#Notable Animal Deaths in 2022

[gone2soon-rip]

RUTH MADOC (1943-Died December 9th 2022,at 79.Complications from a fall,and surgery). British actress and singer who had a career on stage and screen spanning over 60 years. She was best known for her role as Gladys Pugh,the Welsh Radio Maplin announcer & entertainment organiser, in the BBC television comedy Hi-de-Hi! (1980–1988), for which she received a BAFTA TV award nomination for Best Light Entertainment Performance. She later appeared as Daffyd Thomas's mother in the second series of Little Britain.Her first husband,was the actor,Philip Madoc,best known for playing the German U Boat captain,in the Dad’s Army episode ‘The Deadly Attachment’.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Madoc

[mementomoreeyes]

if u see me brainwormsposting. yeag

[arimiadev]

why does aniplex want mahoyo to fail

I love visual novels. being a long time fate/stay night fan and only having heard of mahoyo from hushed whispers about its cinematography, I was super invested when it was announced to be coming to the west and I could finally play an official version of it.

however, a lot of people interested in type-moon works had never heard of mahoyo, let alone it getting an official english translation. but how? aniplex is publishing the game and they're one of the largest anime distributors in the world.

with the console release of mahoyo being almost exactly a year ago and the steam release being just 10 days away, I want to look over some of aniplex USA's bizarre and nonexistent marketing for one of my favorite visual novels.

let's clear up a few things, first.

mahoyo is the shortened form of mahoutsukai no yoru (not to be confused with mahoutsukai no yome, i.e. the ancient magus bride), which has been localized as witch on the holy night. mahoyo was a linear non-eroge visual novel released by type-moon in 2012, being one of the first scripts kinoko nasu (co-founder of type-moon) wrote back in 1996 and adapted into a VN many, many years later.

in April of 2022, a console remaster (switch, playstation 4) was announced with HD assets and voice acting, to be published by aniplex. notably, this console release would contain an english translation and was later confirmed in June to be sold in the west via online retailers. this was huge news, as this meant mahoyo would be the first type-moon visual novel (not including gameplay-oriented titles like fate/extella or fate/grand order) to be officially released in the west, as despite numerous fan translations, their more recognizable visual novels tsukihime and fate/stay night still had not received a localization.

type-moon is the developer behind mahoyo and aniplex is the publisher, meaning that type-moon made the game and aniplex is in charge of distributing (and marketing) the game worldwide.

timeline:

April 11 2022: Mahoyo rerelease announced for consoles (Switch & PlayStation 4), including English translation

July 4 2022: Aniplex confirms Mahoyo will be available to the West, localized under the name Witch on the Holy Night

October 14 2022: 2nd trailer released, more voice actor info announced

November 3 2022: physical pre-orders launched, demo version available

November 18 2022: Aniplex attends Anime NYC with Mahoyo

December 7 2022: Mahoyo released digitally on Switch / PlayStation 4 (Dec 8th in Japan, Dec 7th in America)

December 12 2022: Mahoyo reaches 110k units sold worldwide

January 27 2023: Mahoyo physicals release

July 5 2023: Mahoyo reaches 150k units sold worldwide

September 10 2023: Mahoyo announced for Steam via a now unlisted Aniplex livestream

December 13 2023: Mahoyo will be released on Steam (Dec 14th in Japan, Dec 13th in America)

some of the dates might be a little fuzzy, especially the release dates, as some sources go by japanese time and some go by american timezones, so just be aware of that.

now, let's talk a bit about mahoyo itself.

mahoyo is a masterpiece. it's a niche game not meant for everyone. its cinematography is top notch among visual novels. its writing style can be off-putting to people who want faster-paced stories. it's one of my most beloved visual novels I've ever played, and I've been in this field for almost a decade and have played well over 100 VNs.

mahoyo is a completely linear visual novel—meaning it has no choices or gameplay—that follows aoko, a high schooler mage trying to balance her perfect school president facade with her secret life as a mage, something she has to keep secret at the risk of death. this is one of the lesser known type-moon works but it's well beloved because of the care put into it.

if you've ever heard someone talk about it, it's almost impossible for them to not mention the visuals. mahoyo is one of the most visually impressive visual novels I've ever seen, with its inspired use of artwork and in-game animations. I cannot recommend this VN enough if you like modern fantasy and don't mind linear VNs.

before we dive into aniplex USA's marketing, I want to clarify a few marketing terms for people who don't market visual novels as a job. marketing is not just advertising—it's everything related to how a product communicates with potential users, including its branding, its packaging, its everything. when marketing a game, you have several different avenues: social media, press & influencers, trailers, store pages, and more.

today I want to show you how, based off what I have researched after a long, manic day, aniplex USA has failed mahoyo on all of these accounts.

so let's go back to its western release.

mahoyo has a few official english channels:

website

twitter

facebook

aniplex also has an official english twitter with almost 500k followers where they shared mahoyo very rarely—only 9 tweets about the game ever.

well, surely their other pages are more maintained right—

both accounts stopped posting July 10th/11th, with their last post being about mahoyo going on sale on consoles. let's look at their posts prior to this, though, starting with the twitter.

we can see that the twitter account was made in december of 2022. if we scroll down far enough (it's not hard, given they only have 33 tweets), we can see that their first tweet was on december 6th 2022:

let's go back to our timeline. can you tell me when mahoyo's remaster released digitally?

yes they made both of the english mahoyo social media accounts the day before the game launched

we can very easily add up the entire social media posts for the game thus far:

mahoyo english twitter - 30 tweets and 3 retweets

mahoyo english facebook - 27 posts

aniplex english twitter - 9 tweets

aniplex english facebook - 2 posts

no other english social media accounts were tied to the website, so these are the only ones I looked at. this means in total, there were only 68 social media posts for the console release of mahoyo by the publisher for english audiences.

but what about the steam release? after the game sold over 150k+ units on consoles, surely aniplex was ready to market it a bit more for pc users—

neither account has made a post about the upcoming steam release.

if we look at the twitter, they have 3 tweets since July that do talk about the upcoming steam release- however, these are retweets from the japanese mahoyo account.

we know that this twitter and this facebook account are the official social media for mahoyo as they're linked on the website, so they're definitely meant to be followed for game updates in the west. well, maybe the english aniplex twitter has posted about it—

none of the english aniplex or mahoyo accounts have made a single post about the steam release

that's right, the social media posts I counted above are the only posts for mahoyo on their english accounts, all dating back before the steam release was announced. since then, they have not made a single original post even mentioning the steam release.

meanwhile, the japanese mahoyo twitter has been hustling hard to promote the upcoming steam release—reposting trailers, character bios, and more almost every day with pretty good numbers.

in fact, the japanese mahoyo twitter did such a good job at marketing it that the aniplex USA twitter never mentioned the english mahoyo twiter, instead only @ ing the japanese one in tweets (despite the english one being linked on the website).

why they even bothered making social media accounts and then not running them despite being one of the largest anime distributors in the world I have no clue.

well, maybe they didn't need to rely on social media presence. maybe they were going for the in-person approach and marketing it at conventions.

mahoyo had basically no anime convention presence

the only reference I can find to aniplex notably promoting mahoyo at any western convention is this tweet of them at anime NYC. from someone who was at anime NYC, I've been told that they pushed the game heavily at their booth with TV screens promoting the game.

however, anime NYC is only one anime convention. you cannot hope to sell a game by just attending one anime convention. mahoyo might have had a presence at other american conventions, but I'm unable to find any images or news about this.

maybe they don't understand type-moon

aniplex is the publisher for fate/grand order, one of the most successful mobile games ever created. they're also the distributor for a majority of type-moon related anime, ranging from fate to garden of sinners to side series. aniplex's marketing team should have lots of experience with type-moon properties.

maybe it was promoted in other aniplex titles

I was also unable to find a news post in fate/grand order related to mahoyo's release, despite news posts for other type-moon series (namely fate but also things like melty blood) getting news posts in fate/grand order. I might've missed the news posts when looking back through FGO but I don't believe there was one.

maybe it sold well in other regions but not western ones

(I'm going to be referring only to the console release for these stats, keep in mind)

mahoyo released December 7th/8th 2022 with an english, japanese, simplified chinese, and traditional chinese translations. at the end of the release week, mahoyo's japanese twitter announced the game had sold 110k copies worldwide and famitsu reported that 66,344 of these units were sold in japan. this means we have around 43k units unaccounted for.

we know the game was available in english, japanese, and chinese languages but we don't know what regions. mainland china has a very large visual novel playerbase (I say this as someone who sells visual novels), which means if it were sold there then it's easy to say that a big chunk of that 43k units could be attributed to them—this also means it would be easy to believe that aniplex saw mahoyo selling worse in western countries and took this as a sign to not promote the game any more there.

but was it ever sold in mainland china? from what I could tell—no.

looking at pricing charts for the nintendo eshop and the playstation store, china is not listed on either. furthermore, searching the game's chinese title on the chinese playstation store does not bring back any results. it looks like the only predominantly chinese-speaking regions that were able to buy it are hong kong, taiwan and possibly singapore (the playstation store page for it doesn't look like it's available for purchase anymore).

so what does this tell us?

without any other numbers it's hard to tell how many of the 43k launch week sales came from english-speaking players, but even if we conservatively say that only around 20k of the 110k launch week units were from western countries, that's still almost a million in revenue (and remember, the physical limited edition of the game was available in english for $60, which is $20 more than the digital base version).

maybe the store page is so good they don't need to market it

here's a little secret: store pages matter a lot more than you'd think. there are entire job positions dedicated to tailoring store pages (like a steam game page) to make it perfect for the game's target audience. there's a science to it that includes the artwork, descriptions, tags, screenshots, and more.

let's see what aniplex did for the steam page of mahoyo.

A tale told with vivid colors and rich sound in a classic TYPE-MOON visual novel.

I don't know how to describe this short description charitably other than to say it sounds like a person who's never heard of a visual novel has been tasked with describing a visual novel.

this tells me nothing about the game other than it's a visual novel. I hope you know what type-moon is, because if you don't then you've learned nothing else from this. alright, well, let's look at the screenshots—

there's only 1.

currently as of writing this, there's 10 images uploaded as screenshots (no trailers, they keep adding and removing the trailers for some reason). 9 of these images are just the full artworks from the game while 1 is an actual screenshot.

I really hate this, as you're not actually shown what the game looks like unless you look at the very last screenshot. this will absolutely lead to some people not understanding what they're getting into. what's worse is that some of these CGs are spoilers, especially one in particular featuring my wife touko.

why are we spoiling people instead of showing them screenshots? why not show people what mahoyo actually looks like??

there's also absolutely no use of the announcements section on steam. each game on steam can post announcements related to the game, including upcoming releases, new updates, and more. it's customary to post a steam announcement when a game has a release date announcement. mahoyo's steam page has none.

well they probably released the trailers in english for hype

I wish I had that much hope.

on mahoyo's english website, all of the videos listed are from the official type-moon youtube, which is their japanese channel. type-moon went through the effort to translate these videos. aniplex didn't upload these to their own youtube, where they already upload everything related to the fateverse and nasuverse.

searching up witch on the holy night brings up no results for the trailer—aniplex never uploaded the trailer to their channel.

maybe they got influencers to play it

according to steamdb, the max amount of viewers mahoyo streams have had on twitch was 71 viewers.

furthermore, if we check twitch and look for vods attached to mahoyo, we only find 4 videos total, all of which were posted in the past week. it looks like they didn't even reach out to streamers to play the console release, much less pay them.

over on the press side, it does look like they reached out to at least a few reviewers. for example, on the review by noisy pixel, they clarify that a review copy was provided by the publisher for review purposes. we can add that to the bare minimum of marketing—reaching out to press.

however, they did get for some other influencers to share the game! ...twitter game sale influencers, that is.

there's actually a lot more of these types of tweets for mahoyo than I was expecting when I searched it on twitter. as a friend pointed out, just because it says "#ad" doesn't necessarily mean these were paid for by aniplex—a lot of these links look to be referrals, which means they're getting a cut of any purchases.

let's recap

mahoyo released over 110k copies in the launch week for it's worldwide console release despite very, very limited marketing efforts from its publisher aniplex. now that the game has proven it can sell very well despite being a lesser known linear visual novel, aniplex has done no marketing for the steam release- no tweets, no influencer outreach, no localization of trailers, no announcements via steam, nothing.

so why?

why does aniplex want mahoyo to fail?

even after all of this, I still do not know why. to me, it's clear that the marketing team at aniplex were (most likely) given no budget for this game and just couldn't do anything with it, deciding to spend what little money they had on press outreach and an anime NYC booth.

but why? why didn't aniplex give them a budget, even a small one? why was their budget so tiny they couldn't even afford to tweet? to RT more posts from the japanese twitter? to share the already translated trailers to their own accounts?

I've heard a few excuses like "type-moon hates western fans and probably caused it" but this doesn't make any sense either. why would you authorize a translation of your game and allow your publisher to sell the game overseas but specifically make them not market the game (and what publisher would agree to that)? I've even heard excuses like "they just forgot it was coming out", to which I ask "how does an entire marketing team (a company the size of aniplex absolutely has a team(s) for marketing and not a singular person) forget a release for a game that's already sold over 150k copies?". the only excuse I've seen that I somewhat buy is that they did not have much faith in the game and relied almost entirely on fans doing word of mouth marketing for the game.

I don't think we'll ever get an answer. while I do believe the marketing team at aniplex was most likely given no budget for mahoyo, it still begs the question of why. why did someone at aniplex not want to give mahoyo a marketing budget? why are the japanese accounts for mahoyo and type-moon the only ones doing the marketing?

I hope the information I've provided here is accurate—if it's not, I'll try to update with corrections. I don't want this piece to cast hate towards the staff at aniplex or anyone involved with this projects, I'm just trying to assemble the pieces on what feels like a game being left to word of mouth. I've tried to include as many links to my sources as I could so you could come to your own judgements about what has happened regarding mahoyo's worldwide release.

mahoyo is a visual novel that's dear to me and will absolutely sell well on steam—with an estimated 50-80k wishlists, it's going to have a solid launch despite the zero marketing for its steam release. if you love other type-moon works or want to see an absolutely visually stunning visual novel, please check it out.

— arimia

[thesilliestrovingalive]

Updated: November 23, 2024

Reworked Character #6: Nadia Cassel

POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNING: Viewer discretion is advised due to references to death, neglect, sterilisation, human experimentation, abuse, kidnapping, stalking, cannibalism, and SA.

Real name: Nadège Véronique Comtois

Alias: Perky Foodie

Occupation: Private First Class of the S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S., fighter pilot for the Regular Army, a freelance painter, a tactical scientist for the Amadeus Syndicate (formerly), and an e-celeb supermodel (formerly)

Retirement plans: Become a professional forensic scientist, acquire a private jet, and establish an art studio and an ethical science lab

Special skills: Marksmanship, aviation skills, forensic science, knowledge of biological hazards, anatomy, and genetics, and proficiency in fashion modelling, sketching, and painting

Imperfect clone abilities: At her own will, she can rapidly regenerate missing limbs and organs, minimising blood loss and restoring her body to its original form without the need for medical aid. Her blood possesses extraordinary healing properties, capable of instantly curing non-lethal ailments, skin punctures, and all manner of burns. When Nadia opens her mouth wide and flexibly shifts her upper and lower front teeth, she reveals four syringe-like fangs, which are neatly concealed within the hard palate. These fangs enable her to consume the blood of other living beings and replenish her own lost vital fluid.

Her body is shielded from toxins and pathogens by a translucent, grease-like coating that kills threats on contact, leaving her skin with a subtle, luminous sheen. Notably, her pancreas, shielded by a thick layer of blubber, has the unique ability to produce a bile-infused silk. She utilises this silk to puke up robust, ensnaring nets that capture her victims and slowly burn them with its corrosive properties. On the palms of Nadia's hands are eyes with reseda chartreuse irises, feline pupils, and serpentine eyelids, which enable night vision and supplemental sight whenever she closes her facial eyes. Her fingernails are entirely fleshy, concealing retractable claws made of an adamantine greenish-yellow material.

Hobbies: Painting landscapes, going on shopping sprees (she often buys gifts for her comrades and friends), reading books on human and animal anatomy, genetic engineering, and forensics, messing around with flight simulation software, and eating large quantities of food after each mission

Likes: Trevor, food challenges, the Walking Machines, maintaining her figure, and sunbathing and enjoying a three-scoop ice cream cone at the beach

Dislikes: Starvation, getting unnecessarily dirty, not getting the chance to pilot the Slug Flyer or Slug Copter, people doubting her fashion advice and telling her to keep her mouth shut, and individuals that she views as scary and incapable of having fun (such as Tequila and Eri)

Favourite food: Coq au vin, phaal curry, and anything sweet and sugary

Favourite drink: Cotton candy soda

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Gender: Female

Age: 12 (in 2022), 18 (in 2028), 20 (in 2030), 22 (in 2032), 24 (in 2034), 31 (in 2041), 33 (in 2043), 34 (in 2044), and 37 (in 2047)

Blood type: B+

Weight: 120 lbs. (54 kg)

Design: She’s a 5’ 4” (162.56 cm) French ectomorph with a gracefully thin body, small breasts, curvaceous hips, sloping shoulders, and a serpentine tongue covered in microscopic spikes. She has limestone skin and possesses feline-like pupils that transform into vertical slits only when she opens her mouth wide enough to reveal her concealed fangs. Her eyes are heterochromatic with her right eye being a warm amber, while her left eye is grey-green with brown flecks. Nadia has a few moles: one on the right side of her chin; one near the corner of her left eye; two above her left breast; one on the back of her right hand; and one slightly below her right knee.

She has raspberry red hair with voluminous curls that reach the middle of her upper back, but she often ties it into two pigtails with stretchy reseda green hair bands. She has a silvery-pink birthmark on her left shoulder, almost shaped like a crescent moon with three protruding spikes. A large circular patch on her upper back is stripped of skin, exposing crimson muscles and purplish veins, and her greenish-yellow spine is partially protruding.

Her military gear consists of a metal dog tag necklace with her name, an avocado green tank top, and the same knee pads and socks as Nadia Cassel from Metal Slug 4. She wears Argentine blue neoprene gloves, reseda green leather belt with a snap-on silver buckle, and a champagne-hued vest with the S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S. insignia on the back. She wears navy blue army cargo pants tucked into twilight lavender combat boots with spiked soles. She also wears a dirty white lab coat, a case for her stun gun, and a gun holster for a handgun. Underneath her uniform, she wears an identical bikini to Everlasting Summer Nadia's.

The pockets of Nadia’s vest carry around a pocket knife, a sticky note pad, a red pin, a black cellphone with a metallic green case, a blue pin, and a bag of macadamia nuts. In the pockets of her lab coat, she carries an orange-and-white cat plushie with blue eyes and an emerald green tie named Melekhai, along with a caramel-filled chocolate candy bar in silver wrapping and a small pine-wood box of strawberry frosted sugar cookies. She wears a forest green waist pack containing a bottle of laxatives and two blood packs for snacking. Attached to the left side of her belt is a square-shaped pouch with a clear plastic window, showcasing balls of bubblegum and lollipops in different colours inside. The pouch features an amaranth pink outline, feline ears with bluish-white fur, a pistachio-hued strap with a black button clasp, and a metallic silver zipper.

Over her tank top, she dons a Soldier Plate Carrier System (SPCS) with a MultiCam pattern, which carries around her walkie-talkie and ammo for other firearms. She wears two dark brown bandoliers that cross over her body in an X-shape, each holding grenades. Nadia carries around a navy blue load-bearing backpack that contains camping equipment, portable ammo boxes, a canteen full of water, a 7.62mm AR-10 Autorifle, a medical kit, a DOLL bodysuit, and liquid and pill bottles of cures and deadly chemicals. She carries greenish-black gas masks, similar to those worn by the Ptolemaic Army special forces, to her teammates who needed them. She also carries around a painting kit, her mint green sketchbook with bubblegum pink polka dots, and a set of drawing pencils with two erasers and a sharpener.

She also wields a specialised rifle that fires needles containing transformative liquids, capable of altering humans into simian or mantis creatures. Additionally, she carries purplish rolling bombs that contain mummifying breath and throwable canisters filled with a zombie-inducing orangish phlegm that explodes upon impact. She wears safety goggles, star-shaped lavender spinel earrings that dangle from her ears, and a non-dangling peridot belly ring piercing.

Character summary: She boasts swift wit and inventive verbal humour, often outsmarting her foes with clever sabotage tactics. Despite being a childish, happy-go-lucky, and sassy goofball, she has a surprisingly intelligent and cynical side, but she loves to indulge her silly and jubilant nature. Due to her fondness for her exceptional intellect, she sometimes perceives other people as “intellectually inferior” to herself. She conceals her bitterness and wariness of strangers behind a facade of playful teasing, mischievous pranks, sarcastic remarks, and a charming smile. She cherishes her friendship with Trevor, who is her first true best friend. She appreciates his laid-back nature and ability to understand her effortlessly. Over time, she has developed subtle romantic feelings for him, largely due to his hacking expertise and the enjoyable quality time they share. However, she has become adept at concealing these emotions.

She enjoys taking her friends on shopping sprees, blending social time with style consultations. She demonstrates her loyalty to her friends by nurturing their relationships and showing platonic affection, often showering them with hugs and kisses. She's a fearless advocate for herself and others, refusing to tolerate bullying or any form of mistreatment, and will boldly speak out against it. She has a fondness for assigning nicknames to those around her, including friends and foes alike. She uses Melekhai for stress relief and often talks to the plushie about her frustrations and disappointments, and is willing to share him with others who need some comfort.

She's a friendly, humorous, and talkative busybody with a passion for creative expression and thrill-seeking adventures, which give her a taste of what it truly means to live. Despite efforts to maintain her supermodel figure, she has developed mild bulimia nervosa; while trying to resist the urge, she sometimes purges after eating. Additionally, she struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), manifesting as a fear of contamination, anxiety about misplacing valuable items, and a need for order and balance. She also experiences distressing thoughts, including fears of losing control, harming loved ones, and intrusive thoughts about sexual subjects. Whenever she hears about child abuse or unethical experiments, she becomes visibly shaken, her mind goes numb, and she withdraws socially for a few hours, succumbing to a melancholic state.

She takes a disturbing pleasure in obliterating her enemies, often letting out a maniacal laugh as she does so. Her humour is a unique blend of lighthearted and dark, peppered with French phrases, occasional broken English (a reminder that it's not her first language), and sprinkled with Korean expressions that Trevor has taught her. Outside of military work, she often dodges unwanted tasks by concocting elaborate schemes (frequently with Trevor's help) to avoid them. However, her plans often backfire, resulting in trouble for neglecting her duties. Moreover, she has a tendency to slack off during missions, especially when she becomes bored and her attention wanders to more exciting things. When she gets into trouble, especially when it involves people she has convinced to join her antics, she often tries to deflect responsibility by feigning innocence and shifting the blame onto others.

She possesses a fairly compassionate, laid-back disposition, which she only reveals to those closest to her. She's overconfident about her looks and seems unfazed by how people react to her inhuman features, yet she draws the line at absurd and unattainable beauty standards. She's deadly serious when needed and isn't afraid to intimidate people or berate individuals for doing something irrational or dangerous. She has a strong disdain for individuals who exhibit predatory behaviour, such as perverts and stalkers, and is unafraid to call them out and mock their actions mercilessly. She despises unnecessary secrecy and eugenics, opposing the lack of transparency and the racist underpinnings of genetic manipulation aimed at "improving" human populations.

She's quite gluttonous and becomes quickly hangry when she's extremely hungry and there's nothing to eat at the moment. She's an eavesdropper with a curious habit of inspecting, poking, probing, and even biting anything that piques her interest. She grapples with touch starvation, feeling emotionally isolated from others, and deeply dislikes being overlooked or ignored by those around her. She harbours intense resentment towards her mother due to her neglectful behaviour and excessive focus on satisfying scientific curiosity, which comes at the expense of considering others' needs and forming meaningful connections with them. She’s appalled by her mother's callous disregard for the pain she inflicts on others as well as the secrecy surrounding their family's lineage and her status as an imperfect clone.

Backstory: Nadège Véronique Comtois was born on August 6, 2010 in Quimper, France. She was created in a test tube through advanced Martian cloning technology and the DNA of Ghyslaine Laëtitia Comtois, her clone mother and founder of the Amadeus Syndicate, in an underground laboratory. Initially, Ghyslaine's interest in Nadège was rooted in scientific curiosity. She conducted psychological and sociological experiments to explore the similarities and differences between them. Ghyslaine would overfeed Nadège, only to discover that her daughter had an abnormal metabolism, making it challenging for her to gain weight. Unintentionally, Ghyslaine fueled Nadège's affection for junk food.

At age 7, Ghyslaine subjected Nadège to a disturbing and unethical experiment, forcibly inducing puberty and sterilising her daughter as part of a eugenics test. During this period, Nadège longed to experience the outside world and connect with her clone mother. Unfortunately, Ghyslaine's focus on research led her to neglect Nadège’s emotional needs. She treated her more like a guinea pig than a human being, providing minimal motherly comfort and attention.

At the age of 9, Ghyslaine decided it was time for Nadège to explore the outside world, which filled her clone daughter with excitement. Together, Nadège experienced her first-ever outing to a shopping district and explored several notable attractions in Quimper, including the Breton County Museum, the Fine Arts Museum, and the Faience Museum. She received Melekhai as a reward for being well-behaved, and she still holds onto the plushie very dearly since it was the first heartfelt gift her clone mother gave her. Her experience with the outside world sparked Nadège’s curiosity in modelling and the creative arts.

However, her mother had other plans. Ghyslaine envisioned Nadège following in her footsteps as a renowned scientist and eventual heir to the Amadeus Syndicate. To nurture this ambition, Ghyslaine frequently presented Nadège with books on biology and chemistry, encouraging her to delve into the sciences. She encouraged Nadège to cover the unusual features on her palms and upper back by wearing neoprene gloves and modest clothing in order to avoid drawing unnecessary attention or judgement from others.

By the age of 11, Nadège had become proficient in biology and chemistry, thanks to her mother's guidance. She began attending school after being previously homeschooled by Ghyslaine and other Amadeus Syndicate scientists. Although her school years were uneventful, Nadia occasionally faced bullying due to her intense interests in science, modelling, and the creative arts, as well as her unusual habit of wearing neoprene gloves to conceal her hand-eyes.

However, the bullying ceased after rumours circulated that she had intimidated and bitten a school bully by revealing her hidden snake fangs—a claim that was surprisingly true. Nadège’s clone mother was indifferent to her academic pursuits but drew a firm line at harming others and divulging confidential information about the Amadeus Syndicate. When Ghyslaine learned about this incident, she smacked her in the face, then confined her to a padded room with two blood bags and a fresh corpse for three hours. As dinnertime approached, Nadège's hunger grew, leading her to make the desperate decision to consume the contents of the blood bags and feed on the fresh corpse.

During her high school years, Nadège frequently skipped classes to go shopping, feeling that she already possessed a strong grasp of the material being taught in her courses. To avoid arousing suspicion about her exceptional intelligence, she intentionally performed poorly on a few tests. During this time, she experienced significant weight gain, which unfortunately led to bullying and negative comments about her appearance. However, she handled the situation with confidence and resilience, effectively standing up for herself and dismissing the hurtful remarks. After completing high school, she promptly enrolled in a two-year college art program, specialising in landscape drawing for animation studios, before pursuing forensic science at the university level.

While pursuing her forensic studies at university, Nadège unexpectedly catapulted to fame as an e-celebrity supermodel, adopting the pseudonym Nadia Cassel. Driven by a passion for fashion and curiosity about the modelling world, she embarked on this venture independently, without management, and solely for her own enjoyment. Although her rise to fame was modest at best, she didn't mind because she revelled in the opportunity to be herself and try something new. She formed a close bond with an orange-haired fan from Launceston, Tasmania, Australia, Ophelia Clementine Rourke (whom she affectionately calls Ophie), who would later become a fighter plane pilot for the Regular Army.

However, as her fame as an e-celeb supermodel grew, she started to attract unwanted attention from predatory individuals, which caused her significant distress. Her situation intensified when she inadvertently revealed her hand-eyes and exposed spine during a livestream, leading to an escalation of online harassment. After a deranged fan attempted to kidnap and sexually assault her, she empowered herself by obtaining a gun licence and rigorously training to use a firearm, becoming a skilled markswoman.

The stress of her forensic studies and the pressures of being a supermodel took a toll on Nadia's mental health, leading to the development of OCD and bulimia nervosa. Her struggles with maintaining a strict diet, keeping her model-worthy figure, and need for control became overwhelming. Eventually, Nadège made the decision to quit modelling as her mental health issues began to impact her studies. However, she kept the name of her e-celeb persona because she liked it. In a disturbing incident, she recalls defending herself against a stalker who attempted to assault and cannibalise her in her own home. The attack led to her involuntarily consuming the stalker's blood, unleashing a sadistic streak she never knew she had.

After completing her forensic studies, Nadia prioritised fitness to maintain her physical well-being. Having achieved her ideal body weight, she shifted her focus to obtaining her pilot's licence, inspired by Ophie to join the Regular Army's tactical operations. After obtaining her licence and receiving military training, Ghyslaine permitted Nadia to join the Amadeus Syndicate as a tactical scientist. She proved to be highly successful, making a name for herself as she pushed the boundaries of scientific understanding in biology and chemistry. Nadia supplied the Regular Army with stable bioweapons, gas masks, and advocated for training recruits on the dangers of biological hazards. During a joint tactical mission with the Amadeus Syndicate and Regular Army against a bioterrorist attack, Nadia met Trevor and quickly formed a friendship with him. 

While searching Ghyslaine's office for documents for a chemical experiment, she stumbled upon classified test results revealing her true nature: an imperfect clone. The discovery shook her to her core. Further investigation led her to her clone mother's journal, exposing a dark family legacy of illicit collaborations with government agencies, inhumane wildlife experimentation, and development of devastating bioweapons and malicious computer viruses. Most alarming, however, was Ghyslaine's megalomaniacal plan for global domination and self-deification. Horrified, she contemplated abandoning the Syndicate, yet for mysterious reasons, she chose to stay.

During her work on a disease cure in South Africa, Nadia uncovered disturbing information: Ghyslaine sexually assaulted Marco, who was injured at the time. This traumatic event had far-reaching consequences, severely straining relations between the Regular Army and the Amadeus Syndicate. Horrified by Ghyslaine's actions, she defected to the Regular Army, dedicating herself to defending Earth against global threats. She vaguely recalls attempting to poison Ghyslaine by lacing her bitter coffee with powdered cyanide, but the plan backfired when another scientist accidentally drank from the cup instead.

She eventually joined the S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S. after befriending Fio and earning a sliver of respect from Eri. This was due to her impressive performance as a prospective agent, where she swiftly identified the chemical composition of a new illicit drug that had been baffling the Intelligence Agency. She achieved this by obtaining crucial documents and conducting rigorous, ethical experiments. Following the Survival Island Occupation, she provided crucial assistance to the hostages and kidnapped cadets who had been transformed into grotesque simian and mantis creatures, administering cures that successfully restored them to their human form.

[riddlebanshee]

Just watched Nope (2022) for the first time and thinking about how, when it first came out, I saw so much commentary on the theme of cameras and audiences to the point where I was completely BLINDSIDED by the way the movie went. It was amazing btw BUT LIKE There's a TON of overt themes having to do with animals and the way humans interact w them and I feel like all the posts I've seen about the cinema/production angle completely missed that?? Like. The main characters grew up working with horses, who, even tamed, are notably volatile critters who can and WILL smash you to a pulp with their hooves. And in the very beginning, we see one of those horses nearly harm people because they don't listen to warnings about keeping a safe distance and not spooking it-- we even see the opposite of this, good animal handling procedures, mentioned in brief with Otis and Em's dad, before he dies, when he's trying to break in a horse. Even with the Gordy incident, it all circles back around to the way animals are used in television and film and how it can break incredibly bad for the most mundane of reasons. A balloon pops, multiple pop, startling the chimp, and suddenly people are very badly injured or dead. And when we later see the same kid at the center of this incident, not having processed this trauma, interacting with Jean Jacket & thinking he can make good on the mistakes made without actually having any proper idea of how to interact with a dangerous animal?? We see that same theme pushed to an extreme!! First with the way the incident was satirized & made light of-- MAD and SNL-- and then when the stadium is sucked up and digested in frankly one of the most interesting and disturbing horror movie death scenes I've watched. Warning signs are ignored-- people fail to understand the signs of stress or aggression in an animal, and so people get hurt!! Vs. Otis who DOES recognize those things in an animal and who DOES know that certain things can't be tamed or reasoned with or truly controlled. And yes, he & Em have a goal (capture evidence of it) that incites them to interact with it, beyond living in it's territory, but they also recognize that it IS territorial, and it IS hunting within its natural environment, and it CANNOT be tamed simply by feeding it. OJ also recognizes, from working with animals, that making eye contact with a predator is a surefire way to draw it to aggression, and actively utilizes this knowledge both to avoid it and to lure it where it needs to be to keep people safe, and to predict its behavior, insomuch as an unpredictable animal can be predicted! Also, I think it's neat that the monster design clearly hearkens back to "primordial", invertebrate ocean critters like octopuses and jellyfish. Just to really drive home the fact that it isn't something to be controlled, especially not by the things it's hunting.

[mask131]

Given people tend to have a short-lived memory on the Internet, let's recall together one of the ridiculous moments of Putin's Russia's propaganda against Europe. It is something that happened very recently, and for once it is not an ideological or social conflict or propaganda. No, it is a meteorological one - a story that might seem laughable and absurd, just a good joke on its own, but a story that shows us how deeply buried in lies and falseness and a complete detachment from reality the Russian propaganda is. This highlights the sad truth of how Russian media became a mass-fake-news machine and is ready to twist and turn every little fact of life to serve their own "Russia is the greatest, the rest of the world is Hell" view.

This happened in the winter of 2022-2023. If you are not in Europe maybe you didn't hear about this, but it was all over here. If you do not recall, this winter was actually colder than the one of previous years - which notably caused a certain problem because there was an economic crisis going on thanks to the Ukrainian war. There is this big price inflation all across Europe, coupled with the fact we don't get the Russian oil and gaz anymore - and this slightly colder weather mixed with the more costly every day life and the lack of heating fuels were all used by Russian propagandist to announce that Europe was going to face its harshest and coldest winter yet, and that thanks to the Ukrainian war, they would all freeze to death. If you listened to the words of Russian information channels, it was as if ASOIAF's "Winter is coming" was happening in real life.

Putin notably used a sentence referring a very popular Russian fairytale (though it is actually a folktale also heavily present in Europe, especially in France where it is part of the Roman de Renart) - "The wolf's tail will freeze". For Putin, Europe was the wicked and greedy wolf, and this harsh icey winter would weaken Europe the same way the wolf who was tricked into fishing with his tail got trapped in the lake of ice...

Let's begin with a "little lie", well a big one, but still lesser compared to the others that follow in this post. Mid-March, Olga Skabeyeva (one of the famous propagandist news anchors of Russia) claimed that due to the rise of prices, a third of the inhabitants of France was forced to give up on hygiene and beauty products. According to her, a third of French people didn't use shampoo or deodorants anymore, a third of French people didn't clean their teeth anymore - they even had to abandon toilet paper due to it costing too much! And of course, Skabeyeva concluded that this was all because France gave too much money to Ukraine, leaving its own people "poor and dirty"... Note that this actually plays on a widespread stereotype French have among foreigners: the reputation of French being dirty for only taking a bath once a week or so. I don't know where this stereotype of the French that doesn't take care of their personal hygiene comes from, but it exists.

If you are from Britain, you probably heard about Olga Skabeyeva's famous comments about the poor state the harsh winter and economic crisis of England had left people into. Mid-January she affirmed on Russian television that the common British folks were forced to eat dog food and cat food because human food was too costly, and that now English households cooked on their radiators, since they could only afford one heater for the whole house. This was backed up in early March by her claims that British restaurants, due to a lack of animal meat, were forced to serve squirrels to their clients, and that they would go on to trap other animals found in parks. Many British people argued back that yes, there was a big and harsh crisis, but no it wasn't as bad as the propagandist claimed and no, nobody ate squirrels in restaurants. [I unfortunately cannot find back the source but I recall seeing around the time this made the news, that the propagandist actually took one true info - something about indeed people killing squirrels somewhere in England for health and ecological reasons, or maybe some public figure joking about possibly eating squirrels - and then twisted it into "all British restaurants serve squirrels now". That's typical of propagandists - take one grain of truth, make it a whole beach of lies.]

And then we reach Germany. This time I have sources to back up, exact sources I will bring to you. In fact, if you want to know more about the crazy world of Russian propaganda, I can't advise you enough to check out this very informative and eye-opening series: Arte's Fake News. Arte is a Franco-German binational channel that brought this program - originally a web-series, that also aired on television. "Fake News", of its full title, "Fake News: Russian propaganda for beginners", is a series created and hosted by Marsha Borzunova, the representative of a group of anti-Putin Russian journalists that exiled themselves. Now, from the town of Riga, she and her crew created these videos that study, debunk and explain the various aspects of Russia's propaganda.

And one of her videos covered the topic of "European winter as seen by Russia". She talked of Putin's "wolf's tail" comment, she talked of how Russian television channels claimed that Czech figureheads publically said that to survive winter they will burn "everything they get their hands on", and even burn Ukraine down... And she also brought up the "Berlin problem". During the last months of the year 2022, Russian newspaper multiplied reports that due to the lack of oil/gaz and the extreme temperatures of winter, Berliners were cutting down almost all of the trees in their public parks. Which of course, is something that never happened. But these newspapers listed an American article from Bloomberg as their sources - and when you go look at the article, you realize how heavily the propagandists twisted the original words. The Bloomberg article was about the energy crisis in Germany, indeed, and how wood-fueled heating systems were now preferred and demanded over gaz-fueled heating systems, but that was it. The article did mention public park trees being cut down as an example... as an HISTORICAL example. The article speaks of the cutting of the Tiergarten trees in WORLD WAR II!!!

To add salt to the wound, there is the existence of a television show in Russia called "Antifake", designed to debunk fake news and denounce propaganda. Not Russian one though - the point of this show is to destroy the "lies of the West" and reveal the "truth" about Europe. Which is, as you can guess, a pile of absurd and shameless lies in favor of Russia. Antifake most notably fed into the whole "Europeans are freezing to death" thing by having their reporter living in Germany, a woman called Yulia, do a live interview from her apartment in Munich - and she appeared in this interview wrapped into a big, heavy winter coat, fur-lined hood over her head, despite being inside. Because, as she explained, the furnace had been cut for the night and in the morning, and so she was waiting for noon to have the sun heat her apartment into a more bearable temperature. An interview that becomes absolutely ridiculous when you know that at the same time, in Munich (Yulia's town), it was mid-october, it was a sunny week with 18 degrees outside (I'll let you do the conversion if you are American). Nobody in their right mind was wearing a coat inside their house, and nobody wore heavy coats outside either, and there was no furnace cuts. Even more hilarious is the fact that the emission showed background videos recorded of European heavly clothed, sharing food at some charity stand in a freezing morning... Except that when you look at the signs in this supposedly "German sight", you see everything is written in cyrillic, and that's because these images were recorded in the town of Opotchka, in the Pskov region, not "near Berlin" as they wanted the audience to think. Speaking of Yulia - you might have heard of her outside of the "Antifake" show, because she made herself quite famous in Germany, even viral. She went viral because she posted a video of herself smiling and dancing with a Russian flag... In front of a group of Ukrainian refugees in Salzburg. She became known as the "Russian harasser of Ukrainians fleeing the war" in Germany.

Borzunova also mentions the cyber-war of fake news to conclude her look at Russian's fantasies about a winter of misery in Europe: on Twitter, there was a trend that spread, a hastag #AgainstSanctions. This hashtag was shared and posted by many Europeans of various countries, complaining that the sanctions taken against Russia were ruining their life. The trend was simple: post a picture of an empty plate, with a message written on a piece of paper onto the plate, directly demanding to your local politician to stop the anti-Russia sanctions.

Here's the thing however: this "trend" was reported by Russian institutions and medias. And while the posts of this hashtag do exist, when you look just a little bit deeper you realize how fake it all is. All the accounts that started this trend only have one post in total: the AntiSanctions post. All these accounts were created on the same day. AND their profile pictures are those of public figures - ranging from CNN news anchors to Bollywood actresses.

Anyway, if you want to check the video about all of this, you can go look at it on Youtube. I personally watched the French subtitled version, even though there is a German-subtitled one (thanks to Arte being Franco-German), and Borzunova speaks in English, so you can still listen to her comments and understand her explanations without reading French or German:

If the video above doesn't appear, here is the link.

[justacynicalromantic]

It is a long read but I promise you it's worth every minute you'll spend on it.

Volodymyr Rafeyenko, the author of the article, is an award-winning Ukrainian writer. I want to share a bit about him for a greater perspective, his experiences add valuable insights to his reflections. Rafeyenko got his degree in russian philology&culture studies in Donetsk University, he mostly wrote and published in russian. In 2014 when Donetsk was occupied by russians and russia-backed separatists he was forced to leave. He then moved to a town near Kyiv where he's written his first novel in Ukrainian - Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love. In 2022 upon russia's full-scale invasion Rafeyenko with his wife spent an awful month in a house between Bucha and Borodyanka until they were able to flee. After February 24, 2022 Rafeyenko says that he will never publish anything in russian. Read his article (maybe even twice, I'll definitely read it many times). I'll share just one passage from it:

"Dozens of wonderful writers, musicians, artists, and other geniuses of the Russian national spirit, both in earlier periods and current ones, have turned out to be incapable of forming mechanisms that would recreate humanism in Russians. The most that the representatives of this culture are capable of is a cheap variety of a brutal and cynical sentimentality. Sentimentality is generally uncomplicated and does not demand much: it is notable for the fact that you do not need to do anything for its sake. Sentimentality is a feeling without action — life in which there is no gleam of conscience and accountability for one’s existence, only the beautifully soulful praise of existence given to them by the Creator. It is difficult to find bigger animals than sentimental people."

[demi-shoggoth]

2023 Reading Log, pt 1

It begins again! With a straggler from 2022.

151. All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell. Last year, the book that made me cry was Women and Other Monsters. This was the book this year. This book is about the author’s grappling with death via the act of visiting and interviewing people who work in fields handling the dead. Morticians, grave diggers, autopsy technicians and cremation operators are interviewed, as are people who you might not think of—crime scene cleaners, a company that works in PR and cleanup for disasters, a bereavement midwife. The material about the death of fetuses and infants is especially devastating, both for me and for the author; her sense of detachment is derailed upon seeing infant corpses being cleaned after autopsy, and coming to terms with that is a major theme of the book. The book ends with the COVID pandemic, and how death has become a much bigger part of everyone’s lives, after decades of denial pushing it to the fringes. This was a powerful read, and I have a lot of emotions about it; I’m glad I read this book, but I will likely never want to read it again.

001. Upstate Cauldron: Eccentric Spiritual Movements in Early New York State by Joscelyn Goodwin. This was not the book I thought it was going to be when I picked it up. It covers most of the bases—looking at the “Burnt Over” region of Upstate New York and how it was the site of a lot of religious development throughout the 19th century. It covers the well known ones—the Millerites and their more successful spinoffs, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists, the Mormons, the Spiritualists. It also talks about the interweaving of spiritualist beliefs with leftist politics in the 19th century, and how people like Susan B. Anthony and Fredrick Douglass had connections to séances and channelers. What I did not expect was the strong bias of the author. He is clearly friendly to Helena Blavatsky and Theosophical ideas, much more than an impartial historian would have been of that notorious fraud. The final chapter, where the author lays out his Neoplatonic philosophy and his belief that New York State is the site of ley lines, reads like the reveal in a horror movie. There is useful information to be had here, but it should be taken with more than a grain of salt.

002. Dinosaurs: Profiles from a Lost World by Riley Black, illustrations by Riccardo Frapiccini. The author of this book is on tumblr! Go follow her @rileycatrocks​ , she’s awesome. This book is an overview of what we know about notable dinosaur genera, as well as other Mesozoic reptiles like pterosaurs and crocodiles. The writing is good at summarizing modern research in a readable style; this is a good book for interested laypeople. The art is done using photomanipulation to create the textures on the animals, all of which are featured in a profile head shot. I think it works mostly, but there are some issues. I really like the animals’ eyes, which feel authentic (I especially like the horizontal pupils on many of the ornithiscians). The textures are more hit-and-miss, though. The same sample of monitor lizard skin is used on multiple pieces, and there’s a Brachiosaurus covered in Galapagos tortoise hide that looks really awkward and misshapen. This book was published first in Italy, so I’m a little surprised European dinosaurs don’t get more featured. Although the somewhat obscure and very strange Italian pterosaur Caviramus shows up, which I appreciated.

003. The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu by Dan Jurafsky. This book is part food history and part computational linguistics. The book discusses both how foods travel around the world and change when they meet new cultures (like how ketchup was first made with fish, and how much of English and American foodways come from the Middle East). It also covers the linguistic tricks used on menus and food packaging to sell to specific markets, and the similarities in language used on Yelp reviews. These two halves don’t quite gel together the way the author may have hoped. I liked the book, but maybe it could have used a little more scaffolding.

004. what if? 2 by Randall Munroe. This was the hardest I’ve laughed at a book in some time. Highly recommended for the joy factor alone. This is the third of Munroe’s pop-science Q&A books, and like what if? and how to?, it answers questions, some simple, some absurd, with the science of how they would actually work. A lot of planets are destroyed, black holes created, and other chaos ensues. Most of the questions involve physics or chemistry, but there are a few biology questions included (like how many people would a T. rex have to eat in a day, which becomes how many T. rexes can be supported by a single McDonalds).

005. Parasites: The Inside Story by Scott L. Gardner, Judy Diamond and Gabor Racz, illustrated by Brenda Lee. This book is another “recommended for interested laypeople” text, this one about the evolution and ecology of parasites. The book is divided into thirds; the first third covers parasites of humans, the second the life histories and evolution of major clades of parasites, the third individual case studies, most of them involving the first author. The illustrations are a high point—the life cycles of featured parasites are illustrated, and the back of the book has a spotter’s guide to the individual species discussed in the text. I wish it were longer, though—this book is 190 pages, which includes a 10 page glossary and 40 pages of bibliography.

[nanoeggroll]

an incomplete list of media consumed in 2023

throwing this out there before january is over. includes some haphazard comments as usual!

Books: The Count of Monte Cristo The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (eh. quite readable but I didn't find it all that compelling) This is How You Lose the Time War The Last House on Needless Street (revisited as audiobook) Gideon the Ninth (the audiobook made me tear up a little? I did not expect that wtf) The Viscount Who Loved Me Movies: Dungeons and Dragons Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse Nimona Barbie Airplane! Red White and Royal Blue Bottoms (GOD what a wild movie) (rewatched) Master and Commander (boats!!!)

TV: Ted Lasso s3 The Owl House Bridgerton s2 Good Omens s2 One Piece live action (reignited my interest in the manga! cuties) Leverage Redemption s2 Deadloch (I love you Dulcie and Eddie) Our Flag Means Death s2 Love Between Fairy and Devil A League of Their Own (2022) (please please s2)

Anime/Donghua: Skip and Loafer Heavenly Delusion (dropped, may revisit) Heaven Official's Blessing s2 (dropped, pacing just feels abysmal) Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (I count this as an anime. I liked it more than the movie) The Apothecary Diaries (ongoing) Manga (notable mentions only since I binge too much random manga): Raise wa Tanin ga Ii (i'm obsessed with the female lead) Dungeon Meshi

Theater: Hadestown (obsessed with the difference in shape and size between the Hades and Persephone that I saw. tall skinny and short stocky was a good time visually) Frozen Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (the Broadway adaptation introduces some new stuff that I find totally unnecessary. but a good time nonetheless) All the Devils Are Here

Games: Baldur's Gate 3 (oh boy did I play the hell out of this game) Graveyard Keeper Dave the Diver Ace Attorney Investigations 2 (loving edgeworth hours, what a treat)

[skopostheorie]

I dont even know what asterix (sp?) is but since you seem cool I stay followed ♡

(confess something you've thought about me on anon!)

Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix (French: Astérix or Astérix le Gaulois [asteʁiks lə ɡolwa], "Asterix the Gaul") is a bande dessinée comic book series about a village of indomitable Gaulish warriors who adventure around the world and fight the Roman Republic, with the aid of a magic potion, during the era of Julius Caesar, in an ahistorical telling of the time after the Gallic Wars. The series first appeared in the Franco-Belgian comic magazine Pilote on 29 October 1959. It was written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo until Goscinny's death in 1977. Uderzo then took over the writing until 2009, when he sold the rights to publishing company Hachette; he died in 2020. In 2013, a new team consisting of Jean-Yves Ferri (script) and Didier Conrad (artwork) took over. As of 2021, 39 volumes have been released, with the most recent released in October 2021.

Description[edit]

Some of the many characters in Asterix. In the front row are the regular characters, with Asterix himself in the centre.

Asterix comics usually start with the following introduction:

The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely... One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium...[1][2]

The series follows the adventures of a village of Gauls as they resist Roman occupation in 50 BC. They do so using a magic potion, brewed by their druid Getafix (Panoramix in the French version), which temporarily gives the recipient superhuman strength. The protagonists, the title character Asterix and his friend Obelix, have various adventures. The "-ix" ending of both names (as well as all the other pseudo-Gaulish "-ix" names in the series) alludes to the "-rix" suffix (meaning "king", like "-rex" in Latin) present in the names of many real Gaulish chieftains such as Vercingetorix, Orgetorix, and Dumnorix.

In some of the stories, they travel to foreign countries, while other tales are set in and around their village. For much of the history of the series (volumes 4 through 29), settings in Gaul and abroad alternated, with even-numbered volumes set abroad and odd-numbered volumes set in Gaul, mostly in the village.

The Asterix series is one of the most popular Franco-Belgian comics in the world, with the series being translated into 111 languages and dialects as of 2009.[3]

The success of the series has led to the adaptation of its books into 15 films: ten animated, and five live action (two of which, Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra and Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar, were major box office successes in France). There have also been a number of games based on the characters, and a theme park near Paris, Parc Astérix. The very first French satellite, Astérix, launched in 1965, was named after the character, whose name is close to Greek ἀστήρ and Latin astrum, meaning a "star". As of 20 April 2022, 385 million copies of Asterix books had been sold worldwide and translated in 111 languages making it the world's most widely translated comic book series,[4] with co-creators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo being France's best-selling authors abroad.[5][6]

In April 2022, Albert and René’s general director Céleste Surugue hosted a 45-minute talk titled "The Next Incarnation of a Heritage Franchise: Asterix" and spoke about the success of the Asterix franchise of which he noted "The idea was to find a subject with a strong connection with French culture and while looking at the country's history, they ended up choosing its first defeat, namely the Gaul's Roman colonisation". He also went on to say how since 1989, Parc Asterix attracts an average of 2.3 million visitors per year. Other notable mentions were how the franchise includes 10 animated movies, which recorded over 53 million viewers worldwide. The inception of Studios Idefix in 1974 and the opening of Studio 58 in 2016 were among the necessary steps to make Asterix a "100% Gaulish production," considered the best solution to keep the creative process under control from start to finish and to employ French manpower. He also noted how a new album is now published every two years, with print figures of 5 million and an estimate readership of 20 million.[7]

History[edit]

Évariste Vital Luminais' (1821–1896) paintings of Goths had been rather popular in France and are a possible model for the Asterix series.[8]

Prior to creating the Asterix series, Goscinny and Uderzo had had success with their series Oumpah-pah, which was published in Tintin magazine.[9] Astérix was originally serialised in Pilote magazine, debuting in the first issue on 29 October 1959.[10] In 1961 the first book was put together, titled Asterix the Gaul. From then on, books were released generally on a yearly basis. Their success was exponential; the first book sold 6,000 copies in its year of publication; a year later, the second sold 20,000. In 1963, the third sold 40,000; the fourth, released in 1964, sold 150,000. A year later, the fifth sold 300,000; 1966's Asterix and the Big Fight sold 400,000 upon initial publication. The ninth Asterix volume, when first released in 1967, sold 1.2 million copies in two days.

Uderzo's first preliminary sketches portrayed Asterix as a huge and strong traditional Gaulish warrior. But Goscinny had a different picture in his mind, visualizing Asterix as a shrewd, compact warrior who would possess intelligence and wit more than raw strength. However, Uderzo felt that the downsized hero needed a strong but dim companion, to which Goscinny agreed. Hence, Obelix was born.[11] Despite the growing popularity of Asterix with the readers, the financial backing for the publication Pilote ceased. Pilote was taken over by Georges Dargaud.[11]

When Goscinny died in 1977, Uderzo continued the series by popular demand of the readers, who implored him to continue. He continued to issue new volumes of the series, but on a less frequent basis. Many critics and fans of the series prefer the earlier collaborations with Goscinny.[12] Uderzo created his own publishing company, Éditions Albert René, which published every album drawn and written by Uderzo alone since then.[11] However, Dargaud, the initial publisher of the series, kept the publishing rights on the 24 first albums made by both Uderzo and Goscinny. In 1990, the Uderzo and Goscinny families decided to sue Dargaud to take over the rights. In 1998, after a long trial, Dargaud lost the rights to publish and sell the albums. Uderzo decided to sell these rights to Hachette instead of Albert-René, but the publishing rights on new albums were still owned by Albert Uderzo (40%), Sylvie Uderzo (20%) and Anne Goscinny (40%).[citation needed]

In December 2008, Uderzo sold his stake to Hachette, which took over the company.[13] In a letter published in the French newspaper Le Monde in 2009, Uderzo's daughter, Sylvie, attacked her father's decision to sell the family publishing firm and the rights to produce new Astérix adventures after his death. She said:

However, René Goscinny's daughter, Anne, also gave her agreement to the continuation of the series and sold her rights at the same time. She is reported to have said that "Asterix has already had two lives: one during my father's lifetime and one after it. Why not a third?".[16] A few months later, Uderzo appointed three illustrators, who had been his assistants for many years, to continue the series.[12] In 2011, Uderzo announced that a new Asterix album was due out in 2013, with Jean-Yves Ferri writing the story and Frédéric Mébarki drawing it.[17] A year later, in 2012, the publisher Albert-René announced that Frédéric Mébarki had withdrawn from drawing the new album, due to the pressure he felt in following in the steps of Uderzo. Comic artist Didier Conrad was officially announced to take over drawing duties from Mébarki, with the due date of the new album in 2013 unchanged.[18][19]

In January 2015, after the murders of seven cartoonists at the satirical Paris weekly Charlie Hebdo, Astérix creator Albert Uderzo came out of retirement to draw two Astérix pictures honouring the memories of the victims.[20]

[dokidokitsuna]

I hope everyone’s enjoying a Happy New Year! :D I dunno why, but I feel like I should post something.

I’ve been in a positively foul mood for the last 24 hours...I chalk it up to pre-menstrual nonsense mixed with the fact that being on vacation all week (i.e. stuck in my house with ALL my family members on a daily basis) is starting to get to me. 6__6;;

Maybe things will change once I finally get my own place (which I’m currently working on with my realtor, and when it does happen you WILL know) but historically I can’t just...be left to my own devices and do art ALL the time. I get cabin-fever, I need to do more than just go out for food and groceries; I need another regular multi-hour activity to do besides my personal work. If I ever became rich and didn’t need my day job anymore, I’d probably start doing volunteer work again or go back to school; I gotta have something...

Anyway, now I’m in a better mood; a reflective mood...2022 was an interesting year~. I started a new YouTube channel that’s actually going pretty well, I learned a lot about animation thanks to those two AniChall entries-- seriously, they were stressful and insane and the whole time I was working on them I was filled with guilt about all the other stuff I should’ve been doing instead, but I really did learn SO much. I honestly think they’re the main reason I’m now able to consider pursuing animation seriously in the future. It’s not just a nebulous possibility anymore, I am good and I can get better.

Let’s see, what else...I started a new job, I got my first RSI...Twitter imploded, DeviantArt continued its death throes...I threw a Halloween party, I started doing yoga, I bought a Switch, I’m actually kind of good at Splatoon (more on that later)...I’m mostly focusing on the late-year stuff because my memory sucks, but I’m sure there were lots of other notable events. ^^;

I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions anymore (I stopped after 2020...) but I do have overarching goals...I think this year I’d like to keep getting better at illustrating, I’d like to finally finish some of the novels I’ve been writing, I’d like to put even more energy towards my animation work and the DokiDraws channel and see what comes of them, I’d like to buy a house and finally fulfill the promise I made to my Magolor plush so long ago. XD And I’d just generally like to have more happy moments, and see more good things in the world.

[thehorsedispatch]

New Post has been published on https://horsetoloan.com/1923-tv-show/1923-cast/

1923 Cast

1923 Cast

If you are a Yellowstone fan, then you likely already know about 1923. But if you don’t, keep reading! In 2022, it was decided to expand the Yellowstone universe with the release of 1923, a prequel series. The show explores life on the ranch in the 1920s for the early Duttons, especially among a changing climate in Montana. We see the family dealing with issues such as drought, prohibition, cattle theft, and general lawlessness. This is also the time of Montana’s Great Depression, which had already begun here about a decade before the Great Depression hit the rest of the country.

Read on to learn about the full cast of characters that you will see on screen in the show 1923! 

Harrison Ford as Jacob Dutton

Harrison Ford is a well known American actor, famous for the Indiana Jones series and his role as Han Solo in Star Wars— among many other roles! In 1923, he plays the role of Jacob Dutton. He is married to Cara Dutton, and together, the couple raise John and Spencer, their nephews, after the deaths of their parents. Their parents were Jacob’s brother James and his sister in law Margaret. After their deaths, Jacob also takes over as the patriarch of the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. He works very hard to protect the ranch during the many changes in Montana that begin over the 20th century.

Helen Mirren as Cara Dutton

Helen Mirren is an English actress, and she plays Harrison Ford’s on screen wife, Cara Dutton. Cara Dutton is married to Jacob Dutton, making her the matriarch of the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. With her husband, she helps to raise her nephews after their parent’s death, as well as run the ranch. She also works to maintain the family home and keep her family safe and protected. Some of Helen Mirren’s famous roles include parts in The Queen, Hitchcock, and The Madness of King George.

James Badge Dale as John Dutton Sr

James Badge Dale is an American actor. He hails from Manhattan originally, and has had notable roles in Lord of the Flies, The Departed, and Iron Man 3. In 1923, he plays the character of John Dutton Sr. John Dutton Sr. is James and Margaret Dutton’s son— one of the nephews that are raised by Jacob and Cara Dutton after the deaths of his parents. He is married to Emma Dutton, and the couple has a son named Jack. John Dutton Sr. helps with running the ranch until his death, when he is killed by a rival sheep herder named Banner Creighton.

Marley Shelton as Emma Dutton

Marley Shelton is an American actress. Besides her role in 1923, she has been seen in Never Been Kissed, Rampage, and Valentine. She was also Judy Hicks in the Scream franchise! In 1923, she plays Emma Dutton, the wife of Jacob and Cara’s nephew John Dutton Sr. Emma Dutton is also the mother of Jack Dutton. On the ranch, she typically helped out by tending to the house and feeding the animals. After her husband’s murder, she is left very depressed and hopeless, and ends up committing suicide. 

Brandon Sklenar as Spencer Dutton

Brandon Skelnar is an American actor who originally hails from Dover, New Jersey. He can also be seen in roles such as Temple and Westworld, besides his role on 1923. HE plays Spencer Dutton on 1923. Spencer Dutton is the youngest son of James and Margaret Dutton, making him  John Dutton Sr.’s younger brother. Along with his brother, he was raised by his uncle and aunt, Jacob and Cara Dutton, after his parents’ death. He worked in Africa as a big game hunter, but then returned to the ranch after Cara begged him to come home. He’s married to a British woman that he met in Africa, whose name is Alexandra.

Julia Schlaepfer as Alexandra

Julia Schlaeper is an AMerican actress who plays Alexandra in 1923. She is fairly new to acting, but has had some roles before this, including in American Horror Story. Her character is a British woman who met Spencer Dutton while he was working in Africa. She was there traveling. She and Spencer had an immediate attraction, so she left her fiance for him. Spencer and Alexandra are now married.

Darren Mann as Jack Dutton

Darren Mann is a Canadian actor. He’s had roles in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Animal Kingdom. He has also written and produced a film called Windfall himself! On the show, he plays the role of Jack Dutton. Jack Dutton is the son of John Dutton Sr. and Emma Dutton. He helps out on the ranch as well as most of his family, and is dedicated to his job. He is also married to Elizabeth Strafford, the daughter of another rancher.

Michelle Randolph as Elizabeth Dutton

Michelle Randolph is an American actress. She has had roles in The Resort and The Undertaker’s Wife, among some others, but is relatively new to acting. She plays Elizabeth Dutton, who used to be Elizabeth Strafford, in 1923. She is the daughter of ranchers Bob and Beverly Strafford. She spent a lot of her younger years on the ranch as she was growing up, but then was sent east for schooling. She is now married to Jack Dutton. 

Jerome Flynn as Banner Creighton

Jerome Flynn is an English actor who has had many roles, including on Game of Thrones, Black Mirror, and John Wick 3. He plays the character Banner Creighton in 1923. Banner Creighton is the enemy of the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. He is a Scottish sheepherder who often trespasses with his sheep onto the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch land to feed his animals there, which causes strife between the two parties. Along with Donals Whitfield, Banner Creighton tries to take down the Duttons and their ranch. He is also the one who kills John Dutton Sr.

Timothy Dalton as Donald Whitfield

Timothy Dalton is a British actor who has had roles that include parts in Flash Gordon and Jane Eyre. He plays Donald Whitfield in 1923. Donald Whitlfield is a crooked businessman who buys the Strafford Ranch. He also works with Banner Creighton to try to bring an end to the Duttons and the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. 

Brian Geraghty as Zane

Brian Geraghty is an American actor woh you may have seen in roles such as The Hurt Locker or Boardwalk Empire. He plays Zane in 1923, who is the ranch foreman at the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. He is extremely loyal to the Dutton family, even if he is not a blood relative like many of the others working on the ranch.

Robert Patrick as Sheriff William McDowell

Robert Patrick is an American actor who has had many parts over the years. For instance, he has acted in Die Hard 2, Terminator 2, and True Blood— among many other projects! Typically, he plays either an authority figure or a villain. In 1923, he plays an authority figure— the sheriff, Sheriff William McDowell. He is the local sheriff where the show takes place, and is a good friend of Jacob Dutton, the patriarch of the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch.

Aminah Nieves as Teonna Rainwater

Aminah Nieves is an American actress. She is new to the acting world, but still has some credits under her belt. She has starred in projects such as Blueberry, Dogwood, and V/H/S/99. In the 1923 tv show, Aminah Nieves plays the character of Teonna Rainwater. Teonna Rainwater is a Native American girl who attends the government boarding school for Native Americans, which is run by Catholic priests and nuns. They abuse many of the students in attendance, Teonnah included. She is emotionally, physically, and sexually abused at the school. Luckily, she is able to escape after killing two of her abusers and disguises herself as a boy as she tries to return to her reservation.

Jennifer Ehle as Sister Mary

Jennifer Ehle is an American actress who has has roles such as parts in The King’s Speech and Pride and Prejudice, among others. She plays Sister Mary O’Connor in 1923. Sister Mary teaches at the school that Teonna attended, and is one of her abusers. She fears Father Renaud, the headmaster of the school, and is also very strict with her students, often beating them. When Teonna escapes, she fights back and kills Sister Mary by beating her with a bag of books and strangling her. 

Sebastian Roché as Father Renaud

Sebastian Roché is a French and Scottish actor who has become well known for roles that include The Man In the High Castle, Odyssey 5, and Supernatural. He is a stage actor as well. Of course, he is also one of the actors on the television series 1923. Here, he plays Father Renaud. Father Renaud is a Catholic priest who is the headmaster of the government boarding school for Native Americans attended by Teonna Rainwater. He is very cruel and often beats the students, or punishes them in other harsh and inhumane ways.

[rollingsunblog]

Indie Roleplaying in Japan

Independent RPGs are a vital, vibrant part of the Japan's tabletop scene, both a movement in their own right and a talent incubator for publishers on the prowl for the next big thing. That said, this prominence is a relatively recent shift: during the boom years of Japanese roleplaying, indie titles existed on the margins of the market, produced by die-hards for die-hards. It would take the near-death and resurrection of the tabletop industry - and several decades of persistence - for these creators to finally get their due. 

The Fandom Factor

Like most independent RPG scenes, Japan’s indie output is split into original and derivative works. This in itself isn’t especially noteworthy: after all, a good chunk of the global small-press market is dominated by third-party releases for existing systems, ranging from mainstream juggernauts like Dungeons & Dragons to cult faves like Mörk Börg or Mothership.

Such as 2022′s Nobunaga's Black Castle, Japan’s first venture into the realms of black metal fantasy. 

What is notewothy is how the Japanese RPG scene has dealt with derivative products - especially the unauthorized ones. 

In the West, piggybacking on an established system or property has always been fraught with a certain amount of legal peril. The ‘80s and '90s in particular saw an assortment of dust-ups between big-name publishers like TSR and Palladium Books and smaller creators - particularly fansites - over both actual and imagined IP violations. Things shifted significantly with the introduction of the D&D Open Game License (OGL) in 2000, which allowed third parties to produce D&D-related content without having to pay fees or royalties. However, these products still had to adhere to an explicit set of guidelines - one that could force an incautious company to pulp an entire print run of books. 

By contrast, Japan’s rights holders historically didn't fuss much over derivative works, even ones sold for money, unless the infringement was particularly egregious. This resulted in the creation of a massive gray market of for-profit fanworks that has grown to annual sales in the region of US$800M - a not-inconsiderable chunk of Japanese otaku spending. Semi-protected as “parodies” in the eyes of the Japanese law, these products take various popular or nostalgic IPs and spin them off into new directions - respectful, comedic, pornographic, and everything in between. 

While the overwhelming majority of for-profit fanworks are comics or comic-adjacent material like artbooks, RPGs also carved out a niche in this market through unofficial supplements, adventures, and even entire roleplaying systems. Largely unconstrained by legal worries, Japanese tabletop fans could produce IP-infringing double whammies like 1993′s Dark Kingdom: a thoroughly unlicensed sourcebook that imports the cast of pop culture evergreen Sailor Moon into TORG, West End Games’ RPG of fractured realities. 

Dark Kingdom was an early showcase for Jun'ichi Inoue (井上純一), who would later enjoy a fruitful career at FEAR creating notable titles like Tenra Bansho (天羅万象 ) and Alshard (アルシャード). [IMAGE: Dragoon_Shaytan via Twitter]

Over the years, other popular IPs inevitably also got the tabletop treatment, resulting in fan-made adaptations of everything from ’80s anime relic Dream Hunter Rem and classic shoot-’em-up R-Type to contemporary megahits like Fate/stay night and Bleach. Even today, it’s possible for a creator to knock out an RPG based on Dragon Quest - one of Japan’s largest and most prominent roleplaying franchises - and put it on a digital storefront for US$16 without immediate fear of a thermonuclear-level copyright strike. 

However, until around 2010, these sorts of derivative works were more of a sideshow than anything else. That changed once Call of Cthulhu established itself as Japan’s best-selling RPG, buoyed by a series of popular - and irreverent - actual play videos and the Mythos-Goes-Harem antics of the Nyaruko: Crawling with Love media franchise. Suddenly, freshly-baked Cthulhu fans were appearing at gaming conventions in increasing numbers, resulting in a corresponding boom in fan-made CoC adventures and supplements.

As Call of Cthulhu grew to dominate the local tabletop industry, its fanworks cast an equally long shadow over the indie scene, eventually accounting for an estimated 80 to 90% of all derivative products on the market. This extreme popularity would have repercussions: in 2021, facing pressure from the game’s creators, Chaosium, CoC licensees Arclight joined forces with Japan’s most prominent RPG companies to create the Small Publisher Limited License (SPLL) program, which set content guidelines and royalty fee requirements for any third party publishing material for an established system. This was an unusual arrangement by Japanese standards, though one that also gave new legitimacy to derivative works within the roleplaying community.

As was the case with D&D, Call of Cthulhu’s rules have been used as a springboard into other game styles and genres. For instance, the Magic Academy CoC (魔法学校CoC) series reworks Chaosium’s system to accommodate Harry Potter-ish adventures.

An Interlude on Doujin Culture

Derivative works are just one facet of Japan’s indie RPGs, but an important one to start with - in large part because the impact of the Japanese fanwork scene extends much further than just Sailor TORG. 

Thus far, when I’ve used the word “fanwork,” it’s been to refer to what the Japanese would formally call “doujinshi.” In the West, that term is intimately associated with fan comics, especially pornographic ones, but the word simply refers to any independently created and published print product - more specifically, one put out by a doujin (同人) or “circle” of like-minded individuals. 

The doujinshi concept dates back to the 19th century, but only truly gained traction in the 1980s - a point where more affordable, accessible printing options made it possible for enterprising hobbyists to produce and sell comics as a full-on side gig. As the number of indie creators grew, events emerged to give these artists and writers a venue to market their wares - chiefly Comic Market, which began as a modest volunteer-run show in 1975 but would eventually grow into the world’s largest comics event by a significant margin. 

As the doujinshi market grew in size and scope, a new generation of printing companies emerged to serve this subculture through cheap, high-quality digital printing and low minimum order quantities. This further reduced barriers to entry, giving even amateur artists access to professionally bound products at an manageable price.

This ecosystem of affordable production and dedicated sales events created a vital foundation for Japan’s indie roleplaying groups - and a sorely needed one, as up until the mid-‘90s, the cost and complication of producing RPG products kept independent releases relatively scarce. As a result, early offerings like Bläde & Wörd (ブレード アンド ワード), ITHA WEN Ua ( イサー・ウェン＝アー), and Small Still Voice (スモール・スティル・ボイス) played it safe by skewing toward orthodox Western-style fantasy - and largely sank in the market with scarcely a ripple. 

Thanks to its multifaceted magic system, 1991′s Bläde & Wörd enjoyed somewhat more longevity than its fellows, eventually spawning a second edition under the somewhat unlikely title of “Acoustic Leaf“ (ブレード アンド ワード) in 1995. 

The ability to source cheaper, better-looking books at lower order quantities arguably helped RPG creators shake loose some of this conservatism - perhaps best exemplified by 1996′s Karma Saturday Night Special, later known by the shorter, punchier alias “Satasupe” (サタスペ). Set in an alternate history where the United States did not enter World War II and a nuke-ravaged Japan found itself divvied up by various superpowers, this gangster RPG dunks its players into a gonzo stew of Soviet narcotics farmers, voodoo practitioners, Japanophile mercenaries, biking Crusaders, criminal animal handlers, UFO cultists, and more besides.

Satasupe’s creators, “Jail House,” started off as a loose-knit collective with almost a dozen credited members, building up their audience and reputation over several years before striking paydirt with 1999′s SATASUPE Remix99 (サタスペ・リミックス９９). Remix99 would prove popular enough to attract attention from the wider industry, and in 2003, a revised and expanded version called Satasupe REmix+ ( サタスペ・リミックス＋) earned a release through Hobby Base, the publishing arm of the game store chain Yellow Submarine.

To clean the game up for its commercial debut, Jail House partnered with Adventure Planning Service, one of Japan’s oldest RPG design companies. The collaboration proved so fruitful that Jail House was effectively absorbed by APS, and Satasupe’s lead designer, Toichiro Kawashima (河嶋陶一朗), would quickly become one of the company’s most important creators, spearheading future hits like Labyrinth Kingdom (迷宮キングダム) and the now-ubiquitous Saikoro Fiction line. 

The evolution - and professionalization - of Satasupe’s rulebooks doubles as a mini-history of Japanese indie roleplaying as a whole. 

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

On the whole, the early 2000s were a transformative time for independent roleplaying. In the West, the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons made its debut alongside the Open Game License, which unleashed a new generation of hobbyists and small publishers eager to capitalize on the excitement generated by D&D’s first major new edition in 11 years. Around the same time, independent RPG creators also began establishing their own distinctive culture and philosophy, driven by influential online discussion forums like The Forge. And behind the scenes, indie creators of all stripes benefitted from the growing availability of sophisticated desktop publishing software, which continuously narrowed the aesthetic quality gap between “amateur” and “professional” games.

In Japan, the OGL attracted significantly less direct interest, though it would eventually inspire comparable “open-source” systems like FEAR’s Standard RPG System (SRS) and Adventure Planning Bureau’s Saikoro Fiction. A more notable development was the introduction of FEAR’s Game Field Awards in 2000, which allowed aspiring designers to submit board, card, and roleplaying games to the company for potential commercial publication. This proved to be an important new outlet for independent creators, and helped birth notable titles like 2005′s TORG-inspired Chaos Flare (異界戦記カオスフレア) and 2001′s Double Cross (ダブルクロス), which is credited with helping to establish the more systematized approach used by modern Japanese RPGs. 

2000 also saw the debut of Game Market - or “Gema” for short - a twice-a-year event that positioned itself as a Comic Market equivalent for analog hobbies. Though Gema’s foot traffic was only a fraction of its role model’s, the show would gradually establish itself as a go-to for unveiling new RPGs, especially once stewardship of the event passed to Call of Cthulhu licensee Arclight in 2010.

2010, in fact, seems to be generally regarded as the true starting point for Japan’s modern indie RPG scene - thanks again to the CoC craze, which not only produced a mountain of derivative products, but dramatically changed the size and demographics of Japan’s roleplaying fandom by drawing in both younger gamers and female players. This expanded audience appears to have to encouraged a greater diversity in game design and themes - less anime-inspired power fantasy, more high-concept exercises like “what if the players were actors in a movie production scrambling to finish shooting with no script and no budget before the whole project implodes?”

2012′s Reading! Manga Lord (爆走！まんが道) and 2013′s Idol Box! (どるばこ！) exemplify the indie scene’s broader swing towards less traditional RPG topics after 2010.

Surprisingly, some of this mindset even spilled over to Japan’s two biggest RPG publishers, Kadokawa and Shinkigensha - as evidenced by the fact that Satasupe received a mass-market release through the latter in 2008, eventually followed by other oddballs like the youth band RPG Strato Shout (ストラトシャウト) and Mofumofu Stream (もふもふストリーム), a game about YouTubers fighting crime with their psychic pets.

A final notable development in the indie scene was the emergence of online storefronts for independent RPG releases. While digital publishing has slowly become more prominent in the Japanese tabletop market, physical copies still dominate the indie space and groups invariably end their events with unsold game stock that needs to be offloaded elsewhere. The launch of Cokage in 2014, followed by Conos in 2016, provided an important outlet for excess copies and doubled as a means of making small-press games accessible to fans in rural areas who wouldn’t normally be able to attend a sales event. 

Notable Creators

There’s an enormous quantity of indie circles currently active in the tabletop space, with more joining the fray on a monthly basis. A comprehensive list of every group is a bit beyond the scope of this post, but let’s take a quick look at a few of the longer-running ones: 

Draconian: Originally a partnership between system designer Fuyu Takisato (瀧里フユ) and worldbuilder Shio Botan (潮牡丹, AKA Darya Tide), Draconian began publishing in 2014, gradually taking on more members to become a five-person operation capable of releasing multiple games per year. In 2018, the group officially crossed over into mainstream publishing with Silver Sword: Stellar Knights (銀剣のステラナイツ), a two-player RPG distributed by Kadokawa. Since then, the circle has put out several more titles through both Kadokawa and Shinkigensha while continuing to self-publish its more experimental work.

Draconian’s titles tend to focus on questions of identity, reality, and relationships with others, typically in fantastical or post-apocalyptic settings. Its more combat-intensive games share a battle system known as Diaclock, which was made openly available for use by other creators in 2020. 

In recent years, Kadokawa have begun experimenting with promotional trailers for their RPG releases - in this case for Stellar Knights.

Phantasm Space:  Founded in 2014, Phantasm Space is responsible for the steampunk aerial exploration game Skynauts (歯車の塔の探空士<スカイノーツ>), the Porco Rosso-inspired Il Paradiso Celeste dei Cacciatori Extro (チェレステ色のパラディーゾ), pastoral fantasy title Floria: The Verdant Way (翠緑のフローリア), and the comedic Villain’s Quest (ヴィランズクエスト). All four games have a lighter tone and showcase unusual ideas and mechanics; Villain’s Quest, for instance, throws its anti-heroes into pitched strategy meetings where participants use cards to advance various proposals; eventually, things climax in an analog tower defense game as the players scramble to protect their evil master from being slain once more. 

The circle’s leader, Lord Phantasm, went pro in 2020 by joining Adventure Planning Service under the pen name Eisuke Nanashi (中西詠介). In 2021, Nanashi and APS published a revised version of Skynauts through Kadokawa. That same year, Floria also received an English-language translation courtesy of Silver Vine Publishing.

Another Kadokawa trailer, this time for the 2021 edition of Skynauts. 

Rommel Games:  Though Rommel Games began publishing RPGs in 2013, the group’s big breakthrough would come the following year with Galaco and the Tower of the Broken World (ガラコと破界の塔), a mecha dungeon crawler set on a distant planet. The game’s slick, commercial-level production values made an immediate splash in the RPG scene, and a number of indie creators readily credit Galaco as an influence on their own work.

In 2017, Kadokawa picked up the circle’s fast-paced superhero title Deadline Heroes (デッドラインヒーローズ), which was followed by a villain-focused version entitled Black Jacket (ブラックジャケット) in 2019. The line’s success may be attributed in part to the buzzy My Hero Academia franchise, which made its anime debut in 2016 and continues to enjoy a dedicated following in Japan.

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New Game Plus: This collective of young game designers has maintained a healthy and eclectic output since first appearing on the scene in 2018, with titles that include Night Butterfly ( ナイトバタフライ ), an RPG about male nightclub hosts, and the aforementioned Mofumofu Stream.

Calling NGP an indie circle may be a bit of a stretch - the majority of its titles have in fact been released through Shinkigensha - but the group does put out the occasional doujin game. Sadly, its founder, former Group SNE associate Rikizo (力造), passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2020. 

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Shiawase Training Ground: Formed by systems engineer Go Yamauchi (山内剛), Shiawase Training Ground has been actively releasing material since 2014, producing offbeat titles like the medieval peasant survival sim Hoshikuzu Village Story (ホシクズ村々物語) and restaurant-focused A La Cuisine (アーレ・キュイジーヌ). Yamauchi’s upcoming “travel and escape�� RPG We Will Happiness! (ウィーウィル・ハピネス！) has reportedly ended up with Adventure Planning Service, suggesting his mainstream breakthrough may be just around the corner. 

[chewbop]

Pentiment & The Humanity of History

Obsidian has created an unusual prospect. Pentiment is part history lesson, part gripping novel, part art piece and part murder mystery role player all in one. It's a pitch for the nichest of niche audiences, but those who give it a shot will discover one of 2022's best games. Come for the murder mystery, stay for the town of Tassing.

Like the monks and nuns in the game itself, Pentiment is religiously devout. Its worship does not look to the sky though, it instead looks to constructions of the past. More than any other modern game in recent memory, Pentiment’s blood flows from the trappings of human history. 

Drawing on the aesthetics, works, ideologies and sociology of 16th century Europe, Pentiment wields a daunting grip of historic knowledge. It looks the part, with its artstyle mirroring a gorgeous illuminated manuscript. It's pacing and dialogue are firmly rooted in the historical social structures of the time and its music is period accurate too.

All of these pieces set the stage for the game's greatest triumph, the aforementioned of Tassing. Pentiment is a game that takes place over a 25 year span in this town. As alluded to before, you control an Artist named Andreas as you ultimately try to solve multiple murders. 

Over the next 15-25 hours, Andreas is a welcome outsider immersed in the heart of a town with a pulse and deep history. The cast of characters are unmatched in their depth as a collective. Their motivations, beliefs and relationships are astonishingly well-realized. This is a town you will become invested in with people you will care about. For this reason, making dialogue choices and plot altering decisions feels that much more involved.

Pentiment’s work with characters and the relationship to the space of Tassing is almost akin to the intricacy and warmth of Shenmue's Yokosuka or Animal Crossing New Horizon's island, but the game as a whole most closely resembles A Night in the Woods. It eclipses all of these touchstones with its narrative detail though. This is a game that moves deliberately, but finds meaning in almost every conversation. With your chosen backgrounds, the role playing elements that give you certain understandings and dialogue options, further enhance the social exploration of Tassing.

Pentiment draws on civilization of another era but its deconstruction of how history is made, how we participate in it, and what history gets told, is tremendously thoughtful and contemporary. Death, worship, agency, and notably, a woman's place are all pervasive elements that colour this world and understanding of its clockwork. 

Pentiment's compounded history grows as you actively play it. You go deeper in this world as time goes on. It's a game that asks you to live with your ghosts in more ways than one, and that investment, that sense of place and impact is fantastic. As far as narrative games go, this is one of the best to ever do it. This game is a classic for those who want to crack its spine and it give a read.

[abneyconsult]

“MidnightRose serves as a vibrant platform that highlights the diverse voices of multigenerational and multicultural writers from the Washington Metropolitan Region and beyond. This initiative is brought to life by Esther Productions Inc., in collaboration with The Institute for African American Writing and The Black Student Fund. The series aims to celebrate the literary talents within the community, showcasing a variety of poetic and prose works that reflect the rich tapestry of experiences and perspectives that define the region.

Attendees of MidnightRose can expect to engage with a dynamic array of award-winning poets and authors, each bringing their unique narratives and artistic expressions to the forefront. The event not only serves as a performance space but also as a gathering that fosters dialogue and connection among writers and audiences alike. By immersing oneself in the powerful words and stories shared during the series, participants are invited to explore themes of identity, culture, and resilience, all of which resonate deeply within the community.

The essence of MidnightRose lies in its ability to inspire and empower individuals through the art of storytelling. As the series unfolds, it creates an atmosphere where creativity flourishes, and the voices of underrepresented writers are amplified. This initiative not only enriches the cultural landscape of the Washington Metropolitan Region but also encourages a deeper appreciation for the literary arts, inviting everyone to partake in the transformative power of poetry and prose.” Sep 14, 2024, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT

Tenley-Friendship Library, 4450 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016, USA

About the event

MidnightRose is a showcase of the multigenerational, multicultural writers in the Washington Metropolitan Region and beyond. Experience the richness of the community through the presentations of award-winning poets and authors. Come allow the words to inspire and empower you.

E. ETHELBERT MILLER is a literary activist and author of two memoirs and several poetry collections including his baseball trilogy: If God Invented Baseball, When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask published by City Point Press. He hosts the WPFW morning radio show On the Margin with E. Ethelbert Miller and hosts and produces The Scholars on UDC-TV which received a 2020 Telly Award. He is Associate Editor and a columnist for The American Book Review. He was given a 2020 congressional award from Congressman Jamie Raskin in recognition of his literary activism, awarded the 2022 Howard Zinn Lifetime Achievement Award by the Peace and Justice Studies Association, and named a 2023 Grammy Nominee Finalist for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album. On March 2, 2024, Miller received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to African American Literature and DC’s literary community from Esther Productions Inc. On September 18, 2024, he will receive the Furious Flower Lifetime Achievement Award.

NAOMI AYALA is a Puerto Rican poet, educator, and translator who’s published three poetry collections—Wild Animals on the Moon (Curbstone Press, 1997); This Side of Early (Curbstone Imprint, Northwestern University Press, 2008); and Calling Home: Praise Songs & Incantations (Bilingual Press, 2013). She’s the translator of La sombra de la Muerte/Death’s Shadow, a novel by His Excellency José Tomás Pérez, the Dominican Republic’s Ambassador to the U.S., and of Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s poetry collection La arqueología del viento/The Wind’s Archeology. She’s the proud recipient of artist fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities as well as Special Recognition for Community Service from the U.S. Congress.

BRIAN GILMORE is a native of Washington DC. Bard and Barrister, he is the author of four collections of poetry, including come see about me marvin (Wayne State University Press), a 2020 Michigan Notable Book Award recipient. Gilmore is also the author of the forthcoming cultural history, No More Worlds To Conquer: The Black Poet in Washington DC Since Dunbar, to be published in 2025 by Georgetown University Press. He practiced public interest law for 28 years in Washington DC and Michigan and served as a Clinical Law Professor at Howard University School of Law and Michigan State University College of Law. Presently, he is Senior Lecturer at the University of Maryland - College Park in the Law and Society Program (MLAW).

For those interested in learning more about this literary event, please feel free to reach out via email at midnightrosereadingseries@gmail.com.

Additional details can also be found on the official website of Esther Productions, Inc. at the provided link - https://www.estherproductionsinc.com/events-1/midnightrose-a-reading-series-of-poetry-prose.

Esther Productions Inc. is supported by generous contributions—past and present--from Kerry S. Pearson LLC, Emmanuel Bailey, Veterans Services Corp, Pepco, an Exelon Company, A.Scott Bolden, David Jannarone, HumanitiesDC, Lesa Warrick, Rosalind Blunt, Betty Nyangoni and Esther’s Friends.

[afrikaabneyconsultant]

Sept. 14, 2024, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT

Tenley-Friendship Library, 4450 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016, USA

About the event

MidnightRose is a showcase of the multigenerational, multicultural writers in the Washington Metropolitan Region and beyond. Experience the richness of the community through the presentations of award-winning poets and authors. Come allow the words to inspire and empower you.

E. ETHELBERT MILLER is a literary activist and author of two memoirs and several poetry collections including his baseball trilogy: If God Invented Baseball, When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask published by City Point Press. He hosts the WPFW morning radio show On the Margin with E. Ethelbert Miller and hosts and produces The Scholars on UDC-TV which received a 2020 Telly Award. He is Associate Editor and a columnist for The American Book Review. He was given a 2020 congressional award from Congressman Jamie Raskin in recognition of his literary activism, awarded the 2022 Howard Zinn Lifetime Achievement Award by the Peace and Justice Studies Association, and named a 2023 Grammy Nominee Finalist for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album. On March 2, 2024, Miller received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to African American Literature and DC’s literary community from Esther Productions Inc. On September 18, 2024, he will receive the Furious Flower Lifetime Achievement Award.

NAOMI AYALA is a Puerto Rican poet, educator, and translator who’s published three poetry collections—Wild Animals on the Moon (Curbstone Press, 1997); This Side of Early (Curbstone Imprint, Northwestern University Press, 2008); and Calling Home: Praise Songs & Incantations (Bilingual Press, 2013). She’s the translator of La sombra de la Muerte/Death’s Shadow, a novel by His Excellency José Tomás Pérez, the Dominican Republic’s Ambassador to the U.S., and of Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s poetry collection La arqueología del viento/The Wind’s Archeology. She’s the proud recipient of artist fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities as well as Special Recognition for Community Service from the U.S. Congress.

BRIAN GILMORE is a native of Washington DC. Bard and Barrister, he is the author of four collections of poetry, including come see about me marvin (Wayne State University Press), a 2020 Michigan Notable Book Award recipient. Gilmore is also the author of the forthcoming cultural history, No More Worlds To Conquer: The Black Poet in Washington DC Since Dunbar, to be published in 2025 by Georgetown University Press. He practiced public interest law for 28 years in Washington DC and Michigan and served as a Clinical Law Professor at Howard University School of Law and Michigan State University College of Law. Presently, he is Senior Lecturer at the University of Maryland - College Park in the Law and Society Program (MLAW).

IT'S ALL FREE. REGISTER NOW at estherproductionsinc.com/events

For more information: midnightrosereadingseries@gmail.com

Esther Productions Inc. is supported by generous contributions—past and present--from Kerry S. Pearson LLC, Emmanuel Bailey, Veterans Services Corp, Pepco, an Exelon Company, A.Scott Bolden, David Jannarone, HumanitiesDC, Lesa Warrick, Rosalind Blunt, Betty Nyangoni and Esther’s Friends.