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my-weird-news · 1 year ago

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🚨 Exposing Rampant AI Publishing Scams! Unbelievable!

AI's Wild Ride: From Scammers to Suckers, Let the Chaos Begin Hey there, folks! Strap in, because AI is like the new kid in town who swears they're going to change everything, but they're facing the classic problem that every flashy tech fad before them has faced: They got the fancy VC funding, but they ain't got a solid business plan, especially for us regular folks. So, what do we do with these huge language-model AIs that can whip up words like an overcaffeinated Shakespeare? It's like having a hyper-intelligent parrot – it talks, but do we really understand what it's saying? So, here's a not-so-novel idea: why not sell that AI-written text? But where, oh where, should we sell it? Somewhere that truth is optional, where wild tales can become literary gold – ah yes, the book market! It's the last haven where people still drop a few coins to get their hands on words. But wait, there's a catch. You can't legally sell AI-made text because, apparently, machine words don't deserve copyright protection (with a few exceptions, because laws love exceptions). But those sneaky scammers are onto it, blending AI into their scheming ways. Imagine publishers having hush-hush meetings, debating how to bring AI into their secretive fold. Meanwhile, authors are sharpening their pens, ready to take on what they're convinced is an AI-powered Armageddon for their craft. It all started with a bang when sci-fi mags cried out, "Help! AI stories are flooding our inboxes!" Apparently, some guru influencers were telling their minions to use AI to whip up short stories and then sell 'em off, as if short stories are suddenly the key to Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth. And then, oh boy, by July, the Author’s Guild was shaking in its quills. These big language models are trained on mountains of text, but here's the kicker: some of that text is swiped from pirate treasure troves known as "shadow libraries." Like, arr matey, isn't that, like, a bit illegal? The Author’s Guild wagged its finger at AI companies, saying, "Yo, you're sipping our creative juices without giving us a sip!" The Guild's letter was like an alarm bell ringing in the AI headquarters. But even with these words of caution, some cheeky influencer decided to crack the AI ebook code on Amazon. They're like, "Hey, I've cracked the secret! Let's churn out AI books and roll in those sweet, sweet royalties. It's like fishing, but for words!" 🎣 And then, kaboom! The AI plot thickens. People started selling "Jane Friedman" books on Amazon, except it's not the real Jane Friedman. It's like AI went to a Halloween party dressed as Jane and stole all her candy – I mean, books! 🎃 Now, none of this stuff is new, folks. Garbage books have been floating around Amazon for ages, like cheap knockoff handbags. People even submitted plagiarized stories to literary magazines before AI turned fancy. What's new is the scale – AI is pumping out content like a factory of malfunctioning robots. It's like a literary equivalent of a chocolate factory, except the chocolates are words, and the Oompa Loompas are rogue AIs. And as if that wasn't enough chaos, some authors went all Judge Judy, slapping lawsuits on OpenAI and Meta, saying they swiped their words for training. It's like a courtroom drama where the witnesses are neural networks and the judge is an old typewriter. Ding ding, order in the court! Meanwhile, in a galaxy not so far away, there's this website called Prosecraft that decided to rank books based on their wordiness, adjectives, and other fancy word things. But hold your horses, it's not even AI – it's an algorithm, like a literary Fitbit. And, you guessed it, authors were like, "Hey, hands off our precious words!" and made such a ruckus that Prosecraft had to pack its bags and sneak away. Oh, but that's not all, folks! The New York Times reveals that around 50 companies jumped on the AI bandwagon, crafting, editing, and marketing books with AI magic. But here's the kicker: publishing is like a pie with tiny, tiny slices, and those slices are getting tinier. A survey said authors make peanuts, and only a handful can afford to live solely off their books. It's like a dystopian movie where writers have to fight each other for crumbs in a word wasteland. 💸 So, there you have it, the wild world of AI chaos. It's like a circus, but instead of clowns, there are schemers and suckers, all riding the AI roller coaster. Let's just hope the AI doesn't learn to write books about AI taking over the world, because that's a whole different can of worms! 🎢📚# AI's Wild Ride: From Scammers to Suckers, Let the Chaos Begin Hey there, folks! Strap in, because AI is like the new kid in town who swears they're going to change everything, but they're facing the classic problem that every flashy tech fad before them has faced: They got the fancy VC funding, but they ain't got a solid business plan, especially for us regular folks. So, what do we do with these huge language-model AIs that can whip up words like an overcaffeinated Shakespeare? It's like having a hyper-intelligent parrot – it talks, but do we really understand what it's saying? So, here's a not-so-novel idea: why not sell that AI-written text? But where, oh where, should we sell it? Somewhere that truth is optional, where wild tales can become literary gold – ah yes, the book market! It's the last haven where people still drop a few coins to get their hands on words. But wait, there's a catch. You can't legally sell AI-made text because, apparently, machine words don't deserve copyright protection (with a few exceptions, because laws love exceptions). But those sneaky scammers are onto it, blending AI into their scheming ways. Imagine publishers having hush-hush meetings, debating how to bring AI into their secretive fold. Meanwhile, authors are sharpening their pens, ready to take on what they're convinced is an AI-powered Armageddon for their craft. It all started with a bang when sci-fi mags cried out, "Help! AI stories are flooding our inboxes!" Apparently, some guru influencers were telling their minions to use AI to whip up short stories and then sell 'em off, as if short stories are suddenly the key to Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth. And then, oh boy, by July, the Author’s Guild was shaking in its quills. These big language models are trained on mountains of text, but here's the kicker: some of that text is swiped from pirate treasure troves known as "shadow libraries." Like, arr matey, isn't that, like, a bit illegal? The Author’s Guild wagged its finger at AI companies, saying, "Yo, you're sipping our creative juices without giving us a sip!" The Guild's letter was like an alarm bell ringing in the AI headquarters. But even with these words of caution, some cheeky influencer decided to crack the AI ebook code on Amazon. They're like, "Hey, I've cracked the secret! Let's churn out AI books and roll in those sweet, sweet royalties. It's like fishing, but for words!" 🎣 And then, kaboom! The AI plot thickens. People started selling "Jane Friedman" books on Amazon, except it's not the real Jane Friedman. It's like AI went to a Halloween party dressed as Jane and stole all her candy – I mean, books! 🎃 Now, none of this stuff is new, folks. Garbage books have been floating around Amazon for ages, like cheap knockoff handbags. People even submitted plagiarized stories to literary magazines before AI turned fancy. What's new is the scale – AI is pumping out content like a factory of malfunctioning robots. It's like a literary equivalent of a chocolate factory, except the chocolates are words, and the Oompa Loompas are rogue AIs. And as if that wasn't enough chaos, some authors went all Judge Judy, slapping lawsuits on OpenAI and Meta, saying they swiped their words for training. It's like a courtroom drama where the witnesses are neural networks and the judge is an old typewriter. Ding ding, order in the court! Meanwhile, in a galaxy not so far away, there's this website called Prosecraft that decided to rank books based on their wordiness, adjectives, and other fancy word things. But hold your horses, it's not even AI – it's an algorithm, like a literary Fitbit. And, you guessed it, authors were like, "Hey, hands off our precious words!" and made such a ruckus that Prosecraft had to pack its bags and sneak away. Oh, but that's not all, folks! The New York Times reveals that around 50 companies jumped on the AI bandwagon, crafting, editing, and marketing books with AI magic. But here's the kicker: publishing is like a pie with tiny, tiny slices, and those slices are getting tinier. A survey said authors make peanuts, and only a handful can afford to live solely off their books. It's like a dystopian movie where writers have to fight each other for crumbs in a word wasteland. 💸 So, there you have it, the wild world of AI chaos. It's like a circus, but instead of clowns, there are schemers and suckers, all riding the AI roller coaster. Let's just hope the AI doesn't learn to write books about AI taking over the world, because that's a whole different can of worms! 🎢📚 Read the full article

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rollingsunblog · 2 years ago

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Who’s Who In Japanese Roleplaying?

Having now looked at some of the distinguishing characteristics of Japanese tabletop RPGs, let’s dive a bit further into the scene’s movers and shakers.

Since the Japanese roleplaying industry has a fairly clear divide between game developers and game publishers, I’ve decided to look at these separately. There is, of course, another important group in the RPG space not covered here: independent developers, who I’ll be exploring in a later post.

PUBLISHERS

Kadokawa

A true media juggernaut, Kadokawa’s businesses include books, magazines, movies, music, games, and even the popular video-sharing portal Niconico - Japan’s answer to YouTube.

The conglomerate initially entered the roleplaying space in the mid-’80s trying to capitalize on the success of Dungeons & Dragons - first by licensing TSR’s D&D novels and gamebooks, later via pushing RPG coverage into its electronic gaming magazine Comptiq. That gamble paid off when Comptiq’s monthly Dungeons & Dragons campaign, Record of Lodoss War - originally pitched as a way to teach newcomers the basics of D&D - became a breakout transmedia hit.

Over the course of the ‘80s and ‘90s, Kadokawa and its subsidiary Fujimi Shobo published a steady stream of original, licensed, and translated games, often based on Kadokawa’s own IP. Its most ambitious project of the era, MAGIUS, was a beginner-oriented universal RPG supported by 30-odd standalone releases covering franchises from Tenchi Muyo! to Neon Genesis Evangelion. However, the line’s sales fell short of expectations; this, coupled with an overall decline in RPG sales, saw Kadokawa effectively withdraw from the market in the late ‘90s.

After the release of D&D’s Third Edition in 2000, Kadokawa became notably more active in the tabletop space again, both directly and indirectly: in 2004, the conglomerate acquired the parent company of fellow publisher Enterbrain, who had been pushing out notable works like FEAR’s popular Night Wizard and the 6th Edition of Call of Cthulhu. Kadokawa would continue to release dozens of RPGs through Enterbrain and Fujimi Shobo until 2013; following an extensive restructuring, the company’s RPG output is now published directly under the Kadokawa name.

Kadokawa’s clout and aggressive media mix strategy created additional mainstream visibility for RPGs and RPG-adjacent properties like Record of Lodoss War during the hobby’s boom years.

Shinkigensha

The other heavyweight in the industry, Shinkigensha was founded in 1940 but only formally incorporated in 1982. At that time, the company was best known as a publisher of computer guides, but soon diversified into fantasy and military reference books as well a small number of RPG products.

Following the gradual revival of the roleplaying market in the early 2000s, Shinkigensha significantly stepped up its activities in the space, investing in translations of high-profile titles like White Wolf’s New World of Darkness line and the 4th Edition of Shadowrun alongside a variety of homegrown releases. In 2003, Shinkigensha also launched Role & Roll - at that time Japan’s first new roleplaying-focused magazine in almost a decade - in collaboration with gaming company Arclight. “Roll and Roll RPG” would subsequently become the publisher’s dedicated imprint for tabletop releases.

Like Kadokawa, Shinkigensha maintains a sizeable portfolio of original and translated games, the undisputed crown jewel of which is Call of Cthulhu - currently Japan’s most popular RPG by a significant margin. The publisher also has cultivated a fruitful relationship with the developer Adventure Planning Service, whose Saikoro Fiction line has become a staple in Shinkigensha’s Role & Roll RPG output over the past decade.

Hobby Japan

Hobby Japan is the epitome of “from humble beginnings.” The company started off as an import shop selling foreign-made die-cast cars, but grew dramatically in the ‘70s and ‘80s by expanding into areas like model kits and wargaming. In 1984, Hobby Japan released Japan’s first translated RPG, Traveller, marking the beginning of a four-decade-long relationship with the roleplaying market.

While the company is probably best known for its localized games, Hobby Japan’s output during the boom era included several notable originals, including Metal Head - Japan’s first cyberpunk RPG - the sci-fantasy mech saga Wares Blade, and the first edition of FEAR’s Tenra Bansho. Hobby Japan’s Tactics magazine - later retooled as RPG Magazine - also served as an important early voice for the industry, creating greater awareness for the hobby among the Japanese public.

Unlike Kadokawa and Shinkigensha, Hobby Japan trades almost exclusively in translated titles these days. For nearly twenty years, they were WotC’s official D&D licensee in Japan, overseeing localization of the game’s Third, Fourth, and Fifth Editions before WotC semi-abruptly revoked their publishing rights in late 2022. The company currently handles the Japanese editions of Cyberpunk RED, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and the D&D 5E-compatible Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos.

Tsukuda Hobby

An off-shoot of one of Japan’s more notable toy manufacturers, Tsukuda Hobby was also a pivotal force in the embryonic tabletop scene, publishing the country’s first homegrown RPG, Enterprise, its first fantasy RPG, Roads to Lord, and its first generic ruleset, WARPS. Despite this, the company never seemed to achieve the kind of success its competitors saw and left the tabletop market in 1993, ultimately going bust just a decade later.

Shinwa

Formerly an importer of American wargames, Shinwa struck it big when it secured the D&D license, but was unable to sustain its momentum once Group SNE’s Sword World entered the market in 1989. After its localization of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition failed to find an audience, Shinwa abandoned the roleplaying industry, sliding into obscurity and bankruptcy soon after.

Shinwa during its heyday in 1989. [IMAGE: Meyjuka/MESGamer]

DEVELOPERS

Group SNE

Formally incorporated by sci-fi translator turned gaming evangelist Hitoshi Yasuda in 1987, Group SNE could arguably be seen as Japan’s answer to TSR. Thanks to the one-two punch of its phenomenally popular Record of Lodoss War campaign series and the blockbuster RPG it eventually spawned, Sword World, this small company dominated the early years of the roleplaying industry. Beyond its own creations, Group SNE also oversaw the localization of many major Western properties, including Shadowrun, Mechwarrior, GURPS, Tunnels & Trolls, Earthdawn, and the D&D Rules Cyclopedia.

Following the release of Magic: The Gathering, Group SNE pivoted to collectible card games with 1997′s popular Monster Collection, one of the Japan’s first homegrown CCGs. Unfortunately, subsequent titles proved significantly less popular, and by the mid-2000s, the company renewed its focus on the tabletop space with Sword World 2.0 in 2008, which was followed by Sword World 2.5 in 2018.

Group SNE’s more recent output has included localizations of Kenneth Hite’s Trail of Cthulhu and the anthropomorphic fantasy RPG Pugmire, licensed RPGs based on the Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and Goblin Slayer franchises, and a number of original board and card games. The company also produces the quarterly magazine GM Warlock, which covers a variety of analog hobbies.

Key Works: Record of Lodoss War, Sword World, Crystania, Demon Parasite

Far East Amusement Research

More popularly known as “FEAR,” Far East Amusement Research represents the second generation of Japanese RPG talent, coming to prominence just as the country’s roleplaying market started collapsing in the mid-’90s. Born from a collective of experienced writers and designers, FEAR played a major role in the hobby’s transition to a more narrative type of play and was instrumental in popularizing the use of structured, scene-based game sessions.

In its earliest years, the company struggled to get its titles to market as more and more publishers withdrew from the roleplaying space, ultimately opting to establish its own publishing and distribution arm, Game Field, alongside a monthly magazine called Gamers Field. As a result, from 1998 to 1999, FEAR was virtually the only significant source of new RPGs in the Japanese market.

Unlike its competitors, the company has never ventured too far outside of the tabletop genre. The one notable exception is its work in the video game industry: since the mid-’90s, FEAR’s staff have provided story and world-building support for a number of titles, including Square Enix’s Octopath Traveler and Bravely Default II.

Key Works: Tokyo N◎VA, Tenra Bansho, Seven = Fortress, Double Cross, Night Wizard, Alshard, Arianrhod

Arclight

Technically no longer an independent developer - the business has been wholly owned by Shinkigensha since 2020 - but bears mentioning all the same. Arclight started out in the play-by-mail market as a branch office of the company You-En-Tai before going independent in 1998. After a brief stint in electronic gaming, the company refocused its operations around the analog scene, and now develops and publishes a broad slate of board, card, and roleplaying titles. Its most prominent property by far is the Japanese edition of Call of Cthulhu, which Arclight has overseen since launching its 6th Edition back in 2003; in addition, the company currently handles Japanese localization for Pathfinder and Shadowrun.

CoC aside, Arclight is arguably more notable for its general business activities than its game releases: the company operates dozens of specialty retail outlets in addition to providing editorial oversight for the monthly RPG magazine Role & Roll and organizing Game Market, one of Japan’s most significant analog gaming events.

Key Works: Call of Cthulhu (6E/7E), Pathfinder (1E), Shadowrun (5E)

The now-defunct Akihabara branch of Arclight’s Role & Roll Station, one of the company’s three retail chains.

Adventure Planning Service

Formed in 1987 by designer Koji Kondo (近藤功司) - not to be confused with the legendary Nintendo composer - APS has had three distinct incarnations over the years. During the RPG boom, the group’s claim to fame was its generic rule system Apple Basic, which underpinned most of its early releases, including 1991′s Kiki’s Delivery Service-indebted cult classic Witch Quest. By the early ‘90s, however, Kondo and his colleagues shifted their attention to the electronic gaming market, providing production, planning, and story support for various titles across six console generations in addition to penning an assortment of strategy guides and fanbooks.

The company’s return to roleplaying in the late 2000s was driven by the arrival of developer Toichiro Kawashima (河嶋陶一朗), whose Saikoro Fiction system now powers a majority of APS’s releases. To date, there have been over a dozen Saikoro Fiction titles, most notably multi-genre horror RPG Insane, modern-day wizarding game Magicalogia, and contemporary ninja drama Shinobigami.

Key Works: Witch Quest, Satsupe, Labyrinth Kingdom, Shinobigami, Insane, Magicalogia

ORG

Though effectively inactive in the tabletop space now, ORG was one of the very first RPG development groups to go professional. Its founder, Masayuki Onuki (大貫昌幸), earned his spurs translating the original D&D and would subsequently author WARPS, an anime-inspired universal system emphasizing high power levels and flashy action, which released soon after ORG’s establishment in 1987.

Whlie the company developed a number of original and licensed roleplaying games in the ‘90s, it is perhaps most fondly remembered for Legend of Double Moon (ダブルムーン伝説), a play-by-mail “reader participation” RPG featured in the gaming magazines Marukatsu Famicom and Marukatsu Super Famicom from 1989 to 1993. Following Onuki’s death in 1993, ORG largely refocused its activities on the CCG market, helming tie-ins like the Digimon and Monster Hunter card games.

Key Works: WARPS, Legend of Double Moon

#tabletop roleplaying #pen and paper roleplaying #rpgs #trps

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independentaussie · 2 years ago

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Drawing From My Infinite Dark Well

When I was hungry for success, I used to rise at 5.00 am and write for 2 hours straight before getting ready for my paid job. There was no shortage of material. I had a bottomless dark well from which I could draw. The stories flowed. Some contained barely restrained anger; others reflected my deep cynicism about how the world worked. A few seemingly came out of nowhere. An exception to the rule was an award-winning story called Rosa's Place, which drew on some song lyrics, a chance experience and fairly well-worn tropes. Every morning without fail. I used to subscribe to this paperback monthly called Scavenger's Newsletter. It would list all the small press magazines accepting submissions. I'd pick out the most likely and submit my work. Everything was done by snail mail. The process from submission to rejection or occasional acceptance was treacle-like. Getting published was such a buzz, but the remuneration was barely enough to pay for stamps and paper. The competition was intense. Many well-known writers were ploughing the same fields. The business model was not sustainable, but I loved writing and hated my job. There are a lot of ways to earn a crust writing, but your head and heart have to be in them. You can't bluff your way through. One of the worst decisions I have made in my writing career was to stop drawing from the dark well and focus on "more profitable" writing channels. I covered the dark well and relied upon my conscious skills to fulfil whatever I thought I was looking for. The last piece I wrote was what felt like the opening chapter of a sci-fi/dark fantasy novel. But I didn't know what to do with it. It felt like I'd written myself into a dark corner without planning a way out. Other more lucrative writing projects beckoned, and the story was allowed to sit forgotten. My life took a severe turn for the worse for a while. That usually happens when we forget who we are and try to be someone else. I'm not going to retread that old ground. Been there, done that, moved on. Part of my recovery involved extensively writing about elements of my life that I had suppressed and ignored. The process was cathartic not only because it allowed me to confront my demons but more importantly, it allowed me to tap into that subconscious part of me where the good stuff comes from. Ultimately, that process resulted in my book Postcards From Hell, which I think put a final full stop to what had been a traumatic but necessary period. One of the things that learned over that period is that we can't run from who we are. I uncovered the dark well and peered into the depths. Was there anything still there? I didn't know for sure, but I had to find out. My old material was dusted off and reread. Some of it seemed better than I remembered. Bits needed to be polished, but there were good stories there -stories that deserve to see the light of day. I got excited. That piece that felt like the beginning of a novel has been reprised, and I'm now eight chapters in and drawing from the dark well daily. So the plan for the coming year is simple - 1/Release the best of my stories in collections of short stories, Dark Weird Stuff due out on January 6, 2023, and - Dark Byways of Possibility which will be released as an eBook only two weeks later. 2/ Finish this novel that has a working title of Elsewhere 3/ Find whatever else is waiting to be drawn from my dark well. It feels like I've come home.

Read the full article

#horror #sciencefiction #speculativefiction #writing

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tabbycasto · 3 years ago

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Hello 2022 Brides ! I’ve been getting lots of enquires so I thought I’d pop on here to mention a few bits ✨

💐 If you’re looking for a wedding mua, send me an email (link in bio), I will send you the details of my fees & protocols of how I work. I tend to always reccomend having a Trial with just the 2 of us, taking between 2-3 hours to come up with a look that’s just right for you! This is a good chance for us to get to know one another & try a few different products to find out what’s best ! I reccomend having trials in the AM so you can wear the makeup for as long as possible to get a clear idea of how the makeup looks & feels to you throughout the day.

💐 I get asked a lot if I do Wedding Hair, unfortunately I do not, occasionally you’ll see hair credits in my portfolio as I do basic hair sometimes for commercial work, but I don’t offer wedding hair. I can however recommend some amazing hair dressers if needed.

💐 I mainly work in & around London

💐 I’ve had my work published in some of the top Wedding Magazines including @rocknrollbridemagazine , Your London Wedding, @bridalmusings & more ! Please see the bridal section of my professional portfolio for more imagery www.tabbycasto.com & checkout my bridal blog https://thebridalstories.tumblr.com for some inspo & photos of some of my previous brides ✨

💐 Don’t forget, you can also book in for a pre wedding mani pedi pamper session as I also offer hand & foot treatments, as well as wedding nails !

💐 Please note I’m currently still only operating with 1 person at a time in the treatment room due to Covid. I’m working in PPE daily & taking lateral flows regularly

If you’ve been in touch about your wedding day & are interested in booking, Saturdays in March - July are starting to fill up! To avoid disappointment, get booked in ASAP. I tend to get an influx of last minute requests, but can’t always accommodate these, get your trial booked in as soon as you can 🙃

Image Credits Your London Wedding: 💄by Me, 💇🏻‍♀️ @londonbridalhair 📸 @curious_rose 🌸 @harrietparryflowers Model Laura Gardiner

#londonwedding #weddingmakeup #makeupartist #londonmakeupartist #bridalmakeup

#london #beauty #makeup #bride #bridetobe #london makeup artist #makeupartist #makeup artist #mua #tabby casto makeup artist #londontown

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harrisonarchive · 3 years ago

Photo

George Harrison, 1969; photo by Apple Scruff Cathy Sarver, screenshot from the documentary Beatles Stories: A Fab Four Fan’s Ultimate Road Trip.

Spotlight on... Apple Scruffs.

“Outside the studio door [at Trident in London], whether it rained or not, there was always a handful of Apple Scruffs, they called them — Beatles fans. One was a girl all the way from Texas. Sometimes George would record from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., and there they would be, waiting through the night [...]. In the morning they’d go off to their jobs and in the evening they'd be back outside the studio door again. Their grapevine was infallible. I wasn’t there a minute when they knew that ‘Big Al from New York’ was inside.” - Al Aronowitz, The Blacklisted Journalist, July 2001 (x)

“A lot of [Apple] Scruffs had a George fixation. We used to call him ‘The Body’ because we imagined what he was like underneath. Very skinny, all muscle, you know? We had a Beatle blanket to keep us warm during the night and we were in our sleeping-bags outside Abbey Road while George was recording ‘All Things Must Pass.’ George drove in and we scrambled to get out of sleeping-bags, George got distracted by the blanket that was hung up over the railings and drove his new BMW straight into the wall. We couldn’t stop laughing. We had a good little routine going. We had our breakfast out there under the tree — milk, cornflakes, a few little provisions to make the experience bearable. Often we’d stay out all night, see The Beatles, go home, wash and then go off to work. Anyway, Phil Spector comes toddling out and asks what we were doing. ‘Breakfast,’ we said. ‘Can I have some?’ So there we were, the dawn breaking over London, crouched under a tree with Phil Spector munching on cornflakes and he’s really enjoying himself! Phil was lovely to us, he understood exactly why we were out there. He sent us a letter when All Things Must Pass was finally out addressed to the Apple Scruffs at ‘The Steps,’ 3 Savile Row. He used to send us cards and was always enquiring how his Apple Scruffs were doing.” - Gill Pritchard, MOJO, October 1996 (x)

One Apple Scruff, Carol Bedford, wrote a book, Waiting For ‪The Beatles‬, published in 1984. “I think an awful lot about the Scruffs has been misinterpreted. The other Beatles did not look down upon us, in fact a magazine used to be published by the Scruffs that George, John & Ringo used to have copies of. I would urge people to try to see were reality began & fantasy ended with Carol Bedford’s book, sadly she upset quite a few people including George.” - Gill, songfacts dot com

“There was always a little knot of them [the Apple Scruffs]. They weren’t fashion model types, they were just little girls — just kids. [George] always took time to have a word with them, and I seem to remember him going out with tea for them sometimes when it was cold. I was impressed with how caring he was about these girls. I’ve been around a lot of other folks who have quite a different way of dealing with people, let’s put it that way.” - Bobby Keys, George Harrison: Behind The Locked Door

“George stopped close to Apple Studios, where, as ever, a group of fans was waiting. ‘Hi Liz, how are you, how’s your mum? Is she still in hospital?’ That was typical of George. He always greeted everyone personally and had a few kind words for you too.” - Klaus Voormann; translated from Warum spielst du Imagine nicht auf dem weißen Klavier, John?

“I did hear from him again — one last contact between us. In 1975, I listened to George's new album Extra Texture: Read all about it. The first track on side one was You, the song he had told me about at the Apple Christmas party in 1971. He had finally recorded it, four years after writing it. I wrote a cheerful, chatty note to George to thank him for recording it. The song would always bring back happy memories for me. By return post, I received George’s letter. It was addressed to ‘Carol Bedford’ which pleased me because I had signed ‘Carol from Texas.’” - Carol Bedford, Waiting For The Beatles (x)

“We used to curse The Beatles sometimes under our breath whenever it was too cold or they ignored us, and that night it was particularly cold and we were particularly miffed. It was 6am and me and Carol Bedford, who was a big George fan, Lucy, Cathy and Margo were all outside Abbey Road. Mal Evans had been looking out through the letter box every so often. He opened the door and said, ‘Come inside girls, George wants to see you.’ We wondered what we’d done. We were ushered into the control room of Studio 3 and George said, ‘Sit down, I’ve got something to play you.’ He was very nervous, pacing up and down. He put this track [‘Apple Scruffs’] on and we all went gooey, it was the first time any of The Beatles had actually acknowledged the Scruffs by name publicly. He told us it was going to be on the album then slipped away in typical George fashion. We all just looked at each other, it was unbelievable. We were so moved we went home in a daze that morning and made him a giant wreath of flowers. When we gave it to him he said, ‘Well you have your own magazine, your own office on the steps, so why not your own song?’” - Gill Pritchard, MOJO, October 1996

“It was like he had seen it all, understood how we felt and, most of all, knew that we weren’t just sad, stupid girlies.” - Wendy Sutcliffe, MOJO, October 1996

“Apple Scruffs was played to us about 6am one Sunday morning by George himself, Mal came out onto the steps at Abbey Road & took us into studio 3 to hear it.” - Gill, songfacts dot com

“George, in particular, always had a problem with the fans, being naturally shy and a bit diffident, but he grew very fond of them [the Apple Scruffs] because he got to know them and they were there when he was going through some bad times [in 1970].” - Derek Taylor, MOJO, October 1996 (x)

“When George finished the song ‘Apple Scruffs’, he asked us to all come in. And of course, we were dumbfounded because we were never asked to come in. We’re all sitting in there and they turn on the song ‘Apple Scruffs’. ‘Apple Scruffs, how I love you.’ It was amazing. We were all in a little huddle around him. He handed us this letter. [reading in full] ‘Dear Carol, Cathy and Lucy. Now as it’s finished — and off to the factory. I thought I’d tell you that I haven’t a clue whether it’s good or bad as I’ve heard it too much now! During the making of this epic album (most expensive album EMI ever had to pay for) I have felt positive and negative — pleased and displeased, and all the other opposites expected to be found in this material world. However, the one thing that didn’t waver, seems to me, to be ‘you three’ and Mal, always there as my sole supporters, and even during my worst moments I always felt the encouragement from you was sufficient to make me finish the thing. Thanks a lot, I am really overwhelmed by your apparent undying love, and I don’t understand it at all! Love from George (P.S. Don’t hold this evidence against me.) P.P.S. Phil Spector loves you too!’ He was a sweet man.” - Cathy Sarver, Beatles Stories: A Fab Four Fan’s Ultimate Road Trip (x)

#George Harrison #quote #quotes about George #fan recollections #fan recollections: 1960s #Apple Scruffs #screenshots #Harrison fan photo #Harrison correspondence #fits queue like a glove

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phroyd · 3 years ago

Text

Charlie Watts, whose strong but unflashy drumming powered the Rolling Stones for over 50 years, died on Tuesday in London. He was 80.

His death, in a hospital, was announced by his publicist, Bernard Doherty. No other details were immediately provided.

The Rolling Stones announced earlier this month that Mr. Watts would not be a part of the band’s forthcoming “No Filter” tour of the United States after he had undergone an unspecified emergency medical procedure, which the band’s representatives said had been successful.

Reserved, dignified and dapper, Mr. Watts was never as flamboyant, either onstage or off, as most of his rock-star peers, let alone the Stones’ lead singer, Mick Jagger; he was content to be one of the finest rock drummers of his generation, playing with a jazz-inflected swing that made the band’s titanic success possible. As the Stones guitarist Keith Richards said in his 2010 autobiography, “Life,” “Charlie Watts has always been the bed that I lie on musically.”

While some rock drummers chased after volume and bombast, Mr. Watts defined his playing with subtlety, swing and a solid groove.“As much as Mick’s voice and Keith’s guitar, Charlie Watts’s snare sound is the Rolling Stones,” Bruce Springsteen wrote in an introduction to the 1991 edition of the drummer Max Weinberg’s book “The Big Beat.” “When Mick sings, ‘It’s only rock ’n’ roll but I like it,’ Charlie’s in back showing you why!”Charles Robert Watts was born in London on June 2, 1941. His mother, the former Lillian Charlotte Eaves, was a homemaker; his father, Charles Richard Watts, was in the Royal Air Force and, after World War II, became a truck driver for British Railways.Charlie’s first instrument was a banjo, but, baffled by the fingerings required to play it, he removed the neck and converted its body into a snare drum. He discovered jazz when he was 12 and soon became a fan of Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus.By 1960, Mr. Watts had graduated from the Harrow School of Art and found work as a graphic artist for a London advertising agency. He wrote and illustrated “Ode to a Highflying Bird,” a children’s book about the jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker (although it was not published until 1965). In the evenings, he played drums with a variety of groups.

Most of them were jazz combos, but he was also invited to join Alexis Korner’s raucous rhythm-and-blues collective, Blues Incorporated. Mr. Watts declined the invitation because he was leaving England to work as a graphic designer in Scandinavia, but he joined the group when he returned a few months later.

The newly formed Rolling Stones (then called the Rollin’ Stones) knew they needed a good drummer but could not afford Mr. Watts, who was already drawing a regular salary from his various gigs. “We starved ourselves to pay for him!” Mr. Richards wrote. “Literally. We went shoplifting to get Charlie Watts.”In early 1963, when they could finally guarantee five pounds a week, Mr. Watts joined the band, completing the canonical lineup of Mr. Richards, Mr. Jagger, the guitarist Brian Jones, the bassist Bill Wyman and the pianist Ian Stewart. He moved in with his bandmates and immersed himself in Chicago blues records.In the wake of the Beatles’ success, the Rolling Stones quickly climbed from being an electric-blues specialty act to one of the biggest bands in the British Invasion of the 1960s. While Mr. Richards’s guitar riff defined the band’s most famous single, the 1965 chart-topper “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” Mr. Watts’s drum pattern was just as essential. He was relentless on “Paint It Black” (No. 1 in 1966), supple on “Ruby Tuesday” (No. 1 in 1967) and the master of a funky cowbell groove on “Honky Tonk Women” (No. 1 in 1969).

Mr. Watts was ambivalent about the fame that he achieved as a member of the group that has often been called “the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band.” As he said in the 2003 book “According to the Rolling Stones��: “I loved playing with Keith and the band — I still do — but I wasn’t interested in being a pop idol sitting there with girls screaming. It’s not the world I come from. It’s not what I wanted to be, and I still think it’s silly.”

As the Stones rolled through the years, Mr. Watts drew on his graphic-arts background to contribute to the design of the band’s stage sets, merchandise and album covers — he even contributed a comic strip to the back cover of their 1967 album “Between the Buttons.” While the Stones cultivated bad-boy images and indulged a collective appetite for debauchery, Mr. Watts mostly eschewed the sex and drugs. He clandestinely married Shirley Anne Shepherd, an art-school student and sculptor, in 1964.

On tour, he would go back to his hotel room alone; every night, he sketched his lodgings. “I’ve drawn every bed I’ve slept in on tour since 1967,” he told Rolling Stone magazine in 1996. “It’s a fantastic nonbook.”Similarly, while other members of the Stones battled for control of the band, Mr. Watts largely stayed out of the internal politics. As he told The Weekend Australian in 2014, “I’m usually mumbling in the background.”Mr. Jones, who considered himself the leader, was fired from the Stones in 1969 (and found dead in his swimming pool soon after). Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards spent decades at loggerheads, sometimes making albums without being in the studio at the same time. Mr. Watts was happy to work with either, or both.

“Never call me your drummer again,” he told Mr. Jagger, before grabbing him by the lapel and delivering a right hook. Mr. Richards said he narrowly saved Mr. Jagger from falling out a window into an Amsterdam canal.“It’s not something I’m proud of doing, and if I hadn’t been drinking I would never have done it,” Mr. Watts said in 2003. “The bottom line is, don’t annoy me.”At the time, Mr. Watts was in the early stages of a midlife crisis that manifested itself as a two-year bender. Just as the other Stones were settling into moderation in their 40s, he got hooked on amphetamines and heroin, nearly destroying his marriage. After passing out in a recording studio and breaking his ankle when he fell down a staircase, he quit, cold turkey.Mr. Watts and his wife had a daughter, Seraphina, in 1968 and, after spending some time in France as tax exiles, relocated to a farm in southwestern England. There they bred prizewinning Arabian horses, gradually expanding their stud farm to over 250 horses on 700 acres of land. Information on his survivors was not immediately available. Mr. Doherty, the publicist, said Mr. Watts had “passed away peacefully” in the hospital “surrounded by his family.”

Eventually the Stones settled into a cycle of releasing an album every four years, followed by an extremely lucrative world tour. (They grossed over a half-billion dollars between 2005 and 2007 on their “Bigger Bang” tour.)But Mr. Watts’s true love remained jazz, and he would fill the time between those tours with jazz groups of various sizes — the Charlie Watts Quintet, the Charlie Watts Tentet, the Charlie Watts Orchestra. Soon enough, though, he would be back on the road with the Stones, playing in sold-out arenas and sketching beds in empty hotel rooms.He was not slowed down by old age, or by a bout with throat cancer in 2004. In 2016, the drummer Lars Ulrich of Metallica told Billboard that since he wanted to keep playing into his 70s, he looked to Mr. Watts as his role model. “The only road map is Charlie Watts,” he said.Through it all, Mr. Watts kept on keeping time on a simple four-piece drum kit, anchoring the spectacle of the Rolling Stones.“I’ve always wanted to be a drummer,” he told Rolling Stone in 1996, adding that during arena rock shows, he imagined a more intimate setting. “I’ve always had this illusion of being in the Blue Note or Birdland with Charlie Parker in front of me. It didn’t sound like that, but that was the illusion I had.”

Phroyd

#rip #rolling stones #charlie watts

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potteresque-ire · 4 years ago

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Not sure if this has circulated before, but here’s a link to Henry Jenkin’s reactions to 227, largely as responses to an interview he did with Sanlian Lifeweek magazine (三聯生活周刊), a publication modelled after TIME magazine and published under China Press Publishing group (中國出版集團), the largest and state-owned publisher in China. The magazine asked for Jenkin’s opinions on the fandom-related aspects of 227 back in March, 2020. Henry Jenkins, as many may already know, is among the most renowned scholars of (Western) fan culture ... if not the most renowned.

Personally, I find this article to be quite limited in perspective, because 227 had a significant non-fandom-oriented, sociopolitical component ~ and hence its scope, its chaos, its damage. IMO, 227 stopped being a fan war, stopped being about solos, cpfs, and even Gg the moment AO3 was shut down ~ the powerful Chinese state had intervened, and the incident necessarily became a political incident. That One Fic on AO3, the conflict between solos and cpfs about whether and where That Fic should exist was at most a lighter left at the scene of what would become the blaze; it wasn’t even responsible for igniting the first fire. Most i-turtles (i-fruits?) are probably aware too at this point: if fan wars are sufficient to start 227, then there wouldn’t have been a 227 ~ because 227 would have been every date of the year.

Fan culture is fundamentally transgressive, and what that means can only be defined in the context of the subculture’s “mainstream” sociopolitical and cultural environment. I therefore find the article’s attempt to transplant Western fan culture’s observations / theories / analysis / conclusions to the incident without explicitly comparing, addressing in depth the differences of the pre- and post-transplant environment to be ... prone to rejections (as organs are after transplantations!)—exclusion from being useful or valid. And this article was very short on such comparisons or address. Jenkins being a fandom expert aside (and he was careful about not treading outside his area of expertise), early “antis” of 227 presented themselves as crusaders for the freedom of speech and, by late March when this article was published, the heated debates surrounding the incident on Chinese social media had already led to embarrassment for multiple powerful state publications. It was probably a wise choice to not make another dive into the political aspects of the incident.

Being a new(-ish) turtle who joined the fandom a full half-year after 227, I’ve been backtracking, trying to really understand the incident, which remains very much beyond comprehension in many aspects. The discussions I’ve dug up that have most fascinated me have been those in non-fandom spaces, by non-fandomers / politics enthusiasts who barely knew who Gg was, who didn’t know That One Fic involved more than one idol and had zero knowledge about solos vs cpfs. In these discussions, “antis” are not referred to as “antis” because while the action of the so-called “227 coalition” was to kill Gg’s career, that wasn’t considered its ultimate goal ~ its ultimate goal was to warn whoever tried to clamp down the freedom of expression that their opposition was strong enough, populous to fight back and take away whatever, whoever those who attempted the clamp-down care the most about. In this case, “Gg fans”—I put this in quotes because eventually, no one would know who would lurk behind those pro-Gg Weibo IDs (and the anti-Gg ones as well)—were the perceived enemies of creative freedom. Gg, assumed to be the one, the symbol of what “GG fans” cared about the most, naturally became the target of the coalition.

Gg wasn’t special in that sense ~ and that was perhaps, the saddest thing I found about this incident as a Gg fan (without quotation marks); Gg could be any idol who achieved top fame at the moment, who had enough fans to make the point known. The coalition was therefore not “anti-Gg” in its ideological sense. It was anti the fan circle culture that had cemented Gg’s popularity, that had already been known to deal extremely poorly with dissent—complaints had been abound that c-ent was no longer fun for bystanders because the latter could issue no critique, not even doubt, about an idol without the fear of being reported, torn down by fans. The coalition eventually grew to include anti the many happenings, the many censorships and imprisonments in the past few years that had silenced the creative crowd in China, happenings people dared not speak about beyond a loud grumbling ...

The coalition tried to take down Gg, because they couldn’t take down the force that had shut down AO3, that was truly responsible for the silencing. They played the Hunger Games in the Weibo arena instead of challenging Who The Real Enemy Was, because some might not have given much thought about The Enemy; some might have thought the Enemy too invincible to be worth the effort; some might have got too carried away by their blood thirst, the cruel schadenfreude of shredding a beautiful, successful young man into pieces, and forgot why they were there in the first place ...

And that was only the political side of 227. 227 was also widely suspected to have a commercial component, which added another layer to the symbolism behind Gg the Idol ~ pretty much as soon as 227 happened, netizens investigated, tried to uncover the chain of capital behind Gg. With the scent of money was the memory of filth associated with it, in a country not exactly unknown for its corrupt business practices. Much like in The Book of Exodus in the Bible, the Idol is believed to be forged with gold; it is ungodly, tainted. Whether Gg the Person was identical to Gg the Idol, Gg the Symbol mattered to few. That Gg *was* a person seemed lost to many ...

I’ll have to dive into the non-fandom aspects of 227 with more rigour. As much as I'd love to leave 227 behind, every time I see Gg, I see its legacy on his face, in his smile, and perhaps, I’m not the only one ~ ADLAD cast him as Patient #5 because of 227′s effect on him. Put it another way, 227 is already modifying, writing Gg’s career trajectory ~ a trajectory that is undoubtedly under scrutiny by many who wish to duplicate his success but circumvent his pain. And every time I see a young idol—Gg, Dd, and anyone else—I wonder if the hurt of 227 can happen to them (again) because the crux of the incident has never been resolved; the oppression and silencing have remained strong as ever.

Anyway (sorry for the rant) ... what I found noteworthy about this article was the quotes the magazine highlighted in its published form (in Chinese), which weren’t highlighted by Jenkins on his own website. They reflected what the magazine would like to be the take-home messages of the interview. I’ve listed them below; all of which had Jenkins as the speaker:

[Pie Note: About Real Person Fiction (RPF) in Western fandoms]

“American fans often do have some shared norms about what is and is not appropriate to write, mostly having to do with protecting the privacy of other people in the star’s life. Writing about the star is seen as fair game; writing about their family members is not.”

---

[Pie Note: About GG being “cast” as a transgender woman in The One Fic that started the incident; gender in fandom]

“We write fan fiction as a form of speculation and exploration. For some people, it may be one of the few spaces in the culture where they can express who they are, what they are feeling, what they are desiring. And for others, it is a place of “what if” where they explore in fantasy things they would not necessarily desire in reality.”

---

[Pie Note: Whether GG should be held responsible for his fans’ behaviour]

“Under these circumstances, I would not hold a performer responsible for his fans’ behaviors but the performer is responsible for their own behavior and fans may respond negatively to performers who over-react to the existence of alternative fantasies and insult or hector their audiences.”

---

[Pie Note: About AO3 and why fans were so upset about its closure] “Keep in mind that AO3 is a particular kind of platform. Alongside Wikipedia, AO3 is one of the greatest accomplishments of participatory culture in the digital era.”

---

[Pie Note: About the “problematic” content on AO3]

“Among my findings were that fan fiction sites can be a valuable space for young people to acquire skills (and receive feedback) on their writing from more experienced writers who share these same passions ... That said, while teens have participated in fandom, a large part of those on AO3 are adults, engaging in adult conversations on adult topics.”

---

[Pie Note: About media text in the new media era]

“First, I would stress the proliferation of media texts at the current moment ... We have access to a much broader range of media content than ever before and in this context, fans play a constructive role in curating that content, helping some shows get greater visibility ... Second, these texts have become more malleable”

---

[Pie Note: About idols not producing “good” media texts]

“Rather, the question should be what are fans finding meaningful about these performers and the texts they generate. I start from the premise that human beings do not engage in meaningless activities. I may not immediately recognize why something is meaningful but my job as a scholar is to understand why cultural materials are meaningful to the people who cherish them.”

---

My understanding of this selection of quotes is this: this state publication (as others) was quite ready to forgive Gg, to put this incident behind. It could choose to not publish this interview; it could choose to leave out certain quotes, or not do the highlighting that cast both AO3 and Gg in a positive / innocent light. But it did all these things. This article furthers my impression that the state never intended 227 to blow up the way it did, and that it did—enough for stories about it to be found in non-China websites, and in English—was what I’m still trying to comprehend. 227 was, admittedly, how I was first introduced to Gg beyond Wei Wuxian. And as I got to know Gg, like Gg, my want to understand 227 only becomes stronger, perhaps because only through comprehension I feel I can find peace for the GG fan (again, without quotation marks) in me.

Maybe I should email Dr Jenkins and ask if he’s looking for a PhD candidate. 5 years of research and thinking ... maybe that’s what it’ll take.

I feel I’ve already started anyway.

#pie metas #yizhan #bjyx

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maxwell-grant · 4 years ago

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One last one for the moment; top five superheroes who definitely AREN'T Pulp Heroes, but could be with a little tweaking?

Oof, that's a hard one. It's a hard one because, again, there ultimately isn't that much separation between the two to the point there's enough of a hard line in there to work with, but I guess the cat's out of the bag now that I've staked claims on there being differences between them.

Okay so, not counting superheroes who are deliberately modeled after actual pulp heroes, so no Tom Strong or Night Raven here. I'm sticking mainly with comic book superheroes (barring one oddball exception) since the medium separation is important), who I think could become pulp heroes with some tweaking.

5: Captain America

Sort of cheating because I already covered it here, but I definitely have to include Captain America in here, especially in the stories they actively go for a "pulp" vibe as well as the earliest ones.

Fun fact about Marvel: As Timely, they actually began life as pulp publishers. Not just pulp publishers, but specializing in some of the sleaziest, ghastliest magazines of the era, and you can bet this carried over to their superheroes. Where as DC's superheroes took inspiration from the big pulp heroes such as The Shadow and Doc Savage, Timely's superheroes seemed instead much more inspired by Weird Tales stories and Poverty Row horror films, and even in the 60s, Marvel never really abandoned their horror roots, the trick was just using them as a baseline to create superheroes. In DC, the world's first contact with superheroes begins with the world looking in wonder at a friendly strongman. In Marvel, it began with the world looking in panicked horror at a flaming monster rampaging through the streets desperately trying to not burn everything it touches. It should come to little surprise then that the majority of characters I'm including in this list are Marvel characters.

People think Captain America's first comics largely consisted of him fighting Nazis left and right, but they were actually much more often based around him encountering monsters and creatures of horror, like the above panel where it looks like Cap's staring down the beginning of Berserk's Eclipse (RIP Miura).

The early Captain America comics pretty much consisted of Kirby dipping his toe into the monster comics he'd make in the 50s which would later bleed into the 60s Marvel entourage. They even tried repackaging Captain America into a horror anthology in the 50s titled "Captain America's Weird Tales", just imagine how different the character would be today if that somehow stuck.

Imagine a world where Steve Rogers never became leader of The Avengers, never got to become the shining beacon of heroism of an entire universe, and instead, when he was unfrosted, he woke up to find a world running rampant with crawling nightmares and Nazi tyranny, and he has no idea what's become of his former sidekick. That definitely sounds like the start of a promising pulp adventure.

4: Namor

Another Timely creation. In Namor's case, he didn't so much encounter horrors from beyond imagination, as much as HE was the terrifying thing beyond us ready to rampage upon mankind, whose first on-screen act consists of the calculated slaughter of a ship full of innocents. The first true villain protagonist of comic books. Not just an anti-hero, a villain intent on wiping out the human race.

And not just a cardboard supervillain, but the beautiful prince of a race of ugly fish monsters, a momma's boy who's doing what he thinks is right by warring with surface dwellers. While Namor's become largely defined by his gargantuan arrogance, here, he's almost childlike, despite being much more brutal and villainous here, spurred on by the whims of his mother, who even acknowledges that Namor had no real reason to kill the divers but did so anyway, and now encourages him to genocide. His mom even tells him "Go now, to the land of white people!", and the very last panel of the story even states he's on a "crusade against white men".

The massacre of explorers at the hands of something beyond their understanding. A monster born of an interracial coupling. A race of fish monsters with bulging eyes, antagonistic towards humanity but are shown to have positive traits just the same. A dash of racism. There is no mistaking The Sub-Mariner's pulp horror influence.

A non-white superhuman warrior born from a Lovecraftian horror story, who gradually moves away from his villainous crusade into becoming more of an anti-hero, never truly putting aside his hatred for humanity, remaining a temperamental, unpredictable outcast, with a strong, palpable undercurrent of anger in his stories. I could very easily buy Namor as having crawled out of a Weird Tales story and I can't think of other superheroes whose origins are as steeped deeply in pulp horror.

3: Doctor Fate

Technically we already have a pulp hero version of Doctor Fate in Doc Fate, and I'll get to him separately, but even besides him, the earliest Doctor Fate stories in particular feel very much like he's a character steeped in the worlds of pulp and pulp horror who decided to put on a superhero costume and show up in comic.

He's got a similar set-up to The Shadow, from the pulp Shadow in the sense that he's a mysterious, eerie crimefighter who dwells as a presence more often than an active character and who kills criminals without remorse, always watching and waiting for the right time to strike as a a wrathful old-testament force of vengeance, and from the radio Shadow due to him using superpowers to fight crime while being accompanied by a smart, fierce love interest.

Originally, Fate was not a sorcerer, but instead a scientist who discovered a way to manipulate atomic structure, of his and other things, thus making it appear that he can do magic (although we never see his face, and he's implied to be thousands of years old, before they settled on the Nabu origin). And going back to Lovecraft, a lot of it appears in the earliest Fate stories. Fate was given powers not by a sorcerer, but an alien worshipped as a god. He barely encounters traditional monsters, but instead contends with hidden races, zombie slaves, abandoned alien monoliths, and half man and half fish creatures. Fate may have actually been the very first pastiche of Lovecraft in pop culture.

And of course we can't forget the gloriousness of Doc Fate pulling an Indiana Jones on us.

2: Wolverine

I don't even think you'd have to tweak Wolverine at all. You'd just have to get him out of the costume and Avengers/X-Men associations (although the X-Men have a substantial background in pulp sci-fi stories like Slan and Odd John, so they aren't really at odds here), maybe tone down his powers a bit and, that's it. Logan's already the kind of character who has such a varied sandbox history, whose powers can lead to so many different scenarios, that it's not a stretch at all to picture Wolverine in the usual pulp hero scenarios.

You can have half-naked Wolverine running around in the jungle with animals Tarzan-style, take him to Savage Land if you wanna throw dinosaurs in there. He's already Marvel's foremost "wandering samurai/cowboy" character which was one of the stock and trade types of the pulps. Western? Done. Samurai? Done. Wuxia? Just put him in China and add a couple extra fantasy elements. Wanna make a sword and sorcery story with him? He already comes with a bunch of knives and savagery and ability to survive grisly injuries. Horror? The MCU is crawling with them, or alternatively, tell a story from the perspective of someone who's being hunted down by Wolverine. Wanna tell a detective/noir/post-apocalypse story? Logan's right there.

Wanna have him crossover with pulp heroes? He's lived through the 1800s and 1900s and traveled all over the world, you could feasibly have him meet up with just about any of them. Logan may actually be the purest example of your question, because he's very much not a Pulp Hero, and yet, he definitely feels like a character who could have been one, at just about any point in the history of pulp magazines. He's perfect for it.

1: Wario

WAAA-okay, look, bear with me for a second here, I'm not just picking Wario because I love oddball choices and he's one of my favorite characters, I got some logic to this.

Okay so, the first question here: is Mario a superhero? While I'm usually adverse to calling characters prominent outside of comic books superheroes (hence why I'm definitely not interested in debating whether Harry Potter or Goku or Link or Frodo are superheroes), I do think it's a pretty shut case that, yes, Mario is a superhero. Superheroes don't just come in the form of skintight crimefighters, right from the start comic books have had varied types of superheroes appearing in comics and comic strips. For example, the "funny animal" superheroes are a type older than superhero comics, and they were arguably not only the most successful type of superhero of the 40s-50s era, but arguably defined trends dominating nonfunny animal superheroes, traits that predated or influenced Captain Marvel as well as Otto Binder's reshaping of Superman that defined much of superhero convention as we know it. It's part of why the question of "Is Sonic a superhero" has a very clear Yes as an answer.

So upon establishing that, yes, funny cartoon characters can be and are superheroes too, is Mario one? Well, I'd say yes. He's got an iconic uniform, he's got superpowers, he goes on fantastical adventures, he is both a nebulously general do-gooder as well as having a clear mission as protector of the Mushroom Kingdom. His adventures span multiple storytelling formats, he's got catchphrases, he even dresses up in Superman's colors and has a Super prefix iconically associated with him. Not a superhero the way we usually think of, but a superhero nonetheless.

And Wario? Well, putting aside Wario-Man who's more of a running gag than anything, Wario does just about everything Mario does. He's got all the traits that define Mario as a superhero short of a Super prefix and the selfless mission (which isn't exactly a rule). He goes around and gets into crazy adventures, he picks up items, beats bad guys, conquers the odds, and gets some kind of prize for it. He's got Mario's physical traits, and Mario's costume, and just about the same name short of a single letter. The caveat being, of course, that he's Wario, and so everything Mario is or does has to be exaggerated to gross extreme.

Mario is paunchy and strong, Wario's round and built like a powerlifter. Mario's got a friendly face and a fluffy mustache, Wario's got a massive horrible grin and jagged razors for a stache. Mario is a bit of an overeater, Wario can and will eat anything in front of him. Mario gets around with acrobatics and magic power-ups, Wario brute forces his way through everything and just rolls with whatever injuries he picks up along the way.

Mario gets fire powers by consuming magic flowers. Wario sets himself on fire and barrels around destroying everything in his path. Mario harnesses the elements or abilities of beings around him to clear obstacles and solve puzzles, Wario gets turned into a zombie, a vampire or a drunk to get the same things done. Mario befriends and rides dinosaurs who raised him from infancy, Wario piledrives dinosaurs and then uses their bodies to beat up more dinosaurs. Mario pals around with fellow heroes, princesses and friendly fantasy creatures, Wario pals around with aliens, witches, mad scientists, cab drivers, and lanky weirdos. Mario always ends his adventures joyfully leaping to the next one, Wario usually ends up either cackling in a pile of treasure or completely broke.

Mario races through plains to rescue princesses, Wario invades pyramids to hunt for treasure. Mario jumps through planets with baby stars guiding his path, Wario crashes into the Amazon jungle and fistfights the devil. You can see where I'm going with this.

If you were to take one of Nintendo's heroes to make them into pulp heroes, Wario, specifically the Wario Land Wario, may be the only one who really could do it, because in essence, he's the videogame equivalent of Professor Challenger. He's Bluto moonlighting as Indiana Jones, the weird brute adventurer for weird brute adventures where everything's off limits and you can trust our intrepid hero, who really shouldn't be a hero on all accounts, to deliver us a good time, give or take a couple deaths, scams, shams and oh-damns to complete said mad treasure hunts.

#replies tag #not pulp heroes #comic books #dr fate #wolverine #captain america #namor #wario

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tiesandtea · 3 years ago

Link

Simon Gilbert

Simon Says

We interviewed Simon Gilbert, Suede’s drummer, whose book So Young: Suede 1991-1993 is a journal and photographic document of the band’s early years that will be published October 8th. So Young has foreword by journalist Stuart Maconie and a vibrant, lively text by Simon himself, documenting his move from Stratford-on-Avon, his hometown, to London, the audition with Suede, life in the van, the early success years and the many amusing things that come with it. It is one of those rare books that make an outsider feel like they were there, in the van. Or in absurd mansions in L.A. belonging to industry types. Or was it record producer(s)?…

The conversation extended to Coming Up, Suede’s third album that turned 25 this year and drumming. Simon’s witty, often, one-liners contrast with my more elaborate questions, proving an interesting insight into our way of writing/replying.

by Raquel Pinheiro

So Young: Suede 1991-1993

What made you want to realease So Young?

I was searching through my archives when researching for the insatiable ones movies and found lots of old negatives and my diaries. They had to be seen.

When and why did you start your Suede archives?

As you can see from the book, it stared from the very first audition day.

From the concept idea to publishing how long did it took you to put So Young together?

30 years … I’ve always wanted to make a book since I was first in a band.

What was your selection process for which items – diary entries, photos, etc.- would be part of the book?

I wanted to form a story visually with a few bits of info thrown in here and there, also most of the photos tie in with pages from the diaries.

Which methods, storage, preservation, maintenance, if at all, do you employ to keep the various materials in your archives in good shape?

Boxes in an attic … one thing about getting the book out is that I don’t have to worry about the photos getting lost forever. It’s out there in a book!

Other than medium what differences existed between selecting material for The Insatiable Ones documentary and for So Young?

Video and photos … photos don’t translate well on a TV screen.

Do you prefer still or motion pictures and why?

I prefer photos … they capture a particular moment in time … as video does, but there’s a unique atmosphere with a photo.

So Young’s cover photo has a very Caravaggio and ballet feeling to it. Its chiaroscuro also contrasts with the images inside. Why did you choose it for the cover?

It was a striking shot and I wanted the book to be black and dark …it fitted perfectly.

How many of the photos on So Young were taken by you?

Probably about 3/4 my 3 school friends who were there with me at the beginning Iain, Kathy and Phillip took a load of us onstage, backstage, after the gig, etc., photos I couldn’t take myself.

So Young can be placed alongside books like Henry Rollins’ Get in The Van and Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, that not only chronicle and show the less glamorous, more mundane side of being in a band, but also totally immerse the reader so deep in it that we are there, feeling and going through the same things. Was your selection of materials meant to convey that “band being your(our) life” sensation?

Yes, exactly that. I was fascinated by photos of bands, not on the front cover of a magazine or on TV. The other bits of being in a band are far more interesting.

In the foreword, Stuart Maconie mentions the brevity of your diary entries which, as someone who keeps diaries, I immediately noticed. Do you prefer to tell and record a story and events with images?

I haven’t kept a diary since the end of 1993 … looking back on them they can be a bit cringeful … So, yes, I prefer images.

Contrasting with the diary entries brevity your text that accompanies So Young is lively, witty, detailed and a good description of the struggles of a coming of age, heading towards success, band. Do you think the text and images reveal too much into what it really is like being in a band, destroying the myth a bit?

I think the myth of being in a band is long gone … Reality is the new myth…

In So Young you write that when you first heard Never Mind The Bollocks by The Sex Pistols music was to be your “future dream”. How has the dream been so far?

Still dreaming … lose your dreams and you will lose your mind … like Jagger said.

Is there a reason why So Young only runs from 1991 to 1993?

Yes, I bought a video camera in 1993. It was so much easier filming everything rather than take a photo, wait 3 weeks to get it developed and find out it was blurred.

So Young has a limited deluxe numbered and signed edition already sold out. The non deluxe edition also seems to be heading the same way. How important is it for you to keep a close relationship with the fans?

So important. I love interacting with the fans and is so easy these days … I had to write replies by hand and post them out in 1993…

Playing Live Again & Coming Up

Before Suede’s concert at Qstock Festival in Oulu, Finland on 31.07.2021 you wrote on your social media “cant fucking wait dosnt come close!!!!!” and Mat [Osman, Suede’s bassist] on his “An honest-to-goodness rehearsal for an honest-to-goodness show. Finally”. How did it feel like going back to play live?

It was great. Heathrow was empty which was amazing. A bit strange to play for the first time after 2 years …., but great to get out again.

Coming Up was released 25 years ago. How does the record sound and seems to you now compared with by then?

I haven’t listened to it for a long time actually … love playing that album live … some great drumming.

Before the release of Coming Up fans and the press were wondering if Suede would be able to pull it off. What was your reaction when you first heard the new songs and realize the album was going in quite a different direction than Dog Man Star?

Far too long ago to remember.

Coming Up become a classic album. It even has its own Classical Albums documentary. Could you see the album becoming a classic by then?

I think so yes .. there was always something to me very special about that album.

Is it different to play Coming Up songs after Suede’s return? Is there a special approach to concerts in which a single album is played?

No … didn’t even need to listen to the songs before we first rehearsed … They’re lodged in my brain.

Which is your Coming Up era favourite song as a listener and which one do you prefer as a drummer?

The Chemistry Between Us.

Will the Coming Up shows consist only of the album or will B-sides be played as well?

Definitely some B-sides and some other stuff too.

Simon & Drumming

If you weren’t a drummer how would your version of “being the bloke singing at the front” be like?

Damned awful … I auditioned as a singer once, before I started drumming … It was awful!

In his book Stephen Morris says that all it takes to be a drummer is a flat surface and know how to count. Do you agree?

No.

Then, what makes a good drummer?

Being in the right band.

Topper Headon of the Clash is one of your role models. Who are the others?

He is, yes … fantastic drummer.

Charlie Watts is the other great …and Rat Scabies … superb.

She opens with drums so does Introducing the band. Your drumming gives the band a distinctive sound. How integral to Suede’s sound are the drums?

Well, what can I say … VERY!

Do you prefer songs that are driven by the drums or songs in which the drums are more in the background?

Bit of both actually … I love in your face stuff like She, Filmstar …, but ikewise, playing softer stuff is very satisfying too.

You’re not a songwriter. How much freedom and input do you have regarding drum parts?

If the songs needs it, I’ll change it.

Do you prefer blankets, towels or a pillow inside the bass drum?

Pillows.

Do you use gaffer tape when recording? If so, just on the snare drum or also on the toms? What about live?

Lots of the stuff … gaffer tape has been my friend both live and in the studio for 30 years.

What is the depth of your standard snare drum and why?

Just got a lovely 7-inch Bog wood snare from Repercussion Drums … sounds amazing. It is a 5000 year old Bog wood snare.

Standard, mallets, rods or brushes?

Standard. I hate mallets and rods are always breaking after one song. Brushes are the worst …no control.

How many drum kits have you owned? Of those, which is your favourite?

5 … my fave is my DW purple.

How long to you manage without playing? Do you play air drums?

7 years 2003 – 2010 … and never.

Can you still assemble and tune your drum kit?

Assemble, yes …tune no …have never been any good at that.

You dislike digital/electronic drum kits, but used one during the pandemic. Did you become more found of them?

Still hate them … unfortunately, they are a necessary evil.

When you first joined Suede you replaced a drum machine. Would it be fair to say you didn’t mind taking its job?

Fuck him!

Brett [Anderson, Suede’s singer] as described the new album as “nasty, brutish and short”. How does that translates drums wise?

Very nasty brutish and short.

When researching for the interview I come across the statement below on a forum: “If you’re in a band and you’re thinking about how to go about this, get every player to come up with their own track list & have a listening party. I’ve done this, not only is it great fun, it’s also massively insightful when it comes to finding out what actually is going on inside the drummer’s head!”. What actually is going on inside the drummer’s head?

Where’s my fucking lighter!

And what is going on inside the drummer as a documentarist head? How does Simon, the drummer, differs from Simon, the keen observer of his own band, bandmates, fans, himself, etc.?

There is no difference … I’m Simon here there and everywhere…

What would the 16 years old Simon who come to London think of current Simon? What advice would you give to your younger self?

Don’t smoke so much you fool!

#simon gilbert #suede #so young book

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famej · 4 years ago

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Model

Mammon x Reader

Camera flashes filled the room, capturing the demon’s face. Poses after poses, from cute to extra hot and with or without clothes, every little patch of Mammon has been immortalized.

I was sitting on a bench, far away from all the lights, on the side of the shooting spot. Mye yes were glued to the handsome demon, unable to understand how this man who always made bad decisions for himself and getting himself in trouble most of the time, coudl also be a model for the most famous fashion brandin all the devildom.

Apparently, his thirst for money could make him do anything and « anything » meant becoming hot to the point he’d make you wanting more.

The flashes died down and the photographer put his camera down.

-« Five minutes break and we’ll do the swim suits » he said before the crew scattered around in the studio.

Mammon looked in your direction and waved before leaving his spot and trotted twoard you.

He stopped right in front of you with a bright smile, you stood up.

« How was it ? Did I make your heart melt with my beauty ? » he teased, flexing his muscles exageeratingly.

After rolling my eyes and chuckling at his antics, I answered :

You were really good ! Honestly I have trouble admitting that the Mammon I kno can be that good looking and charismatic »

« Ah thanks ! I knew you… Oi ! What does that mean ? I’m always good-looking and charismatic ! And you forgot smart as hell ! »

« Sometimes more than others… » you teased « Want some water ? » you asked, grabbing the bottle of fresh water you’d kept especially for him.

He accepted your gift and took a big gulp ; he didn’t even finish drinking that a member of the staff came to take him to get changed.

« See you later, MC, don’t take your eyes off me or you’ll miss one of my glorious pose » he shouted through the room before running off.

I shook my head and let myself fall back on the bench.

While Mammon was in the changing room, the background completely changed . The color whent from white to night blue and on the floor was a sort of low pool of water . Going with this set up came hoses placed above the water. Only with the materials before your eyes, you had a brief idea of what could be the incoming photoshoot.

Next thing, Mammon re-appeared, wearing a white swim trunk, matching his hair and fitting perfectly i ncontrast with his tanned skin. Oh and were those abs I was seeing ? Yeah they were ! It definitely wasn’t the same person you were living with ! The one doing stupid things, who stole his brothers’ stuff to buy ridiculously luxurious items, and who ended more often than not hung by his feet from the chandelier. But this Mammon walked past you, throwing yo a wink over his shoulder before settling in his previous spot. He stepped in the water while the photograph ordered two of his minions to work the hoses.

« This one will be for summer, you’ll make all the girls fawn over you and the other demons will be crazy jealous ! Give it your all and you’ll be our next face, Mammon » he told his model

The staff turned the hoses on and the avatar of greed received the water from above, switching to super model mode. Arms extended and head lighlty thrown back, eyes closed with a satisfied smile. The water poured down on him, drops glistening on his exposed skin.

« Yeah ! Just like that ! »

Mammon brought his hands to his hair, pushing his wet mane back, then gave a seductive look at the camera. Followed, was a cliché of him sliding his hands from his neck down to his lower belly, stopping a few seconds on his defined abs. The photographer was capturing every bit of his sexiness as, well as you, trying to immortalize this image in your mind forever.

« For the last one, be sexy as hell, we want our readers to drool »

The demon grabbed the hem of his swim trunk and lowered it enough so the white hair of his happy trail was exposed. He lowered it even more to show off the very last few of his pubes before his engine. V-line perfectly shadowed and garanteed to please all Majolish fans.

The photographer let out a bunch of satisfied noise and obscene onomatopeias before putting his camera away.

« Perfect ! Mammon, dear, you will be Majolish next man model, you’re amazing ! »

The latter looked at you and gave you thumbs up, punctued by a wink, with an exaggerated mouth movement. Yeah, usual Mammon was back.

I waited quietly until he came back from changing, all the previous sights of Mammon clear in my head.

« Y/N are yo uready ? »

I shook my head, chasing my impure thoughts away and followed him out of the studio, eager to got my hands on a copy of that magazine.

Two weeks later, Majolish had published their new edition of their ashion magazine and on the cover was an unknown handsome demon.

Knwoming the release date, thanks to that unknown demon who kept throwing hints your way, in case you forgot, you decided to wait for the morning opening and buy as much as you could.

When you left, a bunch of girls were gushing over Mammon’s pictures and you thanked yourself for being so well organized, ‘cause the news had spreaded and all the copies have been sold out within the first minutes of the shop’s opening.

The house of Lamentation was rather quiet at this hour, weekends meant that the inhabitants, except Lucifer would sleep in, leaving the household in utter quietness.

So, itw as easy to trottle back to your room without been seen. Arrived there, you sat on your bed and spreaded all the copies on your blanket. Your took one and admire dit. The picture was beautiful, Mammon’s skin was wet, his hair pushed back and trunk low on his hips. Sooooo hot !!! You couldn’t refrain a squeal of happiness. Yo uhad to keep those copies somewhere safe where no one especially the second born, who has the curious habit to rummage through your stuff like a raccoon, would find it.

Speaking of the devil, he bursted through your door, screaming, terrorizing you in the process.

« MC ! Have you seen the cover ?! I received the picture by e-mail a minute ago. I’m so hot ! »

He speed walked to your bed, not caring that he was still in his pajamas, his hair looking like a bird’s nest.

Before you could do anything, his eyes fells on the numerous magazines.

« Ugh… »

None answer came to your mind due to the embarrassement you were feeling.

« How many of these did you buy ? Damn, this picture is amazing ! What do you think ? »

He looked at you intently, his self pide evident on his face.

« Why do you think I bought some many ? You look marvelous ! »

It was too much to look at him, you kept your eyes on the magazine, hoping that not seeing his face would prevent the incoming blush. The silence became heavy, normally Mammon would blabber nonsense to fill the blanks.

« AHAHAH Of course I am ! I always look fabulous , I’m the great Mammon after all ! »

It shoulve have sounded so confident but the stutter and blush didn’t make it very convincing.

« You’re right. I’ve seen you during the photoshoot and it’s not surprising, you’re a really good model. Here, take one as a souvenir, I keep one for myself and distribute the others to your brothers, I bet they’ll be proud of you » you smiled at him, handing him one of the copies.

He seized it and looked at the cover, before lowering the magazine, and looking at the floor.

« Do…you really think that ? »

He looked adorable when he was flustered. Oh Mammon…

« Of course ! And if you ever get the other pics I can make an album so you’ll have you own professional book that we can look at whenever we want »

He perked up at your words and dared to show you his flushing face.

« Well, thanks, I’ll think about it. But… you know, you have the real me to look at right ? »

That made you get off your bed and walk up to him. And got on your tiptoes and kissed his cheek, which made him blush even more than he already was.

« I know that . But I’m just showing how proud of you I am, Mammon »

And then you wrapped your arms around him, hugging him tightly.

The avatar of greed was speechless, his arms laid at his side, under his disbelief. But he slowly encircled your little frame, letting himself slump against you, even burying his face in the crook of your neck.

« Thank you » he whispered , holding you thight

« Don’t thank me for pointing how amazing you are, Mammon »

That was the only thing he need to start tearing up in their embrace, thanking whoever decided to send you to him.

#Mammon #obey me #otome game #obey me brothers #mammon x reader #lucifer #leviathan #satan #asmodeus #belphegor #beelzebub #obey me imagine #mammon imagine

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coltondoesgreece · 3 years ago

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Romance Yourself

Hello friends!

Today I’m writing from a sunny patio in Athens. The weather has decided to take a turn and we are officially in a beautiful Grecian Spring/Summer system. One thing to note… I’m sure it’s hysterical to the locals, who are still wearing winter jackets, when they spot tourists in shorts and t-shirts walking the cobblestone streets. I like to think I’m somewhere in the middle. A sensible t-shirt with jeans, and my favourite converse. Although, this morning I was sun bathing on my terrace and the lady across the street definitely had a chuckle to herself as she watered her plants in her knit sweater. Whatever.

Things here have been fairly calm, but really lovely since I last wrote. While work has been slow (more on that soon), it’s been very conveniently timed considering Aaron arrived on Tuesday, and my birthday was Saturday. If you know me, you know I have an innate need to be busy at all times. That being said, this week I accepted the slower pace and enjoyed being tour guide to Aaron and indulging in delicious food, wine, bread, and even some traditional Greek desserts. Gluten Cutter - sponsor me!

I’ve had three castings and one test shoot this week. Let’s start with the castings. I feel like I’m starting to get into the groove with these. The first two castings were for e-commerce work, which essentially means I was being seen to potentially be in the photos that you would see on a website as you were shopping. The third casting was for an editorial campaign for a department store. The test shoot I did, which will be published in a magazine in the next few weeks (stay tuned), was incredibly fun. We shot in a cocktail bar in the city centre of Athens. Picture lots of dark mahogany wood, rich green leather booths, and intensely graphic wallpaper. I was portraying a Chuck Bass type character (Gossip Girl reference - wow), basically a rich, spoiled brat with impeccable style. It was fun! We had a full team: photographer, make-up artist, hair stylist, and wardrobe stylist. I had a friend recently ask if modelling felt as glamorous as it sounded. The truthful answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no. That being said, when you have a full team pampering you first thing in the morning, the glam is undeniable.

I’ver been here for three weeks. What the actual hell? My plan is to fly back to Toronto around April 17th, depending on how things go here the next week or two. I felt like I was on such a roll as soon as I got here and now I feel a slight lull. Nothing to worry about, but in the spirit of being transparent, I’m somewhat worried of things moving too slowly. That being said, I have a great feeling that things will pick up as they should. What is meant for me will come my way when the time is right. I think a lot about what it means to be prepared for the unknown. I think it’s one of my greatest skills. I am more than ready. I just need the opportunity. I feel this way about theatre as well. Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready, type of thing.

Enough with the self indulgence, Curtis…

Aaron is here for the next couple of weeks. He’s working remotely which is an incredible blessing. It also feels really “cool”, for a lack of a better term, to be able to be here, both working towards our goals, separately, but together. I’m proud of us. Aaron is an incredible supporter. If you know him, you know how much he cares and loves to rally and support those close to him. We could all take a page out of his book.

For my birthday we ate and drank and shopped and wandered this beautiful city in the glorious sun. The thing about Aaron and I is that we love an early night. And Athens? Athens doesn’t ’t know what an early night is. Most “clubs” open at midnight. Thats usually well past my bedtime. Although we had the best intentions, we did not celebrate by tearing up a dance floor. Instead we were watching my YouTube favourites list in bed with a bottle of wine, which was gifted from my Airbnb host - who is seriously the best.

Sunday morning I spent a few hours researching Athens’ best brunch spots, and then we did our very own, self guided, brunch tour. I am eating SO MUCH. Which is great! My metabolism is in a league of its own, but I swear I’m actually gaining weight which is a dream come true for me - I know - you probably hate me for that sentence. Skinny boy problems.

I have a free day today, and while Aaron is at home creating graphics for his next project, I think I’ll do another solo wander through a neighbourhood I haven’t seen yet. Having a partner is a gift, but sometimes being alone in a new place is also lovely. Ten years ago, even five years ago, I would have never said that. I think back to when I was in Italy by myself for a summer… I was DESPERATE for anyone to keep me company. Now I can actually see the romance in being alone and following whatever whim you feel in a moment. Dating yourself can also be fun. Wifi, and affordable international data, also help in not feeling totally isolated while travelling alone, that’s something that has changed drastically since my Italy adventure.

Alright, I have rambled enough! If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. I love that these thoughts aren’t being buried in a private journal for once. And instead, you are actually reading, and hopefully enjoying!

Have a great week! We’ll talk soon.

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grumfield · 3 years ago

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I blame so much of YA Twitter for the infantilization of media consumption and adult content.

So much of the discourse revolves around adult media being “problematic” in some way, because there’s become this blurred line between what content is made for teens and what is made for adults. Due to Twitter and the social media publishing industry YA has now become a place for adult stories to be slapped with a teen label because it has romance or magic in it or has a female protagonist because of the market.

I saw the other day someone talking about Gideon the Ninth (a book for adults touted as ‘Lesbian Necromancers in Space’) complaining that, “Gideon has dirty magazines and makes butch lesbians look predatory, it’s problematic”. If you go into an adult book like the Locked Tomb expecting some uwu teen softgirl whatever, that’s on you. Aside from the really disturbing mentality that having sexual desire = predatory, it’s an adult book about adult characters, adults have desire and the characters aren’t supposed to be the upstanding pinnacles of chastity and goodness. They are adult characters meant for an adult audience. And you know what some adults want? Big breast boobilicious badonkadonks, just like Gideon. Dramatic gasp, Pearl clutching ensues.

The other one I’ve been seeing bashed is the Poppy War, an adult grimdark fantasy novel based on Nanking + Mao Zedong, for being a “problematic portrayal of a female protagonist because she’s not a role model/good person”. The fact that people are going into an adult book about war expecting a moral lesson/good protagonist is just so weird to me, but it seems to be the norm.

Adults and teenagers are not the same; there shouldn’t be discourse about “problematic elements”—specifically regarding romance or villains or morality—in adult fiction, because 9/10 it’s just something someone doesn’t like, and they can’t stand just admitting they don’t like it so have to make it a moral issue.

Adults are adults. They don’t need to be handheld. The fact that people think adult stories need to fit the same parameters as YA ones is honestly so wrong.

#books #discourse

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queerchoicesblog · 4 years ago

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Epilogue: Underwater (SC Titanic, Zetta x Adele Series)

As promised, here the epilogue of the Zetta x Adele Series, folks.

This is the very end of a project that meant me quite a lot to me and got me through the last terrible year. Thanks to all those who supported it: hope you enjoyed it and will enjoy this ending.

In case you were wondering, this song inspired the whole series, particularly the last chapters:

youtube

I will skip the tag list for once since it’s pointless anyway.

➡️ Ch. 1, Ch. 2/1, Ch. 2/2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8/1, Ch. 8/2, Ch. 9, Ch. 10/1, Ch. 10/2, Ch. 11/1, Ch. 11/2, Ch. 12, Ch. 13, Ch. 14, Ch. 15 , Ch. 16, Ch. 17

_________________________

Almost a century after the sinking of the RMS Titanic and to celebrate Canada becoming the first country outside Europe to legalise same-sex marriage, the Canadian Film Institute decided to work side by side with several LGBTQ+ organisations across the world to put together an exhibition focused on the early queer cinema and the many queer stars who were forced to hide their true selves in the Golden Age of cinematography, spanning from 1890s till the aftermath of Second World War. "A testament to the role the LGBTQ+ community played in the history of cinema and that we have always been here, even if people hardly saw us" as a journalist wrote on a queer magazine. After the recent discovery of some private documents, the curators were overjoyed to include an icon of the 1900s - 1910s cinema like Zetta Serda into the retrospective and cast a new light on her extraordinary career sadly soon forgotten after the advent of the sound era. Yet, the silent picture star was mentioned as a model and 'endless source of inspiration" by many queer movie stars like Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Greta Garbo all part of the retrospective. Rumor has it that as soon as she landed in America, Marlene Dietrich demanded his agent a meeting with Mrs King.

A curator drove all the way to Montreal to meet the last known heir, a certain Mrs. Julia Nowak, who greeted him on the threshold of a cosy downtown apartment. She offered him a coffee and a slice of a Polish sweet bread: the recipe was a family heirloom, she explained, beaming. She was in her late fifties, a therapist, she said. Her hazel eyes gleamed when she added, in a pleasantly soothing voice that betrayed a hint of excitement: "I must confess I am so incredibly happy that you contacted me about the retrospective. I adore the idea and I will make sure to attend it. Also" she nodded to a wedding picture hung to the wall "did you know that my wife is in politics? She campaigned for the legalisation...yes, Madeleine Fournier: see, you know her! We got married right after the law passed. If anything, your call and project made me twice as happy". She took a pause, smiling over her coffee in remembrance. "Anyway, back to the matter of your visit...yes, as far as I know, I am Zetta's last heir. As you probably know, my family wasn't officially related to her but she stated otherwise in her will". She moved to the couch and gestured the curator to follow her as she opened up one of the boxes and chests piled into the living room and picked out an old album, the leather cover worn at the edges. Dust waltzed in the air as she opened it with caution and gentle care. She showed him a slightly discoloured black and white picture of a young couple kissing for the camera in front of a church. Another wedding picture, from a different era. "Nana Hileni and Papa Maciej's wedding picture. I still remember them even if they both died when I was barely a teen...as if one couldn't bear to live without the other. Or so I like to think. She would help me with the homework, mathematics particularly, and he baked this bread for me till he was too weak to do so. He always claimed that he won Nana's heart with his pastries but she always denied it laughing". She passed another picture of the same couple proudly standing in front of the Nowak family bakery in Hoboken. "Frankly, I believe that Papa's broad shoulders and Marlon Brando smile are more likely to blame for this coup de foudre" she laughed. "And he knew how to deal with her no-nonsense attitude and vice versa. They...balanced each other, if you wish". She picked another picture and handed it to him. A woman was looking down in tender adoration and awe to a baby nestled in her arms looking up at her, outstretching a tiny arm in an attempt to touch her face. "There! This is Dad" she pointed at the baby before turning the picture where someone wrote 'Alex meets Auntie Adele'. Turning it again, she pointed at the woman. "This is Adele Carrem. Or Auntie Adele as I've always heard calling her. Nana's sister and Zetta's publicist and companion" Putting it back into the album, she carefully picked a bunch of other old pictures. "You surely know who this one is" she smiled, handing out the one on top. The photo was rather grainy but you could still recognise the same kid, slightly older, around two, sucking his thumb, cuddled up in Zetta's lap. The actress had aged a little but her features were unmistakable and it was endearing to see her sitting by the fireplace to read that kid with the sleepy face a bedtime story. "Sadly, I have never met them. I wish I did, oh you have no idea...but stories of them lived through in our family" Julia continued. "My Dad loved his Aunties - as he called them - dearly and by what I've heard and read, they loved him in manner as if he was their own. He knew little of them or Zetta's career back then...to him they were just the sweet ladies who would buy him ice-cream in Central Park or take him to see his favourite pictures over and over again at the movie theater. He said he will never forget the afternoons he used to spend with them in a Manhattan cafe that no longer exists around Christmas: Nana and Papa worked like crazy as the festive season approached and the glorious cup of hot chocolate with an elegant puff of cream on top with the Aunties became a tradition to him. He kept it alive somehow as he did the same with me". She handed the curator a bunch of other pictures: Zetta cleaning up Alex's face smeared with jam, the both of them laughing; Zetta posing with Maciej and her Dad at a table in the Hoboken bakery. He eventually mirrored her smile seeing a five years old Alex at the beach all engrossed in building a sandcastle with Hileni and Adele, and he standing at the water edge hand in hand with Miss Carrem, looking out into the distance. "These are family pictures. I'll show you the Zetta's private memorabilia we cherished". Julia searched a little, opening an old chest and handling every item inside with tender care. When she found what she was looking for, she showed the curator an elegant set of smaller boxes containing letters, dried flowers and photos. "I have already received an offer to get these published. I'm still pondering it. Before agreeing, I want to consider throughly if this is a thing they would have wanted, even if they're no longer here" The curator nodded as she kept searching. He skimmed a few letters and smiled as his eyes fall on the photos hidden away in those boxes: the two women sitting together and chatting at Hileni's wedding, Zetta's reading a script, lazily sprawled on a chaise long in her apartment. Some had short lines handwritten on the back, like a promotional picture with "Missing you" written by Zetta herself. The curator showed another to Mrs Nowak: a visibly excited Miss Carrem proudly showing to the camera a document announcing her voter registration. On the back, in Zetta's penmanship: "On the way to vote...my sweet Adele won!". "Oh you didn't know? Auntie Adele was a suffragette! I couldn't believe it when I first heard it! Nana told me that she was in and out jail when they lived in London because of protests. You know, like those suffragettes you read about in history books but less famous. Yet she fought for women's rights and kept fighting for them even in America. She was quite disappointed though by some major decisions of some feminist movements and eventually joined a socialist Union 'more rightfully welcoming working class individuals, immigrants and black brothers and sisters'. It's all in those letters but yeah, you couldn't possibly know. So little is known about her outside family". A little smile drew on her face as she put back the photo. "That photo was taken the day of the first election open to women. I checked the date. I suppose Zetta wanted to immortalise the moment...it was sweet of her, huh? Auntie Adele must have been so proud and overjoyed that day! You know, my Dad was born in 1920 when women's right to vote was legalised nationally and Nana once told me that Auntie commented the lucky coincidence saying she was incredibly happy her nephew would get to live in a fairer world. She was a true force of nature...she never talked much of the sinking of the Titanic just like Zetta and Nana actually but when one day Dad asked...he was barely a child and probably found an old article about the tragedy...Auntie Adele minimised but Nana assured him that her sister saved her life that night, risking her own to go down to the belly of the sinking ship to bring her to safety. Auntie simply shrugged, saying that it was what sisters do and that they made it to the lifeboats only thanks to Zetta, who shouted protests to stubborn officers and eventually found them a spot on a boat. I cannot even bring myself to imagine how scary that must have been: I cried so much when Madeleine took me to see Leo and Kate...to think they were there and it was all real!" She picked a few other objects out the box: a Shakespeare Sonnets book in a leather cover with golden engravings, with a little handwritten dedication 'To Adele, my sonnet 116. Happy birthday! With all my love, Zetta'; old scripts with annotations, a framed photograph of Adele and Zetta slow dancing barefoot in the living room of a gorgeous Long Island mansion. "These have a sentimental value" Mrs Nowak noted, her voice betraying the flicker of emotions as she picked it up. She took a deep sigh and continued. "I remember the day I told Dad I was gay as it was yesterday. We had always been quite close so it came natural to tell him first. We were in his car, he had come straight from college to pick me up at ice-skating practice. I..I dropped it in the middle of a conversation, bracing myself for the worst. I heard so many bad stories about coming out to your parents I was terrified of the consequences but I couldn't hide it anymore. I mean, yes, in public: bullies get even nastier if they know and I didn't want people shouting me "dyke" at school. But I needed to get it out of my chest...with someone at least. He kept quiet for a moment and I felt like drowning in shame. But then he spoke". A nostalgic tender smile formed Julia's lips. "He said he had two amazing Aunties that contributed to make his life a wondrous adventure. It was thanks to them that he, the son of a baker, could attend a prestigious college, for instance: they offered to pay for it without asking a penny back. They also helped him write his first romantic letter to his childhood sweetheart and consoled him when the little girl turned him down. But his Aunties had a secret, he added. He said: to my kid eyes they were no less a couple than Mom and Dad and at home we all treated them in manner but one day Mom made me promise to behave differently when we were in public. In public I would refer to her sister as 'Auntie Adele' but call Zetta by her name. He didn't get it and it took some getting used to. He soon noticed that even the Aunties behaved a bit differently out in the sun: they wouldn't hold hands or use endearing words in the street or when other people were around. They simply behaved like good friends did. He understood it later when he, as stubborn as a mule, asked them directly". Julia gently grazed her fingers on the glass of the framed photograph, caressing it. "And they told me everything, he said. That they were in love, just like mom and dad were, but people out there could be uncomfortable and extremely rude to women loving other women and men loving other men. That they kept their companionship a secret in public because those people had no problems with women being friends and they didn't want to have bad words or worse happening to them. I remember asking him what he thought about it. He smiled. 'I cried. Since Auntie Zetta mentioned people claiming that women like them were sick and would burn in hell, I actually started crying. I sobbed desperately in her arms, crying that I didn't want them to burn in hell, I loved my Aunties and I was happy they loved each other. Eventually they explained me it was just a vile lie spread my malignant people. But I got quite a scare and kept staring at them with puffy red eyes and my face wet with tears for a while. It required lots of cuddling to bring a smile back on my face'. He shook his head, laughing of his endearing naivety. Then he pulled over and looked at me. He continued: 'I still don't get why people keep spreading those mean lies but I know for sure that my Aunties weren't sick and didn't end up in hell and so won't you. Don't believe bullshits like that for a split second, okay? And I also want you to remember that it doesn't change a thing for me and mom too. You will always be my little girl, our little girl and we love you'. We shared a long hug before driving back home. On the way back he insisted to buy my favourite chicken and waffles for dinner, saying mom's veggie soup could wait. For my birthday, a month later or so, he asked me to follow him to the attic and showed me this chest. To meet the Aunties that 'would have surely been there for me'". She tipped away a tear. "I told you I married Madeleine right after the legalisation of same-sex marriages. My wedding was also the last public event Mom and Dad attended together before his health worsened irremediably. He passed away last year". For a moment she looked on the verge of tears but she recovered quickly. "Sorry...anyway, that day Dad insisted on walking me down the aisle even if he was getting weak. He beamed with pride when a friend fixed a rainbow ribbon to his jacket. Later at the lunch he read a speech he had written for the day, his hand shaking. He shared the story of his Aunties. He said that despite the hardships their situation forced upon them, they had quite a happy life together, a happiness carefully hidden from the world. He wished us to find something similar to what they shared without needing to hide anymore. He said Adele and Zetta would have been so happy and proud to celebrate with all of us that day" Mrs. Nowak picked the Shakespeare Sonnet book and gave him a fond look. "He brought this to the wedding. And he read for us the sonnet 116, the one Zetta mentioned in her dedication. You know, the one that starts with 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments..." ----------------------- A few months later the exhibition on old Hollywood queer cinema and artists opened. Each artist had a room that soon filled with a crowd of enthusiastic visitors. In the first half, in a room arranged as a turn of the century nickelodeon with velvet chairs, all the memorabilia of Zetta Serda's public life: panels explaining the various stages of her career and the birth of her myth, promotional pictures of her performances, articles about her and a copy of a gazette announcing her wedding with the director Richard King. On the wall, on a screen her entire filmography rolled up in loop, bewitching spectators after a century. In display cases: the gorgeous sapphire necklace she wore on her last night on the Ship of Dreams and at the movie party of Surviving the Titanic, and a replica of her Cleopatra costume. The aging Queen of Egypt with a tragic love and destiny immortalised by Shakespeare was her last role back on the theater stage before retiring from the scenes. Old scripts with her personal annotation were displayed with photographs taken on sets and mundane events. The wall hosting the motion-picture screen cut the room in half. On the other side, the hidden half of her life. Her life with Adele no one suspected back then. A life kept secret that now unveiled in front of the eyes of the visitors. The curators discovered that finding public pictures of Miss Carrem was nearly impossible, true to the nickname she acquired as time went by: The Shadow. She stayed at Zetta's side until and even after she stopped acting, showing rare loyalty and devotion, but ever surrounded by this mystery allure. No one, even the most stubborn reporters managed to know anything about her and she was soon dismissed as a Titanic survivor, possibly a fan, who worked as Zetta's secretary and somehow gained her respect. Little they knew about the depth of their relationship and what stacks of secret letters and family memories revealed of the life of Miss Carrem. A panel finally told her story and her secret achievements: Adele, or better Adal, kept fighting for a fairer world and society her whole life and marched for women's right to vote on the famous parade in 1915. She also passed the teaching of Edith Garrud to her American sisters. The only pictures of her came from the Nowak family, except for one. The only photograph of a public appearance of Miss Carrem as well as the only known public appearance of Zetta and Adele. An old grainy photo accurately framed showed Adele shaking hands with The Unsinkable Molly Brown on a podium. In her free hand a shiny medal and a few steps behind the mayor of New York. According to the panel, the survivors' committee founded by Mrs. Brown decided to award Miss Carrem a medal for bravery and a generous check "to help her and her sister starting a new life in America". With great surprise, Miss Carrem received the medal and the check, thanked the board but refused the honors. Instead, she asked to deliver them both to the family of a certain Charlie Stoke, a stewart that lost his life in the sinking to save her life and those of many passengers. She added that her friend expressed the desire to study naval engineering one day and she wished that the money kindly offered to her would be enough to establish a scholarship for boys like him across the ocean. In another picture, Miss Carrem and her sister chatted with Moll Brown in company of Zetta. Eventually, other philanthropists and wealthy socialites signed checks for her cause so that the Stoke family received a generous contribution too. And today, as another picture confirmed, the faculty of naval engineering of the University of Newcastle hosts a marble engraving of Charlie Stoke: to his memory a scholarship had been instituted one year after on the anniversary of the sinking. Since 1913 it has been helping students of poor background to get an education and improve their life. Zetta herself became a philanthropist during her Renaissance and ever since. The first act of her new phase of her life was joining the Moll Brown survivors committee to provide help to the second and third class passengers families and survivors. Some said that the tragedy she witnessed touched her heart, other claimed that it was to be attributed to the influence of her publicist. Jokingly, she used to say that after all, she had too much money yet all she could have wished for in her life, so why not doing some good with it? A considerable donation under her and Mr King was received by the main hospital during the Spanish flu pandemic; she was particularly active in providing financial help to struggling neighbourhoods and female education institutions. In the middle of the room, a long glass display hosted the Shakespeare Sonnets opened at sonnet 116 and a selection of the private correspondence between Zetta and Adele. My darling, You will receive this letter tomorrow morning when I'll be already off to Chicago. The suitcases are ready and packed, this is a goodnight note scribbled the night before leaving you to remind you how much I love you and care about you. How much I'm going to miss you even if - thank God! - we won't be parted for long... Do not forget you promised me to write every day! Write to me, Adele, write to me whatever thought crosses that gorgeous mind of you: you know I could you rambling for hours without getting tired of the sound of your voice, of your sparkling wisdom. I wanna know everything. So don't be shy: I'll be waiting your letters with tender impatience. Can't wait to be in your arms once more. Adoringly yours, Zetta - Dear, dearest Zetta, I went to Central Park today with Hileni. It was a gorgeous spring day, sunny, a gentle breeze blowing: 'simply too beautiful to be wasted inside' as my sister put it. Did I tell you that she's still exchanging letters with the delivery boy from the hat shop? I thought they were over but apparently he invited her to the nickelodeon next week. Anyway, walking in the park with her I suddenly realised how I wanted to share that spring wonder with you. When are you coming back to New York? Tell me soon, please. And even 'soon' won't be soon enough: you're always on my mind since you left. But yes, tell me soon so I can make you promise we will go for a walk before the weather becomes too hot. Do you think I can wrap my arm with yours? Is it professional enough for a publicist? Even just for a few steps: oh you have no idea how I would love that! Or maybe you have? I hope so: it'd mean you miss me as much as I miss you when we are apart. Oh, I almost forgot: all settled with that magazine you mentioned before your departure! I negotiated a two pages long interview, plus pictures. And a cover mention. Hope I did well: you have already fired me as your secretary, I must prove you I am just what you're looking for in a publicist... Can't wait to see you again! Loving you always, Adele Only one letter was copied on a panel of its own on the main wall side by side with a blow-up of the picture of Adele and Zetta slow-dancing barefoot and free, for a blessed moment immortalised in a discreet shot. Adele pressing a tender kiss on Zetta's forehead, drawing a soft smile on the acrtress' lips. Many visitors commented it was heartwarming to see such a photograph that conveyed the intimacy and the warmth of affection radiating from the dancing couple. Some said that Zetta was even more beautiful like that: free, hair slightly askew and genuinely happy, loved. What stole their hearts away though was the letter attached to it. It was no surprise that the curators decided to name the retrospective Underwater. Dearest Adele, Forgive me for the tone of this letter. I am writing it down in bed while I cannot sleep and my mind runs back to you as if we could meet halfway between the miles separating us, in a world of fantasy of our own. It's ridiculous how much I miss you! I want you near, I need you near all the time. Take tonight: if you were here with me, I would be heavenly sleeping in your loving embrace. Most unfortunately, you are not and I'm lying here, insomniac, thinking of you. And about my life. No, don't frown. I am not getting all sad again. It's...bittersweet. And - I'll spoil you the ending so you will stop worrying, hopefully - it gets better the more you proceed. Have you ever felt trapped underwater? I did, my whole life. Always hiding, always measuring words, gestures, gazes not to let them see, not to let them know...so little time to go up and break the surface. Drop the mask and breathe. In, out. Once, twice. In my lowest moments I repeated to my myself: how are you gonna survive? One day an acquaintance with a remarkable passion for the sea explained me and the other bored commensals that you can keep someone alive by breathing oxygen into their mouth underwater. Pretty much like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation helps an unconscious person to regain consciousness. I found it interesting but doubted his words. Then I met you, Adele. My dearest, wondrous Adele. And I learnt that yes, you can't breathe if you're constantly underwater...but you won't drown if you have the right person swimming by your side in those deep waters. Put your lips on me, Adele. Touch me, hold me in your arms. And I can live underwater. With your love, I can live underwater. We can live underwater. I love you. I want to cover a full page of these three simple words: I love you. I want to cry them out and entrust them to the winds, to the night. But what for? Who cares if the world knows or not? I'll whisper them over your lips when we will be reunited. So you can breathe underwater. Counting down the hours separating us, my love. Eternally yours, Zetta

#titanic storyscape #sc titanic #zetta serda #adele carrem #zetta x adele #zetta x adele series

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