#I was (and still am) looking for a specific live performance by Big Country from the earrrrrrrrrly '80s

[musicrunsthroughmysoul]

One of my favorite things about people that I've observed but never realized there was an emotional symbolism to (surprisingly...I mean, you would think I would've realized that) is noticing when people scratch at/fidget with their head with their middle finger specifically. I've noticed it especially in filmed interviews with people, that everyone seems to do it at least once, and it's so funny to me because the underlying emotion that causes them to do that (that they are usually not aware of, by the way) is disdain for or anger toward someone.

And if it sounds weird to say that it's one of my favorite things about people, I don't mean that it's my favorite thing to literally recognize when people are angry, or whatever; it's my favorite thing to notice because people who do it are often not aware that they're doing it. It's my favorite thing because people are people and they'll reveal small things like that about themselves without noticing that they do. In case that still sounds weird, I mean that what I appreciate about it is the connection - the interconnectedness of humanity. That we all do little things like that (even when we're angry at each other). But it also makes me wonder...what would happen if we verbally communicated those feelings more rather than leaving our bodies to subconsciously (but mostly unconsciously) reveal them? Would we stop doing them entirely?

[emeraldskulblaka]

What makes a stage adaptation of Tolkien's works relevant?

The big Tolkien websites/blogs/influencers care about many adaptations of Tolkien's works, but not all. I'm not overly familiar with non-stage adaptations beyond the Really Popular ones, so I don't really know what's going on there, but I AM noticing significant patterns and omissions when it comes to stage shows.

Only select productions are reported on, and what is reported on does not depend on the specific adaptation. I'm asking questions I can't answer myself; they're meant to help structure my thoughts.

Question: Are only productions by well-known, highly professional theatres relevant?

The answer seems to be a clear YES. While the size of the theatres varies, only notable regional, state, and commercial theatre productions are seen as relevant. It makes sense - they're better documented and widely promoted, not least because of their budget.

However, Kentucky Opera's Hobbit last month went by unnoticed. It was a children's opera, which brings me to the next question:

Question: Are Hobbit plays less relevant when they're performed by and for kids?

It looks like it. Strange, is it not? The Hobbit is a children's book. Let me elaborate on this:

Not only the Kentucky Opera's Hobbit, but also the National Children's Theatre of South Africa's Hobbit, and Wilde & Vogel's puppetry Hobbit (touring in German-speaking countries) barely rouse interest from Tolkien Societies or local fans. Is there no value in children's theatre to be found for adults?

Question: Are parodies not legitimate adaptations?

If the Hobbit is less interesting because it's for kids, and proper adaptations must be performed at renowned theatres, you'd think LotR-inspired plays aimed at fans of all ages would be interesting, but... no. Some of them are parodies.

Charles Ross' One Man Lord of the Rings played at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for two weeks, no one batted an eye. Fellowship! even has an official cast album, but 'the' Lord of the Rings musical is the only one, right? And The Wizard of the Rings in Arizona may have played a popular local theatre, but it's also... a parody! While memes and fun edits are popular, parodies are not.

Question: Is there a bias towards English-language adaptations?

Also a clear YES. Popular Tolkien bloggers/websites/influencers often write in English for an English-speaking audience, which however DOES NOT always live in English-speaking countries. I found the Tolkien Society before the German 'branch', and I've met Russians who found out about the rock operas through me, who is running a blog in English.

Non-English language productions sometimes offer surtitles during performances, subtitles for official recordings, and live broadcasts to overcome language and spatial barriers. The interest for these is still remarkably small.

Question: Does official licensing play a role?

Apparently, yes. Maybe it's the same motivation that makes people ask for 'book-accurate' adaptations, the desire to see your favourite characters and stories represented as true to Tolkien as possible, and the trust in the rights owners to ensure that. Maybe.

What makes me think that? The fact that people are asking for Silmarillion adaptations even though multiple Czech musicals, a Spanish musical, and multiple Russian rock operas and musicals already exist! Of course, those aren't English, and they're also comparatively small productions, but they're written by fans with lots of love for Tolkien's writings in their hearts, and that should be worth something..?

Ultimately, I think, it's always a combination of multiple factors, and I haven't even mentioned the most important one yet: The majority is quite simply not interested in theatre. Or not in all of Tolkien's works. And it's always easier to love what's popular: as a creator, you get more attention for your works, and as a consumer, you have a bigger variety of things to choose from.

[lolia21]

I guess this is just what I do on this website now... 

Ok lets Go! 

One Piece, Law, and Femininity

Preface: Three warnings and a Request

Warning!!!

Let's get this out the way. I do ship Law and Luffy. That doesn’t matter to this particular theory/analysis but it's better to be upfront about one's personal biases. I don't think it's canon nor do I think it ever will be. But if anyone wants to use this for their own ship theories, have at it. 

This writing “theory” I have doesn’t apply to children because they kind of inherently fall into a third category. Their age tends to naturally make them more vulnerable and in need of assistance. When it comes to gendered writing children tend to get a pass. There are many reasons why but that's not what this is about.

Sanji is a newer and only other expectation to this “theory”.  More on that at the end. 

Request: If you don't think Yamato is a dude, this is not for you. The whole point of talking about feminism in this regard is to talk about how femininity is performed and perceived. Gender is a social construct and how we construct it is important to the feminine conversation. If you cant accept and understand that... read a few essays and come back later. Seriously I am talking about roles, behavior and presentations of gender here. Also I want to support my son (he’s older than me but, still). 

Part 1: Oda Writes the Backstories of Female Characters the Same Way he Draws Them.

A lot of people push back on the idea that Oda only knows how to draw the same female character by pointing at characters like Big Mom or Dandan. So I would like to change the phrasing. Oda only knows how to draw attractive women characters one way. When they're old hags, he's got options. But if they’re even supposed to be mildly attractive then he’s got one option in a variety of colors and accessories. He writes their backstories in roughly the same way. They have a lot of big differences. I can honestly say most important people in one piece have unique and interesting back stories and goals. But the skeleton of almost all the women are the same. I only say almost because One Piece has a stupid amount of characters and there is a 10% chance that some minor character from some obscure island in East Blue somehow flew under my radar. But this rule does apply to all the main women characters. Let's talk about it. 

1a. Oda Loves Taking Away Women's Autonomy. 

Seriously Oda cannot resist putting women in positions where they are either slaves, or working in a group that they are opposed to, or living under constant threat of imprisonment, or some combination of those. Nami was enslaved at a young age by Arlong, Robin had to join CP9 because she needed protection from the world government and then almost got imprisoned by enies lobby. Vivi joined Cp9 to save her country. Hiyori spent years living with and presumably fxcking a man she hated hoping that one day someone else would be strong enough to defeat Kaido to get revenge. There are countless cases of women, specifically women, being sold to Celestial Dragons for the sole purpose of sexual slavery. Like shows up so fxcking often. Aces mom had to hold her child in her stomach for an extra 15  months to him from the marines and probably died because of it.  If Oda is writing an important woman character who is relatively young you better believe she spent years of her life not being in control of it. And if she's older, she either a mom of some kind or was a badass and settled down because some man in her life died, or both. 

1b. Women Need to be Saved in Order to Achieve their Goals and Men Need to be Supported. 

This is gonna be a little hard to explain but it all comes down to how problems are solved, who solves them and why. Kinda. I think the best way to explain it would be to give an example. Lets look at the first two members of the Strawhat Crew. Zoro’s goal is to be the strongest swordsman. Simple enough. He tries to fight Mihawk the moment they meet, he loses and swears to grow stronger and defeat him.  Nami has two goals, or more accurately she needs to accomplish one goal in order to achieve her true goal. Nami needs to get out from under Arlongs control in order to achieve her goal of mapping the whole world. She also wants her family to be able to live in peace and not be broke. Unless she accomplishes that first goal, she cannot accomplish the other two. She needs to be saved in order to continue her story. Because she’s  unable to save herself. Which is reasonable. She's just a person and Arlong is a super strong fish demon man. So Luffy saves her. He punches her problem away real good and she is now finally free to do what she wants. If you know anything about Laws character I'm sure you can see where this is going . Robin is the same, Luffy punches away the people that want to control her real good and declares that he will fight the entire world to let her have the chance to live freely.  

I brought this up with my dad and he brought up a great point. Marineford. He said well Luffy lost pretty bad in the paramount war and needed to be saved by many people. Even costing him Ace. But, I would like to point out that the people who did that, Akainu and Blackbeard are still roaming free. Luffy needed to be saved in the moment but he’s still going to be the one to resolve the issue. Like Luffy, Zoro, Franky, Jinbei, and Brook have all needed saving at some point during a fight. But they always get to square up and finish the ones that are important to them. And their goals don't require them to be saved before trying to achieve them. The point comes down to who's allowed to deal with the finishing blow to their main goals/ problems. Luffy isn’t going to punch Mihawk for Zoror, or make Ussops dad respect him, or whatever the fuck Jinbei wants. But he did fight Arlong for Nami, Cp9 for Robin and Doffy for Law. 

1c. Girls got to College to Get More Knowledge, Boys Go to Jupiter to Get More Stupider

The women of One Piece are objectively smarter than the men. Emotionally and Intellectually. Women in One Piece are normally more patient, less stubborn and willing to retreat when they have to. They also don’t get as love sick as the men. I mean Boa lets her feelings for Luffy get her into insane shit, but that's the joke. Like One Piece women aren’t really known for having someone's looks  affect them. There's a reason there is a most Beautiful Woman in the world with no male counterpart. Like Smoker is Zaddy and no one cares. Most of the guy characters who are overly sneaky and plotting are villains or assholes. That's not to say there aren’t smart men characters, Franky is a genius at his craft. But being smart and careful isn’t part of his character or reflected in his behavior. 

 Part II: Trafalgar D. Water Law,  The Saddest Little Uwu 

I haven't loved Law since the first time I saw him. I have loved him since punk hazard though which is pretty fxcking long. His strong Emo vibes and general refusal to go along with any of Luffy’s bits seemingly for the sole sake of keeping up an image that not one present cared about really endured him to me. I’m pretty trad goth and he reminds me of those emo kids that refused to wear pink or be nice just because they thought it wasn’t hard core enough. Then as the show goes on he develops into one of those healthy goths who know that being an outsider is about showing vulnerability, kindness and maybe dressing in a lil pastel. I really like Law and his weird role in the story so far. Ok, my I love Law rants are done let's get to what we need to get to.

Law before One Piece:

Trafalgar D. Waterlaw was born in Fleavance. He lived a pretty happy normal life, a doctor father, nurse mother and cute baby sister. Until he was about 7 or 8? Around that time the town of fleavance started experiencing some unknown illness. I will say in our real world it is pretty similar to what silicosis actually does to you. Minus the Vitiligo and some other symptoms.  In the world of One Piece its called amber lead poisoning and its almost completely fatal if not properly treated Which is hard to do on its own. But it's even harder in Law's case since the neighboring towns and probably the world government didn't really know what amber lead poisoning was or how it spread either. So they said fxck it, burn it down, kill everyone and call it a day. Problem solved!

So yeah, Law's family is dead, he escaped Flevance by hiding among corpses, and now he is slowly and painfully dying. 

Then it gets worse, it gets so much worse before it gets better. He pulls a Tim Drake and forces his way into the DonQuixote Family by threatening to kill himself and everyone else with a bomb. Because seeing everyone you know and love die painfully and then have the government cover that up will do that to you. Doffy sees a lot of himself in Law and decides, “yeah, this’ll do”. 

Doffys’ nicer but objectively less cool younger brother Corazon also sees a lot of Doffy in Law and decides to immediately put a stop to that shit. He slowly and secretly teaches Law how to enjoy at least some aspects of life. Shows him the first and true affection he’s been shown since his entire village died. It ‘s great. And then, TLDR, Corazon decides to betray Doffy, gets caught, stuff the Ope- Ope Fruit down Law's Throat so he can cure himself and then get shot to Death after saying I love you to Law for what is seemingly the first and last time. Also Sengokou was there.

We don’t really have a clear idea what Law did after this but we do know a few things. 

He became a pirate with the sole purpose of taking down Doflamingo 

 He seems to have chosen a submarine as a pirate ship in order to better hide from Doflamingo and also make it harder to attack him. Because Doffy is a devil fruit user. Even though Law is also a devil fruit user and this puts him in extreme danger. Especially since...

 He made a crew of people who are seemingly doctors 1st, friends 2nd and fighter 6th. Like none of Laws crew members appear to be even mildly good at fighting. I’m pretty sure Chopper could take most of them. 

He names his crew the Heart Pirates after Cora. Which implies that Spanish, just like real world Spanish, is canon in One Piece. And that also reminds me that Law is talking like a nun in his flashback. Is Law catholic? Or was he raised catholic? Either way it adds to the uwu and the trauma of it all. If you know, you know.

 He started working with Caesar Clown, a man he fxcking hates. In order to get closer to Doflamingos secrety secrets.

Pre-time  Skip Law

I’m skipping when we see him in Sabaody because all we learn is that he's edgy and has a bear. When we see him again after Marineford it's actually kind of interesting because we learn he’s also first and foremost a doctor before being a pirate. He saves Luffys life because that's what doctors do and Luffy doesn’t seem like a bad dude. 

Now the good shit.

Post Time Skip Law 

My booooyyy! Love of my life, my sad lil uwu. Law is introduced as one of the coolest, coldest, scariest Warlords. He will literally rip your fxckin heart out. Evanescence playing in the background and all. Luffy immediately undermines thats by not thinking he’s any of those things and tying chopper to his head. But we got a whole episode and a half of thinking he was actually too cool for school. Like we all thought he Shanks when he’s actually just Mihawk. Like his cool but also pretty easy to bully if he likes you even a lil and will let you get away with a lot. It’s just hard to get him to like you, at first. So we get through punk hazard, see what a glass canon Law is and move to Dressrosa. 

In between those two points we also see how sad Law is and how similar he is to both Robin and Nami in behavior. He was Robins darks sense of humor (from the trauma)  and general introvertedness (trauma!?) with Namis greed (did i mention trauma). Which makes sense for the back story we learn about. 

Dressrosa: The Holy Grail of Uwu Law 

Law, Luffy and Doflamingo in Dressrosa is what happens when you put Nami and Robins backstory in a blender with crack cocaine and Katya (the drag queen). It’s just this sad tired uwu man,that came to commit murder suicide, trying and failing to accomplish that goal. Only to be figuratively and literally dragged along by a lunatic that barely knows him. Like Law went to Dresrosa not hoping he would die but assuming he would and not really caring. He didn't have an exit strategy because he didn’t think he was exiting. His plan was to use Luffy as a shield, Ceasar as bait and then murder suicide himself and Domflamingo out of existence. He was so desolate by the time his second fight with him ended. He had no hope, his plans had failed and he even dragged a bunch of innocent people into the crossfire. He would die, the people of Dressrosa would die, the Strawhats would suffer and maybe die and all for Laws’ fruitless revenge. Then Luffy stopped that foot. And Law decided to stay. And Luffy beat up Doffy. And Law was free. For the first time in over ten years Law was free. 

Wano: Then He Stayed

Because he didn’t plan to make it this far. I laughed out loud when Law said they were enemies after Wano ended. Motherfxcker who? Law you don’t want to be pirate king. You barely want to be a pirate! Frankly at this point I think the only thing keeping Law from a non-deadly early retirement is Luffy, his bounty, and pride. And he can get rid (ignore) of two of those things (you won’t guess which!).  Law fought and almost died in Wano to fulfill the deal he made with Luffy. Even though Luffy would not have begrudged him on reneging on that deal. Law told him it was made in bad faith and he had fxck all to gain from fighting Kaido. But he did it, he believed in Luffy and Luffy punched the problem away like always. 

And this ends the story of the Saddest Uwu Boi, Trafalgar D. WaterLaw. 

Part III: You Have to See What I’m Getting At. 

Law’ backstory and character development is just that of any main woman character. Sad thing happened when he was a kid, putting him on the radar/ partially in debt to a bad man. He spent most of his life running from this bad man by working for/ with people he hated. He met Luffy. He tried to fight the bad man and system but didn’t have the strength of heart and/ or body to defeat him. Luffy punched the bad man real good and told Law he was pretty without makeup, he didn’t need it. Law was finally able to move freely as a person and decided to support Luffy in his immediate goals (and probably his long term ones too. Let's be honest he has nothing else to do)  even though that puts him and his crew in even more danger. But now he knew, Luffy would punch that danger just as good as the previous bad man. 

Honestly I don't know what this means or what purpose this knowledge serves. Like, this doesn’t change my opinion that lulaw will never be canon. This doesn’t change how I view Law as a character. This doesn’t change how I view Oda as a writer. This only serves the purpose of excising these thoughts from my head and putting them permanently on a website filled with people who will call me horrible things for even admitting I ship Luffy with anyone. So that's something I guess. 

About Sanji:

Sanji is going through a weird, unexpected but good character transformation right now. His writing is becoming more Law/Robin-esque. Which is weird and unexpected but very good. I have thoughts on that but its for a different post. I don't think it undermines my point though because this shift is relatively recent, only happening in the Whole Cake island arc and not fully forming until near the end of Wano. This either means a shift in how Oda choses to write male characters or a shift in how he views Sanjis’ role in the narrative. Only time will tell. 

*This unrelated but I’ m realizing Law shows just as much tiddy as Robin and Nami too.*

[deadmomjokes]

Do you have any new adventures with bean?

Not so much an "adventure" as a "We all knew this day was coming, but now what do we do about it?" moment, but have the story nonetheless. (Because it is occupying my thoughts nonstop, mostly because she won't let it go.)

Picture this: It is bedtime for a young girl who historically hates bedtime. Because of this, we have done up her room with what one would consider The Works--blackout curtains, white noise machine, specifically-requested rainbow nightlight, and a brand new Big Girl Bed with a fancy headboard full of cubbies, which house her many stuffed animals/bedtime buddies.

Every night, she chooses one of these friends to sleep with (which may or may not get swapped three or four times throughout the night, because she is my child after all and indecision runs in our veins like a wild horse through a dewy morning field). This particular night, I ask "Which toy would you like to sleep with?" and she cheerfully says, "Duck."

Not a toy duck, mind you. It is a plushy cat named Duck, whom she loves very very much. Her other toy cat is named Toast. She is very good at naming things. But moving on.

She snuggles up with Duck the Cat, and I prepare to tell a bedtime story as usual. But something is wrong. In the pastel-neon glow of her rainbow nightlight, I see her eyes begin to well up. Her forehead wrinkles. Her eyebrows crease over a nose that is rapidly turning red beneath its smattering of freckles.

I am as confused as I am concerned. The protests and sorrows don't usually begin until after story time, when kisses and night-nights have been deployed. More importantly, they're usually all performative. But this is genuine sorrow.

Before I can open my mouth to ask what is wrong, she turns her watery baby blues on me and chokes out, "Mama, I'm sad."

I ask, "Why are you sad, baby?"

She looks from me, to her precious Duck the Cat, lying silent and still beside her on the pillow, and places a tiny hand on the plush, overstuffed head.

"Duck is my pretend pet cat. I'm sad because there is not a real cat." And she once more fixes me with a weepy, heartbreaking look of soul-crushing despair and says the words I have long dreaded: "I want to have a real pet cat."

Y'all, her dad is allergic to cats.

I'm not talking "sneezes and sniffles" allergies, either. I'm talking "was rushed to the ER as a child," "breaks out in full-body hives," "has full-blown reactions from simply interacting with people who have recently held a cat" kind of allergies. His allergies are so severe and sensitized that he essentially functions as radar for cat owners: hug someone and wait for the sniffles and itchiness. It never fails. There is no way this man could ever coexist in a house with a cat for longer than a few hours while doped up on benadryl, even one of the "hypoallergenic" breeds (which is very misleading and dangerous misinformation, but that's a whole other post in itself).

I mean, it's not like we can have a pet right now anyway. We live in a no-animals housing situation. We're also likely to move cross-country by the end of the year or early next, which would be difficult on any animal. I'm working on finding the right meds for my ADHD, my husband is running around to post-op PT and followups, Bean is dealing with her own specialty appointments for her gastric issues. It's just not a great time to bring in a pet. But the one-- the only one-- we could never have in our house to begin with is the one that my daughter happens to catch a Pining for at a grand 3.5 years old, which is, perhaps, the worst possible age to try and explain the many reasons we should not/cannot have a pet right now. Especially the one she wants.

The wee one knows Dad can't be around cats. That's part of why she was so sad. But the Pack-Bond Longing has officially come upon her, and she wants a pet. Really, really wants a pet.

Unfortunately, she comes by it naturally. My husband and I are both Animal People to the core. We run the Slimy Critter Rescue Brigade when it rains. Despite crippling anxiety disorders, I once skipped classes and made 3 hours worth of phone calls (as well as sacrificed my favorite handmade jacket) to catch an injured seagull that tried to take my face off multiple times. Her dad can't resist petting a cat if it comes within his line of sight even though he knows good and well it will have severe consequences. I have broken housing rules multiple times to care for injured or orphaned animals, only some of which were domestic pet species.

So it's not just her. We are all in Deep Mourning at the moment. It doesn't help that our brilliant genius child remembers the kinds of animals that Dad is not allergic to. She tells us at least once a day that she really wants to have a pet, and it is okay that we cannot have a cat in our house because Dad is not allergic to lizards/some dogs/fishes/birds/snakes/guinea pigs (that appears to be in order of desire), so maybe we can have one of those animals for a pet.

Worse, any one of us technically qualifies for an ESA to bypass the housing issue.

As the adults, we're trying really hard to be strong and think of the best thing for an animal, which does not include entering into a household in transition and likely to uproot soon.

But she's right and speaks for all of us: "I want a real pet animal to be in my house." :(

[ignitesthestxrs]

embarassment is cringe who's your bias

oh LOL dw dw i am not literally embarrassed! more just, mindful of audience u know? but also ur my audience now

i am not really a person who tends towards Biases, but here are some guys that i really love atm!

SHINee's Key - look i love all members of shinee, they probably are my ult group these days, but if you forced me at gun point to pick one it would be This Guy. key is kind of the embodiment of the tension of how faggy can you be in public without ever coming out and - well, coming out. i also have a deep respect for how much effort he puts into his solo career, and how interesting and innovative his album concepts have been esp since he got back from the military

Exo's Kai - ah my precious Nini who is here with us largely to vibe. i think he's such a great example of like, how you can be totally hands off in terms of the creative direction of your albums LOL and still be a great performer? this man lip synced his way through his own concert and looked great doing it, 10/10. but i also love just how much he clearly loves his job and meeting other idols and getting to go on tv shows and learn new things about people and the world LOL a giant puppy of a man

TXT's Soobin - speaking of giant puppy men, this is one of my Large Son's Whom I Adore. my fave thing about soobin is that he's like. never held more than a single thought in his head at one time, and everyone he has ever met adores him? like every 4th gen group has a member who is just completely enamoured with soobin, and soobin does not appear to have done anything in particular to have earned this other than being a big guy who likes anime and hedgehogs. i also enjoy how everyone in his group agreed that he needed to be the leader, especially the guys (yeonjun and taehyun) who might have preferred to be the leader themselves, specifically because they knew giving it to the guy who didn't want it the way that they did would probably be a better outcome for the group. amazing head empty man. he's so tall.

Zerobaseone's Hanbin - something is wrong with this man (positive) (fond). no uh, this is a man who has gone to great lengths to change both his physical appearance and personal affect in order to take one last shot at achieving his kpop dreams and something is wrong with ME for how feral this makes me. another guy in the 'legibly queer' column (as in, he was a competitive waacker and faggy as hell doing it lmfao like, sure i'm sure there are straight guys who waack but at a certain point you're allowed to start assuming Gay instead of defaulting Straight ok). he is a control freak. he said his favourite type of person is someone who is competent but pretends not to be so that he can do things instead. one time he was so horrified by his member wearing socks on the bed that he REMOVED THAT BOY'S SOCKS FOR HIM? ON CAMERA? HANBIN WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU

WayV's Kun - the dad to end all dads. i have endless leader feelings about this man, who is the leader of SM's final push to conquer the China market that was actually going really well until [redacted], and suddenly Kun is the leader of a group that has members in different countries, that cannot promote in China while the pandemic is going on and cannot promote in Chinese while in Korea. technically WayV is under the umbrella of the broader NCT group, but xenophobia will have stans staying 'they just don't vibe for some reason'. this man's group was shelved for over a year due to international geopolitics and he held it and them together admirably, and it's been SO good to see WayV employed in 2023 and gaining momentum again. also he can fly a plane ( a real one), somehow made PUBG hot by being very good at it, and one time he was live and you just heard from the background one of his members yelling from the shower KUN GE THERE'S NO HOT WATER, like, every man in this group just has it hard wired into their brain that if there is a problem, kun ge will fix it. and he does.

honestly i could probably go for longer, there are a lot of boys i have a lot of feelings about s o b.

[musihsoo]

Current status

Hello,

I haven't really logged in for last few years(!) and now I found out I still get many messages from people asking me recordings or soundtracks of Korean musicals. So I thought I should share my current life and why I don't upload anymore.

I moved to another country. I am living outside of Korea since last year, so it's not possible to see Korean musicals.

I don't follow Korean musicals anymore. My love for musicals are the same, but for last few years I haven't really watched musicals. One big reason is that I love big theater shows, but recent years I felt big shows in Korea are staying in their comfort zone. Same shows, same casts, same stage set and costume, etc. I LOOOOVE Korean actors but when they are always on every show I see, that is not very exciting to watch over and over +10 years. (And the ticket price is getting higher) These days, Korean musical scene looks very active on small, middle sized theaters. They take adventures hiring new actors, and more talents gets their chance to shine. And they have many new Korean-made shows which is very refreshing. But my taste on musical highly biased on big-sized shows, so I didn't really see musicals often as before.

It would be problem to share bootlegs When I was passionate about musicals around early 2010s, many musical fans voice recorded the musicals and it was considered their unique culture. By that time Korean musical scene was very small and it was very hard to get any official recordings. So voice recording was one and only way to remember that specific performance. But now the industry is getting bigger and they often release official soundtrack or even DVDs and photo albums. So it seems that fan culture has also been changed and people are more strict about someone who records/share on the internet. So I don't upload it anymore.

I really enjoyed communicating with fellow musical fans on tumblr, but it's sad that I haven't got any new information to share anymore.

Sorry if you sent me messages and not get any reply from me. Hope everybody have a lovely Christmas and happy new year in advance!

[turnthepagealltherage]

Week 1 Journal

To keep with the Taylor Swift theme of this class, the URL of the blog is fittingly a reference to an unreleased Taylor Swift song (The Diary of Me). It's one of my favorites off her oldest material and I'm crossing my fingers that it reappears on the rerecorded version of Debut even though I know it's a really, really long shot. I have such a soft spot for her baby voice!

While I couldn't attend class on Thursday (I had an eye doctor appointment :/), I did still reread the assigned material, so I'll keep this journal entry mostly focused on a reflection of what I read. I read the article when it first came out, and the most accurate word I could use to describe how I felt when I did is "refreshing". The past few years, but specifically 2023-24, have felt to me especially strange as a longtime fan of Taylor. Obviously after Snakegate there had to be a change in how she presented herself to the public, so an increase in privacy was unsurprising. But even during the Lover, Folklore, and Evermore eras, Taylor was accessible in a way that has become unheard of now. It's not that she doesn't still interact with fans and send letters to reaction channels and still have that unimpeachable image of "someone you could be best friends with", but those kinds of interactions feel few and far between.

I feel like it's obvious that this feeling stems from her meteoric rise in popularity over the past year and a half. Taylor Swift has always been popular, but recently she's been POPULAR. So this increase in privacy that occurred post-Reputation feels as though it has slowly grown bigger and bigger, turning homegrown country-girl Taylor Swift (the one you could interact with on Myspace and who could pop into your Instagram Live to say hello) into the monolith Taylor Swift™ who commands an audience to the Super Bowl bigger than the audience that watched the moon landing simply by sitting in the stands. There have been fewer interviews, and fewer exclusive Good Morning America news clips, and fewer awards show performances and speeches because simply put, she's too big to do that. Even the interviews she partook in during the Red TV eras for the ATWTMV music video seem like a complete thing of the past. Her instagram captions still have more personality and vibrancy than those of her peers (of which realistically there are few), but more often than not they feel as though she's let someone else handle the keyboard.

I think that's why this article seemed so revitalizing to me. Here is the Taylor Swift I remember from even a few years ago: the one who makes big emphatic hand gestures and uses funny vocab like "so metal". Even though the main focus of this article was to describe how untouchable Taylor Swift has become, this insight from another person into what it was like to spend even an hour or two of time with her reminded me what it was like to have a peek into the life of a celebrity, as if she could be your friend. And while I know that idea has always been part of her brand, marketing, and rhetorical strategy, it still put a smile on my face to read her quoting the movie Gladiator in a silly voice.

I am really, really looking forward to the material in this class!

[martin-jordan]

End of year review 2023

It’s been over 2 years since the last note. That’s a while. In between, a few things have happened, including me moving to Berlin again and joining the German government’s Digital Service as the first Head of Design. I’ve managed to write notes about the work I do there almost every week. So do have a look there, if you’re interested in any of that.

Following a question format developed by Prof. Dr. Molly Steenson, which I discovered on Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino’s blog, I am answering her list of questions to reflect my 2023.

What did you do in 2023 that you’d never done before? I have never led such a big team. The design and user research team at Digital Service is now 20 people strong. By the end of this year, 2024, we might get closer to 30. I’m still getting used to that responsibility.

Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I didn’t bother to make any promises to myself for 2023. So there was nothing to keep. I intended to run, eat well – primarily vegan – and do public speaking and writing, though. I failed miserably at running. The rest was alright.

Did anyone close to you give birth? Some people I work with gave birth, but I don’t feel close to them.

Did anyone close to you die? Luckily not.

What countries did you visit? Only a few. I did not fly at all, which I am proud of. I visited the UK several times, including Scotland – a 19-hour non-stop train journey from Berlin. I visited France (Paris) once and Switzerland twice for leisure, including skiing in Saas-Fee, close to Zermatt. 2024 will be different. I will travel internationally again.

What would you like to have in 2024 that you lacked in 2023? A better work-life balance. I worked seriously long hours in 2024 – at a level that even I don’t find sustainable.

What date from 2023 will remain etched upon your memory? My own and another birthday. I know that I did then. There is no other specific date that I remember – maybe that’s even a good thing.

What was your biggest achievement of the year? I find it difficult to name one. I am proud of what the team is doing; I wrote and delivered an all-new talk on the ‘long slog of public service design’ with Kara that was well-received at 2 conferences. I also co-ran a 24-hour remote conference, which was a success.

What was your biggest failure? I didn’t get anyone else in the German public sector to embrace the Service Standard or any senior person to embrace it publicly.

Did you suffer illness or injury? I fell in the first 5 minutes of skiing in December – straight on my skier's thumb from 2001. I am still recovering from that several weeks later. Apart from that, I was fine.

What was the best thing you bought? A Vitsœ 606 shelf for my living room. I installed it for my birthday, and it brings joy every day. It took me over 15 years to convert from a clueless design student to a customer. That’s when I worked for Thomas Manss & Company, which did all the design and branding for Vitsœ.

Whose behaviour merited celebration? Countless anti-racism, anti-sexism, and anti-fossil fuel activists. More closely, I admire and respect our CEO, Christina and how she is navigating the growing Digital Service through a tricky political and stakeholder landscape.

Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? The behaviour of a few German ministers that actively block the progress they set out in their party manifestos and coalition treaty from 2021.

Where did most of your money go? To food, in general. I visited some nice restaurants. It was still no outrageous amount, though.

What did you get really, really, really excited about? The Vitra Campus in Weill am Rhein was quite spectacular. I am not sure it was a 3x ‘really’ level of excitement, though.

What song/album will always remind you of 2023? I discovered Philip Glass’ ‘Dance Pieces’ and listened to them extensively. It was played as part of ‘Age of Content’ (LA)HORDE’s performance at the Berliner Festspiele in August. It was marvellous.

Compared to this time last year, are you: Unsure how I was or felt last year. I think I was less exhausted in mid-December 2022, though. 2023 was dense. I did a lot.

What do you wish you’d done more of? More exercise. More breaks and holidays.

What do you wish you’d done less of? Even though not everything was fruitful, I think everything I’ve done was worth it.

How will you be spending Christmas? As it’s already after Christmas, I answer this retrospectively. I went to my sister’s family place and celebrated there – right after the pre-holiday ski trip.

Who did you spend the most time on the phone with? My mother, even though she thinks I could call her more often.

Did you fall in love in 2023? No need. All good and stable.

What was your favourite TV programme? ‘The Last of Us’ on HBO stood out. Great drama, themes, storytelling, actors. While not the greatest show, ‘Extrapolations’ on Apple TV+ will be on my mind for the years to come as it shows snapshots of human existence dealing with a changing climate between 2037 and 2070.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Such a strong word, no. But I do have much less respect for certain people. That includes several men in charge of driving digitalisation in the German public sector. Their performance is weak and deeply disappointing.

What was the best book(s) you read? At the end of the year, I started reading ‘Baustellen der Nation’ (‘Construction Sites of the Nation’ in English) – an analytical and progressive book outlining what needs work in Germany and how to do it. I like it goes deep and broad and covers problems and potential solutions, enriched with a lot of data and strong narratives.

What was your greatest musical discovery? I discovered Oskar Sala at an architecture exhibition in the Berlinische Galerie. I watched a documentary about the construction of the ICC building from the early 70s and waited until the end titles to see who composed the music. I have been listening to Oskar Sala’s music for various hours since then.

What did you want and get? The mentioned Vitsœ 606 shelf.

What did you want and not get? Some upgraded camera equipment. I did not prioritise it enough in my budget.

What were your favourite films of this year? It was neither ‘Oppenheimer’ nor ‘Barbie’ – the blockbusters and most discussed movies of the year. I missed a few films I still like to watch when they are streaming. ‘Decision to Leave’ by Park Chan-wook stood out for me. And Pixar’s ‘Elemental’ was powerful in its message, especially when watching the documentary with director Peter Sohn telling about his family’s immigration story that inspired the movie.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 41 in April. We wanted to take a canoe trip to the Spreewald, but the weather wasn’t great. So my parents came around, we went to the ‘Futurium’ exhibition about science and democracy and had cake afterwards. In the evening, I got invited for dinner at the Korean fine dining restaurant ‘CHOI’. That was a very pleasant and intimate food experience.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? More significant progress in driving user-centred design approaches in the German public sector. I didn’t get done what I wanted to get done. Too many actors are following their own agendas instead.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2023? Adding a bright colour to my navy blue – beyond the colourful socks. I got two new RÆBURN jumpers in 2023. I like the brand’s regenerative design approach and some of their designs.

What kept you sane? Focussing on the things that I can influence and that give me a sense of progress.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? No idea. Not my thing.

What political issue stirred you the most? So many. It’s hard to pick a single one. The wars, the inequality, the rise of the far-right. It is remarkable how terrible communication from politicians around policies to prevent climate breakdown is – globally. So, global inaction regarding climate change is the one that stirs me the most – as too many democratic politicians don’t even address it regularly.

Who did you miss? My grandmother, especially around Christmas.

Who was the best new person you met? I built a good relationship with Stephanie, our Chief Product Officer. I first met her in 2022 when I started at Digital Service, but we only had a few overlaps and encounters last year. That changed in spring. She is smart and driven, and we share views, values and attitudes.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2023. Take things step by step. There might still be countless steps missing from your goal, but you got a bit closer, at least.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year? I am bad with song lyrics – as I mostly listen to instrumental music. So, I need to pass on this one.

[animeraider]

Radio Free California - 2022 on Random Play and a few final thoughts for this FRUSTRATING year.

I thought about making a "best of" list, but I realized that I'd come up with something different every time I tried. So here is a highlight reel, cultivated from all of the 2022 RFC's. Feel free to put together your own list. I recommend putting this on random play for the best possible experience - I just went through all 51 episodes for 2022 and picked the ones that tickled my fancy at that moment. If I tried again tomorrow I would probably pick 246 different songs than are on this list. 

You should subscribe to my weekly playlists to get the full experience.

So what was your 2022 like? I usually do a recap of the previous year as my last blog post but I'm really not feeling it this time around. Face it folks, 2022 SUCKED. I had a decent career year with a couple of hit singles and videos plus my improvised piano album, and I got to see both Roger Waters and Bjork live (not on the same night), but overall...?

I mean, social media imploded and fragmented, led by the Chief Twit. The Previous Motherfucker is STILL hanging on all our necks instead of in prison where he fucking belongs. Far too many Americans embrace Fascism, Racism, and a large portion of the country is now a Hee-Haw version of The Handmaid's Tale.

I can't even imagine how weird it must be to be young in this country. My children grew up in one country and as of this year it no longer exists. They're not like those of us who are old enough to remember how it used to be. 

And just what the ever-lovin' FUCK is it with wanting to destroy power stations? This is supposed to start a race war? How fucking STUPID is that? It's like saying 1+2=Licorice. The sum is less than the parts.

Strangely enough, the Pandemic has put me in a position to leave, and I just might. I'm incredibly fortunate to live in one of the remaining pockets of sanity in this country and I don't want to leave, but I don't want to live in an isolated exception to the rule either. I'd rather the whole country be sane than just my little corner of it with with fascist fucks encroaching from all sides.

I have family in Canada, New Zealand and Spain - so I have options (although I don't speak Spanish). I also have possibly misplaced hope, so I have to admit that the decision isn't an easy one. I haven't made it yet, and there are other's I'd need to convince to come with.

The craziest part about all of this is that on a whole lot of specifics America had a great year. It's just that the terrible parts are so bad that they overwhelm the good parts.

I don't think there is a "best of" 2022 to be had. I think that this has been example after example of wasted talent, potential, and ability. I think of 2022 as a squandered year. There ain't no best to be had.

Now, there's two ways to look at that: To be depressed about it or to be determined to do better. I am choosing the second option.

Taking a step back from Social Media has given me something I hadn't even noticed I had lost: TIME. I reclaim my fucking time.

I have a new single coming out the first week of January and I'm going to focus on it for a bit, but then I'm going to hunker down and fucking FINISH this album that's been percolating for the past decade. Those of you who follow my music career have heard snippets of it, but only small snippets of it. I expect that promoting and performing that album is going to take up a lot of my time in 2023. I have tickets to see Arcade Fire on my birthday, so I'll take that day off.

And then I'm going to gear up for 2024, which I want to be my busiest and most productive year musically ever. There's a couple of reasons for that - a big birthday is coming up in 2024; one my own father didn't reach. Now I don't have his issues and expect to go on for decades yet, but I'm going to fucking CELEBRATE. I hope that the country will still be here for it. Another reason is that I have set a challenge for myself and it's a difficult one, but I damned well want to TRY.

I am absolutely awful at predicting the future, but I still want to try.

So let's shake off this past year, bury it, and roll up them sleeves and get to it. I fucking HATE Hee-Haw.

See you next year.

And because I love you, I leave you with my new single.

[thefirsttree]

A personal update + my next game

OK, time to do this. I’ve been meaning to do a big DAVID WEHLE™ update for a while now and explain why I haven’t released a new game yet, but you know how life gets in the way. Especially when life is a quarantine hellscape, you have three beautiful, amazing, exhausting kids to raise, a spouse’s job you support, a viral YouTube channel that turns your brain to mush, a thousand emails waiting in your inbox since your game is free on the Epic Games Store (with an impressive number of redemptions too! … meaning lots of emails and customer support issues), etc., etc. What also contributes to my lack of updates is because… I just don’t really like posting online. Fascinating correlation, I know!

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a venting/ranting blog post (well, maybe a bit), because my life is seriously AMAZING and INSANELY BLESSED and LUCKY. I can’t believe how many dreams keep coming true, so much so that I feel I don’t deserve it and I really pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes… but I did want to at least be honest, because I owe that to myself.

Wow, where do I even begin? Well, how about we start with the reason I’m even a full-time indie game dev now: The First Tree. This small hobby project I worked on at night morphed into this gargantuan beast (or fox) that took over my life the past 5 years. Which is great! I’m living the dream! And yet, I really didn’t expect it to do as well as it did. At its core, my game is a slow-paced, sad walking simulator (ahem, I prefer the term “exploration game,” but you know what I mean) that somehow seemed to launch at the right time to the right audience. It resonated deeply with some of you, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I still get emails almost daily how my game changed their lives in some formative way. I’m beyond honored.

However, with that spotlight came criticism and demands from the ever-present, insatiable internet. I would randomly be surfing the gamedev subreddit trying to decompress, and I would see a comment by some rando saying how much I didn’t deserve my success, and how it was all one huge lucky fluke. And I believed them!

And to add to it, some devs considered me an indie marketing “guru”, which I was uncomfortable with. I worked hard to market my game every week, and after my GDC talk, people assumed marketing was my passion; the reason I got up every morning. Just to clarify… NO, I don’t like marketing, and I hate being the center of attention. I don’t like asking people for money and wishlists. But I did what was necessary because I was passionate about telling stories, and I wanted to give my story a fighting chance to be seen on the crowded pages of Steam.

So now, you’re probably wondering “well then David, why did you make fancy YouTube videos showing off your success? Not very modest if you ask me.” This honestly could be a long blog post all on its own, because my experience of putting myself in the spotlight and becoming a “content creator” is… complicated. It was an unusual step for me, especially since I never even showed my face online (as a game developer) until my GDC talk.

First off, I always wanted to teach and start a YouTube channel. I love video editing, especially since I’ve been doing it longer than making games! It’s a huge passion of mine. And teaching people who didn’t know they could make and finish games was a huge motivator (and it’s been so rewarding already). But the second reason is, I was scared. I was self-employed, and I was riding the success of a “huge lucky fluke” that would probably not happen again. I wanted to make sure I could provide for my amazing family, and give them food and health insurance and security in these tumultuous times. I was turning my lifelong passions and hobbies into a business, and it wasn’t as simple of a mental transition as I thought.

So, I went all in on YouTube and the accompanying online course called Game Dev Unlocked. I spent years editing the scripts and videos, and polishing them to a shine. At first, no one watched my videos, no one was buying… and in the blink of an eye, the YouTube algorithm picked up my main autobiographical video (“How Making Indie Games Changed My Life”), and I started getting 5,000 subscribers a day. Right now, I’m at 150,000 subs, which is still hard for me to believe. I always had a dream of earning 100k subs on YouTube, so I was pretty happy with the whole thing. Sales were OK, but mostly people didn’t want to buy the course. Then the emails came in…

Something you should know about me: I am a textbook “people pleaser,” and if someone asks for my help, I take it very seriously. If someone is mad at me, even if I didn’t do anything wrong, it’s all I can think about, and it ruins my day. So, taking an onslaught of people begging for help and multiplying that by an impossible amount of people for my brain to truly comprehend thanks to the internet… and let’s just say it wasn’t a healthy mix.

I received thousands of emails from people who were begging me for some kind of reassurance that everything would be OK. That their dreams would come true too. And I wanted to help every single one of them. I went from a nobody working on a game for fun to becoming a spokesperson for the indie game dream. I couldn’t even get a shake from the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru without someone recognizing me and asking for game dev advice. And it didn’t stop there… I would get emails from suicidal kids asking for help, teenagers from Afghanistan asking me to get them out of their country, and on one occasion I received an email from a hopeful game developer in a war-torn country who had just experienced a bomb blowing up their neighboring village. His friends were dead, and he was hoping he could finish a game before he died too, and he needed my help. How do you say no to something like that? Didn’t I owe it to everyone because I was lucky with my hit game and I needed to “pay it forward”? (Something people constantly reminded me of)

And then to top it off, after you’ve given everything you’ve got to other people in need… you get hate mail in your inbox. You spend the whole day serving your children and strangers on the internet, then when the kids are finally asleep, you hit the bed to relax and take a look at your phone to decompress, and you randomly come across an angry gamer in your Twitter mentions telling you your game they got for free sucks, and that you took away a potentially great game from them and that your apology isn’t good enough.

Long story short, I went to a mental therapist for the first time in my life. I was broken trying to care for two toddlers and a new baby in a pandemic (which is very, very hard), taking care of my course students who gave me their hard-earned money and demanded results, and the countless people begging for help on the internet. I was this introverted, internet-lurker trying to take on the weight of the world. I was so tired and hurt that no one cared about me and my needs… only what I could do for them.

Quitting my day job and making this hobby my full-time job has stirred up… mixed emotions. This statement may disturb some of you, but I was definitely 100% happier when I had a full-time job and I was working on my game at night. I missed working with the amazing team at The VOID, working on Star Wars… back when the success of my game was this abstract thing I could only daydream about. Mostly, I was making my game for me with no outside expectations to pay the bills or satisfy the ever-demanding internet, and that brought me a lot of joy.

It’s not all doom and gloom though! I’m actually very happy now and in the best shape I’ve been since the pandemic started. I’ve had to confront my weaknesses and personality quirks, but I’m a better person for it (and I’m sure these issues would’ve come out eventually). I hired an awesome community manager for Game Dev Unlocked who is helping SO MUCH with the emails, I can’t even tell you the mental burden it alleviates. I even leased a co-working office to help separate work from my home, and that’s been a huge help too. I’ve decided to work with my old friends from The VOID on a cool, new VR experience. It will take me away from my projects a bit, but I’m ecstatic to work with a great team again (and not manage anything, whew).

These are all things I would’ve never guessed I needed, because I thought I knew myself pretty well… turns out I didn’t.

The reality is: running a business is HARD. Running it solo is even harder. You have to remember, I was burnt out on The First Tree well into the Steam release in 2017, but I kept working on it for 4 more years due to my fears of failing again and not earning enough money for my family.

So, I was wrestling with the age-old concept of commercialism and art. There was this dichotomy of doing whatever I wanted and being true to my vision (what most people assume the indie dev dream is like), and doing only what customers wanted to buy. This is something that has killed me with YouTube… in one specific instance, I was super excited to make the exact video I wanted to make. I loved every part of its creation, and I thought it had a message that would inspire everyone. I lovingly edited it over several weeks, posted it, and excitedly waited for the stats… and it was by far my worst performing video.

This is not a new problem. Even the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo was a commission forced upon him by the very violent Pope Julius II. My wife and I regularly talk about the fine balance between artistic integrity and commercialism, a problem she is very familiar with as an artist who constantly needs to balance what she wants to make with what the customer wants to hang up in their home.

For The First Tree, I was lucky. It was pretty much what I wanted to make (I had to compromise a lot of things of course), and it turned out millions of people wanted it too. Recently, I thought the safe business decision would be to do it all over again, so I started work on a spiritual successor to The First Tree (an idea that I may revisit one day since I do love the story idea). But that isn’t happening anytime soon. Trust me when I say I am now currently burnt out on animal exploration games.

So that realization left me with a question: what do I do next?

I’ve decided I need to make a game that I want to make, for me. It will be a bit different and I’m almost certain most fans of The First Tree will not love it… but it’s an idea that gets me super excited. It’s an idea that could help me fall in love with game development again.

A few more details: this game will be story-driven, first-person, and will use the Unreal Engine. That means development is gonna be slow going, because I have to learn a whole new tool. The “smart business” decision would be to make something quickly in Unity which I’m already familiar with… but I want to do this for me, and UE5 looks like a lot of fun. I’m also shooting for an early-ish release date so I avoid burn out and I keep the game short: I want to release it in Fall 2022, but knowing game development, it will probably take longer.

With the help of my therapist, I’ve also concluded that I’ve been too accessible on the internet and that my self-worth isn’t determined by the amount of people I try to help online. Of course, I love helping people and seeing them succeed, but I need to step back and focus on my family and myself. I will delete my social media apps on my phone (I will still post big updates occasionally) and stop responding to most emails, tweets, DMs, etc. It’s not that I’m ungrateful… in fact, if I don’t say thank you or at least acknowledge the incredibly nice people who share a sweet message about my game or want to tell me how I inspire them (still hard for me to believe, lol), I feel a ton of guilt… but I need to let that go. Please know I’m extremely grateful to all the fans who follow my work, so even if I don’t thank you directly, I truly mean it: thank you.

I will still post and stream occasionally on YouTube when I want to (and I still do live Q&A’s for my GDU students). The online course sales will help support my family as I work on a potentially risky game idea (and my new job will help alleviate the risk too). I’m gonna try one more marketing experiment and sell a mini-course soon (and add an Unreal section), and after that I’m done working on it. A gigantic thank you to the people who bought my course and are part of the amazing community, it has helped me and my family tremendously, and it’s inspiring seeing the games you make!

I’m a bit worried about the whole thing since this new game idea could flop, which could definitely affect my family. But a sappy, high-school yearbook quote is coming to mind…  I think it applies here: “A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for.”

Thanks for reading,

David

[samwisethewitch]

Creating Sacred Space

Very few pagans have access to temples or holy sites. If you’re lucky enough to live in the country where your gods were originally worshiped, you may be able to visit ancient temples or sacred sites, but most of us do not have this opportunity. For most pagans, sacred space is something we have to create for ourselves.

On one level, this is very literal — pagans create physical spaces for their gods to inhabit, usually in the form of home altars. An altar is a table, shelf, or other flat surface that is set aside for religious or spiritual use. The altar is likely home to religious items or tools like candles, incense burners, or statues of the gods. It is the place where prayers are made and offerings are given. It is a place within the home that is set aside for the gods.

Like everything within paganism, the exact setup and uses of your altar depend on your tradition. Some groups, like some forms of traditional Wicca, require the altar to look a very certain way, with a collection of ritual tools arranged in the appropriate places on the altar. Other traditions are much more freeform.

Even if you have not chosen a pagan path yet, you may find it helpful to create a special place to connect with the divine. This could be an altar — even a simple one, like an unused shelf holding a white candle and a stick of incense — or another special place like a yoga mat where you do meditations, a special chair where you read spiritual literature, or a special place outdoors. Having a space set aside for spirituality and religion will help you to literally and metaphorically make room for these pursuits in your life.

To dedicate this space to religious pursuits, simply verbally state your intent to use it for that purpose. You might perform a simple ritual by lighting a white candle and saying something like, “I dedicate this space to the gods and to my growing relationship with them.” (It doesn’t matter if you don’t know yet which gods you want to worship.) Now you have a special place to return to when you want to connect with the divine.

You can also build altars to connect to other types of spirits, such as land spirits or ancestors. We’ll talk more about these kinds of altars in a future post.

Though guidelines for altar setup and maintenance vary from one pagan religion to the next, there are a few basic guidelines that are pretty much universal.

For one thing, your altar should be kept clean and tidy. Don’t pile non-religious items on your altar, make sure to clean up any candle wax or incense ashes left after a ritual, and try to keep dust from building up on your icons and statues. I am a generally messy person, but my altar stays clean as a sign of respect for my gods, even when the rest of my house is a mess. If you struggle to keep your altar tidy, schedule 10-20 minutes once a week to go through and clean it up. Think of this cleaning not as a chore, but as a loving service to your gods.

If you use your altar for food offerings, you should dispose of them after 24 hours or less. As we’ve previously discussed, some pagans eat their food offerings after the gods have had a chance to consume their spiritual essence, while other pagans feel that this is rude or taboo. In the latter case, many people choose a special place outside where they dispose of food offerings (if you do this, make sure the offering won’t harm local plant and animal life if left outside). Another option is to add food offerings to a compost pile — you can use the compost in your garden, perhaps for plants that are sacred to your gods (again, make sure your offerings are compost-friendly).

Keeping your altar clean also includes energetic and spiritual cleansing. Before rituals, you should cleanse your altar to ensure that you aren’t bringing any unwanted energy into your worship. Cleansing protocols vary from one tradition to the next and may include sprinkling the altar with blessed water, wafting incense smoke through the space, or using a special tool like a ritual broom or a bell. If you haven’t chosen a pagan religion yet, simply use the cleansing method that works best for you.

When caring for your altar, keep in mind that this is your gods’ space within your home. You want it to be comfortable for them. Like decorating a guest bedroom for a friend, you’ll probably want to choose items that are significant to the god or spirit being honored on the altar. For example, my altar contains a crow skull and feathers because crows are sacred to several of the deities I work with. Take your time to create an environment that will be welcoming to your god(s) of choice. (Again, if you aren’t working with any specific gods yet, you can still create a basic altar — follow the previously stated guidelines for keeping it clean and welcoming.)

While setting up and maintaining an altar or other special space is an important part of creating sacred space, it isn’t the only part. When pagans talk about “creating sacred space,” we are also talking about cultivating a certain mindset.

Just like you need to make space for the gods in your home, you need to make space for them in your life. It’s all well and good to call yourself a pagan, but if you never pray, make offerings, or think about the gods, are you really embodying pagan religious practice? If you’re going to talk the talk, you have to also walk the walk.

Creating sacred space in your life can take many forms. One of the most common (and convenient) is small daily devotional activities. These activities only take a few minutes and can easily be incorporated into your daily routine. This may include meditation, divination, or reading a few verses from a holy book. Even the act of lighting a fresh stick of incense on your altar in the morning can help strengthen your connection to your spirituality.

It can even be as simple as remembering to thank the gods when you see them at work in your life. I have a friend who is a Roman pagan, and he has a habit of verbally thanking Mercury (the Roman god of travel, among many other things) whenever he finds a good parking space or doesn’t have to wait at a red light. This kind of small acknowledgement may not seem like a big deal, but it works to integrate our worship of the gods into our daily lives.

Take a few moments, right now, to ask yourself how you can create sacred space in your life. What can you do to make the gods feel welcome in your presence? Try to think of a single change you can make in the next 24 hours to create this space. Write it down.

Commit to maintaining this new practice for at least three weeks. At the end of each day, write down what you did to create sacred space and how it made you feel. Do you feel a sense of peace? Do you feel the gods’ presence more strongly? Do you feel a sense of connection to something bigger than yourself? Write down these and any other thoughts on your new practice.

At the end of three weeks, look back over your notes. How did this practice change the way you feel about your spirituality? How did it change your relationship with the gods? If there was a positive change, try to continue integrating this practice into your daily routine.

If there was no change, that’s okay — this specific practice may not be for you, and there’s no shame in that. Choose a different practice and repeat the experiment. Keep at it until you find a way to create sacred space that works for you on your unique spiritual path.

In my humble opinion, it’s important to learn how to hold sacred space before you start investigating different pagan religions. Not only will it give you the basic tools you’ll need for religious ritual, but it will help you to discover your personal worship style and comfort zone. With this, you’ll be better able to determine which pagan path(s) is a good fit for you.

Resources:

Wicca for Beginners by Thea Sabin

Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham

Following the Sun by Sharon LaBorde

Where the Hawthorn Grows by Morgan Daimler

[scripttorture]

One of the central characters in a fantasy story I'm writing has torture as part of her backstory. She was captured by an evil race, and one individual in particular put her through a "training" regime designed to turn her into a useful/trustworthy slave. Specifically the goals of the training were:

- destroy her sense of self / agency

- overwrite her ingrained response of healing herself when injured (she has magical healing powers)

- an affectionate or worshipful disposition towards her captors

- immediate obedience to any command

I feel like both physical and psychological torture / mental conditioning are probably appropriate, though I'm leaning away from including sexual abuse. I honestly don't know much about torture at all and the only things that come to mind as producing a result similar to what I'm looking for are the Game of Thrones torture sequence and the use of obdience collars in the Codex Alera book series. The latter is very interesting to me because it is a magical device that inflicts pain in reaction to disobedience but also inflicts pleasure to reward obedience.

I guess I'm just wondering if you have any advice for what kinds of methods would be good to include in a process designed to produce obedience, rather than torture for its own sake or to extract information, as well as if there are any common pitfalls I should try to avoid in writing about such a thing.

The training itself won't be in the book, but I need to be familiar with it for backstory purposes because later in the story this character encounters her torturer again, and is subjected to some further abuse before she finally overcomes her fear and kills him.

Alright well I’m going to be straight up with you: the scenario you’ve presented is a very common torture apologist trope. It’s incredibly unrealistic. And it’s unrealistic in ways that support torture by claiming it can be ‘useful’.

 Which probably means that you’re new to the blog and haven’t heard me give this talk before. That’s OK, we all learn sometime and it’s not my intention to shame you for the fact you’re not as obsessed with this stuff as I am or couldn’t afford to shell out for the books.

 Torture does not produce obedience. The best evidence we have right now suggests it encourages active resistance.

 If you got a lot of your inspiration from Game of Thrones then frankly I’m not surprised you came up with apologia. The torture in that series is incredibly badly handled. And a big part of the point of running this blog is that most people are getting their information on torture from shows like that. Which happens because the research is inaccessible and hasn’t been popularised the way fictional tropes (sometimes fictional tropes literally started by torturers) have been popularised.

 The important thing is what you choose to do now.

 I’m going to break down the problems here and make some suggestions for what you could do instead.

 Firstly: there is no torture or abuse that will guarantee obedience. Pain does not make people meek or compliant or willing to follow commands.

 Torture survivors are not broken.

 They are not ‘controlled’ by their torturers and the suggestion that they are is used in the real world to bar real survivors from treatment. It is also used to bar them from entering safe countries and to argue that they shouldn’t be allowed visas or passports.

 The best statistics we have for any sort of compliance under torture come from analysis of historical French data where torture was used to try and force confessions (something we know torture can sometimes do).

 The ‘success’ rate averaged at 10%. Under torture 90% of people will not comply long enough to sign their name.

 Secondly: torture does not and can not ‘make’ a victim feel ‘worshipful’ towards their torturer. The suggestion is kind of like asking if someone can tap dance immediately after removing the bones from their legs.

 Torturers have no control over a victim’s emotions. They have no control over their symptoms. They have no control over their beliefs.

 And there is no such thing as a torture that can change someone’s mind in a way torturers can control.

 Once again, this fictional trope is used by politicians and the media to justify marginalising real torture survivors.

 I have read hundreds, possibly thousands, of accounts from torture survivors. I’ve read historic and modern accounts. I’ve read accounts from all sort of people from all over the globe. I have never seen a survivor say anything positive about their torturers. I have never seen anything close to toleration.

 A lot of survivors are blisteringly angry at their torturers. A lot of them feel overwhelming levels of spite and some report literally putting themselves at risk of death in order to spite their torturers. And yes, a lot of them are afraid too. None of these emotions are mutually exclusive.

 Affection is impossible. We are not wired that way.

 Thirdly: I understand that ‘evil races’ are a long standing fantasy trope but it would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention the racism inherent in that idea. That some people are ‘born bad’.

 I’d strongly suggest you look up the Black, Indian and First Nations people that I know are on this site critiquing these kinds of fantasy tropes. Because they will be able to explain it better then I can.

 Fourthly: the term ‘psychological torture’ is a pretty common dog whistle for torture apologia.

 Most of the time tortures that people dub ‘psychological’ are things with real, physical effects that lead to lasting injury and death. They just don’t tend to leave obvious external scars. I use Rejali’s term ‘clean torture’ for these techniques. Researchers distinguish them from scarring tortures because they are harder to detect and prove in court.

 The majority of survivors today will have experienced clean torture. They will have no obvious physical scars. But they will still be disabled. They’re ‘just’ less likely to see any form of justice for it.

 Fifthly: torture is a terrible training method because it decreases a person’s ability to learn.

 Torture causes memory problems. It also often causes lasting physical injuries that make performing basic tasks more difficult. And it causes a lot of serious psychological problems which make performing basic tasks more difficult.

 A trained person who was never tortured will always out perform someone whose training involved torture.

 I probably sound quite angry here.

 I write fantasy and I also write about torture a lot. But I can’t imagine that it’s just flavour for a fantasy world or some artefact of the past. Torture is a real, present threat in the country that I grew up in. If I was to return now I could, literally, be tortured and executed.

 If you want to include torture in your world, in your story then you are committing to telling someone else’s story. You are representing an incredibly marginalised group of people and you are presenting that representation to a third group, one that has never had contact with real torture survivors.

 Are you comfortable with the idea of telling your peers that survivors are still controlled by ‘the enemy’? That they’re passive? That they don’t have the capacity to make their own decisions?

 Are you comfortable knowing that the popularity of this message keeps millions of genocide survivors in refugee camps, blocked from citizenship, aid and safety?

 I understand feeling attached to a story and a character. And I understand that this information is hard to find. Hell I’m probably going to end up with the only English copy of one of the pivotal textbooks because I’m shelling out to get it translated.

 You say you want to write a torture survivor. With respect I don’t think you know what a torture survivor looks like.

 I think the most helpful, and kindest, thing I can do here is describe what torture does to people. Because I can’t tell you whether that’s something you want to write. I could try and rebuild this scenario for you (and if you decide you’re interested in that after reading all of this and all the links then I suggest looking through the blog tags for ICURE, torture as training, Black Widow and Overwatch.) But I think you need to decide whether you actually want to write a torture survivor first.

 Here’s a post on the most common torture apologia tropes.

 Here’s the post on the types of memory problems torture commonly causes. I strongly recommend picking at least one.

 Remember that this would never go away. Improvement and recovery in torture survivors means learning to live with symptoms. The symptoms themselves are permanent.

 It’s a hundred different alarms set up on their phone to try and make up for the forgetfulness that makes them miss appointments. It’s the little bottle of perfume in their pocket to bring themselves back to reality when they get intrusive memories at work.

 Here’s a post on the other common symptoms.

 You want something in the range of 3-5 of those, though more are likely if your character is held for years. Each of them should be severe. Every single symptom should have a large, negative, impact on the character’s daily life.

 Do you know anyone with chronic pain? It warps their world. Work can become impossible. Basic household tasks like getting dressed, cooking, cleaning the dishes are done through gritted teeth or not at all. Hobbies and ‘fun’ activities dwindle as they struggle to find a way to do them that doesn’t hurt. Interaction with other people, even loved ones, can easily become barbed.

 Because the pain makes everything more difficult. It means everything takes more energy, more effort. Which means that things fall by the wayside, whether that’s by a pile of mouldering dishes in the sink or snapping at a child. It means tears and the social judgement that follows them. It means the world narrowing as it gets harder to go out.

 Do you see what I mean? Every part of life.

 That’s an example for one symptom. You need to work out at least four. Then figure out how they interact. Then figure out what the character can do to make her life better.

 With chronic pain that can mean painkillers but it’s always more then that. It’s re-learning how to do things; how to put on trousers without aggravating the bad knee, how to sew with one hand. It means learning to cut down on what they do and it means learning a new sort of flexibility; accepting that there are days when the pain is too much.

 It can mean having the same conversation about disability over and over again. With family, with friends, with colleagues. ‘I can’t do that.’ ‘I can do that sometimes but not always.’ ‘That will hurt me.’ ‘I can’t use that chair.’ ‘I can’t get my arms that high above my shoulders.’ ‘I need help with this.’

 And that sometimes means learning a kind of patience that is really barely held back rage. Or perhaps I’m projecting a little with this last one.

 If you’ve never met a torture survivor, if you’ve never looked at a survivor’s work, then all this is difficult. You’re trying to imagine something from first principals with nothing to fall back on.

 So let’s bring some survivors into the discussion here. Some reality.

 Who’s listened to Fela? How about Bobi Wine?

 Fela Kuti was the father of modern Afro beats music. He was tortured multiple times and during one attack, which destroyed his home, his mother was murdered by the military. When he got out of jail Fela marched her funeral procession past the biggest barracks in Nigeria’s biggest city. He wrote two songs about this attack and he doubled down on his opposition to the military government.

 Fela’s music started causing riots.

 You can read what I have to say about him here. You can listen to his music on youtube.

 Here’s an interview with Bobi Wine, which was conducted shortly after he was tortured in Uganda. He talked about how he was determined to go back and continue fighting. Which he did. He even ran against the president.

 I’ve also got a short piece on Searle who was a cartoonist captured by the Japanese during World War 2. His drawings of what happened in To the Kwai and Back are worth seeing. Especially if you want to write atrocities on this scale. They will show you the scale and how to focus on the small, human elements despite that overwhelming scale.

 Alleg’s The Question is pretty much a must, it’s one of the most thorough accounts from the Franco-Algerian war.

 Monroe’s A Darkling Plain is also a must, it’s a series of interviews with survivors of various different conflicts and atrocities. Some are torture survivors. Some are not. It is essential reading because it shows the variety in survivors as well as giving a sense of their lives beyond the symptoms.

 Finally Amnesty International has literally hundreds of interviews and studies available for free online.

 The most important decision for any story with regards to torture is whether it should be there at all.

 So much of this topic is intimidating and so much of it is difficult to write. Not just in the ‘oh this is horribly effecting’ sense but in the ‘I have twelve things to juggle in this simple scene’ sense.

 Ask yourself what torture adds to this character and this story. What does this backstory actually give this character?

 Because if the point is to have her vulnerable and then ultimately triumphing violently over her attackers I don’t think you want a torture scenario. You could get the same thing from a bad guy trying to drug her and having the kidnapping fail when she fights him off, clumsy but effective nonetheless.

 And she could still come out of something like that traumatised.

 Right now I really don’t see this adding anything but torture apologia to your story.

 Handling torture well in a story means accepting that it can’t be the same story without it. It means watching the characters and narrative warp under the weight of it. It means lasting effects, for all the characters and for the world itself.

 I believe you are capable of writing that if you want to, pet. But this ain’t it.

Edit: I’m having trouble seeing the beginning of the answer here. Can anyone let me know if there are formatting issues again please? The first word in the htmal is ‘Alright’ but what I’m seeing on tumblr starts 8 paragraphs in.

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[d-criss-news]

1883magazine.com

Darren Criss

On his new EP ‘Masquerade,’ the multi-talented Darren Criss welcomes everyone to the party.

Throughout his career, Darren Criss has never been one to shy away from boundaries. As an actor, he has won numerous awards and critical acclaim for his portrayal of Andrew Cunanan in Ryan Murphy’s award-winning drama American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, as well as hearts and a cult-like following for his portrayal of Harry Potter in Team Starkid’s A Very Potter Musical. As a musician, his talent shows the same range; he is as well known for his ability to belt a broadway ballad as he is for his covers of Top 40 hits on Glee.

For Criss, this is because all music is simply music. Musicians and listeners alike need not box themselves into certain genres and while this concept is currently growing in mainstream media, it is one Criss has known since he was a teenager. At Warped Tour, he encountered fellow San Franciscans Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, a punk-rock cover band that specializes in the unexpected (their most played track on Spotify is Country Roads.). Inspired by what he’s always known was possible, Darren’s career has had freedom most artists take years to explore — and with his new EP, it’s clear that is the most recent chapter.

‘Masquerade’ is an exploration into Criss’ more eclectic side with each track on the record representing a different persona or masque for the artist. The overt character-driven quality of the EP lends not only to allowing fans to learn more about Darren Criss, but also to create a project where something can be found for everyone.

1883 Magazine spoke to Darren Criss about his perception of genre, his new EP, and the curse of creative people.

Congratulations on ‘Masquerade’. I love it. It’s so fun!

Fun is a very fair adjective, I would agree.

I feel like there’s a very cohesive vision or aesthetic to it. When you set out to make the project, did you have this end goal in min  or were you just making music?

Yes and no. First and foremost, when you’re dealing with the whole of what an artist does, there are so many different facets that make the whole piece. To start, I’m just a songwriter — that’s the main thing that seeds everything else. But, because I’m a creative person, I’d like to think that I have a somewhat cohesive vision for my projects. However, you can conjecture and pontificate over what you want to happen, but ultimately a project is going to come out how it does. The thing that ties it all together, hopefully, is the artistry of the music or the person’s voice. When I heard you say “cohesive” my mind was like, “Phew!” Because we’re all scatterbrained people and we just constantly pray other people somehow think that we planned something or we had it envisioned all along, so to hear that is an enormous relief.

That being said, I had hope for how the EP would come together. I’ve been leaning into this notion of a character-driven song. The dirty secret about that is all songs are character-driven; all art is character-driven in some way or another. I just use that wording to aide folks that might be perceiving me as an actor and to apply that methodology to music.

How so?

I always thought it was a bit of an unfair double standard — where actors can be in a horror movie or romantic comedy — and we’re still behind that person as an actor. Actors can put on a prosthetic nose or a wig and do different things to service whatever story they’re doing. Historically music has been a little trickier, but now I think that’s changing. I’ve always been a self-proclaimed genrephile. I love so many different kinds of things. Growing up it was difficult for me to really assert this without confusing people. Now, that kaleidoscope has shifted in my favour, because people are more into eclecticism and musical diversity due to playlist culture and the whole homogeneity of everything. I’m employing this notion of being an actor and being behind a character and applying it to music by treating each song as its own kind of character. I want the art to correspond with that.

That’s an interesting concept to apply to music.

I know that everything I just said is horrifically more cerebral than it needs to be. If you like the music and it’s fun, great. I’m just trying to help people out that might be confused by perhaps some of the cognitive dissonance that’s happening between some of the styles. At the end of the day, it’s an artist’s voice, literal singing voice, and heart voice — what they have to say and how they say it — that tie everything together. People are more accepting of that than they used to be. This is exciting for me because I finally got to lean into something that I’ve always leaned into my entire life.

The last EP you released was ‘Homework’ in 2017. How do you think you’ve grown as an artist since then?

For me, obviously, there’s personal growth and professional growth. I think my growth is much more technical — getting better at recording music or being able to translate abstract ideas into physical recording — the things that I don’t think necessarily would be seen on the records. Again, much like an actor, ‘Homework’ was me playing the part of making a very low-key, singer/songwriter record. I’m a big believer in dressing for a party. I had some singer/songwriter songs that I wanted to honour. Each record I release shows a different version of myself that I haven’t gotten around to sharing.

The songs on ‘Masquerade’ are not like, “oh man in the past few years, I’ve suddenly become this person.” The EP was me finally getting in touch with my more Garage Band musician roots that I hadn’t been able to flex. It made sense to me to finally make this music. I had linked up with people that I thought could help me bring it to life in a way that hadn’t been done before and I felt like the timing was right. As I mentioned, it seemed like audiences might be a little more privy to this kind of thing.

I don’t want to be so stubborn as to think that there hasn’t been growth. I’ve been so lucky as an actor, that I’ve been busy as an actor. The only obstacle to me putting out more music, which I wish I was doing all the time, is time. I’m not an artist that just shows up, sings, and checks out. I’m writing, I’m producing, and I’m really in the weeds. It takes a great deal of investment, emotionally and mentally when I make music.

So, when you say, “you wish you were always releasing music,” do you mean to imply you have more music or at least ideas for more music?

I think the curse of creative people is that our ideas move faster than our bodies can execute. What this inevitably will create is a huge queue of unattended things that you will always be haunted by. From there, you have to catch as catch can. At any given moment, there’s still so much more in the queue that I want to put out. It literally took a global shutdown for me to finally have the time to look at the said queue, and say, “Okay, which project do I not only really want to do, but also do I have the resources to do and do I think fits into where I am right now?” Because I’m very cognisant of l where I am in my career. I have this huge selection of songs and when I have the time to focus on music, I go through and pick the ones I think fit where I am mentally and how I think other people are feeling.

With all these different genres of music you’ve released and all the music-centric projects that you’ve been a part of, is there a type of music that you enjoy performing the most?

I would say everything, but I don’t mean that in a way to just include everything. By nature, I’m a dot connector; I like shortening the distance between two things as much as possible and showing people how they can coexist. It’s my MO personally and professionally. Genre, while it has a lot to do with the cultural background and history of a type of music, is the boxes that we’ve arbitrarily made up to categorize and market music. I’m completely nondenominational when it comes to genre because all I can hear is chords, melody, and lyrics. It’s never been separated to me. When I’m performing live, I relish getting to lean in and bring together genres. I love using the setlist to show an audience how similar different genres are. For example, I’ll play a punk rock song and right after that I’ll sit at the piano and sing a ballad. My voice will be a little different, but it’s still my voice. Just like in acting, no matter what character an actor is portraying, it’s still their face and their body. Trying to minimize a distance between genres when I perform is an exciting prospect because I like getting audiences to rethink what they think they know about the differences between genre and how really at the end of the day it’s all just storytelling. So…I like performing it all.

I didn’t say you couldn’t say you liked everything. [Chuckles] That’s a perfectly acceptable answer.

I like putting all of it together specifically to show the similarities. Historically, all the great steps forward in a new kind of art form have been by mashing two or three seemingly unrelated things together. It’s happening constantly. It’s happening right now. Culture is a constant conversation back and forth. It’s a sharing of ideas that ebb and flow to create something new. I’m not saying that I’m taking part in this ancient conversation, but I’m certainly enjoying it. When I see pieces of it that I would like to showcase, I jump at the opportunity to do so.

Since ‘Masquerade’ has been in your creative bank for a while, what would you say inspired it?

Every song has its own inspiration. The album doesn’t really have an inspiration. If anything, I’m trying to make sure that I can show up for myself. I feel like with everything that I’ve done musically, I haven’t gotten to represent who and what I am and what I do. To me, this EP gets me closer to that goal. I still think that only a small percentage of me has been represented and that’s just because of time. I haven’t been able to focus on music in the way that I’d like, but ‘Masquerade’ is a huge stride for me.

Speaking of you being on Broadway, Elsie Fest is Sunday! On top of it just being exciting because it’s back, it’s your first public gig in almost two years. What did you miss most about the festival?

Listen, even without a global pandemic to worry about, putting on a music festival is hard enough. It’s one of my favourite times of the year because I’m very proud of what we’ve built and what we’ve continued to build and expand upon over the years. There’s been a community that has been built around not only people that come to the festival but people that have been part of it. I’ve followed these performers’ careers and I’ve been really grateful that we got a piece of their magic and got to be part of their journey at Elsie Fest. Magic which I can’t take credit for. I just lucked out with having incredible people perform. Over the years, we’ve had Cynthia Erivo perform twice. The first time she premiered a song called ‘You Will Be Found’ from a musical that would open in a year called ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’ We premiered a song from a movie called ‘The Greatest Showman.’ Keala Settle went on to win a Golden Globe for that song. Last year, we had a young girl from Disney sing for us — her name was Olivia Rodrigo. Those are just three examples. There’s been a lot of people that I’ve been thrilled to see do their thing. This year we have an incredible lineup. Barlow & Bear are coming, along with Jordan Fisher, Adrienne Warren, Pentatonix’s Kirstin Maldonado, and Alex Brightman. It’s gonna be great.

The obvious and the biggest answer is getting to perform live within as much of a safe and comfortable environment as humanly possible. Luckily we’re an outdoor festival, so that’s already to our advantage. I will be performing this new EP, but there is also a lot of music to catch up on and a lot of music I want to share. I’m mainly excited to share it with other human beings. I look at performing as a service industry. Everything that I do isn’t worth a whole lot unless other people experience it because it takes on a life of its own. The audience is not there for me & I’m there for them. I’m trying to service an experience that’s bigger than both of us and create something that couldn’t have been there if both parties were on their own.

Before I let you go, I need to tell you that Tramp Stamp Granny’s is one of my favourite bars in LA. I’m obsessed! I haven’t made it back yet. Like I said earlier, the editor Kelsey is also one of my best friends and when she comes, it’s top on my list of places to take her.

Really?! That makes me so happy. You couldn’t have said a better thing. We’re open again to limited capacity. We require vaccinations cards at the door and we’re only open Thursday-Saturday. Talk about being with people — the night we reopened, about a month ago, I got pretty emotional. It was nice to see people just being happy to sing and celebrate life with strangers. That was a really encouraging sentiment because despite the use of digital communication which I do think is an amazing thing, we, so clearly, inevitably, yearn for each other. Despite everything, people were coming to the bar and were so happy to be there and be around other people. Our need for other human beings is a constant that is extremely encouraging to me as a bleeding heart idealist. It’s nice to be a small part of that.

Finally, you said earlier Barlow and Bear were going to be at Elsie Fest. I cannot wait for the Unofficial Bridgerton Musical and was so excited to see you’re involved.

It’s cool meeting them because in a much more organized and impressive fashion they’re doing what my friends and I did ten years ago with ‘A Very Potter Musical.’ They are insanely talented and deserve to be the huge phenomenon they have become. They’re the future. I’m trying to grab onto their coattails however I can. [chuckles] They’re just getting started. I’ve been a big fan of Emily’s for a long time. She hates it when people say this, but [mock yells] she was a child prodigy and she still is. She’s an amazing human being.

Masquerade is out now.

Follow Darren Criss @darrencriss

Interview by Sydney Bolen

[entertainment]

Entertainment Spotlight: Sherry Cola, Good Trouble

You may recognize comedian, actress, and writer Sherry Cola as Alice in Freeform’s Good Trouble. Additional TV credits include jewelry maker Natalie on I Love Dick, special agent Lucy Chen on Claws, and the iconic Lil’ Tasty. On the big screen, she can be seen in the upcoming Endings, Beginnings with Shailene Woodley, Jamie Dornan, and Sebastian Stan, and in the indie Sick Girl with Nina Dobrev and Wendi McLendon-Covey. No stranger to ambition in comedy, Sherry is also a successful stand-up comedian, performing regularly at The Laugh Factory, The Improv, and The Comedy Store. Sherry took a few minutes to chat with us about comedy, Good Trouble, and more. Check it out:

What is your experience of portraying comedy-aspiring first-generation Asian-American Alice? Can you talk about any similarities or differences between you?

I’m grateful to play a character that I never saw on TV when I was growing up. The deeper we get into filming these episodes, the more I realize how much it’s been missing. From speaking Mandarin to her best friend/ex-lover to diving into stand-up as a queer Asian female, Alice’s journey is so specific and overdue. Alice is adorably apologetic and she’s still finding her voice.

I’d say I’m more outspoken than she is, but we’re also similar in people-pleasing to the point of getting us in trouble. I heavily relate to Alice because I also have an immigrant mother who wasn’t well-versed about the LGBTQ+ world at first, but the more we show these stories on the screen, the more we can open minds!

Can you tell us about any funny or wholesome moments on the set of Good Trouble?

The scene in the pool for Malika’s birthday was super fun. It was almost 4 AM, and we’d already been floating in the water for 2 hours. I gotta give it up to our incredible crew for nailing all the messy shots of people jumping/falling in. It was hilarious being in that cloudy, chlorine-less human soup, just splashin’ around like little kids. Our entire cast adores each other so we’re always in good company. It’s a celebration when we have those big group moments.

Do you have a routine before you go up on stage to do stand-up? What is it, and how did you come up with it?

I do lots and lots of breathing because I’m nervous right before I hop on stage, no matter what. I also get very thirsty so I find myself going to the bar last-minute to get water. This happens every single time. I never think ahead and have the water prepared! I look over my jokes to remember which ones I wanna do. Then when I get up there, the throwing-up feeling disappears and I’m on cloud nine!

What is something you wish people knew about being a comedian in the industry as it is today?

Sometimes people take comedians too lightly. We deserve more props! There’s heavy stuff happening behind that microphone. We have the power to educate and touch the audience, in an almost brain-washy fashion, but not in a bad way. I can use jokes to shine a light on something like climate change, and people will walk away with a new perspective. Pretty cool!

If you could give any character on Good Trouble some advice, who would it be and what would you tell them?

This is the first time I’m officially saying this, but I’m team Callie and Gael. Y’all have something special, damn it! The fiery chemistry! It was spicy, but also tender...like a chicken nugget! Please give it another try and make some perfect babies!

Can you tell us a funny joke?

I saw this on a popsicle stick when I was in elementary school, and I’ll never forget it:

Q: What did the girl melon say to the boy melon after he proposed? 

A: We’re too young, we cantaloupe!

What advice would you give to your ten-year-old self?

STAY TRUE TO WHO YOU ARE! Things that made me self-conscious back then like non-American food that I’d take to school, or the fact that I never wore make-up, and just the general vibe of being unordinary - now I fully embrace it!

Who do you look up to?

I can’t even count on my fingers/toes/teeth/strands of hair how many people I look up to! From Sandra Oh to Lena Waithe… I have respect for all women of color who are pushing the culture forward. They motivate me to keep going so I can make just as strong of an impact.

Who inspires you?

My mom inspires the hell out of me. She came to this country and busted her ass off to make sure I have a comfortable life. Money means nothing compared to the feeling of making her proud. I get all my work ethic from her, from giving 110% to the importance of being on time, so she gets all the credit!

Can you tell us how Lakers-loving, jersey-wearing, Timberland-rocking Lil’ Tasty came about?

Lil’ Tasty is dear to my heart! She was a viral queen in 2016 because she was a breath of fresh air who said the most darn things. My friends Adam Episcopo and Rick Schaberg started a mockumentary-style series on Facebook called “Luber” which showed the lives of drivers who got rejected from Lyft/Uber. They asked me to create a character and naturally, as a lover of hip-hop, I knew this girl had to come equipped with obnoxious freestyle raps. Then I found an old Kobe jersey in my closet (RIP to the GOAT) and the rest was history. We shot these silly videos on a whim. We never expected to hit millions of views. Since then, Lil’ Tasty has built quite a fanbase, and I still have some things up my sleeve, so stay tuned!

If you could wake up as one of your characters tomorrow, who would it be, and why?

Waking up as Nuocki Mum would be dope. She’s an older Vietnamese lady who tries to keep up with the times. She’s completely oblivious but means well. She hits the nightclubs every weekend to stay young. I wouldn’t mind that!

Thanks for taking the time, Sherry! Check out the Good Trouble Tumblr for more.

Photos: Storm Santos

[gladerwolfstarkimagines]

Mesmerised: Mai x female reader - Imagine being a singer and capturing the attention of the stoic knife expert herself.

Mai’s POV

Mai had never liked singing. 

Ever. 

She found every singer hurt her ears or was just dreadfully dull. She was sure music was the most over-rated form of art....until she heard you sing. 

Mai was truly perplexed and intrigued by her fondness for your singing, it was almost unantural the effect it had on her and Mai had no idea why it affected her so much. She had been walking home one day when your voice drifted out from a cafe. It had tugged at her and she found herself slowing down. She’d never heard a voice like yours. There was something so appealing about it, something so...emotion-provoking, Mai actually felt something stir in her. This had never happened to her and Mai was both surprised and alarmed at the sensation. She carried on walking and shrugged it off but you lingered on her mind. She wondered who sang like that and why she hadn’t heard that song before. It was comforting and beautiful but she knew she had never experienced anything like it before. Your voice played over and over again in her head until finally, Mai gave in. She walked back to the cafe at the same time the next day and ordered a drink. She noticed there was a stage so she took a seat with a good view and waited. As time ticked by she was ready to leave and abandon her fool's errand when you appeared. When she saw you she just knew you were that beautiful voice. Sure enough, when you started to sing the same sensation swept over her, she felt an odd array of emotions and was transfixed by every word. She finally got what people meant when they said music moved them and she liked it. But this new sensation only applied to your music specifically. She realised with an abrupt reminder as the next artist began to perform that she still hated all other music and so she sought yours out to pinpoint exactly what it was that she liked. She came back to the same cafe the next night and then the next and before long she had your schedule memorised. She also learnt the other places you sang at and went to them too. She was slowly becoming a stalker or groupie or something but she still hadn’t figured out what it was that transfixed her and so she came back night after night just to listen to you.

Your POV

You sang at an array of fire nation cafes but even with the hundreds of bars and cafes in the fire nation capital it was difficult to make ends meet. But you’d sought a creative career in a country that favoured efficiency and concrete solutions, what did you expect? You really were a dreamer. You’d noticed this girl had been in the main cafe you sang at every single night you’d been there. Maybe it was just a coincidence and she came here every night anyway but you noticed her in the crowd a lot and hoped she was here for you. She was so mysterious and impressive. She just looked cool and emanated power dressed from head to toe in long black clothes lined sparsely with red. She was very beautiful and you wondered more and more about her every day, what her story was, where she was from, what she did for a living, just everything and anything about her. One day you got your wish.

You stepped outside the bar after a successful gig and there was the girl. She was waiting on the corner yards away from you. She turned as you came outside and your breath caught in your throat. You looked at one another and she stared at you. Her eyes were concentrated and serious adding to her mysterious powerful persona. You blushed at her intense gaze and looked away. She darted her eyes away too but you noticed she kept glancing back over at you. She stepped towards you when suddenly a pink blur appeared. "Mai!" the pink girl cried and she wrapped her arms around her. 

So her name was Mai? 

You smiled, it suited her.

Mai’s POV

"I’ve missed you so much" Ty lee cried still hugging her and Mai let her having learned a long time ago the easiest thing to do was just let Ty lee hug you. "It’s only been a day since we last saw each other" Mai replied dryly."Well you’re so great i missed you even after that amount of time" Ty lee cried kissing Mai’s cheek. Mai rubbed at it annoyed, she didn’t want you getting the wrong idea and thinking Ty lee was her girlfriend. She looked back to see if you were watching and found your spot empty. You’d left. "Is everything okay?". Ty lee asked noticing Mai was staring and she nodded "yeah it’s fine, let's go" and they made their way home.

“We’re home!” Ty lee called as the door swung open and Suki appeared in the corridor “Mai! How was your visit to your family?”. “Boring” she shrugged before pausing “Tomtom is getting so big now” she smiled softly. Suki nodded “I bet! I thought your ship got in at 6?”. “It did, I swung by the lavender inn”. Suki frowned “again? You’ve been going there a lot" she commented and Mai shrugged "i like it there". "Why? It’s not that nice a place" Ty lee frowned and Mai paused "i...i like the staff". When Suki and Ty lee hesitated Mai rushed to cover her back "they serve me quickly, have my order memorised and leave me alone for hours, it’s bliss". Mai could hardly tell them she actually went to lots of different cafes and bars because of a girl and not just any girl but a singer! She knew they’d tease her endlessly for liking a girl so unlike herself and Mai had berated herself over that but she couldn’t help it. You were simply her guilty pleasure and she had no intention of letting you go. 

1 day later

Mai showed up at your usual place the next day and took her regular seat. She was relaxed and ready to hear your music when another girl walked on stage instead. She introduced herself and began to sing. Mai frowned, where were you? She wondered if maybe this girl was the warm-up act but as time stretched on Mai wasn’t so sure. More than a little disappointed Mai discreetly made her way towards the exit. A door leading to the back room opened and Mai heard an argument within. She paused as she recognised your voice. Mai stood casually by the door and listened to what she could hear. You were arguing with someone and it appeared to be over your wages. "I can get more money if I bring in more singers!" a man said and Mai heard you sigh “I’ve had this spot for a year! You can’t just half it, I rely on tips, this will kill my takings”. “That’s not my problem” the man retorted “you either perform here for half the time or go find somewhere else, singers are easy to replace, there are hundreds of performers exactly like you”. You laughed “no there’s not but good look finding one! You can stuff your slot!” you cried and before Mai could react you stormed out from the door past her and exited the cafe. Mai paused and waited an appropriate amount of time before following you. She looked around and saw you’d walked away from the cafe a few feet before you sat on the pavement your head in your hands. Mai watched you, clearly upset, and wondered what she should do...despite her better judgement Mai approached you. "Hey" Mai said and you paused and looked up. "I saw you storm out of the cafe...are you okay?". You nodded your head, your eyes darting over her "i’m fine i just got fired...or quit? I don’t know" you shook your head and Mai frowned. "Well it’s their loss, you're the best performer here". You glanced at Mai curiously "i am?". Mai nodded "i’ve heard you sing quite a few times and nobody sounds like you or does your style...they’ll regret it". You smiled "i have seen you around before and the other night on the corner with your girlfriend!". Mai paused and cursed Ty lee. "That was me but Ty lee isn’t my girlfriend, i don’t have a girlfriend...at least not yet" Mai said and cringed at herself. She wanted you to know she was single and that she liked girls but she’d been so obvious! You chuckled slightly and Mai’s blush rose. "Good to know, your names Mai right?". Mai nodded her head. "My names y/n, it’s nice to finally meet you". Mai smiled "it is". Your eyes met and you looked away first blushing slightly which aided the recovery of Mai’s ego a little. "Can i ask you something?" Mai said fuelled by her burst of confidence. You nodded and she took a breath "so i hate singing, any form of music basically makes me sick to my stomach but i don’t hate yours, I don’t even dislike it!". You paused before smirking "thank you?". "No that didn’t come out right...what i meant was i like your music better than anyone else's and i’ve honestly never heard anyone sing the way you do, so my question is what's your inspiration? Why do you sing so differently?". You paused, that was a big question and you weren’t sure where to start. “Well I mean I’ve always liked to sing, music was my favourite lesson in school but I found there were too many restraints on it! Don’t move when you’re singing, don’t stray from the century-year-old anthems, don’t add any personality to it...” you sighed “I always found it so odd and cruel that we weren’t allowed to just express ourselves but nobody else seemed to, they all called me odd for wanting to sing in a different key or learn a different song. I didn’t fit in with the conventional music...so i quit music classes and practised music in my own way, I found a library book of old songs from before firelord Azulon’s era, apparently they were deemed too unconventional and weak for traditional fire nation custom but I loved them! The songs weren’t harsh or imposing, they were delicate but powerful, emotional but liberating! After I learnt all of those I decided to make more. I’ve developed hundreds of adaptations but the style stayed the same because it feels so free and creative, so un-fire nation. So long story short i guess my style is so different because i rebel against anything that fits with fire nation tradition. I know it’s sacrilegious" you grinned "but i sometimes feel so trapped by all our customs and rules...singing is my rebellion". Mai smiled and you blushed as silence settled "i bet that sounds so overdramatic". Mai shook her head "i know a little about rebelling against the fire nation, it makes sense. It makes me like you...i mean your music even more" Mai said going red. She heard you chuckle under your breath and cursed herself. You went to speak when a voice called out your name. You stood up and waved to the figure "my ride is here". Mai looked down the street where a girl was waiting for you and frowned. She’d embarrassed herself enough so why not push a little more? "Ow...your girlfriend?". You smiled at Mai’s not so subtle question and looked at her "no Loren is just a friend. I don’t have a girlfriend...at least not yet" you said mimicking her earlier response and Mai blushed. "Good to know" Mai said copying you and you smiled at her. "So i should go but it was really nice talking to you Mai, I’ll hopefully see you around?". Mai nodded "yeah I hope so too" and with a smile, you disappeared.

Mai was in excellent spirits when she got home. Not only had she talked to you but she’d flirted (well an attempt at flirting) and she was fairly sure you flirted back. However the best thing was you liked girls and currently didn’t have a girlfriend. Mai kept replaying the smirk on your face when you said “not yet” and was ashamed at the light blush it caused.  Things couldn't have gone better and hopefully she’d see you again soon.

__

Man I love Mai!

She’s in my top 3 for Avatar characters but I find her quite hard to write for because half of her scenes revolve around Zuko so it’s hard to write for her alone when we’ve got so little Mai content!

But either way, this idea came to when I was listening to this classical Chinese song titled 芒种 by 音阙诗听 & 赵方婧 and it’s honestly the most beautiful song i’ve ever heard so I’d really recommend giving it a listen a https://youtu.be/8L2ds1XxrvA. I always have one song on repeat for every imagine I write but this song totally inspired this whole piece and this is how I imagine the reader sings.

Life story over, I hoped you enjoyed the soft cute Mai content!

[captainpikeachu]

So having recently rewatch the first Cap movie for my MCU rewatch, I have so much feels about the ways many things about Steve in this film actually echoes John’s story in TFATWS.

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Steve: Bucky, come on! There are men laying down their lives. I got no right to do any less than them. That’s what you don’t understand. This isn’t about me. Bucky: Right. Cause you got nothing to prove.

In a way, Steve did have something to prove, to prove that he could do his part for the war effort and not be left behind, forgotten, considered worthless, and not given a chance. He fights to have the chance to prove himself. In this way so did John. John comes into the story with a chip on his shoulder, to prove that he could live up to the legacy and the mythology set by Steve. His chance to prove that he could do the right thing and help people.

The thing is though, Erskine did give Steve a chance to prove himself, he believed in Steve and had faith. John never really had someone who would fight for him and believe in him on his behalf to others.

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Phillips: Hodge passed every test we gave him. He’s big, he’s fast, he obeys orders. He’s a soldier. Erskine: He’s a bully. Phillips: You don’t win wars with niceness, doctor. You win war with guts.

I know that everyone consistently compares John to Hodge, that John is what Erskine was afraid of happening and what would have been if Hodge had been given the serum. But that surface level comparison is misleading at best, because when Phillips throws that fake grenade to test everyone’s guts, Hodge runs away. John would have jumped on the grenade just like Steve did. John wouldn’t have hesitated. Hodge was a bully who purposefully tried to mess with Steve in training and mocking him. John didn’t purposefully try to mess around with anyone, he only ever just wanted to do his duty just like Steve did. In fact, John has far more in common with Steve than he ever does with Hodge. 

Phillips said that you win war with guts, and Steve jumping on that grenade showed that he had guts, this links directly to John's comments while doing that GMA interview, he specifically brings up that he may not have flashy gadgets or super-strength but that he has guts and that’s what Captain America always had and needed. And John does have guts, nobody earns 3 Medals of Honor without having guts.

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Erskine: The serum amplifies everything that is inside. So, good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. This is why you were chosen. Because a strong man, who has known power all his life, will lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength, and knows compassion.

This comment from Erskine is often used by fandom to show why John is the wrong choice as opposed to Steve. He’s the bad that becomes worse or the strong man who has had power all his life. But that interpretation is only there if you take everything Erskine says to be a binary choice of good and bad. It’s this automatic assumption that because John is not Steve, then he has to be the bad. Except John is really the middle ground. He has light and darkness within him, it’s a constant civil war, the serum didn’t just amplified everything bad to become worse, it also amplified the good in him to become great. The interpretation that John is a representation of only “bad becomes worse” plainly ignores John’s decision in Episode 6 to let go of revenge to save people. This choice was made AFTER he got the serum, if he is only bad that becomes worse, then he wouldn’t have saved those people. By saving those people, John shows that the serum doesn’t simply work on a binary standard, just like people aren’t binary of only good and only bad. John’s story deepens what the first Cap movie set up about how the serum works, and shows a story progression that is very much like how in real life as kids, we are first taught those fairy tale stories of good versus evil, but we grow up and learn the world is more complex and that people aren’t just one thing or another.

-------------

Senator Brandt: With all due respect to the Colonel, I think we may be missing the point. I’ve seen you in action, Steve. More importantly, the country’s seen it. Paper. The enlistment lines have been around the block since your picture hit the newsstands. You don’t take a soldier, a symbol like that, and hide him in a lab. Son, do you want to serve your country on the most important battlefield of the war? Steve: Sir, that’s all I want. Senator Brandt: Then, congratulations. You just got promoted.

---

Steve: I don’t know if I can do this. Brandt’s Aide: Nothing to it. Sell off a few bonds, bonds buy bullets, bullets kills Nazi’s. Bing bang boom. You’re an American hero. Steve: It’s just not how I pictured getting there.

---

Peggy: I understand you’re "America’s New Hope"? Steve: Bond sales take a ten percent bump in every state I visit. Peggy: Is that Senator Brandt I hear? Steve: At least he’s got me doin’ this. Phillips would have had be stuck in lab. Peggy: And these are your only two options? A lab rat or a dancing monkey? You were meant for more than this, you know?

Steve’s desire for service and duty being manipulated by politicians to sell bonds is the exact same scenario as John’s desire for service and duty being manipulated by politicians to make him the new Captain America. It’s even echoed by Val’s continued manipulations in using John’s loyalty to service and country into getting him to do what she wants. 

Steve was nervous, reluctant, and unsure of going on stage to perform. We saw the same concerns that John had in that locker room before his big interview. Neither Steve nor John wanted the fame and pageantry, they just wanted to do the job, they just wanted to help, but both having to accept that the “dancing monkey” aspect came with the job description. 

But Steve breaks free of the confines of others’ demands of him because Peggy not only points out that he has other options, but also because it was in that moment he discovered that Bucky was either missing or dead and he could do something about it. If Steve wasn’t having that conversation with Peggy, if Steve hadn’t heard that Bucky was missing, then he might have just stayed with the USO tours and been a dancing monkey his whole life. Circumstances arose in Steve’s favor, and he had people who believed in him helping him to get to the goals that he wanted. John on the other hand lost the one person who did have faith in him and there was no way to bring Lemar back, and Val swooped in at the exact right time to give a lost and in-mourning person the opportunity to feel like not everything had been lost.

----------------

Senator Brandt: I am honored to present this medal for valor to my personal friend, Captain America!

This is an interesting moment because I don’t know if this “medal for valor” is a Medal of Honor or not, but if it was, then it makes Steve’s story and John’s story even more of a similar parallel.

-----------------

Private Lorraine: I read about what you did.  Steve: Oh! The…yeah! Well, that’s you know? Just doin’ what needed to be done. Private Lorraine: Sounded like more than that. You saved nearly four hundred men.

When Natalie Dormer’s character comments on how Steve was able to save nearly 400 men and get them back alive, all I could think about was Lemar’s line to John in Episode 4, “think of all the lives we could have saved that day if we had that serum.”

If John and Lemar had the serum on the day of the event that gotten John his Medals of Honor, maybe everyone could have made it back alive, maybe it wouldn’t have been the worst day of John’s life, maybe he wouldn’t have looked at those medals like badges of failure because he couldn’t save everyone.

And it also reminded me of comments from Wyatt Russell during an interview where he mentions that John was in the service while Steve was still operating as Captain America and going around to save the day, but Captain America never saved the day for John. In a way, there is almost a sense of resentment, that Captain America could save the day for everyone else, but John still had to fight through the horrors of war and find a way to survive on his own and protect his men, all without the serum, without Captain America’s help.

--------------------

Peggy: He damn well must have thought you were worth it.

Peggy’s comments to Steve about how Bucky must have thought Steve was worth dying for just reminds me of how Lemar jumped in to tackle Karli and stop her from killing John, all knowing of the risks to his own life, because Lemar definitely thought that John was worth dying for. 

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Anyways, these were just some of the moments that really jumped out at me in regards to how Cap 1 laid a very interesting foundation for what would be John’s story in TFATWS. This is why I love doing occasional rewatches, it really makes you look at the story in new ways when there’s new information that recontextualizes the film.