept, versus who the samurai actually were, has become so deeply intertwined with Japanese imperialist beliefs that it has become difficult to separate the two. This is where cultural and historical understanding are important when approaching the mythology of the samurai as replicated in the West. Kurosawa’s later body of work — like the color-saturated Ran, which was a Japanese adaptation of King Lear, and Kagemusha, the story of a lower-class criminal impersonating a feudal lord — deeply criticized the samurai and the class system they enforced. While some films were inspired by Western plays, specifically Shakespeare, these works were critical of the samurai and their role in the Sengoku Period. They dismantled the notion of samurai by showing that they were a group of people capable of the same failings as the lower class, and were not bound to arbitrary notions of honor and chivalry.

Unlike Kurosawa’s blockbusters, his late-career critical message didn’t cross over with as much ease. In Western films like 2003’s The Last Samurai, the audience is presented with the picture of a venerable and noble samurai lord who cares only for his people and wants to preserve traditionalist values and ways of living. The portrait was, again, a highly romanticized and incorrect image of who these people were in feudal Japanese society. Other such works inspired by Kurosawa’s samurai in modern pop culture include Adult Swim’s animated production Samurai Jack and reinterpretations of his work like Seven Samurai 20XX developed by Dimps and Polygon Magic, which had also received the Kurosawa Estate’s blessing but resulted in a massive failure. The narratives of the lone ronin and the sharpshooter in American Westerns, for example, almost run in parallel.

Then there’s Ghost of Tsushima. Kurosawa’s work is littered with close-ups focused on capturing the emotionality of every individual actor’s performance, and panoramic shots showcasing sprawling environments or small feudal villages. Fox and his team recreate that. But after playing through the story of Jin, Ghost of Tsushima is as much of an homage to an Akira Kurosawa film as any general black-and-white film could be. The Kurosawa Mode in the game doesn’t necessarily reflect the director’s signatures, as the narrative hook and tropes found in Kurosawa’s work — and through much of the samurai film genre — are equally as important as the framing of specific shots.

“I don’t think a lot of white Western academics have the context to talk about Japanese national identity,” Tori Huynh, a Vietnamese woman and art director in Los Angeles, said about the Western discussion of Kurosawa’s aesthetic. “Their context for Japanese nationalism will be very different from Japanese and other Asian people. My experience with Orientalism in film itself is, that there is a really weird fascination with Japanese suffering and guilt, which is focused on in academic circles … I don’t think there is anything wrong with referencing his aesthetic. But that’s a very different conversation when referencing his ideology.”

Ghost of Tsushima features beautifully framed shots before duels that illustrate the tension between Jin and whomever he’s about to face off against, usually in areas populated by floating lanterns or vibrant and colorful flowers. The shots clearly draw inspiration from Kurosawa films, but these moments are usually preceded by a misunderstanding on Jin’s part — stumbling into a situation he’d otherwise have no business participating in if it weren’t for laid-out side quests to get mythical sword techniques or armor. Issues like this undermine the visual flair; the duels are repeated over and over in tedium as more of a set-piece than something that should have a component of storytelling and add tension to the narrative.

Fox and Sucker Punch’s game lacks a script that can see the samurai as Japanese society’s violent landlords. Instead of examining the samurai’s role, Ghost of Tsushima lionizes their existence as the true protectors of feudal Japan. Jin must protect and reclaim Tsushima from the foreign invaders. He must defend the peasantry from errant bandits taking advantage of the turmoil currently engulfing the island. Even if that means that the samurai in question must discard his sense of honor, or moral righteousness, to stoop to the level of the invading forces he must defeat.

Jin’s honor and the cost of the lives he must protect are in constant battle, until this struggle no longer becomes important to the story, and his tale whittles down to an inevitable and morally murky end. To what lengths will he go to preserve his own honor, as well as that of those around him? Ghost of Tsushima asks these questions without a truly introspective look at what that entails in relation to the very concept of the samurai and their Bushido code. This manifests in flashbacks to Jin’s uncle, Shimura, reprimanding him for taking the coward’s path when doing his first assassination outside of forced stealth segments. Or in story beats where the Khan of the opposing Mongol force informs Shimura that Jin has been stabbing enemies in the back. Even if you could avoid participating in these systems, the narrative is fixated on Jin’s struggle with maintaining his honor while ultimately trying to serve his people.

I do not believe Ghost of Tsushima was designed to empower a nationalist fantasy. At a glance, and through my time playing the game, however, it feels like it was made by outsiders looking into an otherwise complex culture through the flattening lens of an old black-and-white film. The gameplay is slick and the hero moments are grand, but the game lacks the nuance and understanding of what it ultimately tries to reference. As it stands, being a cool pseudo-historical drama is, indeed, what Ghost of Tsushima’s creators seemingly aimed to accomplish. In an interview with Famitsu, Chris Zimmerman of Sucker Punch said that “if Japanese players think the game is cool, or like a historical drama, then that’s a compliment.” And if there is one thing Ghost of Tsushima did succeed in, it was creating a “cool” aesthetic — encompassed by one-on-one showdowns with a lot of cinematic framing.

In an interview with The Verge, Fox said that “our game is inspired by history, but we’re not strictly historically accurate.” That’s keenly felt throughout the story and in its portrayal of the samurai. The imagery and iconography of the samurai carry a burden that Sucker Punch perhaps did not reckon with during the creation of Ghost of Tsushima. While the game doesn’t have to remain true to the events that transpired in Tsushima, the symbol of the samurai propagates a nationalist message by presenting a glossed-over retelling of that same history. Were, at any point, Ghost of Tsushima to wrestle with the internal conflict between the various class systems that existed in Japan at the time, it might have been truer to the films that it draws deep inspiration from. However, Ghost of Tsushima is what it set out to be: a “cool” period piece that doesn’t dwell on the reasonings or intricacies of the existing period pieces it references.

A game that so heavily carries itself on the laurels of one of the most prolific Japanese filmmakers should investigate and reflect on his work in the same way that the audience engages with other pieces of media like film and literature. What is the intent of the creator versus the work’s broader meaning in relation to current events, or the history of the culture that is ultimately serving as a backdrop to yet another open-world romp? And how do these things intertwine and create something that can flirt on an edge of misunderstanding? Ghost of Tsushima is a surface-level reflection of these questions and quandaries, sporting a lens through which to experience Kurosawa, but not to understand his work. It ultimately doesn’t deal with the politics of the country it uses as a backdrop. For the makers of the game, recreating Kurosawa is just black and white.

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octoberumbrellas · 4 years

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Potential jobs/careers for the Hargreeves if they weren’t raised by Reginald

In which the (not)Hargreeves were raised in supportive environments where they were able to pursue their own interests and weren’t turned into child super soldiers

also this turned out way longer than intended (like 1500 ish) and I don’t really have creative writing experience so this may read like an essay

Luther: Physical Therapist

Luther would frequently go to the gym for stress relief or just for fun. He would practically become a personal trainer/support team for any of his friends who asked for advice at the gym. The coach at his high school frequently encouraged him to compete in weight lifting, but Luther decided not to because he thought using his powers would count as cheating.

He realized senior year of high school that he could continue helping people by doing what he loves so he decided to study physical therapy when he went to his university. At one point he switched to being a general sciences major but he switched back after a semester.

However, his love of science never faded. He’s become a regular at several science museums and planetariums in his city and the surrounding area. He’s considering going back to college for another degree so he can teach science someday because he’s always had a passion for sharing what he loves.

Diego: EMT (Emergency Medical Technician)

Diego didn’t realize that his good aim came from his powers until he was in middle school; up until then he figured that he just didn’t have any powers. He played t-ball when he was young before switching to baseball and playing through high school. Although he could have used his powers to do supernaturally well, Diego focused on utilizing his own natural talents, which earned him a spot on his university’s baseball team.

Although he considered going pro, Diego decided to become an EMT. He has a passion for helping others and knew that this was a healthy and helpful way to channel the hero instinct that he’s always had.

Even though Diego didn’t pursue a career in baseball, he still enjoys the sport. He volunteers to coach a kids baseball team on the weekends. He has become a significant positive role model for the kids he teaches. Now he occasionally uses his powers to entertain them with pitches that could never happen naturally.

Allison: Lawyer

Luckily, Allison was able to train her powers to only work for a certain phrase fairly early on, when she was around four years old. Her parents helped her come up with a phrase so they could take a break from having ice cream for dinner almost every day.

After a few unfortunate incidences of letting her powers go too far, she decided to be more careful and only use her powers when absolutely necessary. Allison recognized the importance of people using their voices for good so she participated in speech and debate teams and in student government throughout high school and college.

Allison studied pre-law before attending law school. She has taken on many high profile cases and plans to open her own firm fairly soon. She makes it a point to provide low cost or free services to people who may not be able to afford a good lawyer.

Klaus: Philosophy Professor

Being able to speak with the dead caused Klaus to have a lot of questions about the world, life, and the afterlife. His parents helped him to healthily cope with the ghosts around him; now he’s not afraid of ghosts and occasionally is able to help them. He excelled in school and graduated a year early.

Klaus worked as a medium and palm reader to have some extra funds while in college. All of the medium experiences were real but the palm readings were entirely made up (but were somehow always correct).

He double majored in philosophy and classics before pursuing his master’s degree and becoming a philosophy professor. He’s still a bit of a character, but what professor isn’t? Klaus is known for his thought-provoking lectures; students always try to enroll in his classes because they know that it will be a positive experience.

Five: Physicist

While he was very young, Five figured out that he could teleport; once he grew older, he made it his mission to find out how it works. He took as many classes as he could while in elementary, middle, and high school. Five studied physics at his university to continue to study the science behind teleportation.

After graduating college, Five got a job at NASA. His goal is to continue studying his power so that he can replicate it with machines to revolutionize the future of space travel. He’s begun considering whether or not he should attempt to time travel with his powers but he’s still considering the ethics of this.

Five’s other goal is to create the perfect cup of coffee. He worked as a barista in college to help him on this mission; the results were very mixed.

Ben: Book Editor

Ben discovered his powers as a young kid and was, unfortunately, terrified. He began keeping to himself and it took him a while to open up again. During those years to himself, he fell in love with books and literature.

When he began college he chose to study literature, but he switched to professional writing at the beginning of sophomore year. Ben worked at the school newspaper for his last two years of college and he has been working on his own novel on and off for several years.

Now he works as a book editor; this allows him to travel occasionally because he can work practically anywhere. Sometimes, Ben chooses to go somewhere remote so he can allow the thing inside of him to stretch out. He’s also trying to find and meet some of the other people like him so they know that they don’t have to be alone.

Vanya: Music Teacher

Vanya’s parents realized early on that she could healthily channel her powers through music. She enjoyed studying her first instrument so much that she now knows how to play eight, but her favorite is the violin.

She participated in band and orchestra throughout high school and continued on with orchestra through college. Although she didn’t declare a major starting out, Vanya decided to study music education after she began giving music lessons halfway through freshman year.

Vanya now works as a music teacher at an elementary school because she’s great with kids and understands that music can be a good way to channel emotions when you can’t describe what you’re feeling with words. She still does private lessons on the weekends and in the summer.

How they met each other (bc I still want them to be friends without the Academy)

Luther and Five

Luther and Five met in a general science class freshman year. They were in the same group for a project and quickly became friends; partially because they had a lot of shared interests, partially because their other group partner did practically nothing to help.

They rented an apartment together for the next three years. They accidentally discovered each others powers at the same time; while attempting to move a couch up the stairs to their apartment it started to fall, Luther picked it up to keep it from falling on Five as soon as Five teleported away. After that, they were happy to finally stop hiding their abilities. Luther and Five had a shared passion for space; Luther actually suggested that Five could apply his abilities to space travel.

Allison, Vanya, and Klaus

Allison decided to take piano lessons sophomore year, a friend recommended that she take lessons from Vanya. Allison only took lessons for a few months before she had to stop due to a busy schedule but they still hang out at least a few times a month. They met Klaus at a New Year’s Eve party when he offered to read their palms; they both declined but now they all hang out.

Klaus told them that he sees ghosts shortly after they met but they both thought that he was joking. Allison and Vanya realized that he was telling the truth when he manifested a ghost on their birthday junior year. Vanya was excited to share her powers with them but it took Allison a few months to be comfortable with sharing her abilities.

Ben and Diego

While Ben was working at the university paper, he met Diego while writing an article about the baseball team. They ended up in a class together the next semester and became pretty close friends. Even though they didn’t have a ton of interests in common, they both loved video games and would compete in Mario Kart competitions together.

Despite becoming close friends and celebrating a few birthdays together, they never told each other about their powers. Diego was worried that people would find out about his powers and assume he was cheating at baseball, meaning that he would be kicked off of the team. Ben was still not fully comfortable with his abilities and was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to keep them under control.

note: I know that it’s not likely 100% realistic that they would all end up going to a college or university because not everyone does. But it is a realistic way for people with different interests and from different countries to interact with each other so that’s what I went with. Idk I just like to think that they would all still be able to be friends without the experience of being in the umbrella academy to bring them together.

#repost cause it didn't show up in the main tag rip #tua #the umbrella academy #will have to spell check this later

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actingwithportals · 4 years

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For the end of the year asks: 5, 6, 13,15? I hope you have a happy new year!!

5. What creative work are you most proud of (your own or someone else’s)?

For my own I am really really proud of the Ghost backstory arc of my Hollow Knight series. Even though it’s part of a greater whole, it does sort of stand on its own as well, and having just barely managed to finish that within 2020 made me feel... really proud of myself tbh. And having certain positive responses from my friend who I see as a role model and inspiration for what I want to be as a writer has massively blown me away too (if you’re reading this you know who you are). Writing that story made me realize that I can actually do this whole writing thing.

Also just... learning how to DRAW in general is still making me lose my shit with excitement.

As for someone else’s, I’ve been in so much awe of the many things I’ve seen my friends create, both friends I made this year and friends I’ve known for a longer time. My roommate has made hundreds of beautiful and functional masks that actually fit people. Another roommate has done so many gorgeous paintings using new tools that they’ve been longing to utilize. The aforementioned writer role model friend has CONSISTENTLY blown me away with the fics they’ve written this year. And all the friends I’ve made in the HK fandom with their writing and their art? There’s too many to list but fuck man, I can’t believe I get to know so many talented people. It’s incredible.

6. Did you have any new ships this year?

Oh god so fucking many it’s kinda unreal because I usually don’t give a fuck about shipping. Grimm/Hollow is a big one, but Quirrel/Tiso has definitely caught up in these last few months of the year. Herrah/Vespa of course, pairings in my friends’ own AUs, my self-indulgent comfort ship that I’m still too awkward to actually mention on here sdlkfjds. Just, a weird amount of shipping has happened this year.

13. What do you want to do less of next year?

I actually want to spend less time on social media I think, namely youtube and twitter and more irl-based stuff like facebook and instagram. I know I don’t have to be productive all the time, but it’s actually kind of disappointing how much time I spent this year just like, watching youtube videos for hours and not really doing anything else that day, even cooking myself a proper meal. I think I would like to spend more time still dedicated to being by myself, but actually creating things for me to enjoy rather than.. kinda passing time that ultimately leaves me feeling more bored than I was when I started. Or at least play video games if I don’t have the energy to create.

15. What are you looking forward to coming out in 2021?

Ngl I actually don’t keep up with what sort of things are ever coming out, so I have no idea. I suppose Silksong is likely to come out in 2021 and I’m definitely excited for that, but that’s probably the only thing I could list. Unless we get Deltarune this year too? But I kind of doubt it.

Thank you Ravie !! I hope you’ve had a good new year too!

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yfere · 6 years

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M9 Signature Combat Moves (and what they say about them)

AKA, I nerd out over battle strategies and patterns.

Fjord: Fjord is lovely and my favorite person to watch in battle, because his main combat strategy is, get out of dodge, then distract the enemy away from your friends, then get out of dodge, get your friends out of dodge, shove a healing potion down your unconscious friend’s throat while you’re getting them out of dodge. He’s all for the guerilla warfare, and is understandably upset whenever someone implies that it’s not super noble and heroic looking, because it works, right? Keeps him and everyone alive. So among his signature moves are:

Thunderstep. Which he uses to a) bampf himself and his friends (but mostly his friends) out of harms’ way or b) bampf some help to his friends. And by friends we mostly mean “Caleb” because this poor man needs everyone he can looking after him so he isn’t ground into meat paste in .02 seconds. Routinely holds the spell while Bad Shit Is Happening so that he can use it at the exact right moment.

Major Image. For those times you really want the enemy to be looking the other direction while you get out of dodge, or, to encourage them to massacre the group that is not you (an effective distraction!)

Misty Step. Getting some distance, like a hero.

Summon Greater Demon. For chewing spellcasters he doesn’t like to bits, but mostly for absorbing damage from all the mooks that might otherwise be targeting his squishy friends.

Beau: Beau is also lovely, so lovely that she takes precisely the opposite approach to Fjord in battle. The nature of what she does means she is in the enemy’s face. Grappled in every other fight (3/4 of fights?) and on the main? Thinks escaping from the grapple is a fuckin’ waste of time. She’s right where she wants to be, punching your lights out, and learning how better to destroy you all the while. And sure, it might be dangerous, especially when the creature holding your limp unconscious body splashes acid whenever it’s damaged, but hey. The logical upgrade to punching ghosts is to be a punching ghost. So for this violent, curious bean, you have:

Sentinel. I’m sorry, did you forget who you were fighting? You’re fighting Beau. You’re not fighting anyone else. And she is going to stay in your face, whether you like it or not.

Step of the Wind. Used less often for running away from things than running towards things, like things she wants to punch. But also for running towards other goals--like the Plank King who can put an end to the fighting on the docks, like her friend who is burning in lava and needs to be rescued. The reason she has so much movement, you see, is so she can drag your sorry ass out of trouble.

Stun. And that’s why she’s not leaving your space. The power that gets all of the worst creatures completely destroyed. Bye bye giants, bye bye Lorenzo, bye bye Krynn warrior--no, fuck! Well, whoever was responsible for offing the spellcaster is responsible for that, not Beau.

Extract Aspects. Wherein her punches and curious nature help her friends fight more effectively. Hey--hey CALEB! They’re not super wise! Wait--is Caleb down again? Fuck! JESTER! They’re not super wise!

Caleb: The easiest way to describe Caleb is to say that he has two battle modes. By and large, he is the nice and helpful support caster, making his friends more powerful and his foes a lot weaker while he ducks as much as he can out of the line of fire. But there’s another side to Caleb....when things truly go to hell, he brings hellfire raining down upon you, giving no fucks about anything but death. Leaves scores of incinerated bodies in his wake. Makes Fjord do a happy jig. So for him, you have:

Haste. Along with expeditious retreat, this is the spell that leads the whole party to just take it as gospel that Caleb is “as fast as balls.” In general, Caleb casts Haste on people less as a kind of strategy and more to display in his kooky way his love or favoritism or Desire for Friendship. Wants to get on Beau’s good side after telling her his secrets? She gets all the hastes. Feels guilty about leaving Nott to nearly get mauled to death by a dragon? She gets Haste. Needs to demonstrate to a stressed-out Fjord that he supports him in these trying times? Haste. And even if it’s not combat, we should never forget Hasted chopsticks to show love and friendship for Jester. Caleb....maybe you should use your words instead of your spell components, yeah?

Slow. Fuck you, you are not attacking his friends. Bye bye multiattack, bye bye, crazy AC. He’s so keen on saving his friends that he never even manages to wait for Caduceus to make landing the spell easier for him. It’s like a debuffing race between those two.

Fireball. From Caleb, fireball is a death sentence. You have the fleeing giant, but also...........all those pirates. All those gnolls. When Caleb casts Fireball, chances are it’s when he’s passed the point of caring about his own well-being and is only interested in fucking up other people. Downed with a crossbow bolt and just barely revived by Fjord, his only thought is to stumble forward, bleeding profusely, and finish what he started--make everything blow up.

Counterspell/Wall of Fire. So far, used in tandem, and to accomplish the same purpose--to put a big middle finger up at other spellcasters. His goal is to block their line of sight to his important people, bonus points if he can also light some people on fire, and if you even think about fucking with his spell he will smack whatever you try to the ground. Even half dead from exhaustion, he’s just better than you, and he’ll let you know it.

Nott: Like Fjord, she is all about guerilla tactics, about distracting and attacking, and hiding to attack again. She really likes attacking, and has the kill count to prove it. Also like Fjord, Nott is invested in the purchase and dispersal of healing potions--to the point where she annoyed him by buying the potions he requested (so that he could give them to people in trouble) only to keep them herself (so that she could give them to people in trouble). But unlike Fjord, she utilizes the running strategy not to get herself or others to safety necessarily, but rather as another form of distraction, to draw attention to herself and away from the others. For her, you have:

Phantasmal Force. The spell most likely to make her turn up her nose at Fjord and say, “but do you need me to make the illusion even more realistic?” She takes a great deal of pride and joy in it. Absolutely wonderful--a spell to distract in creative ways, to control other people to “thinking things that aren’t real,” the targets justify the illusion, and it deals damage! While Nott uses it for distraction, she also employs it for more creative purposes, like making Avantika relax and change priorities by thinking her journal was recovered.

Bonus Action Disengage. Or more strikingly, not disengaging. Nott will run like hell, and she will take the hit so that the people she loves won’t.

Bonus Action Hide. When the going gets tough, crawl behind something and wait it out, or wait for a good shot. Sometimes works brilliantly--other times what you’re hiding in is a burning building or beneath a bridge actively being collapsed on top of you. The moral of the story Nott takes from this is, running is probably better. At which point you do what you’re more used to--dashing.

Fury of the Small. "That’s my secret. I’m always small.” There’s an interesting commentary to this being a goblin racial trait, because in Nott’s case it probably isn’t fury at things bigger than her so much as fury at being made a goblin, a fury that only grows more potent with time, and more deadly.

Jester: Imagination that kills you, with humor and cuteness! You have to wonder if the pink bits on her dress are floral designs or blood splatters. This woman is a terror, and a person who loves to enter the fray--to the point of picking bar fights with her friends for the thrill of it! You might think, “oh, the cleric wants to get in my face to hurt me, I’ll just make her suffer” but the truth is, the one suffering is going to be you.

Spiritual Weapon. As Iconic a weapon as Fjord’s falchion, and used a lot more frequently. Bludgeons people until they’re nothing more than bloodstains on the ground. Other clerics wish they were as good. Especially Shakaste. Poor Shakaste.

Invoke Duplicity. There to help her friends whenever Jester can’t--or shouldn’t--get somewhere herself. Will fight furniture when Jester needs to look around for a way to help Fjord. Will walk over lava to harm a giant as a distraction. Will, sometimes, be sent over to heal someone who needs it. The beauty of it is that, besides distracting and protecting, it allows her to be wherever she is most needed for a spell.

Inflict Wounds. Jester likes one thing above all, and it is to fuck people up. She’ll do it through her duplicate or she’ll do it herself, but one way or the other she’s going to wind her hands around you and make you bleed through your eyeballs. She’ll cast it on hydras. She’ll cast it on dragons. She’ll cast it on fire giants. She’ll cast it on her best friend who thought that this was a friendly brawl. And it is. Jester is nearly always friendly when she’s destroying you.

Hellish Rebuke. Unless she’s not being friendly. Once upon a time, she had a quip for when she was attacked. Now she will scream and cry out, and just the sound of it will send icy pain to whoever dared to hurt her.

Caduceus: Of everyone in the M9, the most averse to close combat, or more broadly to making a target of himself, ever. Is surprised and upset whenever creatures get close to him, or get it into their heads to attack him. He’s the support. You shouldn’t even notice he’s there. Here are some bugs--how about you attack those? What do you mean he has to get close to do touch-based healing--nope, nope, healing word it is, and only after people are unconscious to maximize its usefulness.

Hidden Step. He really doesn’t want you to notice that he’s here. If he doesn’t do this, he might try literally sinking into the ground to avoid you.

Bane. The quintessential Caduceus spell. Aptly named for how miserable it makes all his enemies. Works beautifully both for protecting those who are close to the enemy, and gels very nicely with Jester fucking shit up and Fjord distracting the enemy and whatever the hell Caleb is planning to do if....if they fucking wait for him to cast it..............

Sentinel at Death’s Door. He really doesn’t want his friends to die. It’s expensive. And there’s a certain impatient ass of a wizard who just might have died instantly if he hadn’t been hovering around him at the time. Sigh.

Path to the Grave. Caduceus is not one to get his hands dirty. Well, dirt is fine, but not so much the living blood of his foes. No, he likes to deal his damage by proxy, through his bug swarm but especially through Yasha. She already deals so much damage, and isn’t it beautiful to watch her deal twice as much of it? Bonus points if it makes Yasha look like the big scary target, and not him.

Yasha: As always, Yasha is a hard one for me, because I want to distinguish Travis-Yasha from Ashley-Yasha, but the fact of it is I haven’t seen much of Ashley-Yasha for a while. So it’s hard. But there’s one thing in particular that has stood out to me about Yasha and the way she works, and that is

Rage. Or rather, her hesitation to rage. She’s a fighting machine who isn’t happy being a fighting machine, and there are so many times she chooses not to fly into a rage and start hitting things when she thinks being calm and talking things out is an option. She asks the lightning-creature a question, asks if it was sent from the Stormlord. “Yeah...he’s going to attack you,” Matt says. But that’s the important thing--she didn’t instigate. Ever. She didn’t get angry first. She waits, and tries everything other than the killing, until she’s provoked past the point of reason. You could even argue this as a story justification for her low initiative rolls--she just doesn’t want to get angry and attack. Not unless she has to.

#critical role #cr spoilers #meta #fjord #beauregard #caleb widogast #nott the brave #jester lavorre #caduceus clay #yasha nydoorin #I also want to do a non-combat post

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curious-minx · 4 years

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October 2010s Music Deep Dive!

A mock up poster for the only possible music festival line-up I would be willing to risk my life attending. Tony Allen’s passing has caused the entire Octoberfest to be cancelled indefinitely, but all proceeds from ticks will be given back to the community.

Hope all of you special nobodies and overblown somebodies reading this right now are having a smashing start your first o November. All last month I had taken it upon myself to listen to as many albums and fragments of albums released sometime during the month of October spanning the entire 10’s decade, 2010 through 2019. This is all probably a result of drinking too much dead water, Quarantine brain, undiagnosed Autism, magical thinking and the death of boredom. I have created a Spotify playlist sporting 25 hours and 4 minutes worth of music with an arbitrary amount of albums getting multiple songs, but largely one song/album. This project did create a sense of madness because of the volume of music that gets cranked out. How can we expect anyone to properly criticize music when it is nearly impossible to keep up with it all? I largely culled these albums from Allmusic’s Editorial Choice section, but I did have to use Rateyourmusic to fill out the hip-hop and R&B gaps. In gathering up all of this music I am attempting to see if spooky music was relegated to the October season and any other possible trends. Even though October has been laid to rest her swelling calendar breast still contains a treasure trove of music worth discussing. Grab your broom, sharpen your heels and get the cobwebs out of your ears because we’re going on a Deep Dive!

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The 2010s Old Souls and Musical Auteurs

I consider any musician or band that endures more than a decade worthy of this veteran label. Music biz lifers seem found solace in the October release schedule. A trend that has carried onto the new decade with October 2020 offering revitalized releases by Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen reunited with the E Street Band. All three main members of Sonic Youth, Moore, Gordon and Renaldo are still harnessing that spooky Bad Moon Rising energy and carrying it over into their solo releases.

KIM GORDON’s NO RECORD HOME

The first truly proper solo album by Kim Gordon following up her pretty good noise rock releases under the Body/Head moniker with Bill Nace. No Record Home towers over Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo’s mostly okay solo releases because of how truly experimental and refreshingly modern sounding No Record Home is. This album sounds like it could easily have come out from a young Pacific Northwest Trip-Angle (RIP) label upstart. Instead, Gordon is defiantly aging gracefully and remains an all around important feminist voice in experimental rock music. No Record Home did not pop up on a lot of “Best of the Year” lists in 2019, nor did Gordon embark on any kind of touring for the release. I am hoping that more people will eventually discover this great album and realize that Gordon was truly the best, most truly experimental aspect of Sonic Youth. Her vocals on this album are the best she’s ever sounded because she built these songs and sounds with the intergral collaborator, producer Justin Raisen. A glimpse at Raisen’s Wikipedia page is a who’s who of great artists of the past decade: Yves Tumor, Charli XCX, and Sky Ferreira. The collaboration occurred at an AirBnB shared between Gordon and Raisen and birthed the first single of the project “Air BnB.” A song that completely sets the tone of the album and features one of those amazing music videos in the same line us Young Thug’s “Wyclef Jean. “

Björk - Biophilia

Can you name the last album the rolled out with its own app? Nine years have come and gone and I certainly can’t think of another album with such wholesome ambitions. Björk was getting passionate about ecological concerns in her native Icelandic home with Sigur Ros and using her sphere of influence to try to good. 2014 the app has found a permanent home in the MOMA, but outside of this curio status the album itself is still a worthwhile addition to the Björk canon. Biophilia finds Björk in musical scientist mode using sounds captured from a Tesla coil and making a whole musical universe onto herself. The rest of the 2010s found Björk going for bigger and more ambitious projects that continue to frustrate those who wish she would go back to her poppier roots. She remains one of those most consistent solo artists around and someone no one will be able to predict what she does next. The only thing is certain is that it will be visionary and will probably include a wildly ambitious rollout and a new piece of physical art like Biophilia’s $800 tuning forks.

NENEH CHERRY - BROKEN POLITICS

Featuring production duties for the second time from Four Tet (who also pops up in the October playlist with his 2013 album Beautiful Rewind). Broken Politics in Cherry’s words, “is about feeling broken, disappointed, and sad, but having perseverance. It’s a fight against the extinction of free thought and spirit.” The music video for single “Natural Skin Deep” was filmed in Beirut, a backdrop made even more painful given 2020’s Explosion. Cherry is an artist with deep spiritual and blood connections with artists central to jazz’s history. Broken Politics also features songs built around Ornette Coleman samples. This is all to say that Neneh Cherry is always going to be someone tapping into a creative cosmic vein that spans generations, and with that comes a hard wisdom. Two years later we’re still dealing with the same god damn guts and guns of history.

OTHER NOTABLES:

(Cat Power - The Wanderer; John Cale - Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood; Tony Allen - Film of Life ; Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Psychedelic Pill ;Bryan Ferry - Olympia; Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen ;Yoko Ono - Warzone; Vashti Bunyan - Heartleap; Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Look Now; The Chills - Silver Bullets; Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright In The End;Laurie Anderson - Heart of A Dog;Janet Jackson - Unbrekable;The Mercury Rev - Light In You; Rocketship - Thanks To You; Van Dyke Parks & Gaby Moreno - Spangled; Donald Fagen - Sunken Condos; Prefab Sprout - Crimson Red; Pere Ubu - 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo; Negativland - True False )

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TRILOGY OF BLACKSTARS

Three last albums released by three titans of 20th century songwriting. Two of them follow the trajectory of an older artist getting rejuvenated by a younger backing band. Lulu is beyond a meme at this point and is considered one of the most confounding flops since Metallic Music. Like Metallic Music, Lulu will get a reappraisal and find its audience. Mr. Blackstar himself Bowie considered Lulu one of his favorite releases. “Junior Dad” alone makes this album a worthy addition in Lou Reed’s discography. Scott Walker invited some similarly hairy and intense younger rock studs into his private castle and pulls off a far more natural combination. Soused fits like a velvet glove on a elegant corpse hand swirling thick slabs of guitar and demonic percussion. Scott Walker effortlessly orchestrates between elegance and moribundity whereas Lulu wallows and thrashes against the ugly riffage.

No riffs or oozing wall of sound are anywhere to be found on the sparse and pointedly elegiac You Want it Darker. Leonard Cohen never went full on sleazy I’m Your Man ever again but he didn’t become adult contemporary either. You Want It Darker finds Leonard and his son Adam Cohen. When Leonard passed away he was the only one to get a full David Bowie like museum tribute, Lou Reed only got a corner of a library. Cohen is far and away the most accessible mystical Jewish Buddhist monk with a penchant for fedoras and having a masked man with a leather belt beat him in the recording booth [citation needed]. You Want It Darker is the only one of these mortality laden kiss offs to win a Grammy. I do wonder if Cohen would have ever allowed a more adventurous production to touch his staid and timeless old fashioned sound. Tom Scharpling divides Leonard Cohen into his Pre-Fedora and Post-Fedora days. If you are being literal about that demarcation that still gives you a pretty vast body of music I just want sad bloated blurry black and white Leonard Cohen with a banana or the smiling cad on Songs of Love and Hate. Even the floppy fedora era has worthwhile albums and he sounds like if Serge Gainsbourgh was a muppet Gargoyle, he’s reliable. I will always beat myself for not buying that official Leonard Cohen raincoat at the Jewish Museum Leonard Cohen exhibit, but I hope someone has and they are finding comfort with Cohen’s music. A lot of his latter day period is comforting in a sardonic sexy mind bending nursing home sort of way.

I am glad that these men were ultimately spared from having to deal with Covid times and even someone as tasteless as Brian Wilson’s Ghost can acknowledge that it’s more important than ever to keep your elderly loved ones locked away in a well ventilated pod.

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(INSERT ARTIST HERE) SEASON

For a few sticky sweet select few artists the month of October proved to be a suitable release launch pad for more than one album. The Mountain Goats and clipping. have just joined the October two-timer club this year. The reigning queen of October releases is Taylor Swift and Adrianne Lenker. In chronological order swift released Speak Now, Red and 1989 probably Swift’s biggest run in terms of critical and commercial success. None of these albums have a particularly big place in my heart, in fact speaking on behalf of Brian Wilson’s Ghost Ltd. I’m not the biggest fan of America’s Sweetheart, Sweet Tea Poet Laureate. All three of these albums all came out in the latter part of October and based on the Target brand synergy roll-out felt as inevitable as pumpkin spice. Haunted. Sad Beautiful Tragic. Out of the Woods. These are either song titles taken from these three albums are the names of the under utilized Romantic Halloween Horror Comedy genre. Lady Gaga might have been spooking it up on American Horror Story, but Swift gives a far more chilling performance in Tom Hooper’s midnight madness of Cats and I could envision Swift excelling really well as a horror film actor. Especially in a role like Scarlett Johansson’s Under the Skin.

You cannot get more polar opposite from Swift than Adrianne Lenker. Who released her first solo album abysskiss and the second Big Thief album of 2019 Two Hands. Lenker will have also gone on to make her third October release this year with her second solo album songs & instrumentals. Striking that such a ghostly autumnal band would have only released one album in October, but autumnal feeling albums are not beholden to release calendars. The song “Not” from the Big Thief album Two Hands is a watershed breakthrough moment for the band and put Lenker and her band on the map. In 2019 Big Thief became a band that could get booked onto a Goodmorning American performance slot and more or less made Big Thief one of the rare 2010s indie bands to become more or less a household name.

Other notable artists to have released more than one album on October 2010s:

Less notable artists to have multiple October releases: James Blunt Korn

Calvin Harris

Kings of Leon

Pentatonix

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FORMER HARBINGERS OF HYPE

These are October releases from artists that once felt like whenever they put out an album a wider array of outlets and publications seemed to care more and would spill more digital ink over them. The big three artists that had the biggest drop off in attention and acclaim that stick out to me the most are Titus Andronicus, Justice and Why? All three artists debuted with strong starts back in the aughts, but according to critical reception more or less crashed and burned. Titus Andronicus’ Local Business was one of the last times Titus Andronicus would get positive marks from Pitchfork. Local Business a fun and shaggy follow-up to one of the most self-serious concept albums of the 2010s.

Justice’s Audio, Video, Disco similarly is a follow up to a highly acclaimed album that set the bar high enough to doom Justice into never living up to the hype. Justice’s 2007 s/t heralded them as the next Daft Punk, but unlike those soulful and thoughtful robots Justice mainly wanted to make big ridiculous unfashionable synth prog rock. Audio, Video, Disco is simply cheesy fun and even though we live in a world better off without parties and gatherings this album helps you feel like you are in high-def IMAX monster mash on the moon.

The leaves us with Why?’s Mump’s Etc. an album that already had the job of following up an already divisive follow up record Eskimo Snow. Why’s Alopecia is a really important 2008 indie blog rap album that helped thrust the online indie blogs into the hip-hop genre hybrid experimentalism. Why? would never make another universally beloved album again and with Mump’s Etc. ended up permanently in Pitchfork’s hate pit. In the original release review the Pitchfork writer essentially deems this album an act of “career suicide.” The whole review is essentially an assignation of Why?’s figurehead Yoni Wolf and taking him to task for all of his awkward lyrical blunders and the fact he is narcissistic enough to be a musician writing about his career in a meta fashion. Yet when I listen to Mump’s Etc. I am more or less enjoying Yoni Wolf’s personality and find the whole thing to be pretty charming. A perfectly serviceable 3.5/5 release that a media outlet like Pitchfork turns into a flexing opportunity to show how that they have the power to make or break a career.

A.C. Newman, an artist who appears on this playlist with his terrific 2012 Shut Down The Streets took to Twitter to scoff at the idea that a good Pitchfork review has done anything for his career. Shut Down The Streets currently remains the last solo album Newman has released under his name choosing to focus on his main gig with the New Pornographers. The Internet based hype machine is even more ADHD addled and twitchier by the day. The joy of doing this deep dive allowed me to revisit a lot of these artists and acts that I had fallen out of touch with. I had completely forgotten about King of Convenience’s Erlend Øye who released the album Legao in 2014. I rediscovered a good deal of bands like the Editors, The Dodos, Kisses, Black Milk, Crocodiles, Empire of the Sun, Juana Molina, Jagwar Ma, Here We Go Magic, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., YACHT, Peaking Lights, The Twilight Sad, Elf Power, Swet Shop Boys, Radio Dept, Allo’ Darlin, Foxes In Fiction, and HOMESHAKE are all bands not trying to change the world or challenge listeners with avant garde experimentation. Instead I feel like I maintaining relationships with old friends on the edge of obscurity.

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A HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS IN OCTOBER

A tradition stretching back as far as 2014 not October’s Idina Menzel’s Holiday Wishes, but Seth McFarland’s Holiday For Swing sweatily released on CD, digital, and vinyl on September 30, 2014. 2015 then brings us a Chris Tomlin and Ru Paul Christmas albums because every force of Neo-liberal good must be balanced with evangelical contemporary Christian music *shutters.* 2016 finds the Christmas in October era reaching a complete and utter nadir with R. Kelly’s final official LP 12 Nights of Christmas and A Pentatonix Christmas, but also buffered by Kacey Musgrave’s Christmas. 2017 only had time for Gwen Stefani’s You Make It Feel Like Christmas and no one else could evoke this feeling in October. On 2018, Michelle and Barack Obama’s combined one and only Christmas wish comes true, no not cancelling those drone strikes, but getting John Legend to join the October release jamboree; Eric Clapton claps open his guitar’s butt cheeks and hatefully squats out a half assed Xmas album defiantly opening the album with “White Christmas” [eyeroll emoji]; and finally 2018 found the Pentatonix announcing in October that Christmas Is Here. I apologize for all of that crude butt talk about the hateful racist Eric Clapton, but(t) I have festive gluteus Maximus on the mind, because in 2019 Norah Jones got her alternative country gal trio back together to remind us to shake our Christmas butts. Eat shit commercial shit, today’s Santa’s birthday! That’s the magic of the October release schedule!

The hallowed Christmas in October tradition continues on in 2020 with Dolly I-Beg-Thee-Pardon releasing A Holly Dolly Christmas right on time on October 2, 2020 (Carrie Underwood missed the memo and unwraps her unwanted My Gift in September 2020). Meghan Trainor, Goo Goo Dolls, and Tori Kelly released Christmas albums. Can you believe Seth MacFarlane comes up twice in this article, because his sleazy J. Michigan Frog croon is processed and grated like Parmesan cheese snow flakes all over a rendition of White Christmas. What a time to be alive!

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WHERE DID THEY GO?

A Brief Case For Class Actress’s Rapproacher

Among my October music travels I encountered one artist that really impressed me with her proper LP debut Rapprocher. The trio fronted by Elizabeth Vanessa Harper is essentially peddling the kind of competent moody 80’s inspired synth pop that belongs on a lost Donnie Darko sequel. Harper’s vocals are striking and expressive and they are melded with constantly propulsive bed of shiny synths and glossy barely-there gated percussion. Outside of an 2015 EP called Movies featuring exciting production contributions from Italo-disco icon Giorgio Moroder there has been nothing else from Class Actress. Highly recommend you check them out especially if you want to find the sweet spot between Chromatics and Kylie Minogue.

/////

THE OCTOBER 2010s MASTERPIECES

(Robyn - Honey, Big K.R.I.T. - 4eva is a Mighty Long Time ,Miguel - Kaleidoscope Dream, Crying - Beyond The Fleeting Gale , M83 Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming ,SRSQ - Unreality, Sufjan Stevens - age of adz, Joanna Newsom - divers, VV Brown Samson and Delilah, Kelela - tear me apart , Neon Indian - VEGA Intl., Fever Ray - Plunge , Antony and The Johnsons - Swanlights (goodbye album) , Caroline Polachek - Pang , Sky Ferreira - Night Time, My Time . Bat For Lashes Haunted Man, James Ferraro - Far Side Virtual , Grouper - Ruins , Kero Kero Bonito -Bonito Generation , DJ Rashad - Double Cup)

Maybe if I surround this VV Brown album with more well known artists she’ll finally get some more clicks? I should also mention that Joanna Newsom’s Divers is nowhere on my Spotify October Music playlist because Joanna Newsom thinks Spotify is bananas, and she hates bananas. I know I should also mention Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city and Tame Impala’s Lonerism. That’s the maddening thing about October music that just when you think you covered all your ground you find another hidden hump underneath the carpet. I feel remiss without mentioning striking debut and instant hidden gem Tinashe’s Aquarius, which did you know has a new album art on Spotify. Death Grip’s No Love Deep Web. T_T I didn’t even get around to making a big verbal mosaic to Thom Yorke’s witchy Suspiria soundtrack.Corpus Christi! I forgot to highlight The Orb album in the collage with my other veteran artists! As you can see this project nearly ruined me. I did not necessarily listen to all of these albums from front to back, but I did listen all of the songs on the playlist and chose them from the immense collection of October releases. I am pretty sure this is the kind of content for no one in particular but I really needed to get it out of my system. Let’s meet back up October 2030!!!!!

(Thank you to my beloved partner, best friend and Spotify provider Maddie Johnson XD)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7sdLaNNaqWpKEKXRZ3jNqY?si=SLZxUwLMQYOQ5wA1xuZc7w

#spooky #spooktember #spooktober #spooktacular #octoberfest #autism #best of #music festival #Joanna newsom #sufjan stevens #kendrick lamar #tame impala #Taylor swift #big thief #Adrianne lenker #ru paul #kelly klarkson

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pinpuku · 5 years

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pokemon partner+team, trainer class & region for @burningiceplanet

original request & description under “keep reading”

Hi! Can I please request a partner/team? I’m a Taurus and a ISTP.

My fav colors are yellow-green, pastel yellow, pumpkin orange, cobalt blue, turquoise, scarlet, white, jet black, ash and charcoal grey. My favorite animals are foxes, wolves, rodents, otters, big cats, ravens, octopuses, orcas and sharks.

I’m sort of Cold & Hot person, because I either care too much or don’t care at all. I may come off as stoic, somewhat scary individual, but it’s actually just me being a shy, awkward bean. With friends I’m motherly, sometimes to the point of being annoying/possessive. I have dark sense of humor and can be very sarcastic. I’m bad at taking care of my moral health, tend to bottle up feelings and then blow up and go into berserk state and feel sorry for everything I’ve said afterwards.

My interests include art, music, biology and archeology. I want to learn to play bass guitar, dance swing and start to take a fencing class (I’m really into swords). I like cute and creepy things, and like to watch/read either something beautiful and philosophical or just a pure horror.

Ah, and my favorite types are Fire, Ice, Electric, Psychic and Ghost!

Also, if it’s not too bothering, could you do a trainer class and region? ☆w☆

And sorry for my grammar, English isn’t my first language…

Hi! This request was pretty fun to do! Let’s meet your new team~

♡ I think a fitting partner for you would be Quilava. Quilava is known as the “Volcano Pokemon”. It can be an explosive pokemon, both literally & personality wise. Although this line naturally gains more confidence & power as it evolves, they aren’t aggressive outside of battle. Quilava is a calm & somewhat shy pokemon most of the time, but it can burst into violent fits when in a heated battle or under severe stress. Upon evolving, this power is greatly increased & they serve as pretty good battlers. When well trained, it is an easy pokemon to raise, and as a starter pokemon they are generally loyal, well behaved & intelligent compared to some other pokemon species. The first in their line, Cyndaquil, is a timid pokemon that will appreciate a trainer with a parental nature who also understands their evolutionary lines slightly more introverted nature. While they have an aloof demeanor, this line will enjoy physical affection from their trainers & their fine fur is both soft & warm.

♡Fennekin is another fire type starter. Fennekin has a little bit of a temperamental nature, but it always means well. They can be sensitive, but they also have feistiness to their personalities & work very hard to please their trainer. They have weak but present psychic abilities which they will grow into as they evolve, with these psychic powers being closely connected with their fire. Fenniken has soft & warm fur like Quilava, but they are a bit more fluffy. Their ears are especially fluffy & they can heat up to high temperatures when battling or defending itself, and some Fennekin might not like you touching them too much. Interestingly, this line has a diet mainly consisting of twigs & small tree branches. They will usually have a favorite twig they also keep in their fur, which might switch out as they grow.

♡ Froslass is a pokemon that seems very elusive, since it is rare in the wild & lives in pretty harsh environments. It is actually a pokemon that becomes easily lonely, and they work very well under the ownership of a trainer. There is old lore that states wild Froslass will target people lost in snowstorms to feeze & “collect” them etc... This is almost never happens, but when it does it is mainly because they want friends, with some rumors stating they also target men they deem handsome. Froslass does have some clinginess in regards to its loved ones, but captive Froslass will virtually never display this type of predatory behavior. While some ghost-type pokemon are very mysterious & potentially dangerous for the common trainer, most are just misunderstood. As ghost type pokemon are probably the most difficult pokemon to study with the science we use, many pokedex entries will consist of local legends & stories passed down from old times. Froslass is a loving & social pokemon when trained, even if it is a little shy and socially awkward.

♡ Alolan Sandshrew is an icy variant of the regular Sandshrew, looking almost like a tiny igloo-mouse. It has an extremely strong shell & great defense, but this does come with the drawback of not being able to roll up into a full ball anymore. They aren’t dangerous to humans, but their evolved form is equipped with very large & powerful claws. Unlike some other ice type pokemon, they can’t alter the temperature around their body very well & might not do too great in particularly hot areas for extended amounts of time, like direct sunlight during the summer months. As long as they have a cool place to hang out in the summer, perhaps with a cooling pad, they will be fine. They’re also pretty entertaining to watch in the snow!

♡ Meowstic (M/shiny) is another aloof pokemon, with their default external moodlet being almost emotionless at times. This is in part because they’re holding back great, explosive psychic powers that constantly emit from their ears. Now fully evolved, Meowstic does have a much easier time holding this power back than Espurr, utilizing incredible self control. Male Meowstic is considerably more mellow compared to their female counterpart ,even though they both hold the same potentially dangerous powers. They greatly enjoy attention & affection from their trainer & are non-aggressive by nature. They can be skilled in battling techniques that utilize their evasiveness & trickiness.

♡ Zorua (shiny) is a mischievous, intelligent & playful pokemon. It can also be elusive, shy & hard to find. They have the ability to cast an illusion over themselves to appear as other pokemon & sometimes even human children. This power greatly increases upon evolving, which is why finding a Zoroark/Zorua family in the wild is very difficult. This line has a strong familial nature, especially in regards to parental bonds. Zorua might like to adventure around a bit, but they do not stray far from their parent/trainer. Once evolved, it grows out of being the baby into a more parental figure itself. It will be very attached & protective with its teammates, and might even show this parental attitude towards their trainer. Zorua/Zoroark will nevertheless view its trainer as the leader, however. They will go to extreme lengths to protect their family & home if they have to, and they are very capable battlers, defenders & escape artists.

For trainer class, I give you the “Psychic”. Calm & intelligent, Psychics also have duality & many uses in their abilities. Their pokemon are often trained to be both offensive & strategic, using many creative or unusual ways to gain the upper hand in battle. A fitting region for you would be the Unova region. Unova has rich & diverse cultures. Music, the arts, nature & technology are all thriving in Unova, with both modern & traditional aspects depending on where you go & what you’re interested in. Even outside of the large cities, the environment is very diverse. There are notable archaeological sites & even archaeological towns, with a particularly high number of unique native pokemon species. Music & entertainment is especially popular here. This might be because Unova is culturally & historically tied to the mythical melody pokemon called Meloetta, being basically the embodiment of music in all its forms, including dance.

I hope you like your team decently! ^~^

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howtohero · 5 years

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#245 The Power of Stories

Stories are a powerful thing. A skilled storyteller can take a story, be it real or fiction, and use it to influence great change in the people or the world around them. Stories can be used to teach lessons; to give warnings; to bring joy; to bring sorrow; to bring pain and to alleviate it. In the right hands stories can be used to do damn near anything. As a superhero, your life is essentially a series of wondrous and fantastical stories, (interspersed with hilariously embarrassing ones about getting your cape stuck in revolving doors or getting suck in what’s known as a “revolving door loop” where you just keep going around and around and getting increasingly panicked) and that makes you very fortunate indeed. Having so many incredible stories under your belt gives you yet another opportunity to do good, albeit in a more unconventional way.

Understanding that the strange things that happen to you, or that you happen to, can be used later on to do some good can actually do wonders for a superhero’s morale. If you’re forced to fight a giant mud monster for the fifth day in a row (different, completely unrelated, mud monsters believe it or not) at least you can take solace in the fact that you can later use this terrible time to inspire others to clean up after themselves, or not to lose hope when faced with the same problem over and over again. Every bad day can be turned into a good and valuable story later. And nobody faces more bad days than superheroes. (The idea that supervillains face more bad days than superheroes stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes a supervillain tick. Supervillains are often the product of a single bad day that sets them down a path of horrible villainy. Any other defeat or setback they experience after that initial bad day is not viewed as a bad day by these villains, but rather as further excuses, which they desperately crave, to commit outlandish crimes. If a villain were ever to succeed they’d lose any and all motivation to do things and that’s the last thing they want. Which means that you’ll never be happy, and they’ll never be satisfied. Thus the battle between good and evil is the world’s one true never ending story.)

It should come as no shock to you, my superheroic reader, that the stories of your life can be used to inspire and intrigue others. Superheroes, and other larger than life or awesomely powered figures, have loomed large in fiction literally since the beginning. Our oldest recorded story, The Epic of Gilgamesh is about a man with incredible strength, stamina, and endurance fighting monsters and seeking immortality. That’s like a regular Tuesday for you and yet it is humankind’s most enduring tale. If you’re any good at your job, you yourself have been the subject of many comics, movies, sitcoms, internet puppet shows and one fascinating Japanese gameshow/car wash. Now, it’s time to take control of your own stories! Stop selling the rights to every instance of you scuffling with the Exit-Sign Swaparooner or spearfishing the venom-whales of the Kludachrom System. Instead, you can use these stories to inspire people or inspire change or simply to entertain young children so their hardworking parents can get some much needed sleep! When you’re a hero no good deed is too small! (The Exit-Sign Swaparooner is a devilish fiend who takes exit signs and puts them over doors that are not in fact exits. You may think that this makes him more of a prankster than a supervillain but 1. The line between those things is much thinner than you might believe and 2. Let’s see if you’re still laughing when you’re trying to leave your local coffee shop only to find yourself falling right into a pit full of crocodiles!)

If you’re going to start utilizing your vast array of stories though, it is important to know your audience. Not every story is suitable for every listener. If you’re new to this whole story telling thing, you’re going to need to train at matching stories and audiences and so we’ve devised a quick practice exercise for you:

If your audience is a group of excited school children the story you should tell is: a. The time you thought the Sentient Cloud of Expletives! b. The time you fought the Blowzo the eternally puking clown who exclusively pukes on children. c. The time you traveled back in time and invented math accidentally. d. The time you traveled back in time and invented math on purpose.

Now, if you picked any of those answers you’re obviously incorrect. Unless you truly know your audience and can prove us wrong. In all honesty, all of these stories might be suitable for a group of excited school children, it’s simply up to you to know what kind of school children these are, and what kinds of stories they want or need to hear. The Sentient Cloud of Expletives story is great if you want to teach kids about proper language, as long as you understand that you need to censor much of the Cloud’s dialogue for this particular group. (It’s also a great story to tell if this particular group of kids thinks they’re too cool to listen to a story from a superhero. Using a ton of swear words in a story is the number one way to get too cool for school children to listen to what you have to say.) The story about Blowzo is a great story to use if you want to scare a bunch of children into doing the right thing. (Fear is often the best tactic to use when dealing with children. I’m quite sure of this.) [This is wrong, don’t scare any children!]. Teaching children that a super cool superhero invented math is a great way to encourage children to learn it! And teaching children about going back in time and inventing math a second time teaches them that they shouldn’t be afraid to admit when they’ve made mistakes. (Even if your plan to fix your mistake is to erase an entire timeline, only to just invent math again but on purpose this time!)

In reality, any story can be adapted for any audience as long as you understand the motivations and attitudes of the people the story is intended for. If you miscalculate, you can end up boring your audience. Or even worse, upsetting them and causing you to give your stories bad reviews. Honestly I don’t think you can handle scathing reviews from story critics. They can be very mean. And I know you’ve actually fought Charles T. Mean, the inventor of mean, but let me tell you, these people are out for blood. I once wrote a story and some critic told me, to my face, that the story made him hate the person who invented words. So. (And it wasn’t even the historical fiction story about Deirdre Word, inventor of the word, being a serial killer who only invented words so she could leave threatening messages to her would be victims during the Revolutionary War!)

In addition to knowing your audience it is also important to know your stories. You need to look back through your life and understand the various uses of each of your many stories. Stories of great triumph can be used to inspire people to surmount impossible odds, or to intimidate your enemies by showing them that you’ve faced greater threats than they can ever hope to be. (You can honestly win a lot of fights this way.) Love stories can be used to demonstrate the lengths people will go to for love or as the lead up to a “spontaneous” musical confession of love! Scary stories can be used, as we’ve said, to terrify children into doing good deeds or to win the annual superhero halloween ghost story competition which my sources tell me is a thing. If you can understand that every experience you have can serve you in a number of different scenarios some time down the line, limited only by your own creativity, you’ll certainly feel better about having to fight your way through the Mobile Murder Mountain the next time it arrives in your city!

Stories can be quite versatile. They can be used to calm down or distract scared civilians. They can be used to generate goodwill with our galactic neighbors. They can be used to build people up or tear them down. Your job as a superhero is to wield your stories in a way that will make the world a better place. Good luck, and happy storytelling!

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salavante · 6 years

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Grey Solidago!

(lol this one was from Jake but he forgot to turn anon off. I’m making ye way through these and will probably post the rest later today or tomorrow - I got Pat and Aesop to go and might just do one more headshot of my choice to make it an even number)

Full Name: Grey Solidago

Gender and Sexuality: Female & Bisexual

Pronouns: she/her

Ethnicity/Species: Grey is a half-Anubii (also known as a Zeke) and a hemilich. Her father, Jonquil, is a full blooded anubii, a race of odd, magically reanimated corpses of unknown origin, and her mother, Hare, is a human. Hare is also ethnically an Ashkenazi jew.

Birthplace and Birthdate: Maybe sometime in September. Could have been born in either The Tidelands (ranging from coastal sage scrub to salt marshes and deltas/swamps) or The Green (temperate rainforest and boreal pines to taiga).

Guilty Pleasures: Definitely smoking, a bad habit she picked up from her dad. Not really a guilty pleasure, but I also think that her tastes in music are a lot more varied than people would expect, and she can probably find something she likes in any genre she investigates.

Phobias: Nothin really man! Grey is actually the most “normal” and well adjusted of the Solidago children, which still means she’s kind of creepy and peculiar by average standards. She doesn’t like feeling vulnerable or like things are out of her control, and she is good at compartmentalizing her doubts and anxieties. There is a certain, intense rage inside her that is kept under a cool exterior, and inflicting grievous harm on someone who she feels deserves it is not something that troubles her very much. I suppose she may fear taking things too far and doing something very cruel, because she knows she has the ability and emotional capacity to do it.

What They Would Be Famous For: Grey is a fine artist who does very big, lush oil paintings, and while not famous, is notable and has had gallery shows of her work. Grey’s usual job is accompanying adventuring parties to strange locals and then illustrating them in action and doing charcoal studies of ruins/landscapes/etc, as editorial material for the various publications on adventuring and dungeon diving. She’s become a handful of magazines’ go-to gal. Her work is mostly representational, and she seldom makes a piece without doing lots of studies first, but she leans heavy into chiaroscuro and has big, juicy brush strokes. Words often used to describe her work are “eerie”, “haunting” or “intense”.

What They Would Get Arrested For: Probably something really benign like trespassing or going somewhere without a proper permit, Grey is pretty lawful, both of her parents are in a law enforcement esque occupation. They run a very organized adventurer’s guild, effectively, that will cooperate with local law enforcement to catch run of the mill criminals in addition to tackling monsters or liches or what have you.

OC You Ship Them With: Wybjorn has a tiny baby crush on her because he gets crushes on anyone who’s moderately nice to him, but he’s a little too goofy for her, she’s not into it. Grey’s in an awkward bracket of characters because they are kind of our third gen group and there’s only so many of them in the 20-30 range (Grey is 23). She’s also kind of an intense lady, I keep using that word but it fits. Canonically, we’re going to see how Grey and Ozzy fare when we get around to Mindrunner II, the sequel to Ozzy’s original campaign. They weirdly hit it off during Godslaughter, I think they’re both very intellectual people and counterbalance one another very well. Ozzy has a partner already, their name is Rosemary, but Ozzy has two hands.

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Jovix-Cailo, probably. He did kill Lysander and broke Grey’s leg. Otherwise she hasn’t really done anything to invoke someone’s ire. Jovix-Diocunigast might also kill her in the final fight, we shall see (I wrote this before the game was over, he didn’t!).

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Grey likes slow burn ghost stories, psychological horror, true crime documentaries, mysteries and thrillers. She’d like “I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House”, “Twin Peaks” and Agatha Christie. She probably reads short story anthologies and paperbacks when she’s on the road for her job. Anything with well paced tension will hold her interest, but she may tolerate poor writing as long as the visuals in a movie or TV show are good.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: I honestly don’t think she’d treat something with disdain or vitriol like some other characters might, I think she’s pretty good at ignoring stuff that she doesn’t like in terms of media. Not a big fan of slashers or more fantastical horror, she has pretty well defined tastes, and dislikes your usual bouquet of mainstream film genres (romcoms, action, etc). I do think that one thing she truly does not like is any cartoon with singing in it, which is probably something she has to moderately tolerate because she has a young niece.

Talents and/or Powers: Grey has a mostly utility build with a focus on stacking debuffs and interrupting other people’s attacks. She doesn’t have any really big, damage dealing abilities, but she’s meant to support more potent DPS by wearing down bosses with status afflictions. In fiction this manifests as a handiness at weaving curses. As mentioned before, she is also a pretty skilled painter, with her preferred mediums as charcoal, ink wash and oils.

Why Someone Might Love Them: Strong willed, confident, intelligent and classy - Grey has perhaps had self confidence issues in the past, she was kind of a weird looking, gangly child/teenager, but she really owns herself now. She knows what she likes and dislikes and makes her preferences very obvious, and though she doesn’t make jokes very often, has a good sense of humor (which she got from her mom) though it can be kind of dry/morbid. She’s rather private and has an air of mystery about her and a slight eeriness that some may find enticing. She also refuses to stand idly by when there is injustice in her presence, for better or for worse.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: She can come off as uncaring or cold, and definitely has a terminal case of Resting Bitch Face. Any hiccups in her success in the art world are caused by her being uncompromising with her integrity, and a reluctance to play nice peers and art directors just for the sake of networking or getting a job. Being disingenuous feels counterintuitive to her sense of ethics. And while that’s all well and good, it makes her difficult to work with, and has made her miss out on some opportunities she may have benefitted from. Her bluntness has made her unpalatable to many, and some may see her as being stuck up. She also does not react well to people approaching her with aggression or snideness, and will retaliate ferociously.

How They Change: Honestly, not a lot, she’s pretty stable. Grey has mostly functioned in an NPC capacity up until this point, so there haven’t really been any stories focused on her. Prior to her extra dimensional shenanigans with her half-brother, she had kind of a strained relationship with her mom, who’s she’s since gained a lot more respect and compassion for. They’re on much better terms now. She also started out not liking Ozzy very much and thought he was kind of a weiner, but, they’re very good friends now after having some pretty harrowing experiences together.

Why You Love Them: She’s my only character who’s actually an artist. I don’t tend to like making characters who, well, do what I do. I love illustrating but what I do is still a lot of hard work and I like to take breaks from it. Generally speaking, I prefer to insert my creativity and drive into characters that make things with their hands but don’t make visual art per say. It’s why a lot of my characters are scientists and engineers. So I think it’s a unique connection to have.

#Anonymous

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fyrapartnersearch · 6 years

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Devil May Care

Got lost? Or maybe just lucky? 

(nah, who am I kidding?)

Please call me Gil :) I have posted here a while ago and was very happy with the responses I received from various individuals. I do share a good role-play with the said partners…. but it has been some time since I did anything fandom related. Especially since I am a total geek for video-games. Now I am craving for another kind of RP, a darker one… with less boundaries and more grit. Something from the supernatural side. It’ll be a hell of a good time!   I am currently looking for someone who is willing to do a Devil May Cry inspired RP with me! (But if that doesn’t necessarily suit your fancy, I am also open to do a Harry Potter RP - either next generation or before the events of HP) My mind has become restless with the idea that has been haunting me recently - a Roleplay involving Devilish creatures, Demons, Demon Hunters as well as the concept of Heaven and Hell. And no I don’t mean in a biblical sense… more in a mythological kind of sense. After I’ve played the newest release of DMC 5, I am once again fully hyped for it and hope to find my soulmate. (well on rp’er terms that is)  I am also willing to incorporate crossovers as well! I will make a short list down below what I am willing to do! Before we move on, I’ll give you the same ol’ description of what you should consider before messaging me :) If you reach out to me, please be sure not to ghost me after the first few messages before we even get to the roleplay itself. Yes, I’ve had many instances where my partners had to go off the grid because life gets in the way, etc. I understand that - but just disappearing without getting to the juicy bits is just a waste. Don’t write to me without a proper thread or a simple one-liner. Short and lacklustre messages will also be ignored, sorry :( I am currently searching for a literate, mature (preferably 20+ partner) writer with a vast, creative mindset willing to push some boundaries. Someone who is not afraid delving into darker themes, or come up with new fresh ideas for a fantasy plot. Someone who is willing to commit to a long-term roleplay. Are you that someone to join the I’ll swing you a few facts about me. Who am I? I am a 20+ female, living in Europe and currently studying at a university which is fairly time consuming. With that being said, I am able to type out 3-4 messages per week, sometimes even more. I think tis a good solid rate that can get the plot going. Depending on my schedule, my frequency will increase or decrease. Not to worry, I will let you know as soon if there is something coming up that might influence the roleplay. I love detailed paragraphs that describe a story with nuance and vibrant emotion. If you are someone comfortable or only willing to type one-liners, you are not going to find your match here, sorry. I only role-play on either email or goggle docs. Summary:

I’m above the age of 20, thus well aware, mature and open

I’m a Paragraph writer

I’m detailed

I have experience with over 10 years under my belt

I do prefer doubling but I am also open to make exceptions

Good brainstorming is key. Once we get to know each other, I would love to do a bit of strategizing, erecting a system for our world as well as gathering ideas we can utilize for the story.  Here’s a detailed description of my style and boundaries that I have for a potential RP.

How I write:

I am a multi-paragraph sort of writer, which means that frequently, my writing will exceed at least 500 words, and upward of 1000+ words. I love detail in description, and I am actively seeking someone of the same infamy. Generally, I tend to write in the 3rd person. But it can change based on the situation. My partner should have a basic grasp on grammar, punctuation and somewhat of an interest in erudite writing.

The genres I am into:

I am versatile when it comes to genres and settings that I like to focus on. Supernatural is my bread and butter, especially urban and gothic fantasy, but also very much like mythological stories and lore. I am not opposed to tapping into science fiction, action, romance, crime, action or thriller genres, though my most favourite is a combination of both fantasy, action, drama and a bit of sci-fi. For the roleplay I would like to take a lot of elements from Lovecraftian lore and even a little bit of Constantine. I love to mesh multiple genres together to create something completely new and fun. Yes, I know this is a fandom role-play, but that doesn’t mean we’re bound to this hard-set rules. Romance: I openly play and accept characters of both genders, preferable m x f pairings, but I am open to m x m and f x f relationships as well. I have more experience with m x f relationships, so I might excel in this category more than I would do with the others. I do not fade to black - instead I encourage erotism and tastefully written romance scenes. The passion must be felt, even if its just an intelligent description of someone’s stream of thought. I am double friendly and prefer it over a single pairing! OOC:

 OOC-chat friendly! Trust me, I won’t hold it against you if you tend to ramble outside of the roleplay. I love meeting new people and making potential friends. Plus it strengthens the relationship as well as the roleplay. Communication is key! If there is something that bothers you, or if you think you are left out in some way (be it a mistake on my part or we’re both at fault here), don’t be scared to let me know. Really, it won’t be taken personally - since I know that we all tend to make mistakes every once in a while. It doesn’t bother me to re-write a scene to fit the narrative in a better way and so on. We can always exchange our opinions and see what would benefit the story most. I'll also inform you if there are things that irk me. Characters are the centre of attention: Faceclaims, GIFs, drawings, mood boards or just a plain physical description is absolutely welcome / sufficient. I am not someone who necessarily requires a face claim for a character in order ‘to get the picture’. There are many instances where I could not find a suiting match for my character’s definition, so I resorted to drawing them myself or leaving it with a simple description. Characters should have flaws - that is a no brainer obviously, because its what makes them most interesting and compelling to read. I think we’re also far past the Mary Sue and Gary Stu issue, so I am certain that anyone who messages me, is capable of forging great characters. World building & plotting: An active roleplayer is wanted in this category, without a doubt. I love to build but I tend to lose interest real quick when I get the feeling I’m the only one who puts effort into it. Too often I find people shying away from it in this regard. If I feel that I’m the only one carrying the weight of the world-building part, I will end the roleplay with immediate effect. Be bold with your ideas! A bird cannot fly with only one wing, no? Content: I find writing erotic, dramatic or action packed scenes very enjoyable. I don’t hinder myself when certain subjects are mentioned that may be uncomfortable for the general public. But then again, as a reminder, a roleplay is not reality but fiction. For example situations that heavily imply and involve brutality, mayhem, psychological and physical torture are things that don’t really bother me in a sense, because again, it is fiction. Characters should be fully fleshed out, even the not so pretty parts of one’s personality and actions. Limits: I don’t do necrophilia, pedophilia & and any sort of underage pairings as well as bestiality, vore, scat, toilet play, furries or other bizarre fetishes. What I’m also not particularly fond of are oneliners, text-talk ‘grammar’, or emails with the subject: ‘Hey wanna rp?’ or ‘RP?’. I also note that my partners must be around 20 years or older, I will accept no younger partners, sorry. The last thing I tend to avoid like the plague are slice of life roleplays, because lets face it, our own lives are already a slice of life.  Crossovers that we could incorporate with DMC if you’re feeling particularly cheeky:

DC (Justice League Dark / Constantine mostly)

Marvel

Supernatural

Castlevania

Alright! If you are still reading, congratulations! xD  The journey has come to an end! Usually I would list my Discord on this platform, but since Discord did an update recently where I can’t log into it anymore - I thought email would be a good alternative. In the past, people on Discord had only sent me friend without messaging whatsoever so I couldn’t quite figure out what they were looking for in the first place, or being completely uncommunicative. Email is much safer and more direct this way. Contact me here! EMAIL: [email protected]   I am looking forward to meeting you ～

#indie roleplay #independent roleplay #oc rp #multiple paragraph #para #long term #email #marvel rp #smut rp #mcu rp #dc rp #aou rp #submission

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rwdestuffs · 6 years

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How the show fails at being bad at power escalation.

Generally speaking, Power Escalation is what happens when you have a villain that has to be overpowered in order to defeat. So, by virtue of the heroes increasing their own power level, they can then defeat them.

If the series continues, in order for the next big bad to feel like a threat, the creator(s) typically introduce a new threat that is even more powerful than the heroes. This can eventually lead to the heroes going from Martial Arts to firing beams of energy that can destroy planets, or a show about people with magical ninja powers going to gargantuan avatars that can level mountains, to even something as simple and straightforward as a gang of pirates with a few interesting abilities turning into a series where having the power to destroy a mountain is normal. It basically becomes an absurd escalation of power that makes it harder to get invested because the series is likely to repeat the same formula until it becomes too crazy to follow the levels of power that the characters are throwing around.

In layman’s terms, it becomes: We just overpowered the big bad! Now we gotta do the same with the new big bad! We gotta get to a higher power level!

Now, rw/by is a show that succeeds at avoiding this for the wrong reasons. This isn’t like a franchise that started as a man trying to defeat undead foes with a magical breathing technique that eventually evolved into people wielding invisible ghost beings that punched things really hard and fast. This is a show that started as a group of schoolkids trying to save the world to……… a bunch of schoolkids trying to save the world on the road!

Unlike Jojo, which avoids this problem completely by starting each new part with a new protagonist (video detailing that here) in a new setting, rw/by fails at this because the villains remain at the same or similar power level as the heroes.

This creates a problem because they mentioned that Semblances can evolve. We have yet to see that sort of evolution in the show proper. Ruby’s semblance hasn’t evolved from super speed (or rose petals (whatever the f*ck that means)) to teleportation. Blake’s semblance hasn’t evolved from making shadow clones to making tangible clones. Yang’s semblance hasn’t evolved from turning physical pain into power into using preexisting pain into physical power. Nora’s semblance hasn’t evolved from lighting absorption into non-physical energy absorption. Ren’s hasn’t evolved from Emotion Masking to invisibility. Qrow’s hasn’t evolved from Bad Luck to probability manipulation. Raven’s hasn’t evolved from making portals to people she’s bonded with to making portals to anyone/portals to any location that she’s seen before. Emerald’s semblance hasn’t evolved from illusions to straight-up mind control/physical constructs.

In short; the characters’ powers have yet to evolve.

But you might have noticed that I didn’t include Weiss or Jaune on this list.- That’s pretty straightforward. Weiss learned how to summon, and that was an interesting jump in power. Unfortunately, that ability became completely negated and useless when Vernal destroyed her knight.

As for Jaune……… He just recently unlocked his semblance. There’s no real narrative reason for his power to escalate as of yet. Maybe in Volume 9, but we’ll see. But by that point, everyone else’ semblance should have also grown.

There isn’t even a growth in strategy. Jaune is as hotheaded as he was before, Yang’s fighting style only added kicks to her arsenal, and that’s about it. Weiss has completely forgotten how to use her rapier when Volume 5, and that’s a nerf.

Nerfing characters to make the big bad seem more intimidating doesn’t work. It doesn’t make the big bad look powerful, it just makes whichever character you decided to nerf look stupid.

Imagine for a moment, that a bad guy is about to sneak up on an innocent, and Spider-Man can’t get to him in time. In a normal situation, Spidey would use his webbing to disarm the bad guy, and deck him for trying to hurt a bystander.

But let’s say that Spidey instead tries to run towards his foe, and doesn’t make it in time. That doesn’t make the new bad guy faster than Spider-Man, it just makes Spider-Man seem stupid. Unless it was mentioned earlier that Spidey had run out of web-fluid and didn’t have enough time to reload, that scene would just make Spidey look like a total moron.

That’s what the current series feels like. Instead of the bad guys actually feeling like a threat, it just feels more like the good guys are just getting stupider.

Unlike having bad Power Escalation in the sense of “The big bad beat the city-block busting hero because they can bust entire cities,” it’s bad in the sense of “The big bad beat this character, because said character somehow forgot how to fight with their weapon.” There’s nothing at stake, and it makes the characters hard to root for when they make multiple stupid decisions after stupid decision.

Weiss once used her Glyphs to unleash what is effectively Death of a Thousand Cuts on a White Fang goon back in Volume 2. That hasn’t shown up again. She doesn’t even bother trying against Vernal in Volume 5, where it could have been a viable option. And even if it failed, it would showcase the difference in power that the two combatants had. It would showcase Vernal as a clear threat if one of Weiss’ better fighting moments in Volume 2 proved ineffective, and it showcased exactly why Weiss tried nothing but summoning. Would the summoning still prove to be useless?- Yes, most likely.- But at least then, it wouldn’t look like Weiss dropped a few levels in the intelligence department just to have Vernal beat her.

The very little power Escalation that we do get doesn’t even work properly. Despite being completely new to the whole idea of fighting, Oscar somehow manages to defeat Leo in a single shot!- That’s the villains getting knocked down a few power levels, not the heroes rising a few levels in power.

Escalation works in the sense of characters rising in power. Not a character being nerfed to ‘showcase’ another character’s progress. Imagine if Vegeta managed to beat Goku only because Goku forgot or couldn’t go Super Saiyan Blue!- Not only would that not be a victory in Vegeta’s favor, it would be a stupid way for Vegeta to win and a direct insult to his fans who want to see him surpass Goku.

Power escalation doesn’t even have to work in the way of characters getting stronger!- It could also work in the sense of creativity, but even that isn’t utilized as much as it should be. Imagine if Blake could use the momentum from her Shadow Clones to get in some extra speed for an attack. Imagine if Yang used the knockback of her weapons for a quick boost of power. Imagine if Nora developed a technique that would create a small tremor to shake the ground to disorient her opponents. How about Ruby using her speed semblance the same way comic speedsters do, and using it to create tornadoes? How about Weiss being more creative with the variety of Glyphs she’s got like we saw back in Volume 2?- While weapons themselves are dangerous, it has the potential to be even more dangerous depending on who is using them.

Take Okuyasu from Diamond is Unbreakable, for example. Having the ability to swipe things out of existence is deadly and dangerous. But because Okuyasu is an idiot, he doesn’t use it to it’s fullest extent. He’s still creative with it though, like how he uses the ability to erase the space and air between himself and his foe to close the distance between them and get in some melee strikes. While that is creative, it’s not dangerous, because if Okuyasu was smart enough to realize that he could just erase his opponents’ heart(s), well…

(Look, I wanted at least one image in this post, and this was the most natural place I could find for it)

Or take Chazz Princeton (Jin Manjome in the original dub) against his brother Slade (Chosaku in the original dub) from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. Chazz using weaker monsters in creative ways so that he ultimately wins (spoiler?- It’s been over ten years since the episode debuted in the English dub (Dailymotion link)).

In a series about a card game can show off creative ways of using monsters that would be normally considered ‘weak’ and ‘unusable’ to win (Chaos Necromancer and Relinquished was in the well that he found for the restrictions that he had, what were the original wielders of those cards thinking?- Did they not have the required ritual for Relinquished or something?), a show about fights with interesting transforming weapons, super powers that are manifestations of the soul, and so many other things……… can’t be bothered to have the characters get creative with their movesets.

Where are the moments where Raven or Qrow use their bird forms in combat?

I mean, they showed a few faunus creatively using their faunus traits in combat situations, so why can’t the other characters do the same with their powers and weapons?

Ilia uses her color change to blend into the shadows (even though that really shouldn’t have worked for so many reasons), that bat guy (Yuma, I think was his name) used his wings to move around faster, that spider-lady pulled a Spider-Man and ensnared Blake with her webbing, and (most notably) Tyrian incorporated his tail into his attacks. I can understand faunus like Blake, Velvet, or Sun not using theirs (as they’re more or less useless in combat scenarios), but why can’t there be more characters like this?

This is what I mean when I say that rw/by avoids the Power Escalation trope poorly. Instead of the new big bad using different tactics, or having a different fighting style, the end solution is always the same: beat, cut, slash, and stab the crap out of them until they either surrender or are dead. Typically it is the heroes that need to change tactics, learn a new technique, or gain more power to defeat the big bad. But they just use the powers that they already have to defeat the big bad no matter what. There’s no change in tactics, nor is there any notable growth in power. They just beat them because they’re the Protagonists™.

#rwde

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stabigail · 6 years

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11 questions meme

1tagged by @myrkks, tagging....... @pentaughast @ghoste-catte @beamkatanachronicles anyone who wants to ig :V

1. how would you describe your writing style or “voice” as a writer?

HONESTLY i still feel like i’m growing into my style, lol! and i often feel inconsistent, but i think part of that is a lack of confidence, still, forever #justwritingproblems. being more realistic, i would say that i tend to write from a very firm point of view and my narrators tend to be quite unreliable; i also tend to focus a lot on sensory details. generally i’m very much a stream of consciousness writer! it’s what i love 2 do.

2. do you prefer to write in first person, second person, or third person, and why? which tense do you prefer?

it depends on what i’m working on, and i definitely flip-flop some, but i almost always write in third person. for me, first person works really well for Very Unreliable Narrators who are trying to skew their story in a certain light, or for stories that are literally one person talking to other people. i love love love first person in podcasts! alice isn’t dead is probably my favorite podcast that utilizes first person, and i really love the depth of emotion that it conveys as a result, so i am more likely to us first person for projects like that.

generally, though, i struggle with first person because it limits narration in a way that i struggle with at times. second person kind of creeps me out as a writer because i feel like a soulbonder?? WHICH IS NOT A KNOCK ON SECOND PERSON, i think it makes for beautiful work, but it’s just not for me. so 3rd person limited is my favorite and has been for a while!

as for tense, i used to write exclusively in past tense but now i write exclusively in present tense and i couldn’t even tell you why. is it because the focus on the present makes for more dynamic writing? is it because i’m pretentious? is it both? likely.

3. what is one thing that inspires/motivates you as a writer these days?

oh man haha . . . spite . . . no not really, it’s a little spite but more feeling a lack and a motivation to fill it! my original work right now is based around a lot of feelings i have about both personal and global uncertainty, and while it isn’t a political piece at all, i’ve definitely found motivation to explore topics that i wish were easier to talk about. when it comes to fandom stuff, it’s usually “i love this pairing, but i never see work for it” or “i love this pairing, but i wish there was more diversity of work around it,” because i like filling gaps and also just always fall for pairings few other people care about. i’m also deeply motivated to write character exploration pieces for fandom because holy shit, nothing makes me happier than picking apart a character’s motivations and rearranging them in a new form. i’m the sylar of other people’s characters.

that being said, sometimes my motivation is “why are there only like 2 smut fics of this lesbian pairing and 238974293874 of this pairing of 2 dudes” and that is spite and i’m not sorry for it.

4. what is one of your strengths as a writer?

uhh,,,, i think i have a good attention to detail? is that a cop-out answer? maybe. i have a good grasp of figurative language, i think, and i actually am quite proud of that now that i think about it. i used to write super purple prose, and through the past few years i’ve been able to really neaten my writing up so that it’s . . . still flowery! always will be! not sorry! but it’s not overbearingly so, and the figurative language i use enhances the story rather than drowning it. shoutout to @pentaughast who has been writing with me for like five years and giving me feedback until my writing stopped being a horrible disaster thicket of metaphors, you’re a pal.

5. what is something you’d like to improve about your writing?

(rolls out scroll)

no but seriously: my number one thing to improve right now is learning to stop editing while i write. every writer is their own worst critic, but i will literally write half a sentence and then go back and change the whole thing, because i’m convinced that everything has to be Perfect the First Time. which is in fact a microcosm of my entire personality. so, anne, don’t edit while you write! also, your first draft is not your final draft! i don’t feel a need to just barf out a certain number of words per writing session, but i do think it’ll benefit me to have momentum and iron out kinks later.

6. what is one genre you enjoy writing in, and why?

hmmm this is interesting because genre is such a broad and subjective thing. that said: urban fantasy is and has always been my jam! i wouldn’t say i’m particularly good at it simply because 1) it is a super vague genre with few hard and fast rules, so i’m not sure how much of my stuff is urban fantasy even, and 2) i’ve been struggling a lot with writing original stuff over the past few years, which is where i have written urban fantasy stuff in the past.

overall i enjoy writing in fantasy or fantasy/sci-fi most of all genres, but never high fantasy because it causes me physical agony. aspects of f/sf i like a lot are basically f/sf as a mirror to our world or otherwise connected to our world (without necessarily using f/sf components as a substitution for actual discussion of oppression cuz, nah,) as well as f/sf as satire, that is my FAVE. discworld (t. pratchett) was the first fantasy series i really locked onto and it was v formative, obviously; also gaiman, stiefvater, jemisin. this question was not about my influences but too bad here they are!!!!!!!!!!

7. what would be the biggest compliment someone could give you about your writing?

the biggest, biggest compliment would be: while i was reading this, i forgot the world existed. because that has always been the biggest thing for me as a reader! the way reading can just take you somewhere, so no matter how shitty things might be in your actual situation, you can just take a break from that and follow bilbo around, or whatever. another really excellent compliment that i actually have gotten (both in writing fic and rp) is “i can hear their voice,” either in narration or dialogue. that’s huge! and it makes me really happy to hear. basically i would love for my writing to be an immersive experience for people, and that’s what i’m always striving to improve.

8. what is one piece of advice you’d give someone experiencing writer’s block or feeling stuck with their writing?

READ

idk, for me, fighting my writer’s block literally does not work. just staring at a piece of paper or a computer screen makes me upset and frustrated. reading, though, is both enjoyable and relatively passive; you don’t have to come up with ideas, you just have to take in someone else’s. as a writer, too, you can read both as an audience member and as a fellow writer observing. what does this author do that works or doesn’t? how does this style work in this context where it might not in another? how does it relate to your style? etc.

more generally, do something nice for yourself cuz sometimes that will boost your creative spirit. self-care is huge!

9. what is one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you started writing?

lskdjfskld uh . . . don’t follow any of the advice people give you because most of it either only works for specific people or is entirely bullshit? i suppose more specifically i wish someone had been more supportive of fantasy/sci-fi as a legitimate genre with meaning, although of course that is a societal view rather than a specific one that surrounded me as a kid. it’s shitty, though, because until fairly recently i viewed the type of writing i enjoyed as “less than”/less meaningful than like, i don’t know, anything written by racist old dead white guys.

also, young adult fiction is fucking valid and doesn’t make you a less “serious” writer. i, a Fucking Grown Up, am still most captivated by YA fiction because there are fewer restrictions on it and writers tend to experiment more and, most importantly, because stories about transformation and trying to figure out who you are will never not be compelling.

10. what is a common piece of writing advice you disagree with, and why?

rubs hands together

one: write what you know. what the fuck is that, i want to know who came up with it because fuck? you??? definitely it’s fine to write about things that you have a personal perspective about, or to write in a way that reflects your worldview or emotions or whatever. but write what you know is literally the stupidest, most limiting garbage, and i have met so many grown ass adults who believe in it so strongly. curse that mess.

two: you must construct x type of work in y format following z formula. a lot of times this is really great and works well for people, but other times it can be, again, really limiting. beginning-middle-end is great, but even that can be inappropriate for certain stories, depending on what they are? for me, strictly following writing formulas made me overly focused on “”accuracy”” and less focused on writing what i enjoyed.

three: this one isn’t quite as cut and dry as the previous two, but: write protagonists that people can relate to. here’s the thing: i feel like this often gets translated to “protagonists that are charmingly aware of their own assholeishness, totally perfect and always right, or bland,” and it’s kind of a shitty trap to fall into? this is another reason i love unreliable narrators, bcause you can have that nuance and imperfection without the entire story being about how shitty the character is. their imperfection is part of the story and perhaps even a driving force, but they aren’t just sort of a paper cutout used to drive the story along. hello i’m anne and i struggle writing protagonists.

11. what writing projects are you working on these days?

excited buzzing. a couple! i am really shy about talking about original stuff, but i am working on scripts for (tentatively) a podcast about a very apathetic and cynical gal who is one of a very few survivors of a series of natural disasters and also may?be the one who made them happen. Whoopsie.

fanfiction-wise, i am working on finishing . . . christ on a raft let me count. four! one-shots. there’s a fifth one that i wrote 10k words of in like 2015 and still haven’t finished and i don’t know if i’ll trash it or not lol. regardless, i am working on those! there is a fic that i started working on a while back that was meant to be a multi-chapter fic called reverse about giorno tripping into vampirism and fugo having 0 idea what to do about it; i’ve let it dangle for ages, but i am slowly fleshing out the plot again and getting it going. i’m very excited to do this! i love giorno having to figure out how to vampire and i love fugio.

finally, @relares and i are starting to work on a reset fugiomis fic which, weeps into tea, will kill us both.

#writing meme #writing #??? i dont know what else to tag this i never do memes help

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scheherazadean · 7 years

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IT (2017) forecasts a hopeful future for Hollywood remakes and the horror genre

A critical review with mild spoilers

(Photo: IGN.com)

The day after it opened in local theatres, I went to a showing of Andy Muschietti’s long-awaited summer horror, It. I will not pretend that I am familiar with the original novel, nor will I pretend that I have seen the TV mini-series from the 90s in its entirety, starring Tim Curry and inspiring childhood nightmares aplenty for my peers. I can, however, say this much: it must not have been easy to reintroduce canon in a cultural landscape where clown horror has become about as saturated as your average demonic possession waiting to be exorcised.

But the creative team behind the film has taken measures navigating said cultural landscape, and it shows in the marketing alone. The theatrical trailers1 did not bother hiding the jump-scares, probably relying on Pennywise’s split-second appearances to drive the hype, even. Likewise, the film wastes no time on building up the premise of the evil clown. The extent of this exposition is confined to the lulling dialogue in Georgie's encounter with It, which in itself marks a stark departure in tone from its predecessor in the 90s classic: Skarsgård’s voice-acting is an excellent balance between the whimsical and the sinister, and the exchange ends on a gory crescendo promising fatalities to follow. With Pennywise thus characterised, the rest of the film’s treatment of the monster mostly focuses on amplifying the sense of dread accompanying every instance of Its arrival rather than the uncanniness of Its makeup. (Although there is plenty of that, too, in the camera’s attention to too-long claws extending out of a gloved hand, or the dissonance between Its dance-like gait and its grinning maw.)

The new Pennywise retains a sense of uncanniness in the camera’s attention to too-long claws, extending out of a gloved hand. (Photo: comicbook.com)

Indeed, Skargård’s Pennywise is a different animal from Tim Curry’s iconic rendition, and for all the uncertain initial reactions towards the first look of the character’s design, its vintage costume and visibly deranged facial expressions never become overbearing within the context of the film. But the entity’s flair for the dramatic and its twisted brand of humour do at times veer into the territory of the absurd, which may not be for everyone. Even now, I still hold a degree of apprehension towards the convulsive movements Pennywise makes whenever it pounces on its preys, as they somewhat shatter the audience's immersion in such scenes. (The same can be said about the little dance sequence it does towards the end of the film – which has been generally received as too absurd to be taken as part of an integrated scene designed to scare, if the flood of memes is anything to go by.)

But to return to the topic of Pennywise's aura, one undeniably commendable feature of the film lies in its use of setting to characterise the sense of neglect and danger befalling the children of Derry. The devil is in the detail: in Georgie’s death scene, two shots of a lady neighbour bracketing Georgie's disappearance from his spot by the storm drain already highlight an indifference towards missing children. This indifference is mirrored to different degrees in some of the Losers’ parents’ dialogue later on in the film, as well as in the overall lack of adult supervision for the children of Derry despite all the disappearances in the neighbourhood. All of this hint at the adults’ collective complicity in Its malignant activity, thus when Ben Hanscom shows up to deliver his expository monologue about the statistics of missing persons versus that of missing children in Derry, it doesn't come as a heavily expository moment meant to incite cheap surprise. Instead, this piece of information comes as another addition to the steady build-up of a pervading feeling of one too many skeletons in the closet.

One of the many missing children in Derry. (Photo: IGN.com)

Another commendable aspect that sets It apart from other modern horror films is that it actually crafts individual emotional journeys for each of the main characters, so much so that one could argue that Pennywise is an add-on feature in a Coming of Age story. (Of course, that would be an unfair assessment of the film, which really presents an inseparable correlation between the activities of It and the ill-fated occurrences in the children's lives.) Most notable is Bill, whose story is as much of a monster slayer’s journey as it is an allegory for overcoming grief, denial and loss. Here, there is a delicate balance between the terror-inducing and the touching whenever Bill stars in a scene with the ghost of Georgie, which is in large part thanks to Jaeden Lieberher’s ability to tug at the heartstrings with micro-expressions and tremors in his voice. Hence, the film draws Bill’s arc to a satisfying conclusion once he is able to accept that Georgie is dead in the final scene in the sewers.

The film also does a good job of providing visual markers for other such developments in the characters’ respective arcs. Henry Bowers aiming the bolt gun between Mike’s eyes in the basement of Pennywise’s Neibolt Street lair impressed me in its clever echo of a much earlier scene regarding Mike’s hesitance in shooting the sheep at the barn, and Eddie’s first step out of his hypochondriac comfort zone, underlined by his rejection of his mother’s placebo pills, is symbolic of his and the children's rejection of the adults' willful ignorance towards the existence of Pennywise and other more apparent social horrors. Director of photography Chung-Hoon Chung’s work is praiseworthy as well, from the placement of an aerial shot of Georgie running down the street with paper-boat SS Georgie just to show how small and vulnerability he is, to the corresponding transition from Beverly’s bloodied bathroom to the water dripping onto Bill’s coloured drawing of Beverly, smearing the red on her hair in such a way that it resembles blood dripping onto the page. There is also a fantastic use of diegetic elements to engage the audience in a specific character’s point of view, such as adorning the opening scene with creaks and other sound effects to show Georgie’s childish and irrational fear of the basement, only to subvert it in the next immediate scene with the clown in the gutter. Interestingly, the atmosphere of the basement as a falsely-scary location is also quite neatly paralleled and subverted in Bill’s first encounter with It. Such bookends gave the film a touch of masterful storytelling that would not normally be expected from a summer horror flick.

Where the film really hits it out the ballpark in terms of genre expectations and subversions of them, however, lies in its characterisation of Beverly Marsh. Despite being the only girl in the group, she is never rendered an empty token girl, nor does she become a Manic Pixie Dream Girl after the film makes clear of both Ben and Bill’s attraction to her. She is never mystified, a welcomed departure from her characterisation in the controversial orgy scene in the novel, where she is delegated the role of utilizing her sexuality to light the group’s way out of the disorienting sewers. The film also spares significant screen-time on the boys showing solidarity towards her gendered troubles via a relaxed bathroom-cleaning montage. (There, the blood is not only visually symbolic of the onset of womanhood, but also shares contextual connections to the gaslighting she suffers under her abusive father.)

There is a precarious balance between occupying the diegetic standpoint of the boys, and the accidental objectification of Beverly as an underage character. (Photo: IGN.com)

Unfortunately, there is a precarious balance between occupying the diegetic standpoint of the boys and the accidental objectification of her, Beverly, as an underage girl. The camera does not offer voyeuristic shots of Beverly’s body – one can see in the few shots that do take the stand point of the boys admiring Beverly’s beauty that they always focus on more romantic aspects, like her eyes, or her hair, as if testament to Ben’s poetry. However, the idea of a lipstick-wearing, sunglasses-clad young girl has become so synonymous with the image of the Lolita that the scene of Beverly sunbathing in what might as well be a bikini could contradict the message the film is trying to send about her abusive and implied-paedophilic father. Also, one might argue that the very existence of a love triangle in the plot puts an unnecessary focus on heteronormative teenage drama rather than the bond of friendship between the seven Losers. The idea that a kiss would break her out of a cosmic trance is certainly a bit too Disneyesque for a film whose core demons are about murder, neglect and abuse. Thankfully, Beverly’s fleshed-out storyline revolving around her fear of her father keeps her character from being relegated to a mere object of desire in the film.

However, the level of detail in Bill and Beverly’s respective character arcs does highlight the lack of character development in some of the other Losers’ character arcs, namely that of Stanley, Ben, and Mike. (Mike may have been given symbolic visuals, but no real character development can be seen in the storytelling for any of these three boys.) Stanley, in particular, is exposited to have been preparing for a bar mitzvah at the start of the film, but we never witness nor hear of the outcome of the ceremony that should have been most symbolic of his coming of age, and the only sort of emotional development one can conclude from Wyatt Oleff’s appearances is but a mere escalation of fear and hysteria, which doesn’t say much about Stanley as a character. There is also a technical error in the film’s editing regarding Stanley’s character in the final sewers sequence, where one second he is waiting with the rest of the gang for Mike’s descent down the well, and in the next breath of the same line he is wandering all alone in a completely secluded part of the sewers system. Although, such flaws can be overlooked, seeing as the film is an adaptation of a thousand-page novel, and must undoubtedly have been pressed for time.

In any case, the film is good at balancing moments of heart-racing terror and emotional revelations, and it has comedic moments aplenty, too. (Finn Wolfhard’s performance as the loudmouthed Richie won rounds of hearty laughter in the theatre.)

Verdict: worth buying tickets for theatrical screenings for sure.

(Article last updated on 1 Oct 2017.)

Notes:

The linked trailer is not a local one but the UK one, but it is the first theatrical trailer I ever saw for the film, and it’s made the most impression on me.

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