#also i think i should stop watching those art discussion videos

[misiahasahardname]

i suddenly remember why i hate drawing over my art

i'm never doing pen outlines again

[monsterwaterwolf6]

The restoring Team: Chapter 8

Later night

Critters and Strikers team are so exhausting and resting. However, Hoppy already uses a gun to shoot at Kickin outside. Bobby and Prettybird trying to stop them, FixFox and Leopardaisy are enjoying watch them. “You try shoot at me but still missing me, Bunny!” A chicken laughing, notices no reply from a bunny. Look at her and found Hoppy already switch machine gun with evil smile. “When you get that!? That not fair!” He is keeping dodging from shoot of machine gun by Hoppy.

Bobby looks at FixFox and Leopardaisy who already laughing, “Stop laughing and help us to stop this!”

Moment while

Everyone is in a living room and discussing how they are doing with Kenna. KickinChicken got two hits on his back and butt cheek. Hoppy smiles at him as KickinChicken annoyed.

“Ok, Hoppy. Lean. What happened with your fighting Kenna?”

Hoppy looks at her captain, “Well. I can not read her move. Too fast. That moves of her, I believe, she said martial arts. I seen one move; two fingers poked. I feel like air push me off. Also, she can resist my power when I tried strike her… she is trying kill me and Lean with that tree! Now I see why Poppy and Director Ludwig needed to get Myth Team back.”

Berserkerine folds his arms, “I do not see her moves.”

Drago sighs, “I guess, you keep punches on her…”

“So? She is still dodging from my punches. But she broken a tree to fell on me and I dodged it, but I do not notice that Bobby was trap and cannot move because those vines caught her legs. That Kenna just stands and watch us! I do not choose to save Bobby. But a tree was catch by vines before land. Kenna said that she had that before with one of the cults. Their dirty move when a building collapsed, there two kids stuck under stones. Kenna decided to save them instead chase that cult as valuable information a cult had. Kenna told me to trust my team. She called to other her teammates to catch a cult while Kenna saved two kids. So, they did catch a cult. That make sense why Kenna and her teammates have lots of experiences. I guess, i understand her…” he is still not accepting it.

Catnap yawns, Leopardaisy sighs, “Same for us. I am surprised Catnap can not beat Kenna as second commander. I think should trying beat as only captains and second commanders. Or just all of us.”

FixFox point with her finger at Leopardaisy, “maybe she is right, we should fight her together. Team works right?” Everyone nods in agreement. Drago typing in system until finally found few videos.

“Ok I found few, let see what Myth team doing in gym or training.” They watch few videos, how they get much stronger. They already understand how Kenna feels after she was chase by something like metal by captain raptor who control the metals. A wolf training his teammates for learn be martial arts. Often a Pegasus and a dragon are fighting in heat as other teammates include until pined them off by pissed off captain raptor. Incredible powers when they trainings. Now they know which powers of them. They notice that a snake is very skilled at making potions or poisons, including red smoked from the cults and itself Prototype.

Once done watch. FixFox sulking in a couch, “Damn, they are crazy training too much… that raptor, no wonder she is captain.” They are talking and decided to go to bed for night.

Next day,

They have gotten group again and still kick ass by Kenna, but Kenna teaches them few times. They almost catch her but still Kenna is very faster. Hoppy and Kickin are chasing Kenna who laughs and leave Lean and Prettybird behind.

However, something happened,

Kenna is joking on Drago and Craftycorn. “Are you plan to marry? I wonder what look like your kids in future.” Both blushing space riders are embarrassing when mention kids.

A blushing Craftycorn yelling at Kenna at top of a tree, “That very early ask! Stop ask us about marry or kids!”

Kenna laughs and rolls on a branch until a branch gave up to broken. She fell to land on another branch, ‘ouch!’ Two space riders sigh as can not believing that Kenna asked about marry or kids. Kenna rubs where sore is. “Well, that hur-.” Kenna getting spooky as a voice again, ‘Kill me now… please anyone… kill me… now…!” Kenna looking around in panic. Two space riders notice.

“Hey, what wrong?”

Kenna is surprises that they did not hear a voice. “Huh?! You can not hear a voice?” Two space riders look at others then look at Kenna and shake their heads. “I am not sure what goi-.” ‘STOP ME…!’ Kenna holds her head and try calm herself down. She feels pressures like someone try to grabbing her. Kenna accidentally uses twister to destroy the trees, “STOP! GET OUT MY MIND!” Suddenly Drago pulls Craftycorn out of the harm from twister or destroy tree felling. Craftycorn and Drago shouts out to Kenna. But either Drago or Craftycorn not get Kenna, only a voice calling Kenna. Everyone hears and run to them.

In Kenna’s mind

Kenna found in a darkness as herself, “Oh no not again!” A voice calling her. She looks at where voice from. There is a shadow. Large one. Kenna is guard up and wait until a shadow step, a hand… no large claw and appears two red spots. Large smile on face. “What hell that!?” Not possible to see face, very dark. Suddenly a large shadow jump to attack her.

Kenna snaps out and let fire out to burn some tree by accident. Notice she stand around the trees and look down. Critters and Strikers team are so tired and dodging from a twisters, fallen Fire branches or trees. Suddenly she shut down her power off as fire disappeared. She drops one of her legs to kneeling on a branch. Her hand lift and shake to land her face. “What hell that stranger in my mind? Look like a monster or something. What hell happened!?” She decided to leave as avoid hurt the space riders. She is disappearing in the forest.

In a ship

Bobby and Prettybird checking on all teammates. Most of them not bad shape, barely wounds. Craftycorn explains, after that.

Catnap take seriously, “A voice? That sound like I use my power, or someone call Dogday to came to Angel Planet. But that is bad, something happens to owner of voice trying to reach Kenna. We need check out, but we need rest and ready tomorrow. No training tomorrow, we must investigate it. We need figure out where Kenna is. Got it?” Everyone said ‘Yes!’ Once they go to bed for night.

Kenna already in a water for cool her down. “Someone trying to tell me or something. Man, I guess.” Kenna gets out a lake and dryer herself before going sleep.

Morning

A trembling ground wake Kenna up. Kenna keeps herself hide and listening. The voices, not from in mind, they are talking about something. Kenna peeks out and see the cults there. ‘What? The cults? What are they doing here?’ she waits until they leave. She run out and opens her wings to flying. She looks around in the forests until she catches something move. She gets low in the forests. She pushes the branches and looks out to shock. A large ship belongs to the cults. Kenna takes leave to her hideout. Her wing get fire, grab her phone from magic wing. Start calling to Ludwig.

“Hello, Kenna.” “Ludwig! Get teams come here now!” “What? What happen?” “The cults are here; I am not sure what are they doing here.” “Really? Ok let me get Poppy contact the teams in emergency. Poppy! Kenna informed me, the cults are there. Get teams ready in five minutes. I will join them too. Poppy explains to you about you need go to protecting for Critters and Strikers if they have bloodline monsters. Go! Get Critters and Strikers out of there before something happens!” “Yes Sir!”

Kenna run out her hideout to flying over to teams.

Critters and Strikers

They are already in the forests and searching for Kenna. Calling for Kenna. They decided to split up and look for Kenna. Kickin and Prettybird looking and calling for Kenna. A bird decides to ask a chicken, “How you close to Kenna? Like her?”

“Well, I like her but not in love with her. She is like older sister to me. I do not have any siblings. Also, she is much funnier and often trouble with Poppy. You will like her when you get knows with her. I am enjoying to fighting her but still kick my ass all times.”

She laughs, “well, I do. She is genuinely nice, soft fighting me while training. She knows I am nurse. She said I need that for protection myself. That not bad.” They are talking about Kenna. Prettybird catch her eyes, “I think see someone move over there.”

Kickin looks over, “I think that is Kenna.” Click his radio in his ear, “Guys! I think, we found Kenna. We are at bit southern.”

Dogday response, “Ok, we are on way now. Get her now.” Other teams are not far from them.

A chicken and a bird move to get her. When they get closer to her, but Kickin notices it. “Not Kenna! Those cults! Guys! It is not Kenna, that was the cults!” As he click radio to tell others.

Dogday suddenly responds, “Shit, what hell the cults doing here?! Be careful, Kickin! Prettybird! We are running now!”

The cults already see the two space riders and running away. The two space riders starting to chase them.

Kenna flying over the forest, she sees the two space riders chasing the cults. Catch something in her eyes, look over to closes, “Oh shit! That targeting missile rocket!” But too late, it is start flying over to the two space riders.

Kickin already see a missile rocket gun hold by a cult, “Prettybird! Get back now! That a missile rocket!” They get back but a cult already pulled it as a missile rocket flying over to them.

Dogday and others have arrived and see this. They get panicking and calling their friends.

A missile rocket gets at a chicken and a bird. An explosion as a loud.

“KickinChicken! Prettybird!”

I have free times this weekend as nothing doing because closer to Christmas time. I am working to drawing on my team. Take while to practicing and study artists’ arts. So, who this a large shadow in Kenna’s mind and will KickinChicken and Prettybird survive from explosion by missile rocket? Find out for next chapter!

Kenna belong to me

Strikers belong to @tekumaniac311

Space Riders Au belong to @onyxonline

[rikeijo]

Hello! I hope I am not bothering but I just wanted to get someone off my chest. I was wondering what the Kubo meant when she said that rinks were similar to what members of the same club wears. It just kinda confused me when she says that considering how romantically the ring exchange scene is (seriously who gives each other rings in front of a church platonically!?)

No need to worry, I like discussing things too deeply😂 so you are not bothering at all! But another fujo rant comes in 3... 2... 1...

So yeah, the those rings are for clubmates interview... Imo, to understand why she said that, or why it was written (because she didn't say that publicly, so we can never know for sure), we need to talk about the difference between how western fandom approaches "representation" and how Jp fandom does.

Japanese fandom and representation

Things are progressing in Jp, too, but even to this day, a lot of people (that doesn't mean all) who call themselves "fujoshi" don't want "representation" and don't want to be allies. They simply consume BL and, let's face it, p0rn, for their own enjoyment. It's in Jp only, but some time ago, somebody posted on twitter their graduation project on this topic - an article and video - if anyone can understand some Jp and is interested in this topic, it's worth giving a watch. The title is "同性愛嫌悪的にBL・GLを愛でる私たち", "We, who homophobically love BL and GL" .

I've mentioned it before, but in case of YoI, there was, eg., a random article from a gay journalist, a figure skating fan, who wrote about how good that dinner scene in ep. 10 was. And it was really, really good - Jp is a country, where a lot of people still think that being gay is bad for society, that gay people are unproductive, so it's okay that they face discrimination. So that scene, where Phichit just congratulates Y&V on their marriage like it's the most natural thing in the world, is incredibly powerful. Yet in fujo spaces, that article was bashed, obviously - "Why did he write something like that? It doesn't have anything to do with those LGPTs. We just like playing with the characters, but they are not gay...".

BL is not LGBT?

Why you ask? Well, if you like fantasies about semes raping ukes etc. then you probably don't want to be told "hey, that's actually discrimination and homophobia, you really should stop that... Semes and ukes don't exist, most people switch...". That's why a lot of fujos insist that BL is something completely separate from LGBT issues. And that leads us to...

Another thing that I also ranted about in the past - that fujos hijack almost all depictions of same-sex attraction between men in mainstream media deeming them "fujoshi fanservice". So YoI is most often discussed as "fujo-pandering anime", and not as "anime with gay representation" the way it is in the western fandom... And it also had a lot of antis, because quite a lot of people dislike fujos. Some of the most popular lines you see in YoI reviews are: "it would be so much better without the weird fujo pandering...", "it was good, but that weird fujo pandering was unnecessary".

Went so far, so why no confirmation?

So finally giving the answer to the question... I believe, that there was very little incentive from the marketing point of view - society is homophobic, industry is homophobic, fandom is homophobic - to actually announce that Y&V are really gay and in love. Most fujos are only interested in Yuuri being uke and Victor being seme (so many fujos wished for IceAdo to fail and I hope that karma will come back to them...). So after the show ended, in my opinion, what is in Jp called koushiki (so people who run the IP and seriously it's not "Mappa"...) really wanted to get rid of the "fujo pandering" reputation (and fujos to a certain extent too, probably, because they've got so rabid that a bunch was even sued for online harassment) and started to backtrack on some things - avoiding rings, avoiding Y&V only arts, even avoiding Y&V only merch, which would sell like crazy. And yeah, Mitsurou and VAs sometimes pushing the narrative that "it's not that serious". They also started promoting Yurio instead. I think, from their perspective, it was the safe choice for the IP... Make it for "everyone", not only for fujos.

Where we are now...

Only it wasn't, in the end... The great koushiki vs. fujos war started (fujos started acting as "rings police", attacking staff members on twitter, doxxing Avex's employees, so on) and long story short, two years later YoI+IceAdo trailer did very bad at cinemas (in the first week out of ~170000 seats, only ~17000 were sold, that's ~90% empty seats - well, a little less maybe, because I'm not sure if special tickets are included in these statistics)... That's my opinion, but I think that was the most likely reason why IceAdo wasn't released in 2019. With such a big Jp distributor, they probably started to fear it will flop. Or the other way - the distributor decided that it would probably flop after seeing these numbers - allegedly, the first rumor that something is wrong was from that distributor's employee.

The very sad reality is that we are in 2023 now, and koushiki pretends YoI doesn't exist... If you think about it, it's really extraordinary... Even without the movie, they could release "VicYuu merch" and it would sell like crazy, but their stance has always been "Well yeah, but we prefer to not earn money, actually 😘 Want to play a game where Victor and Yurio bully Yuuri together, maybe?".

That was long again... I'm sorry, but it's just not possible to give an honest answer in a few sentences.

[placegrenette]

Every Ninety One Song Reviewed: “Synbaim,” 2023

“Synbaim,” released as an album pre-promotion single, 2023 Music credits: Daniyar Kulumshin (Bala), Azamat Ashmakyn (Ace), Batyrkhan Malikov (Alem) Lyrics credits: Dulat Mukhametkaliev (ZaQ) Music video director: Amal’ Temerbayev

This is the very last release before the upcoming album, and the teasers so far have been in three different languages—I know! Kazakh, Russian, and English! But the subs on “Synbaim” are in Kazakh, Russian, and Turkish, and I don’t blame Ninety One for wanting to care for their Turkish fans, said fans have had a difficult spring, but for an English-only speaker interpreting something as visually packed as this music video is a challenge. Is it based on Kazakh mythology? What is the “шч” referencing? Is the astronaut meant to be the child grown up or is the relationship between the astronaut and the story on the ground more symbolic?

(“Well, didn’t you watch the behind-the-scenes video?” I did! And not only does that also not have English subtitles, it has selective subbing: Kazakh when the people onscreen are speaking Russian and vice versa. As I type this I have two Google Translate windows open. They’re not helping much, other than to reveal that Amal’ Temerbayev was drawing inspiration from fairy tales and that Madi Rymbaev was the piano player model.)

And it’s frustrating, because this was clearly a labor of love and significance for everyone involved. Temerbayev, especially, but the timing of the release (I think a full month elapsed between the audio of “Synbaim” being made available and the MV coming out) suggests that Ninety One didn’t want to rush him even when he was blowing past deadlines. (About ten minutes into the behind-the-scenes video, in between lots of footage of Temerbayev and his team meticulously constructing the stop-motion stills and ZaQ discussing the meaning of the song, is a clip of Ace being cranky about the delays.) But from this distance it’s hard to get a grip on how video and song come together. There’s a line in the song that translates roughly as “Individuality in a round world is not beautiful,” and the general theme seems to be reaching out for connection with others as a way to deal with pain and hardship. But the video plotline is essentially individualistic: the prince rejects the demand of his angry father and the townspeople to be in the forest with his true love. It’s not just romantic but Romantic; Rousseauvian. There’s a point at which “Don’t isolate yourself from other people” and “Follow your heart” conflict, and Ninety One and Temerbayev seem to be eliding that conflict rather than addressing it.

Also, to be frank, I’m at a disadvantage here, having spent far too much of my childhood with “Sledgehammer” and the California Raisins. (We watched that California Raisins Christmas Special at least three years in a row. Those of y’all thinking the ’80s were a cool time in which to grow up: you are wrong.) I should be impressed by the hard work involved and instead the visual presentation feels muddy to me. I’m very glad the guys did it: this is a nice way of putting their money down to do something different and tie themselves into the larger Almaty arts scene. But neither “Synbaim” the song nor “Synbaim” the music video do a lot for me. Pretty, heartfelt, a nice change of pace, all true; check this out, especially if your musical tastes don’t match mine.

Should You Start Here? Hmm. My first inclination is to say no, just because I don’t particularly love it. But it does have a lot of typical Ninety One touches: the theme of building oneself up against vaguely defined adversity, ZaQ’s spikier rap breaking up the smoother vocalists, Bala charged with emphasizing the rhythm and Ace with going higher on the chorus. So: sure, but if you don’t like “Synbaim,” don’t let that dissuade you.

[clexa--warrior]

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this but everything seems to be going down the tubes quite fast. And not fun tubes, like at a waterpark. The “ending in shit” kind. The issues are complicated, the reasons diverse, but there are a few culprits who have been making themselves extremely visible.

Alongside those holding political office, tech gragillionnaires (I had to invent a new number) like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg obviously wield huge global influence with their computers and numbers and whatnot. There has been a lot written about them and there will be more, as they continue to shape the world and win favour with Donald Trump. Big, scary, probably ruinous things lie ahead. But I’m here to discuss the smaller part. The insult to injury, the sprinkling of salt in the wound.

Whether I am engaging with the news, or with Musk tweeting constantly like a man with no job or friends, or with Zuckerbergsending out weird videos and appearing on Rogan, I am in pain. Not just because I don’t like what they are doing but because they are so incredibly, painfully cringe.

I knew that one day we might have to watch as capitalism and greed and bigotry led to a world where powerful men, deserving or not, would burn it all down. What I didn’t expect, and don’t think I could have foreseen, is how incredibly cringe it would all be. I have been prepared for evil, for greed, for cruelty, for injustice – but I did not anticipate that the people in power would also be such huge losers.

I’ve always been someone who cannot tolerate embarrassment. I hate being embarrassed more than just about any other emotion and I’ve always skipped content based on cringe humour like Meet the Parents, Borat or Nathan for You. It makes my skin crawl and it makes the contents of my stomach try to crawl out of my mouth. But I cannot skip world events.

Nor can I skip Musk’s clear desperation, even as he holds this much wealth and power in his hands, to be thought of as cool. There are endless examples of him embarrassing himself while attempting to be funny or to gain respect. Unfortunately, while you may be able to buy power, it’s impossible to buy a good personality. Watching his Nigel-no-friends attempts to be popular, his endless pathetic tweets that read as though they come from the brain of an 11-year-old poser, has made me start to believe we should bring back bullying. If yet another humiliating report in the last couple of days is to be believed, he appears even to have lost the respect of some of his gamer audience, who the report claims suspect that he may have been lying about his achievements in hardcore gaming (cursed sentence).

Zuckerberg is a different kind of cringe – but cringe all the same. His cringe moments drip through more sparingly but, when they do, my body tries to turn inside out at my bellybutton. His physical makeover for Maga reasons, performing music because no one will stop him, trying to look cool on a surfboard – all these are extremely difficult to watch. He has been trying to suck up to Trump, going on Joe Rogan’s show to say society has been “neutered” and companies need “more masculine energy”.

Putting on what is clearly a bro disguise to join the boys’ club and sit at the big boy table – it should feel humiliating. This came as Zuckerberg rolled back hate speech and factchecking rules at Meta, in a clear swerve to the right before Trump’s inauguration. What could be more masculine and cool than selling out vulnerable communities and women to impress the alpha male?

Climate crises keep coming, genocides continue, women keep getting murdered, art is being strangled to death by AI, bigotry is on the rise, social progress is being rolled back … AND these men insist on being cringe? It’s a rotten cherry on top. This combination of evil and embarrassment is a unique horror, one that science fiction has failed to prepare us for. The second-hand embarrassment we have to endure gets even more potent when combined with other modern influences on young men, like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate.

Peterson is a big voice in men’s rights – well, a small Kermit’s voice in men’s rights – and he’s also an embarrassment. So much so that he has his own Know Your Meme page, which covers that time he reportedly retweeted an image from a fetish film, apparently believing it was a Chinese communist “sperm extraction” facility. He deleted it shortly afterwards.

Tate is facing human trafficking charges but rose to fame as a voice for young men, a misogynist in bad outfits who does really cool things like smoking cigars, wearing sunnies inside and trying to drag human rights back 100 years.

Living your life to impress other men by hating women is one of the most embarrassing things I can imagine. Looking up to any of these men for how to live your life is even sadder.

I’ve worked hard to keep these kinds of men out of my personal life, to keep them away from me, out of my goddamn sight. Now they are in my face daily, not only influencing the world for the worse but making me nauseous at how uncool and pathetic they are, on top of their other sins. It’s too much, I can’t take it, there needs to be a change.

It’s time for us to start getting revenge on the nerds.

[talenlee]

Game Pile: Hinedere Beat

Hinedere Beat And Saying What You Mean

Watch this video on YouTube

Script as follows:

Thinking a lot about words.

Thinking a lot about how we use them.

Thinking a lot about why I don’t use them.

Hinedere Beat is a dreamlike fluid parkour platformer with room-to-room puzzle-solving. It’s in the model of games like Prince of Persia, the original two in 2d, on a computer that is old enough to be mad about how young people are voting. In that particular model of game, levels are sort of labyrinths designed out of puzzles. Each room has some element of an individual problem to solve, but you still need to pick the right path through those rooms, one after another. In the original 80s games, you had to first work out the right place to go, then work out the way to get there without killing yourself.

Hinedere Beat is a little like that, but without so much of the grand labyrinth. Instead, you’re running through a reasonably linear, limited set of rooms which deliberately stop you from getting lost by encouraging you to instead keep going forward, forward, forward, and offers you a story as a way to incentivise that movement. And that story, I liked a lot. You might notice though that I’m just showing you gameplay and not any of the story. I’m not even showing you how this game shows you its story, and intentionally so. This is in part because the story is itself, pretty interesting and easily segregated out from the play experience meaning that you can go into it blind if you want to, but it’s also because it’s horny.

And it’s horny in a really specific way.

And that was one of the words I got thinking about. What is a horny game? In this case it’s a game where there’s a romantic plot, and it plays out and progresses from meeting to kissing to different types of sex – hand stuff if you’re feeling particularly detail oriented. There’s also a delicious dash of what I guess I’d normally call Anime Bullshit if I was trying to be dismissive about it but which serves as more sort of general warning label. Something that’ll surprise you if you’re not familiar with the media form, something forgettable if you are.

It’s horny, but like, the horny is part of the game? It’s not something that comes out of nowhere; a character is pretty forward, but it’s hardly a mystery. It has a feel to me of games from the late 90s that didn’t come with documentation, downloaded off sketchy sites that maybe didn’t work because your operating system couldn’t handle Japanese characters. There’s a characteristic of the visual novel to it, but also of that time of visual novel – where characters spoke in a particular cadence with an oddness to their word choice. I think it was back then that people like me learned a particular kind of roleplayed space aesthetic, with translators striving to represent Japanese sound effects resulting in english text like asterisk-gripping, or open bracket sharp breath close bracket.

Anyway, while there’s a oddness to it, it’s not an odd idea. You go on a date and have sex, it’s just the character of the date that isn’t standard. And that’s where we run into the next word to struggle with.

I hesitate to use the term ‘surreal’ for anything when I’m discussing games. This is not out of any kind of prestige for the term or any deep understanding. It’s actually oufo f the much more mundane and embarrassing reason that I know I don’t know what the term means precisely or meaningfully, and between theatre, film and art, my nerdosphere has people who I am pretty sure will judge me for using the term incorrectly. And hey, why should I use a term I don’t quite understand to invoke something I think I mean? Aside from that being how most language works if you believe Wittgenstein (and I kinda do). Without this word in my repertoire I have to consider what I mean when I try to reach for it.

I heard the term used to describe Inception a lot? And then subsequently, it means ‘like Inception’ to people, which also, funnily enough, often means ‘about the process of making a movie,’ which is what Inception mostly makes me think of. What I think I want to say when I intuitively reach for ‘surreal’ is not an invocation of incoherence, but rather, a description of the Dreamlike.

And, yeah, this game is dreamlike. It begins and it ends with your character waking up or falling asleep and it’s hard to say which and what it means, because the story features things like cybernetically controlled traditional Japanese ghosts, or rewriting your own past, robot drones and also is, again, a date. It’s weird! Pleasantly weird!

Inevitably though in a conversation around this kind of game, there’s another word that comes up, and that is flow. Flow is a term you probably know from this graph, or from someone else in a much more successful channel bringing it up, but its origin point is –

oh god help –

the book Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi. And honestly, I’m sorry about how that sounded, but I’m doing my best. This book is one of those great Games Studies books in that it has an idea in it that lots of people have built out and explored, and stopped reading the second they got to the definition, because the book has some problems.

For you unfamiliar, Flow is a book about ‘flow states,’ which is so much just like being ‘in the zone’ that the wikipedia page lists both on each other’s disambiguation page. Without going in depth on the book, it’s an idea that psychologists and occupational therapists put to some use. Which is great! I’m glad it’s a term that’s useful for considering how people focus. My beef comes later in the book where Mihaly trots out such ideas as:

Part of the answer probably has to do with innate genetic causes. Some people are just temperamentally less able to concentrate their psychic energy than others. Among schoolchildren, a great variety of learning disabilities have been reclassified under the heading of “attentional disorders,”

Where he goes on to describe that people with attention disorders can’t achieve Flow, or True Enjoyment. But don’t worry he also throws people with anxiety conditions in as well, with:

A less drastic obstacle to experiencing flow is excessive self-consciousness. A person who is constantly worried about how others will perceive her, who is afraid of creating the wrong impression, or of doing something inappropriate, is also condemned to permanent exclusion from enjoyment.

It isn’t like Flow is a terrible concept, it’s just that when you read these statements, it kinda makes you wonder what this person knows about psychology at all. People who are anxious and people who are distracted are unable to attain true enoyment, unable to tap into flow states.

But this is also after a chapter in which he describes the ideal of people who do things not because of incentives but because of their entirely focused enjoyment of them. He calls this the autotelic personality. An autotelic personality, according to the book, is someone who is (probably) genetically born to be better at getting into a flow state, capable of discarding unnecessary stimuli to focus intensely on a project, and capable of doing things that may not seem even to be fun to some people purely for their own sake of enjoying the doing itself.

And all this is after he forwards that the Nazis, well, they were probably in a flow state presented to them by the propaganda of the war. It’s also before he suggested an inability to find enjoyment and fun in things was part of how African slaves in the Caribbean died out.

The book is from 1975. It’s old and it’s by an author who definitely had some weird opinions and bias against things like, say, well-supported socialist safety nets. It’s not to say Flow is an idea we should throw out necessarily. But it does make me wonder about when I want to use it to invoke an idea in a game, because the rest of that book has some frightful stuff in it that goes unexamined when you take one idea out of it.

This is a thing that games studies always does you know. I like making fun of Roger Caillois because of the misogyny and racism but it really is a rarified air in the genre. Caillois argued that the destiny of a culture can be seen in its games, and because Europeans played competitive games like Chess and Poker, which both gave you a way of handling random chance and a way to be competitively aggressive, that was why European culture dominated the world. The game dictated their destiny of domination and superiority. This was used in contrast with African games, which Caillois did not look at at all. If you’re a student of games, you might know that Chess is an Indian game, and Poker is a Persian game – and so to head this idea off at the pass, Caillois argued that Oriental cultures don’t experience the same drive to win at games because they were fundamentally non-innovative cultures.

Which is to say, he just, he just made up some racism.

And am I inviting in those ideas when I look at games, and use those words, without thinking about it? Hinedere Beat is a game with an anime aesthetic. It reminds me of Japanese videogames from the 90s. Its storytelling is disjointed and invokes manga stories I’m familiar with. And it does have after all, an amazing sense of flow.

Horny, surreal, flow.

I really liked this game, I liked the romance it told, and I liked how it interrupted that with being the coolest girl in the world doing ridiculously badass things to impress a cute girl you were on a date with.

And it made me think about words I use.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[falling0ff0fcliffs]

Not sure if I should delete this page

As I get older it dawns on me that having a secret blog where I post my unfiltered uncensored thoughts is a bad thing. Especially as what I say and think starts to affect more and more people. The older I get the more responsibility I take on, the more my actions matter. I don’t view it as a bad thing, I take on more and more burdens in order to contribute to the world, and be someone who’s useful to others. In that I’ve found contentment. With all that being said, I live in a whole new world compared to the one i made my last post in. The last two years I’ve attended a small bible college in upstate New York. Despite it being a small school, I’ve made it my goal to be as theologically educated as possible, and I believe I’ve accomplished this. This month I’ll be graduating and i have a job waiting for me when I go back to Chicagoland. In my personal life I’ve done a lot to detox from social media. I’ve started reading more, and focusing on my game. I started to realize about a year ago that I am unable to create what I want without more technical skills. So I decided to learn how to code. Along with that my art has improved significantly, and I’ve started to put something together that looks somewhat professional. I realized that if I had put all the time I did into video games into my education I’d be significantly more capable. Here I am now after months of trial and error I can finally say that I’m an amateur programmer, but a programmer nonetheless. In this process of my expanding skill set I’ve changed my persona. At school people started to recognize me as the guy who reads, programs, and exclusively listens to classical music. This is an extreme contrast to the guy who i was before. I still hold on to bits of my old self. At the Fourth of July party I turned on Indi music just to find out everyone else stopped listening. I still go through spouts of YouTube addiction(although the majority of what I watch is theological discussion), I still play rocket league from time to time, sometimes too much, but I don’t let any of those things define me anymore. Being in New York has changed me but it’s not New York that did it, New York simply gave me the chance to change. Socially New York has been a huge learning experience. I’ve made new friends but it wasn’t easy. I used to not want to be friends with someone unless it was a really close friendship, but I’ve realized not everyone can be your best friend. It takes time to develop that, and it’s not fair to expect someone you’ve met a year ago to be as close to you as the people you grew up with. I also used to want other people to be interested in the same things as me, but I realized that is foolish as well. I learned that I had to mold to my environment. Pick up new interest, make new types of jokes, and embrace change. I still have who I was, but I could not remain unchanged if I wanted to make friends. Now that it’s been two years it’s bitter sweet. I’ve built all these relationships with people who I’m inevitably gonna leave. I may not see them again. The last thing I wanted to talk about was marriage. After 3 years I can honestly say I’ve fallen more in love with my wife. It’s not always easy, but it’s not about doing what’s easy, its about growth. Together we have grown a lot, and more importantly we had a child, which makes me a dad. I’m still processing that one so I won’t say to much about it, but I will say it’s a lot of fun. It’s helped me to understand the differences between my wife and I. My strengths and weaknesses are balanced with hers, which is good for my child’s development.

In the last two years I’ve made friends, I’ve gotten my degree, I’ve learned to program, became a better artist, and more importantly became a better husband and a father. When I go back home I hope that my wife and I can be impactful. Life is really just starting, and for the first time I’m enjoying becoming older, wiser, and content with life.

Ps. After reviewing this I feel I left a lot out, but I am too impatient to fill in the details at the moment

[icewindandboringhorror]

Okay, here’s a final answer, just for clarification - 

- 

Firstly, please understand that I’m not angry, and I’m not upset. I just tend to speak very matter of factly, I guess? If I seem cold or something when typing this response, it's not a personal attack towards you or some display of aggression, that's just how I word things sometimes, I don't mean for them to be misinterpreted or want you to think I’m like getting mad with you or etc. Me disagreeing does not inherently equal me being mad about something, it merely means that I disagree, which is an emotion neutral action. If someone said 2+2 = 6, I would disagree, and openly so, but that doesn’t mean I’d also be like, crying about it or upset with them or something lol. 

 I actually even stated so at the end of my tags last time - 

 So, I apologize if you interpreted my tone as being mean, but I was simply trying to be firm and direct in how I said things so you understand that it's a very serious matter, and I didn't want to be light about it. 

There was a bit of jokiness/sarcasm/exaggeration as well I suppose, but again, that’s not an inherent indicator of upset, just the way I speak - especially when your question can be seen as rude to begin with (which usually leads people to care less about faking positive emotions or seeming polite to others. If a person is not polite to you, you’re not likely to watch how you communicate as much or attempt to display high politeness back). My default state is a neutral flatness as I have a very shallow emotional range (shout out to schizophrenia spectrum negative symptoms and other various issues lol), any excessive positivity or “perkiness” or something that I display is just an attempt to be polite and communicate with others in a simple and kindly manner (in real life I’m often seen as too stoic, blunt, detached, cold, etc. lmao, so in general communication with strangers I tend to overcompensate to being excessively polite instead) - but that also means I can accidentally drop that sometimes if I’m being “real” or whatever. 

-

Anyway, now that concerns over my tone have hopefully been explained, I’ll address this issue about your previous ask in a numbered list. Please read ALL of this, if you are actually taking this seriously. If you don’t actually read, in detail (no skimming), this entire response, then this is not even a discussion since you’re not willing to genuinely engage in the first place. -  

-

Firstly, here is the original ask, for reference  ----

 As for how your question can be rude: 

(1.) In my initial response (in the tags of your answer), I asserted various things, mostly that the question was rude, and that it’s not appropriate to ask people, for a variety of reasons. I’ll explain those in more length here. 

My main point is that even asking the question in the first place is rude. It doesn’t matter how specifically you word it, it’s not appropriate. Just like any personal issue. At least in my culture, it’s typically thought of as inconsiderate and inappropriate to ask random strangers personal questions. for example, it would be rude to approach a random stranger on the bus that you’ve never even seen before and ask them why the have the haircut they do, who their sexual partners are, if they’ve just had a death in the family, how well their marriage is going, what their gender is, etc. etc. 

-

-

(2.) On top of this personal boundary issue, another concern would be that the nature of the question itself is baseless -- 

Would you ask a cis woman why they're a woman? Or a cis man why he chose to be a man? Would you ask a straight person why they chose to be straight?

Would you find it acceptable and polite if a random stranger approached you on the street and asked you for an explanation as to why you're the gender you are? Imagine that exact scenario happening to you, and if you would find it odd or overstepping boundaries at all.  

I doubt you ask this same gender identity question to everyone in your life, to your parents, friends, the cashier at your grocery store.  Why is it only certain groups that need to explain or justify their identities to you? Only certain groups that you feel the inherent need to question? It's a double standard which further serves to prove the question itself is unnecessary. 

-

-

(3.) Additionally, in case you're genuinely unsure of tone (maybe you have difficulty reading social cues or something, that’s understandable) I will explain - the way in which the question was asked has certain implications. 

The statement “Why are you nonbinary? You seem like a pretty girl to me”, implies that - due to your beliefs about me/how you see me, you find it confusing that I could have a certain identity that you see as not matching your perception of me, or that you see as an invalid label, and are asking for me to justify or explain myself/my identity to you because of that. 

Even if this implied meaning was not intentional, it is what most people will interpret upon reading the question, and would be a commonly held understanding. There are other ways you could have asked the question which would be less condescending, yes, but again, the other points still stand (like that the question in itself is impolite to ask to strangers, etc.)

Again, revisit the imaginary scenario of a stranger approaching you on the street and asking you why you’re the gender you are - would there not be some of this implication present? For example, say you’re a man - would it not feel as if someone were questioning your manhood, or implying you weren’t truly a man, or must not be a man ‘correctly’, or that ‘man’ is not a valid label for how they see you? Why else would they approach you and ask you in confusion for you to justify your identity to them? The implication is that they don’t see you as a valid man, or at least not how they see a man, and thus are having a hard time accepting that someone like YOU could ever be a real man - that it’s hard for them to believe you are what you say you are, because they see you differently.

 -

(3.a)  As an additional sidenote (one which I addressed in the tags replying to you initially), your ask (as well as this more recent one) also made certain assumptions. There are plenty of people who ''look like girls'' or 'look like boys' but aren't as they “seem”, even if you're someone who only believes in a “binary biological sex model” (I’ll include some links at the end about this). It's strange to assume someone's body parts or identity just based off of pictures you see on the internet (which often have specific lighting, angles, or in the case of many people are even edited and etc. I don't do this but it's really common nowadays with phone editing apps and stuff). Just because I appear a certain way to you, in no way implies that I have the physical form and traits you assume I have Consider how you may feel invalidated or uncomfortable if people sent you messages assuming personal things about you that are incorrect or that they have no way to possibly know.

 Your standards and perception are also not universal, various cultures and groups have different ideas about what outward traits would make someone considered a “man” or a “woman”, so making your judgement of someone else’s identity based only on your own (extremely shallow, since it’s only from online pictures) perception of them, is also inherently a bit flawed. 

-

(3.b-ish side tangent) In extension to this, your ideas and how you view me are likely incorrect. Just as it is similarly true that, from afar, any assumptions I make about you would likely be inaccurate as well. We are strangers.

For example, if you really knew me, you would know that I don’t pride myself in costumes and makeup - It’s a fun creative activity for me definitely, but I feel no pride over it, I don’t do it to look good or seem a certain way, and actually I resent it in a way, because often it feels like people mostly only pay attention to blurry pictures of me looking silly in cheap wigs, but don’t give that same level of engagement to the other more important things I do that I personally care about 100x more, like my worldbuilding and other projects lol. Absolutely nothing against the people who like my costumes, I appreciate them of course!!, and I still love doing costumes - BUT, to imply that it’s a primary source of pride in my life or a characteristic that defines me over other things, would be a mischaracterization. 

Anyone who knows me in real life would certainly list a million other stand-out traits to define me, rather than ‘pretty make up woman’ (most people I know in real life would also not describe me as ‘pretty’ or as a ‘woman’, just for reference lol). 

Your one sided perception of me (which I’ll address in the next section) may allow you to have a shallow idea of me as some sweet pretty costume girl or something, but just know that the reality is more like: I haven’t had much time lately to do costumes because I’m working on a game and other art which I see as much more important, I haven’t bathed or brushed my hair in weeks because of mental illness/functioning issues, 99% of the time I’m not ‘’dressed up’’ - I wear the same pajamas and cardigan that I’ve worn for the past 3 years and barely wash to the point that it’s disintegrating and leaves fabric scraps around the house lol, I have a little moustache right now and a unibrow and other “””non-womanly”””” traits (at least by common media western standards, which is what I assume you go by), I’m excessively analytical, detached, and in real life you would probably see me as blunt and cold and cynical (also commonly missing social cues) - as well as being hugely asocial/ a hermit and mostly lacking the ability to form attachments to others (So definitely not  ~pretty and cute and approachable~ ghgg), I have obsessive compulsive disorder and am regularly so anxious that I’m throwing up and have various other issues - I’m also not Fun or Cool or Spontaneous because I’m too busy being rigid and high strung lol (even before the pandemic, I don’t like to leave the house or interact much at all with others, I’d rather be in my little controlled environment where I don’t have overwhelming sensory information and distractions raising my anxiety constantly),, and my favorite activities are literally all just stuff like pacing around my home alone talking to myself in different voices creating gods and fake religions for my fantasy worldbuilding while I eat boiled cabbage and light little pieces of paper on fire over a candle to help me think - not doing makeup and other Pretty Woman Things. 

Which I don’t want to be too harsh or focus on this tangent too much, since obviously as you don’t know me in real life, these are all things you couldn’t possibly be aware of, and it simply comes with the territory of posting publicly online - so I absolutely don’t blame you for perceiving me incorrectly. If “pretty” pictures are all you see, then that may very well be the only impression that you have. I just personally dislike this certain interpretation some people have seemed to have of me (you’re not the first person to think of me as a Pretty Makeup Girl or whatever lol), since it’s so completely opposite from the truth of who I am, I feel the need to explain it like this sometimes. Just accepting the false perception some people have of me without any argument feels disingenuous and like supporting a version of myself that doesn’t exist. 

 So anyway, no issue with you personally, but just trying to set the perception of me straight a little more accurately lol.. now, back on topic -- 

-

-

(4.) Lastly, and here’s the main thing I’d like to stress, there's the issue of personal boundaries. Again, you're a complete stranger to me, I don't know who you are, and you have no idea who I am. Even if you've followed me online for years and read every post I've ever made, you still have no idea who I truly deeply am, only a vague scattering of snapshots over time.  

-

Here are some definitions for Parasocial Relationships: 

“Parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other's existence. Parasocial relationships are most common with celebrities, organizations (such as sports teams) or television stars.”

“Parasocial interaction (PSI) refers to a kind of psychological relationship experienced by an audience in their mediated encounters with performers in the mass media, particularly on television.[1] PSI is described as an illusionary experience, such that media audiences interact with personas (e.g., talk show host, celebrities, fictional characters, social media influencers) as if they are engaged in a reciprocal relationship with them. The term was coined by Donald Horton and Richard Wohl in 1956. “

-

This is all anyone can ever have with people they follow online. You can perceive them, but you cannot know them or truly understand them. I think this is very important to remain cognizant of in such a massive social media age, as often times people are fostering one sided concepts that are inaccurate or unhealthy (no so much with just you sending me a simple ask, but in a broader sense, how people act towards celebrities, other bloggers, etc. etc. seems to have little boundaries, and often results in a similar manner with people forgetting to maintain acceptable boundaries with those they follow or know about from afar). 

-

-- This next part is very important, I think it’s a super valuable way of thinking about this sort of stuff, so if you take away nothing else from this, at least remember this next portion -- 

A very good way to think about online boundaries that I heard someone mention in a post once (though I can no longer find the post), is to take whatever you're going to say to someone online, and imagine saying it in person, in real life, to a barista. Before you send an ask or make a comment, think about if it’s something you would really genuinely say face to face to a stranger. 

Would you walk into a random Starbucks and ask the dude at the counter a bunch questions about their gender identity? Or about his personal life in general? You probably recognize that that would be strange and socially inappropriate. It's similarly inappropriate in a case like this. 

Even though you may feel a sense of familiarity with someone online from reading their social media posts, or even speaking to them once or twice through asks and etc. etc., at the end of the day you don’t really know each other much more than you’d know a random stranger. 

Unless someone is inviting personal questions (like by reblogging those ‘ask me anything’ posts or etc.), or has the sort of blog where they are commonly asking people about/discussing their own intimate personal experiences or etc. (mine is not this way), then questions like this are very out of the blue and similar to asking a random person working at a store things like that. It can be seen as rude and inappropriate in general to give those sorts of questions to people who are complete strangers, and typically comes off as crossing personal boundaries. Again, think about a random stranger asking you these questions, and how you may perceive it. 

-

-

In summary: 

1. The question itself is borne from an double standard and isn't very good to ask in the first place. 2. The way you asked the question was worded  with certain implications. 3.  Your ask is also assuming certain things that you don't know are true, which can be uncomfortable for some people. 4. Even were it not for the three other things, it's commonly considered rude in many cultures to ask serious questions about the personal details of complete strangers, even if it's online. It could prove useful to utilize the ‘barista test’ to better determine this in the future. 

-

-

Final Thoughts: 

Anyway, I wasn't mad and I have no beef with you or whatever lol. Hopefully you can understand what I mean. I've also explained myself as well as I think I can though, so I don't feel like discussing it any more and won't respond to further asks about this. I have a lot of things going on in my life right now (as I'm sure everyone does given the pandemic and everything, you probably do too, so hopefully you can empathize with that), so I’d like to limit my time spent online, especially discussing topics I already don’t like to discuss or am not open to accepting questions about (I just want to talk about cats and elves and stuff lol). 

 If you still can't at least kind of get where I'm coming from then it's perfectly fine to just agree to disagree. If aspects of myself upset you or cause you discomfort, then there's no harm in just unfollowing me or something! Or if you don't even follow me, I would encourage you to block me so my posts no longer come across your dash (or block/unfollow me on whatever other social media you may be seeing my posts on ,etc)., etc. That way you don't have to see content or hear from someone who makes you uncomfortable that way, and there also won't be any need for this to come up in the future. Part of using the internet in a healthy and productive manner is to know when to disengage with certain content and just cut it off/unfollow/block people/etc. if it’s causing you unnecessary conflict or distress, or makes you uncomfortable or etc. to look at. Thank you for the question! Hopefully this response explained things a little better. 

-

-

Links and Further Info: 

On the off chance that you were genuinely curious, here are some resources where you can learn more about people of different gender identities and also hear them explain their experiences, etc.  Since these people are actually openly discussing their experiences/making educational content and are obviously actually open to talking about it,  that would be a better place to field any further questions or learn about things. :3

Here’s some reading - 

Understanding Nonbinary People (link)

Gender Variance Around the World (link)

12 Questions About Nonbinary Gender Answered (link)

About the Sex Binary (link)

Ask LGBT subreddit (link)

one ‘ask a nonbinary person’ blog i found (I don’t know if they’re still active, it’s one of the first ones that came up for me lol, but I guess could be helpful) (link)

-

And here’s some videos with people talking about their experience, or being educational - 

(NOTE: I just did a quick google search and did not deeply research these people and their entire histories and etc., so I can’t say I stand by literally everything they say or know what type of people they are, but it’s just a general place to start~!)

A video examining the idea of gender in general and how it even exists and nonbinary people (definitely interesting to watch) (link)

video about nonbinary gender/explanations (probably at least watch this one too) (link)

What is a nonbinary gender? (shorter general info) (link)

answering all your nonbinary questions q&a (link)

Video about binary sex/gender/etc. (link)

5 nonbinary people explain what nonbinary means to them (link)

another video about similar stuff (link)

-

[mcmoth]

Dream SMP fandom etiquette

So. This post is probably too little, too late, considering the fandom and the issues I'm about to talk about have existed for so long now, and a lot of the people who need to hear this probably aren't on tumblr anyways, but I just wanted to dedicate a quick post to talk about fandom etiquette. Mostly pertaining to discourse, and interactions with people outside of our circle. These are just going to be my own personal thoughts, of course, but I felt it could be good to bring some of this to attention. So without further introduction:

Where to (not) talk about discourse:

Don't go into other streamer's vods to only focus about a different character. If you want to analyse, for example, c!Techno, do it in Techno's stream. Don't go into unrelated streams, like Tommy's, Tubbo's etc. to do it, even if they were a part of the event in question. This is, of course, with the exception if the character in question didn't stream their own pov. But otherwise, stay in your own space. This is to prevent cluttering a streamer's comments about unrelated discussion. To give further example: Tubbo's vod comments should primarily focus on Tubbo's character. Not Tommy's, Ranboo's, Techno's or whoever else's.

Don't start discourse in the comments of animatics. Seriously, stop that. Animatics aren't discussion boards. The comments are there to analyse and appreciate the video presented, not argue. It's especially rude if you pick a small detail, that wasn't even the focus of the animatic, or even a completely unrelated issue to rant out your frustrations about. To give examples: starting disc discourse in an animatic of Tommy talking to Wilbur, or rambling about how tragic Techno's character is in an animatic focused on clingy duo, etc.

This applies to fan songs as well.

Video essays are the exception to these rules. I think it's safe to say they're the place to bring your hot takes, if you really feel so inclined to argue in youtube comment sections (Though I'd personally advise to still keep the topic relevant).

Keep negativity out of fanfic comments. This isn't nearly as big of an issue as the last points, but I've seen it happen a couple times, so I'm deciding to mention it. Fanfics are written for fun. Even if you disagree with the characterisation or something else, unless the author is clear in accepting critique, keep criticism to yourself. And definitely don't rant about how you dislike a character unrelated to the fanfic. Sharing your thoughts on the fanfic itself is of course fine and welcomed, but when it turns from discussing the author's story to talking about how you dislike a character in canon, that's when it crosses a line. Example: comment talking about what you don't like about c!Tommy on a Bench Trio fanfiction.

When commenting on art, keep the feedback positive. Even if you dislike any presented character, keep that to yourself. Example: Don't say things like "I hate x character, but this art is good". You might think the author would feel honoured, but it's actually just hurtful.

How to deal with discourse:

This is gonna be a shorter section, because I think we all chose to do it in different ways, and that's valid. Also, it's just that I, myself, am still learning how to do this well, but I thought it could be good to try to lay it out anyways.

Try to scroll past takes you disagree with instead of arguing if you don't think you'd be able to keep your cool. Noone likes a random person yelling at them through a screen, and if you rant, you'll get an equally frustrated reply back, and noone will be happy. Either explain your point in a calm manner, or scroll past/ unfollow/block.

On the keeping cool thing, remember to just step away. Take a deep breath and calm yourself down before proceeding. To minimize the frustration you feel on a daily basis, filter tags, block people, avoid videos and youtube comment sections that you know will upset you, and leave certain internet spaces if you find yourself unable to escape negativity even with all those steps. Remember: in the end, it's all a game played by friends, a story, and your enjoyment of it lies in what you take from it. Abandon what makes you unhappy. Marie Kondo your fandom experience.

Also, here's your reminder, to whom this is relevant, to take care of yourself. Hydrate, eat, sleep, clean up, get fresh air, remember the things outside of all this. There's plenty to do outside of this fandom, and what you can do here can wait. There is no pressure, or obligation. Not for the content you create, not for the discussions you bring, not for responding to discourse, not for anything. Fandom is meant purely for fun, so take care <3

Interacting with people outside of the fandom:

This is something that I've seen a bit of talk about, and I thought I'd drop in my own thoughts on this as well. No matter the differences, we're all just trying to vibe, and I think these are important things to keep in mind to leave both sides better off:

Don't interact with hate posts. Just don't. You don't want to see them, they don't want to see you. Even if your response is lighthearted, their animosity is not. They will feel frustrated regardless, and the grudge will only grow. And if they're being agressive, calm discussion most likely won't happen even if you're being polite. Just leave it, please.

Correct misinformation calmly. I completely get how it can be frustrating to see blatant lies and all, but with our reputation, people will not listen if you're being antagonistic. Provide sources, explain, and leave it at that.

Don't be hateful, send death threats, or assume privilege or whatever else. That's stepping into the same shoes of the people you hate. Misunderstandings go both ways, and the fact of the matter is, I think most people who dislike DSMP, even the ones who are agressive about it, don't have their stance rooted in maliciousness. To expand on why the situation became what it is today, taken from a discussion on discord:

I think it's just a combination of Dream growing so insanely quickly + how internet spaces have changed over the years. When ccs like jackstepticeye or pewdiepie etc. grew popular, activism wasn't as prevalent and held to such importance. Now it's thankfully more talked about, but that also leads to Dream being more scrutinized in comparision. Add twitter trends and the general prevalence of the fandom, and you've got everyone feeling tired and frustrated and paranoid. People also tend not to fact check stuff, especially when it comes to celebrities and stuff they're not really interested in, so rumors spread fast.

And actually, I think there's absolutely valid reasons to be made uncomfortable by Dream SMP, either in it's creators, content or fandom, and there is, of course, stuff to criticise in general. The problem is the hate and misinformation and overexposure, but we are not going to solve any of that by being aggressive in return.

(This is, by the way, not talking about more serious cases. Like doxxing, or leaving gore images in hashtags, or similar instances. That's a whole different complicated issue that I don't feel qualified to tackle.)

And finally, don't overwhelm outsiders who merely mention the Dream SMP. Don't send asks asking them to watch it, don't write paragraphs explaining the lore, don't confuse them with inside jokes, just... Don't jump on people like that. Unless they're explicitly clear in wanting interaction and getting into the fandom, that kind of thing will just drive them away. This is in no way exclusive to the Dream SMP fandom, pretty much every fandom has people enthiastic to have more people involved, but since there are so unbelievably many of us, it's especially easy to go overboard with this stuff. Just... be polite, and don't pressure anyone. Be nice, please.

So.... ya! This would be it for this one, I think. Sorry that it's kinda long, thank you if you read it at all. Hope y'all have pleasant days ^^

[littlemixnet]

To me, a good ally is someone who is consistent in their efforts – there’s a difference between popping on a pride playlist or sprinkling yourself in rainbow glitter once a year and actually defending LGBT+ people against discrimination. It means showing my LGBT+ fans that I support them wholeheartedly and am making a conscious effort to educate myself, raise awareness and show up whenever they need me to. It would be wrong of me to benefit from the community as a musician without actually standing up and doing what I can to support. As someone in the public eye, it’s important to make sure your efforts are not performative or opportunistic. I’m always working on my allyship and am very much aware that I’ve still got a lot of unlearning and learning to do. There are too many what I call ‘dormant allies’, believing in equality but not really doing more than liking or reposting your LGBT+ mate’s content now and again. Imagine if that friend then saw you at the next march, or signing your name on the next petition fighting for their rights? Being an ally is also about making a conscious effort to use the right language and pronouns, and I recently read a book by Glennon Doyle who spoke of her annoyance and disappointment of those who come out and are met with ‘We love you…no matter what’. I’d never thought of that expression like that before and it really struck a chord with me. ‘No matter what’ suggests you are flawed. Being LGBT+ is not a flaw. Altering your language and being conscious of creating a more comfortable environment for your LGBT+ family and friends is a good start. Nobody is expecting you to suddenly know it all, I don’t think there’s such a thing as a perfect ally. I’m still very much learning. Even recently, after our Confetti music video I was confronted with the fact that although we made sure our video was incredibly inclusive, we hadn’t brought in any actual drag kings. Some were frustrated, and they had every right to be. You can have the right intentions and still fall short. As an open ally I should have thought about that, and I hadn’t, and for that I apologise. Since then I’ve been doing more research on drag king culture, because it’s definitely something I didn’t know enough about, whether that was because it isn’t as mainstream yet mixed with my own ignorance. But the point is we mess up, we apologise, we learn from it and we move forward with that knowledge. Don’t let the fear of f**king up scare you off. And make sure you are speaking alongside the community, not for the community. Growing up in a small Northern working-class town, some views were, and probably still are, quite ‘old fashioned’ and small-minded. I witnessed homophobia at an early age. It was a common thought particularly among men that it was wrong to be anything but heterosexual. I knew very early on I didn’t agree with this, but wasn’t educated or aware enough on how to combat it. I did a lot of performing arts growing up and within that space I had many LGBT+ (mainly gay) friends. I’ve been a beard many a time let me tell you! But it was infuriating to see friends not feel like they could truly be themselves. When I moved to London I felt incredibly lonely and like I didn’t fit in. It was my gay friends (mainly my friend and hairstylist, Aaron Carlo) who took me under their wing and into their world. Walking into those gay bars or events like Sink The Pink, it was probably the first time I felt like I was in a space where everyone in that room was celebrated exactly as they are. It was like walking into a magical wonderland. I got it. I clicked with everyone. My whole life I struggled with identity – being mixed race for me meant not feeling white enough, or black enough, or Arab enough. I was a ‘tomboy’ and very nerdy. I suppose on a personal level that maybe played a part in why I felt such a connection or understanding of why those spaces for the LGBT+ community are so important. One of the most obvious examples of first realising Little Mix was having an effect in the community was that I couldn’t enter a gay bar without hearing a Little Mix song and watching numerous people break out into full choreo from our videos! I spent the first few years of our career seeing this unfold and knowing the LGBT+ fan base were there, but it wasn’t until I got my own Instagram or started properly going through Twitter DMs that I realised a lot of our LGBT+ fans were reaching out to us on a daily basis saying how much our music meant to them. I received a message from a boy in the Middle East who hadn’t come out because in his country homosexuality is illegal. His partner tragically took their own life and he said our music not only helped him get through it, but gave him the courage to start a new life somewhere else where he could be out and proud. There are countless other stories like theirs, which kind of kickstarted me into being a better ally. Another standout moment would be when we performed in Dubai in 2019. We were told numerous times to ‘abide by the rules’, which meant not promoting anything LGBT+ or too female-empowering (cut to us serving a four-part harmony to Salute). In my mind, we either didn’t go or we’d go and make a point. When Secret Love Song came on, we performed it with the LGBT+ flag taking up the whole screen behind us. The crowd went wild, I could see fans crying and singing along in the audience and when we returned it was everywhere in the press. I saw so many positive tweets and messages from the community. It made laying in our hotel rooms s**tting ourselves that we’d get arrested that night more than worth it. It was through our fans and through my friends I realised I need to be doing more in my allyship. One of the first steps in this was meeting with the team at Stonewall to help with my ally education and discussing how I could be using my platform to help them and in turn the community. Right now, and during lockdown, I’d say my ally journey has been a lot of reading on LGBT+ history, donating to the right charities and raising awareness on current issues such as the conversion therapy ban and the fight for equality of trans lives. Stonewall is facing media attacks for its trans-inclusive strategies and there is an alarming amount of seemingly increasing transphobia in the UK today and we need to be doing more to stand with the trans community. Still, there is definitely a pressure I feel as someone in the public eye to constantly be saying and doing the right things, especially with cancel culture becoming more popular. I s**t myself before most interviews now, on edge that the interviewer might be waiting for me to ‘slip up’ or I might say something that can be misconstrued. Sometimes what can be well understood talking to a journalist or a friend doesn’t always translate as well written down, which has definitely happened to me before. There’ve been moments where I’ve (though well intentioned) said the wrong thing and had an army of Twitter warriors come at me. Don’t get me wrong, there are obviously more serious levels of f**king up that are worthy of a cancelling. But it was quite daunting to me to think that all of my previous allyship could be forgotten for not getting something right once. When that’s happened to me before I’ve scared myself into thinking I should STFU and not say anything, but I have to remember that I am human, I’m going to f**k up now and again and as long as I’m continuing to educate myself to do better next time then that’s OK. I’m never going to stop being an ally so I need to accept that there’ll be trickier moments along the way. I think that might be how some people may feel, like they’re scared to speak up as an ally in case they say the wrong thing and face backlash. Just apologise to the people who need to be apologised to, and show that you’re doing what you can to do better and continue the good fight. Don’t burden the community with your guilt. When it comes to the music industry, I’m definitely seeing a lot more LGBT+ artists come through and thrive, which is amazing. Labels, managements, distributors and so forth need to make sure they’re not just benefiting from LGBT+ artists but show they’re doing more to actually stand with them and create environments where those artists and their fans feel safe. A lot of feedback I see from the community when coming to our shows is that they’re in a space where they feel completely free and accepted, which I love. I get offered so many opportunities to do with LGBT+ based shows or deals and while it’s obviously flattering, I turn most of them down and suggest they give the gig to someone more worthy of that role. But really, I shouldn’t have to say that in the first place. The fee for any job I do take that feels right for me but has come in as part of the community goes to LGBT+ charities. That’s not me blowing smoke up my own arse, I just think the more of us and big companies that do that, the better. We need more artists, more visibility, more LGBT+ mainstream shows, more shows on LGBT+ history and more artists standing up as allies. We have huge platforms and such an influence on our fans – show them you’re standing by them. I’ve seen insanely talented LGBT+ artist friends in the industry who are only recently getting the credit they deserve. It’s amazing but it’s telling that it takes so long. It’s almost expected that it will be a tougher ride. We also need more understanding and action on the intersectionality between being LGBT+ and BAME. Racism exists in and out of the community and it would be great to see more and more companies in the industry doing more to combat that. The more we see these shows like Drag Race on our screens, the more we can celebrate difference. Ever since I was a little girl, my family would go to Benidorm and we’d watch these glamorous, hilarious Queens onstage; I was hooked. I grew up listening to and loving the big divas – Diana Ross (my fave), Cher, Shirley Bassey, and all the queens would emulate them. I was amazed at their big wigs, glittery overdrawn make-up and fabulous outfits. They were like big dolls. Most importantly, they were unapologetically whoever the f**k they wanted to be. As a shy girl who didn’t really understand why the world was telling me all the things I should be, I almost envied the queens but more than anything I adored them. Drag truly is an art form, and how incredible that every queen is different; there are so many different styles of drag and to me they symbolise courage and freedom of expression. Everything you envisioned your imaginary best friend to be, but it’s always been you. There’s a reason why the younger generation are loving shows like Drag Race. These kids can watch this show and not only be thoroughly entertained, but be inspired by these incredible people who are unapologetically themselves, sharing their touching stories and who create their own support systems and drag families around them. Now and again I think of when I’d see those Queens in Benidorm, and at the end they’d always sing I Am What I Am as they removed their wigs and smudged their make up off, and all the dads would be up on their feet cheering for them, some emotional, like they were proud. But that love would stop when they’d go back home, back to their conditioned life where toxic heteronormative behaviour is the status quo. Maybe if those same men saw drag culture on their screens they’d be more open to it becoming a part of their everyday life. I’ll never forget marching with Stonewall at Manchester Pride. I joined them as part of their young campaigners programme, and beforehand we sat and talked about allyship and all the young people there asked me questions while sharing some of their stories. We then began the march and I can’t explain the feeling and emotion watching these young people with so much passion, chanting and being cheered by the people they passed. All of these kids had their own personal struggles and stories but in this environment, they felt safe and completely proud to just be them. I knew the history of Pride and why we were marching, but it was something else seeing what Pride really means first hand. My advice for those who want to use their voice but aren’t sure how is, just do it hun. It’s really not a difficult task to stand up for communities that need you. Change can happen quicker with allyship.

Jade Thirlwall on the power, and pressures, of being an LGBT ally: ‘I’m gonna f**k up now and again’

[constant-merlin-torture]

Merlin Thoughts/People’s idea of male friendship

Ooooooohhhhhh I’ve been waiting to talk about this because I think about it SO much. Basically, I want to talk about how people always say that “Merlin and Arthur are brothers” and “stop trying to make everything queer” and “just because they hugged doesn’t mean they’re gay” and—you get the idea. Today I’ll be hitting the first point, and will be doing two and three in other posts.

Queer interpretation doesn’t invalidate male platonic intimacy

Fiction v. Real Life

Did anything actually change?

ONE:

To start off, queer interpretation is just that: it’s a different perspective on the same piece of art/whatever. When people try to say that there’s a crisis in male friendship because of queer interpretation, I struggle to see the reasoning. Why does someone saying that a pair on TV seems queer affect the way you see that pairing?

Really, it’s an inadvertent way for many men to accidentally invalidate their own friendships. When men in these intimate friendships become insecure because of a queer interpretation of that same sort of intimacy on screen, and when they try to tell queer people that they shouldn’t be speculating in this way, they give unwanted power to those who don’t want to wield it. All most people want is representation in the sparse land of English film and tv. So what if I think that Merlin and Arthur hugging in that way is gay as hell? You can still hug your male friend as a man in that same way and it not be queer (mind blowing). The point is, just because queer people are interpreting media in a queer way, doesn’t mean they’re trying to invalidate male intimacy and male friendship. And trying to say that there should be no queer discussion or interpretation is like saying that people can’t have any other opinion than a heteronormative one.

Want to also recommend that you watch AreTheyGay’s YouTube video on the “crisis of male friendship”. It’s so well crafted and I draw a lot from it!

part two sooooon. Stay along with me if you want to hear my bit on fiction v. Real life male intimacy!

also, let me know what you think, and if you want to hear about anything else specific. I know this is more serious than normal, but I really wanted to get it off my chest and discuss it. Follow for more thoughts but predominantly merthur hell and whatnot.

[lesbianakaashi]

The Forgotten Shounen: Katekyo Hitman Reborn

This is not a “Why you should watch/read khr” or anything like that. This is just me going into the deep dive and throwing my findings at you. I’m making this because khr used to be my favourite series when I was 15 (I had plushees, posters, tradingcards, the art book etc) and now as an adult I constantly find myself baffled at how unknow it seems to be.

1. Okay first what is khr?

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! or just Reborn! is a series by Akira Amano which was published in Weekly Shounen Jump from 2004 to 2012 (with 42 volumes) and got an anime adaption which run from 2006 to 2010 on Tv Tokyo (with 202 episodes and one OVA).

2. What’s it about?

Khr is a parody of the italian mafia and plays in a world where the mafia is heavily influencial. The protagonist is the japanese middle schooler Sawada Tsunayoshi who is known as “No good Tsuna” because of his failing grades, general weak and cowardly personality and weak physics.

He becomes aware of the mafia world when a 2 year old baby called Reborn arrives at his house claiming to be the greatest hitman and declaring himself his home tutor. Reborn was send by the 9th head of the Vongola famiglia who is ready to retire and looking for a new heir. Which of course, is supposed to be Tsuna and now it's Reborns job to shape him into a worthy sucessor.

Tsuna rejects the violence of the mafia world and refuses the position as the 10th. Thanks to Reborn and his general craziness Tsuna meets different people and starts to make real friendships. Reborn wants 6 of those friends to be Tsuna's future guardians, basically a group of people which will be closest to him in the vongola famiglia. Tsuna might have no interest in those positions but the friendships he builds with them become really precious to him.

Reborns arrivial also brings in the enemies of the Vongola family which leads to Tsuna being forced to engage in battles. Generally Tsuna openly avoids fights and prefers to run away but will put himself in danger for his friends' sake or because of something Reborn did.

Through out the series Tsuna matures and gains strenght but he never becomes a power fantasy. He's just a guy with many flaws who grows through the human connections he makes.

Personally I think the relationship between Reborn and Tsuna is one of the best student teacher reltaionships in all of manga only topped by Mob and Reigen from Mob Psycho 100. Especially the last arc really underlines their unique relationship to me.

Furthermore, khr offers a new and unique battle system: The flames. I'm not gonna go into to too much detail but the general idea is that one fights with their dying will flame which basically turns off your the savety switch so you can fight with everything you have. The flames are seperated into different categories such as: sky, storm, mist, rain, sun, lightning and cloud and have different attributes asigned to each one. Tsuna's use of the sky flame and his transformation when using it is still one of my favourite shounen transformations to this day.

3. What happened?

The series did really well and then not so well over the course of its serialisation. After the manga got an anime adaption it increased in populairty and video games, light novels, and other products such as CDs were created based on the series. Reborn is one of the best selling series of Weekly Shōnen Jump and has sold around 30 Million volumes overall. It was and still is very popular in Japan but rather unknown in the west.

According to the article "The Rise and Fall of Weekly Shonen Jump: A Look at the Circulation of Weekly Jump" khr was the 10th bestselling series in Weekly Shōnen Jump, with a total of 7 million copies sold in 2007.

This number increasing to 15 milion in 2008. Which placed khr into the 4th best selling series of 2008 in Japan.

Between 2008 and 2010 those sales declined but still kept strong with khr as the 6th top selling manga in 2009, 8th best selling in 2010 and then 24th best selling in 2012.

In November 2014, readers of the Da Vinci magazine voted khr number 17 on a list of Weekly Shōnen Jump's greatest manga series of all time.

After the anime came to an apprupt stop in 2010 for unknown reasons the manga sells took a visible hit. (Apparently the studio wanted to put the anime on halt because they were busy with other projects and give Akira Amano time to develop her story but I couldn't find any source for this claim) Furthermore, the rushed last chapters of the manga in 2012 declined the popularity of the series even more. There's no offical statement as to why the manga was ended in such a way but it's reasonable to assume that Jump either cut it considering the decreasing sales or Akira Amano choose to end it for personal reasons.

Nontheless, Tsuna not being included in Jump Force (a fighting game where you can play as different characters from Jump) in 2019 even tho he made it in earlier Jump Stars games also underlines the decreased interest in the series.

Rumors on a reboot or anime adaption of the last two arcs surface from time to time but are genereally unlikely. Artland the studio which made khr has gone bankrupt around 2015-2016. It might be taken on by another studio but rather uncommen especially with such an old series.

4. Art style

The khr anime ended over 10 years ago and the old art style might not be appealing to newer audiences.

Especailly because the anime adaption follows Akira Amanos old art style which heavily developed within the years. Here a picture comparing characters in the new art style:

A modern anime adaption in the new art style would be aesthetically pleasing. It would probably look similiar to Psycho Pass since Akira Amano did the concept art for this series.

(My personal art student hot take is that both art styles are unique and fun. Up to this day Akira Amano still has my favourite art style and even if the amount folds in the characters clothing is a little extreme I love it dearly.)

5. Criticism

The show is not without flaws and even if I greatly enjoy it it wouldn't be right not to adress them.

Daily Life Arc:

A lot of people view the first 20 to 25 episodes as fillers and quickly lose intererst in the series. This is due to the fact that Akira Amano inteded the series to be a gag manga and focuses the first chapters on world building, character introduction and comical narratives. It's rumored that the decision to develop the story into a battle shounen was made because the sales weren't doing well enough at first. So the first chapters/episodes may seem titidious but are necessary for the story and the development of the characters. The tonal shift from a more gintama like gag manga to a darker battle focused story can also be offputting to some viewers.

Either way a lot of people blame this arc when discussing why khr never got an english dub or didn't end up on Toonami. I've also read that the manga never finished serializing in the north america. However, it finished in other western languages like german and spanish.

Censoring:

The anime censors A LOT. From Gokudera's smoking habit, Yamamoto's whole character arc which deals with heavy themes such as depression and suicidal thoughts. The general bloodiness of the manga was censored and sometimes whole chapters and characters were left out even if those were important to the devolopment of others.

Filler episodes:

Out of the 202 episodes the anime has around 29 filler episodes which makes roughly 14 %.

Sexism:

Even if Reborn was written by a woman most female characters are rather flat and their storylines often tied to a male character in one way or another.

Genereal things:

Khr, like many other long running series, is sometimes criticised for a lack of world building or unpopular narrative choices.

6. Hope?

Khr isn't exactly dead. As stated before the series is still very popular in Japan and still gets new merch pretty regulary. There are also petitions floating around for a reboot or a new anime season but those never get a lot of traction. Furthermore #Reborn2期アニメ化 (#Reborn2ndAnimation) used to get some traction on twitter not too long ago. Last year the Anime News Network did a poll on which anime the readers would like to see a rebooot of and khr placed second.

Either way here's a collection of recent khr things I could find.

- In 2018 a new bluray set was released in north america

- The khr stage play reached yet another new season

- A mobile game was released last year

- Currently ongoing anime cafe event called "Concerto di Vongola"

- Last month there was an event with the former VAs and stage play actors where they discussed their favourite khr episodes.

- There has been an increase in blind reacts to the openings on youtube which might bring in a new fan base. The biggest one I could find had around 90k views and was made in 2019. On this note check out the soundtrack. The first openeing Drawing Days by SPLAY still makes me go insane (but I'm biased of course)

There also renewed hope for a new season/reboot because Shaman King, Inuyasha and Bleach got anounced for new seasons after a long hiatus. It's important to keep in mind that the circumstances for those series are differnt tho. For example bleachs new anime is often tied to the immense success of the gatcha game.

7. Conclusion

Khr is a series which used to be a flagship for Weekly Shounen Jump and is deeply beloved by it's fans, especially in Japan. It influenced other shounen series like bnha. It would be nice to see it gaining a bigger fanbase in the west :)

[stuff-from-the-void-matron]

Laurel Wreaths & Animal Teeth (8)

(c!Technoblade x fem!Reader)

(Still no Tech this time, please don’t be mad! But hey we’re in L’manberg now! That’s pog right? Plus we officially meet Wilb and Fundy! But remember y’all, if this chapter doesn’t do well then I can’t write chapter 9! So show chapter 8 some love!! <3)

—————

MOAR ART!

I tried drawing Reader! -> She.

And xoxoyukixoxo-art-dump on here drew her too! She looks so SICK! SHE!

----

He’d been watching her for some time now. 

Not all day and night like some weirdo but he’d noticed instantly when she’d ‘logged on’ so to speak. The first thing to make him curious was him wondering how she arrived here in the first place, but when he tried teleporting to this new person it strangely hadn’t worked. He’d simply not gone anywhere, which was beyond puzzling. He should be able to teleport to anyone on this server. That little tidbit, the not being able to teleport to her, was the second thing to make him curious. So curious in fact that he spent a very long time just looking for her. When the ability to teleport to her was no longer an option he’d found searching for someone was much harder, but in the end he’d found her. And good lord was she a big one. Not taller than endermen or anything bigger but she definitely towered over the villagers she lived with.

He didn’t know how she ended up here since you needed an invite to be allowed on the server. And he knows she wasn’t invited, because he knows ALL the people who are invited. Hell, at one point he even tried banning her (an action which kicks players from the server) but… nothing had happened. He’d been hidden and watching her when he’d done it and she’d not even noticed, just kept on planting flowers around one of the villager’s houses without a care in the world.

He’d unbanned her and nothing changed again. Then he’d tried using other commands on her. Teleport, clear, give, and even Kill. Not a single one did anything. That made him nervous. He’d never encountered something like this before. It was unheard of. If this player decided to become hostile, or End forbid, GENOCIDAL… it would have very disastrous consequences for the other players on the server..

He decided then and there to monitor her deeply until further notice. 

Which turned into him popping up by her village and sneaking in to watch her and what she did day in and day out for a few months. And honestly.. She seemed pretty benign. 

All she really did was change up the village she lived in and decorate. When not doing those things she would do other hobbies like cooking and potion making. She’d also leave the village sometimes to just explore. He took those chances to go inside her home and snoop around. He also noticed aggressive mobs were pretty neutral towards her for whatever reason. That only ever happened if a player had a clear relation to a mob (aka a hybrid) or if the player had creative… Which it looked like she had. But she also didn’t look fully human.

“What a strange being you are..”

-0-

Before you knew it the next day had come, bright and early. 

You’d had to go back to the Overworld around sunrise to get ready to greet Tubbo. You’d explained to Azo that you’d try to come back as soon as you could but for now you had to go on a trip for a while. She was sad to see you go but said okay and to hurry back. Your heart broke all over again, feeling terrible that you had to leave her alone but there was nothing you could do. You’d bring her with you if it were possible but you knew her entering the Overworld would turn her into a zombie instantly. And that’s not a fate you’re willing to make anyone go through.

But you left her a chest with some golden carrots, some apples, and even some of the stew you’d made for Tubbo and Tommy. She liked the stew, so you left her a few bowls and even some juice to drink in case she got thirsty. You hugged her goodbye and told her you’d bring her a gift back. She nodded happily and then you sadly had to leave through the portal. Which you made sure to destroy after exiting it. Didn’t want anything wandering through. That would be a disaster. 

Once you were back in the overworld you went home and sat on your bed and just thought. More than anything you just wanted to step in and prevent Schlatt and Quackity from winning. But you didn’t know if doing that would have dangerous consequences or not. You’d seen so many movies where a small change in the past ends up having massive effects in the future. Damn butterfly effects. Stopping them from winning the election could end up causing a civil war within L’manburg. Or Tubbo, Tommy, or Wilbur could end up hurt or even lose a life. Or something even more devastating could happen. 

...But you hated the thought of Tommy and Wilbur getting exiled. It wasn’t fair or just. Especially while getting shot at and chased down like dogs. Schlatt and Quackity really pissed you off with that part. Seeing Ponk and Punz just instantly turn on the two original founders left you feeling utterly appalled. Schlatt hadn’t even been sworn in as president yet! He’d not taken an oath or anything! None of what he ‘decreed’ should have been taken as law! None of it was legal-

You pause. None of that WAS legal.. right? Did the citizens even know that? Were they aware that simply winning an election wasn’t the instant inauguration that Schlatt and Quackity made it out to be? Surely there was more to L’manburg than simply the bare bones parts that were shown on youtube in your original world. There had to be actual systemic structure for this whole ass small country. You wanted to believe there was, because the alternative made you facepalm. But at this point you honestly just didn’t know. You would need to have a discussion with Wilbur and Tommy (Wilbur more so since he was the adult in this situation).

You needed to talk to Wilbur asap.

-0-

Tubbo and Tommy came to get you bright and early, the blond looking more anxious than he was trying to let on. Seeing the usually so upbeat and grinning boy so nervous made your stomach churn. So you’d pulled him into a hug, not even letting him finish his greeting to you before you did. He went silent and was tense at first. But you took in a breath and said in as reassuring a tone as you could physically muster,

“Don’t worry kiddo. Things WILL be okay. I’ll make sure of it, alright?”

Tommy was silent, but you could hear the choked gasp of breath the boy took in, and you felt how his lanky body seemed to relax in your hold. He awkwardly put his arms around your back, seemingly not used to this, the whole hugging thing. At least not such heartfelt ones. He’s hugged Tubbo, Wilbur, and Philza but this one just felt different. It felt safer. Like if he stayed here nothing could hurt him. It was weird but.. nice. Part of the boy didn’t want to let go. He didn’t want to leave this new safe place. Here hugging you there was no fear of losing the election, no worries of wars with the DSMP, there was nothing bad. Just a pleasant warmth he felt like he could just fall asleep to.

But the bigger part of him knew he’d never hide away from his problems. It wasn’t who he was. He wasn’t some baby coward who hid behind mommy for protection when shit got tough. (missing how his subconscious referred to you as ‘mom’) He was a MAN! Nevermind he was barely 16! He was practically an adult (in his own eyes)! He’d fought in a war for independence! He’d battled for his and his countrymen’s freedom! There’s no way he’d cower away from this damned election! 

With a new fire in him, largely in part to the confidence you seemed to have for him and L’manburg, he eventually pulled back from the hug and gave you one of his signature bright grins. He said thanks but there’s no way he was worrying! Like you said, things were gonna be fine! You gave him an encouraging smile in return and agreed, then added that if anything DID go wrong you’d stick by them and make sure it all got resolved. The teens looked grateful for your support. But then you bid the villagers goodbye for now and told the iron golems to make sure to keep them all safe.

Then you three were off to L’manburg.

-0-

Walking into L’manburg was weird. You’d only ever seen parts of it via the videos you’d watched from the various minecraft youtubers. But being there in person was wild, seeing all the buildings and pathways was interesting though. Tommy and Tubbo changed into their ‘presidential attire’, which were just those vaguely old school British military uniforms they wore at the start of the L’manburg thing. You still ruffled their hair and cooed over them, saying they looked like official little men. They got all huffy and Tommy swatted your hand away, making you laugh. Tubbo suggested showing you around before the election began, which you thought was a good idea. So the pair escorted you around L’manburg, showing you the main places plus their houses and favorite spots. You gave Tommy a Look and asked him if he really lived in a dirt hut.

“It’s DIRT Tommy, not even cobblestone. Just a dirty dirt hut,” you said with a sigh.

Tubbo snickered while Tommy tried defending himself. But he honestly was just making excuses though thankfully he got cut off by Wilbur showing up. He was in the same uniform as both teenagers and you saw him giving you a wide eyed look as he walked up. You could tell he was used to not being around someone so much taller than him. Which you guess made sense since he’d been hanging out with teenagers, a girl, and his own son mostly. You think Dream is taller than him but you don’t know how often they’re around each other peacefully to notice height..

“Oh, hello, you must be Reader! Tommy and Tubbo have told me about you!” the brunet man said with a charming smile. 

You returned the smile and held your hand out for him to shake. He gave a firm handshake and you said he must be Wilbur and that the boys had mentioned him to you. He gave a sly smile to the two boys and asked if that was so, and said he hoped they’d said good things about him. Not liking his teasing tone Tommy cut in and said he told you about Wilbur being a bitch! You laughed and Wilbur punched Tommy in the shoulder, laughing when the boy loudly claimed he was abusing a child!

Wilbur rolled his eyes at the blond boy and asked what the occasion for you visiting his lovely country was. You gave a relaxed smile and said you just wanted to come out and support ‘big man’ and Tubbo on this exciting day! Wilbur smiled and perked up when Tubbo said they were giving you a tour of L’manburg. Wilbur asked why the shortest boy didn’t say so before and gestured for you to follow him, saying the best person to give a tour is always the president! You liked his charming enthusiasm but you could still see the nervousness just lurking under the surface for all three of them. You hated that their worry was justified. 

-0-

Wilbur took over showing you around, Tubbo and Tommy right behind him adding little comments here and there to irk him. You ohh’d and ahh’d at the polite times, even saying how cool the place was. You even got shown Wilbur’s ‘ball house’ and their extensive nether pathways briefly. You got a bit distracted in the Nether, wondering if Azo was okay. Though you supposed she was a tough kid, what with having survived in the Nether her whole life so far. But she was just a little kid, still a toddler. She shouldn’t have to survive. She should be living.

“And I guess that’s the whole tour! I hope we’ve given you a good impression of my country~” Wilbur said with a smile, thoroughly snapping your attention back to the present.

You were thankful they couldn’t see how your eyes widened when you realized you’d totally zoned out during the last leg of the tour. Instead of worrying you just gushed and said you’d been really dazzled! The trio grinned and you ruffled Tommy’s hair and said you could expect no less from the big man himself and sweet Tubbo. The pair were happy to hear you praising the country they’d worked so hard to have, with Tommy even playfully swatting your hand away from your hair and saying anything he helped with would be the best. Wilbur gave a very big brother reply of ‘oh really?’ that was dripping with doubt, which started to set Tommy off.

The two started going back and forth, causing you to roll your eyes. Yeah they definitely had the brother vibe about them. Though Wilbur lost interest in arguing when he spotted someone a bit aways behind you and Tommy. He perked up and waved, calling out ‘FUNDY!’ to get his son’s attention. You all glanced over to see a fox hybrid in a uniform that was the same as the boys around you, only the coloring was off. Fundy’s was more pastel colored while the others were darker/more saturated. Wilbur waved him over and you noticed the way Fundy’s muzzle scrunched up when Wilbur threw an arm around his shoulders, but you said nothing. Not really your place but from what you remember of the smp videos… Wilbur wasn’t the ideal father figure to his furry son..

“Fundy, this is Reader! She’s a friend of Tubbo and Tommy’s! She came to support us today,” Wilbur said with a smile.

The fox quirked an eyebrow at you and asked a mildly incredulous voice if your name was actually ‘Reader’. Tommy told him to shut up and pointed out that his name was ‘Fundy’ so he had no room to be criticizing anybody’s name. Fundy raised his paws in surrender and said fine, whatever, no need to jump down his throat about it. You chuckled and said it was okay, it was a rather odd name. And you liked his name, it was cool. Tommy actually boo’d you while Fundy smiled, glad at least someone stuck up for him. Though that reminded Fundy to ask Wilbur if he’d seen the ballots…

Wilbur’s mood darkened and he gave a clipped, “Yeah, I saw them.” His tone making the other L’manburg citizens feel uncomfortable. You spoke up, asking what was wrong with them? Had someone tampered with them or something? Fundy sighed and rubbed the back of his neck and said yes and no. Yes someone had changed them but it wasn’t really ‘tampering’, just altering to fit with the new campaign runners. She gave his upset father a side glance, his triangular shaped ears going back when he saw the way Wilbur’s eyebrows were furrowed and his jaw clenched. Seems the current president was still pissed off that his son and first lady had decided to run against him together..

“Well we had to change the ballots to include all the people running, and even an ‘other’ option… Yeah,” Fundy said lowly.

You couldn’t help the way you raised an eyebrow at that and said, 

“Isn’t that just the standard for ballots? Designing ballots to not show all the people their options would just be criminal.”

Wilbur didn’t seem to like your (in his opinion) unwanted input and said however L’manburg designed their ballots was none of your business anyways, especially since you weren’t even a citizen. You could feel yourself narrowing your eyes at the brunet, though nobody could see it, and replied that you didn’t need to be a citizen to point out that not putting all the names of those running on an ELECTORAL BALLOT was hugely unethical and borderline malicious hindrance to the citizen’s right to free choice. This little snit between you and the current president had dropped the mood low, with the three boys beside you looking more than uncomfortable. 

But thankfully Tubbo found his voice and before Wilbur could retort to your statement he turned to you and said the election and debate would be starting soon and that he’d sit in the audience with you. This reminded Wilbur that he needed to practice his speech and debate responses with Tommy so he straightened his posture and adjusted his coat before giving you a faux smile and then telling Tubbo they’d see him afterwards. You kept a polite smile on your face as the four led you to an open part of the village center where a large stage/platform had been built along with seating in front of it. Wilbur jerked his thumb towards the stage and told Tommy to come on and the blond boy said he’d be right there in a moment. The brunet looked put out but nodded and stalked off, leaving the four alone in the audience area.

Once he was out of earshot you turned to Tommy and gave him a disbelieving look and said in a hushed tone,

“Tommy, you and Wilbur weren’t ACTUALLY planning to tamper with the ballots were you?? That’s insanely unconstitutional! The people of L’manburg have a right to know and be able to choose whichever voting option they want. If they don’t have that option then it’s not a real election, it’s just the illusion of choice.”

The blond looked uncomfortable, sweating and avoiding eye lens contact with you. He felt ashamed because… well that HAD been the plan. At least Wilbur told him it had been before Quackity found out. He’d not been sure about the plan but he hadn’t done much to argue with Wilbur either. He’d convinced himself it wasn’t that big of a deal, but seeing how shocked and offended you looked that they’d even thought about doing that made him feel like a bastard. You saw how nervous he looked and sighed, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing softly before reassuring him you weren’t angry.

“I’m not mad at you Tommy, I’m just disappointed that this was something you went along with. You have to know how wrong that was? Imagine you were a regular citizen and you voted in the election but later found out it was all rigged, you’d never had a choice regarding your country like you’d been led to believe. Wouldn’t you feel wronged?”

Tommy seemed to deflate at your words but gave a remorseful nod, neither of you noticing that your words seemed to have also struck a chord with both Fundy and Tubbo as well. You gave the blond boy a reassuring smile, saying that part of being a member of government was respecting the people’s choices. Even if you think it’s stupid and wrong. You have to let the people choose for themselves. The ability to choose is sometimes the only difference between merely existing on this bitch of a world and actually Living~

Tommy seemed to have taken your words to heart, making you smile at him before pulling him into a half hug and saying sincerely,

“I’m proud of you Tommy, Tubbo too. You’ve both done so much for this country. More than any child should ever have to. I wish more than anything that you’d not HAD to sacrifice and lose so much. But I’ll be here to support you both going forward. I just don’t want either of you doing anything unethical. You’re both better than that.”

Tubbo almost teared up and came over and let his face rest against your side in a show of affection. He’d never had anyone say they were proud of him before and honestly.. he didn’t know how badly he needed to hear it until you said it. Tommy leaned into your hug, close to tearing up like his best friend but he blinked rapidly until the tears faded.

None of them noticed the envious way Fundy stared at them, feeling jealousy bubble in his stomach at the way you seemed to care for the two boys. He felt childish for feeling that way but he couldn’t help it. You clearly cared about the two in a maternal way, that much was obvious. But you weren’t treating them like babies either. You were respectful and loving at the same time. Fundy wondered if that’s what it was like to have a mother..

“TOMMY! COME ON! THE RALLY STARTS SOON!”

They all broke away when they heard Wilbur yelling down at them from the podium. Tubbo sighed and Tommy straightened his hat before giving a cheeky smile. You told him to go give his best, and no matter what happened you’d be proud. This pumped the blond boy up and he gave a cheer before ruffling Tubbo’s hair and turning to the stage and running up around the side to get to the top, you and the brunet watching him go. That’s when you remembered the fox hybrid that was still standing close by. You offer him a calm smile and say kindly,

“So, Fundy was it?”

------

tagged folks: @salinesoot​ @lady-bee-fechin​ @kacchasu​ @putridjoy​ @lunawritesstories​ @galaxypankitty3030​ @paradigmax​ @zachariethememerie​ @killmewithafanfic @trinity-1002107 @hufflepuff-demigod @truthdaze @exorcisms-with-elmo @redbloodtea @heythereimhaylz @olyink @jackalopedoodles @nikkineeky @artsimatsu @hufflepuff-demigod @corpiet @beepa99 @anxiousnarwhale @bananaaddictmilkshake

[miserablesme]

The Les Miserables Changelog Part 1: Barbican Previews

Hello everyone! I'm starting out a blog which will look at my favorite musical, Les Miserables, and will discuss the various changes it has gone through over time (musically and lyrically). As it turns out, a LOT of edits have been made over the years so this will doubtless be a series with several parts.

This first part may well be the most difficult and will almost certainly be the most incomplete, as previews can be a time of extensive editing and experimentation. At least for the first few weeks or so, it's perfectly possible any one day of previews will be slightly different than any other day. However, I only have access to two audios from the Barbican Theatre previews of Les Miserables, meaning it's likely that lyrical variants exist which I have no way of hearing.

I am aware of the existence of a third audio which is fairly early in the run of previews, as the tape's master has told me that Gavroche's death scene is in its original form (I'll clarify that later). However, that tape has never been traded, and has sadly only been listened to by its master. I am also aware of a video proshot of the Barbican era that exists in the Royal Shakespeare Company library, but currently have no access to it. I plan to inquire about whether I can look at it sometime (though I'm not sure a blog like this is "official" enough to warrant it for research purposes). As such, this comparison only entails the two widely circulated audios from the Barbican run.

Now that we've gotten that cleared up, let's get started!

First, let's look at the opening "Work Song". In the earlier recording I have (let's call it R1), the beginning music (the same tune used, for instance, at the opening of "At the End of the Day" and "One Day More" and for Marius and Cosette's meeting in "The Robbery") stops. Then, a few moments later, the more familiar opening that leads directly into the prologue begins. By the time of the later recording I have (let's call it R2), the scores have been combined so that the first tune directly transitions into the second one.

Meanwhile, in R1 there is a sequence of lines that goes as follows:

I've done no wrong

Sweet Jesus, hear my prayer

Look down, look down

Sweet Jesus doesn't care

I killed a man

He tried to steal my wife

Look down, look down

She wasn't worth your life

I know she'll wait

I know that she'll be true

Look down, look down

She's long forgotten you

Most fans of the musical recognize the middle sequence of lines ("I killed a man" through "She wasn't worth your life") as no longer being lines in the show (for good reason, as we'll get into in a later edition of this blog). However, R2 keeps the lines. Instead, it deletes the third sequence ("I know she'll wait" through "She's long forgotten you"). I have no idea if this lasted only a few performances or made it all the way to the end of the Barbican run, or somewhere in between.

During "On Parole", specifically after Valjean is underpaid for his labor and sings about his frustration, R1 uses a variation of the "Work Song" theme which, to my recollection, is heard nowhere else in the musical. It can be heard here. By R2, it was switched to an in-tune version of the number with a unique opening. The musical retains that version to this day, but in case you can't recall it you can hear it here.

Minus an unintentional line flub in "At the End of the Day" in R2, the two Barbican recordings seem to use the same libretto and score from this point until "The Runaway Cart". At this point, R1 has a rather extensive scene leading up to Valjean saving Fauchelevent, which goes approximately as follows (the dialog is difficult to make out):

(VALJEAN)

Is there anyone here who will rescue the man?

Who will help me to shoulder the weight of the cart?

I will pay any man thirty louis d’or more

I will do it myself if there’s no one who will

We can’t let him die like that down in the street

Can you all watch him die and do nothing at all?

(FAUCHELEVENT)

Don’t approach me, Monsieur Mayor

The cart’s not gonna be holding

Not my poor mother would care if I should die

(TOWNSPEOPLE)

Don't go near him, Monsieur Mayor

There's nothing at all you can do

The old man's a goner for sure

Leave him alone

Most of that dialog is deleted in R2, so that it goes directly from "Who will help me to shoulder the weight of the cart" to "Don't go near him, Monsieur Mayor". I really like the idea of the original version; it seems reasonable that Valjean, having become a more trusted man, would expect the townspeople to help him. It's more meaningful that Valjean is good enough to do what's right when there's more time to establish that no one else is. Having said that, the original version did take quite a while and didn't really contain any relevant information that wasn't in the final version. I think the cut version as heard in R2 is a good compromise and retains the general mood and pacing to make Valjean's ultimate action satisfying (something that can't be said of later cuts, as will be discussed in a future edition of this blog).

Additionally, at the end of the number Javert refers to "the mark upon his skin" in R1 and "the brand upon his skin in R2 (as well as literally every subsequent performance since then to my knowledge). I have no idea if the "mark" line was a minor flub or was actually the original lyric.

"Who Am I?" is an interesting one. The musical content is identical in R1 and R2, but in R1 after his high note, Valjean shouts "You know where to find me!" with emotion so dramatic it sits right on the border between awesome and campy. By contrast, Valjean is totally silent after his high note in R2. Neither version would see its final day just yet, although the latter certainly has become more traditional over time. More on that in future editions.

From this point until "Master of the House" everything is the same between the two recordings. Roger Allam even comes in slightly late in both "Confrontation" scenes (making his line "-jean, at last...")! However, in the opening to "Master of the House" the following lines occur in R1:

(THENARDIER)

My band of soaks, my den of dissolutes

My dirty jokes, my always pissed as newts

My sons of whores

Spend their lives in my inn

Homing pigeons flying in

They fly through my doors

And their money's good as yours

(CUSTOMERS)

Ain't got a clue what he put into his stew

Must've scraped it off the street

Hell, what a wine

Châteauneuf de Turpentine

Must've pressed it with his feet

Landlord over here

Where's the bloody man

One more for the road

One more slug of gin

Just one more or my old man is gonna do me in

All of those lines would be scrapped in R2. Personally I prefer this shortened variant than the one that would occur much later. Sure, some fun moments get lost, but nothing that actually adds any substance or characterization to the musical (unlike the later cut, which I'll discuss in a later edition of this blog). Some have speculated that this is simply lost dialog due to a tape flip of degrading, given that future performances would retain those lines. However, there is firsthand confirmation that the cuts were in fact part of the performance. To quote Trevor Nunn on page 87 of 1990's The Complete Book of Les Miserables (a page which elaborates that "the cost of overtime incurred after three hours could be crippling at a time when Les Miserables was still trying to find an audience"):

"Cameron wanted major cuts, which would have reduced its length to two and a half hours. I resisted, refusing to discuss things on those terms... Some of the other proposed cuts - like the removal of the "Master of the House" scene-setting preamble - were tried out in previews and then restored as the scenes would not work without them."

From a historical perspective that quote is invaluable. As will be brought up in a later blog post (notice a pattern today?) the musical would in fact be cut much later to avoid overtime charges. When people like myself have expressed the opinion that these cuts come at the expense of artistic integrity, I've seen others defend them by claiming that the overtime costs never were relevant to Cameron and the gang until Broadway sales began to go down, and that if they were taken into account the musical may well be in its shortened form from the beginning. However, this quote proves that argument to be false. Right from day one, the crew was aware that retaining a >3 hour runtime would come with severe financial costs, but this was deemed a worthy sacrifice in order to tell the story they wanted told. Indeed, it sounds like Cameron Mackintosh was waiting quite some time to enact his infamous cuts! (Cameron Mackintosh valuing profit above art?! Crazy, right??)

But I digress. Going back to the musical, the "Waltz of Treachery" number is mostly the same. However, after Valjean's "It won't take you too long to forget" line, R1 has over a minute of wordless vamping which leads right into the rather awkwardly-placed "Stars" song. By contrast, in R2 this vamping (which is still a minute long, mind you) leads into a humming duet between Little Cosette and Valjean, similar to the duet right before the number. A nice little bookend that makes the scene feel all the more resolved. (Much later this duet reprise would ironically be scrapped again, though!) The remaining segment of R1's vamping now plays after this sequence in R2.

Minus some unintentional missed lines at the beginning of "Stars" in R1, the recordings seem to follow the same libretto right up until "One Day More". Here, R1 uses the following lines:

(EPONINE)

One more day with him not caring

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

Was there ever love so true?

(EPONINE)

What a life I might have known

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

I was born to be with you

However, by R2 this scene is in its current form:

(EPONINE)

One more day with him not caring

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

I was born to be with you

(EPONINE)

What a life I might have known

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

And I swear I will be true

And that closes act one! Going on to the second act, the opening barricade scene has a few changes. First off, following the opening notes, R1 features a rather odd tune bearing resemblance to "Do You Hear the People Sing" (which can be heard here) before transitioning to a more true-to-form instrumental reprise of "Do You Hear the People Sing?" By contrast, R2 goes straight from the opening notes to the true-to-form reprise.

Next, Enjolras proclaims "Have faith in yourself and do not be afraid" in R1, while in R2 he instead states "Every man to his duty and don't be afraid". It's unknown if this was an intentional libretto change or if it simply reflects a flub during R1. A later sequence uses the "Have faith in yourself" line, meaning he may have just sung the wrong line for that particular scene.

Finally, R1 includes the following sequence (at least I think this is how it goes, since the lyrics are a little hard to hear):

(PROUVAIRE)

And the people will fight

(GRANTAIRE)

And join with you

Who gives a speech in the square

Fortunately, R2 uses a much less clunky (though still somewhat so) sequence:

(PROUVAIRE)

And the people will fight

(GRANTAIRE)

And so they might

Some will bark, some will bite

This isn't quite its current form ("dogs" and "fleas" will soon respectively replace the two usages of "some"), but it's pretty darn close.

I've heard that the very first Barbican preview(s?) didn't have a finalized opening to "On My Own". Sadly there is no known audio record of this, so I cannot comment on what exactly it began as. As such, the next major change takes place during Gavroche's death scene. This honestly is probably the biggest of all the changes between the two recordings. R1 uses the following death scene (in the tune of "Look Down" right up until the "So never kick a dog" verse, which is in the tune of "Little People"):

How do you do, my name’s Gavroche

These are my people, here’s my patch

Not much to look at, nothing posh

Nothing that you’d call up to scratch

Some fool, I bet, whose brains are made of fat

Picks up a gun and shoots me down

Nobody told him who he’s shooting at

He doesn’t know who runs this town

Life’s like that

There’s some folk

Missed the joke

That’s three, that’s three

That one has done for me

Too fast, too fast

They’ve got Gavroche at last

So never kick a dog

Because he’s just a pup

You better run for cover when the pup grows...

By contrast, R2 uses a much shorter variant which is set entirely to the tune of "Little People":

And little people know

When little people fight

We may look easy picking but we've got some bite

So never kick a dog

Because he's just a pup

You'd better run for cover when the pup grows up

And we'll fight like twenty armies and we won't give...

This is much closer to its current form, although the last two lines are inverted (we'll get to that in a later edition).

We now fast-forward to "Dog Eats Dog", which while recognizable is very different from the number we know today. The chorus of R1 claims that "It's a dirty great sewer that's crawling with rats", which R2 changes it to "stinking great sewer" instead. I'd definitely say the revised lyric better captures Thenardier's and the sewer's grossness.

Additionally, regarding Marius' ring, Thenardier originally exclaims that he "didn't mean to waste it, that would really be a crime". By R2, the line changes to "wouldn't want to waste it", which I'd say makes a lot more sense.

"Javert's Suicide" has changed a lot. R1 features the following remarks following "Vengeance was his and he gave me back my life":

Damned if I live in this caper of grace

Damned if I live in the debt of Valjean

I'll spit his pity right back in his face

Is this the law or has sanity gone?

(I'm a little unsure as to how accurate the final line is.)

By R2, the lines have been replaced with the current ones:

Damned if I live in the debt of a thief

Damned if I yield at the end of the chase

I am the law and the law is not mocked

I'll spit his pity right back in his face

In R1, the "Where's the new world, now the fighting's done" line is absent, and there is nothing but instrumentals in the segment where it is usually sung. By contrast, it is sung as usual in R2. My guess is that an actress simply forgot her line in R1 and it was always supposed to be there, though I can't say for sure.

The final change occurs at the wedding scene. The singing which opens the number is repeated in R1. By contrast, R2 has it sung once and then done with, as it currently is (and as it should be in my opinion, since the music isn't particularly pretty and contributes nothing to the plot).

Later in the same scene, R1 includes approximately this exchange (again, it's quite hard to make out the exact lyrics):

(THENARDIER)

I was there

Never fear

Even got me this fine souvenir

He was there

Her old dad

*indecipherable* and fleecing this lad

Robbed the dead

That's his way

(MME. THENARDIER)

That's worth five hundred any old day

(MARIUS)

I know this...

By R2, everything between "He was there" and "Any old day" were removed, which makes sense given that they essentially just rehash what was already said.

Finally, there's a subtle difference in the epilogue, specifically during the "Do You Hear the People Sing?" reprise. In R1, the ensemble sings "They will live again in glory in the garden of the Lord". R2 replaces the word "glory" with "freedom", and that word remains the one used to this day. I suppose "freedom" is more appropriate for the context of peace and prosperity. To many, I'd guess that "glory" conjures imagery of knights, battles, and the like; just the kind of violence that the characters wish to move away from! I have no idea if this was why the writers changed the lyric, but it's my hypothesis.

Towards the end of the show, the chorus in R1 sings "Even the darkest moon will end and the sun will rise". By R2, this is changed to "the darkest night". Makes more sense to me, since moons aren't known for being particularly dark!

And that just about sums this part up! If I missed anything feel free to let me know, as my goal is to create a changelog as thorough and complete as possible. I plan on making more parts in the near future covering all the changes that have been made in the show up until this day (discounting concerts). Any feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated.

As a side note, both for this project and my own enjoyment, I want as complete a collection of Les Miserables audios as possible. I already have most of what's commonly circulated, but if you have any audios or videos you know are rare, I'd love it if you DMed me!

Until the turntable puts me at the forefront again, good-bye...

[floralovebot]

Helia and Tecna friendship headcanons? -lambofzenith

AHHHHHHHHHH okay so

helia is really bad at technology right? pretty much anything that isn't covered in red fountain lessons, he's a complete no-go at. tecna takes it upon herself to try and help him understand basic technology a bit more and it goes so wrong. helia is literally the mom that squints their eyes and holds their phone away from their face while using One pointer finger to type everything. tecna hates it so much.

helia naturally doesn't understand a single thing that comes out of her mouth when she's talking technology but he still supports her nonetheless

helia is surprisingly rational most of the time! he's a firm Push All My Emotions Down And Then One Day I'll Die kind of person so even during really stressful missions, he's good at keeping a level head about things. tecna really appreciates this and it's not rare to see her, helia, and timmy discussing mission-related strategies During The Middle Of A Fight

tecna has a tendency to talk while she works (only noticeable around people she's comfortable with though) but she gets a little self-conscious about it. she knows it's not Bad or anything, but it doesn't seem Right either so she tries to keep quiet most of the time. helia on the other hand is so used to working while it's noisy that he's totally chill with it. they've gotten used to just vibing in the same room, working on their own things, and not actually talking to each other during it. they're comfortable around each other :) helia doesn't mind when she rambles out loud and tecna doesn't mind him pacing around the room every five minutes. symbiotic relationship.

tecna doesn't like talking about what she went through in the omega dimension, even with timmy. however, she does occasionally draw things out when she really needs to vent and can't think of any other way how. she's always been good at sketching due to her background in designing gadgets so this wasn't a weird transition for her. helia told her about this anonymous place for artists to submit their art with absolutely no names attached and after checking to make sure it was legit and she was completely safe, she started to submit one or two a year. she doesn't like to do it often but it does help to sort of "get it out" without actually talking about it.

while helia is notoriously Bad at video games, he does actually like the more "physical reality" ones (think that virtual reality tecmy scene!) mainly because it feels close enough to real life that he doesn't need to rely on just technology to do it. tecna and helia often have very competitive gaming matches but specifically within those kinds of games otherwise, he's really bad at it and she gets annoyed that he can't remember any of the buttons.

speaking of competitions, helia has an inner bet going on of How Much Can I Pretend To Not Know Jackshit About A Specific Technological Topic Before Tecna Notices. what he doesn't know, is that tecna knows he does this and has her own inner bet of How Long Can I Explain This Specific Topic Before Helia Gets Bored And Moves On. so far, the score is mostly even, with helia only winning because timmy isn't aware of this mental battle and will often jump in to explain things too. helia is very smug about this and tecna can't say anything to timmy otherwise she loses the fight that no one actually set firm rules on.

timmy is just really happy that his two best friends are also friends and sometimes he tries to invite helia and flora on their dates. tecna is okay with this only because she thinks it's funny. florelia were also okay with it but started to not be because they realized that their version of a date and tecmy's version of a date was extremely different. they've started to come up with increasingly ridiculous excuses for why they can't go and so far timmy is the only one that hasn't noticed. poor timmy, he genuinely thinks flora's best friend cactus is sick and needs care 😔

when timmy isn't available, helia will call tecna for any technology related issues he's having. on one hand, she likes that he trusts her and can rely on her, on the other hand, she's told him ten separate times not to leave his computer running all the damn time. (tecna: please turn the computer off when you're not using it. this will immensely help solve all of the problems you've been having. helia: okay so i'm gonna leave it on all the time?). he's not trying to be difficult though. he just forgets everything and assumes it should work regardless (he a little stupit).

roxy gets so much gender envy from both of them and it confuses her all the time. they have no idea what a gender envy is though and they're mostly just wondering how they stop giving it to roxy since it seems like it agitates her??? help please???? researching the matter doesn't help and it ends up becoming a meme on winx stan twt because tecna made a very official and serious post asking about the severity of "gender envy" and needing to know how contagious it is. now whenever either of them posts, earth teens just comment gender envy at them. helia still doesn't know what it means.

they don't watch movies/tv together but they will binge-watch the same shows and then talk about them later on. tecna's formatting is still very formal and functional meanwhile helia bounces off multiple points and forgets to make a conclusion. he stresses her out so much.

helia notices when tecna has stayed up too long for too many nights and will occasionally send her a "please sleep" message when he knows timmy is already asleep and can't do it. she doesn't always listen but sometimes she will, but not before sending the same message back because why the fuck is he up at this hour huh dumbass?????

tecna has a pet bird and helia has multiple cats and they absolutely cannot be in the same room together. her bird is constantly trying to fight his cats and while they're usually well behaved, he's genuinely scared they're gonna try to eat it (tecna: stop calling my bird an "it"; helia: stop putting your bird near my cats 😐)

they actually don't like hanging out when one of them is upset. they both have a hard time talking about their emotions (for different reasons obviously) and they always end up feeling like they have to say something when they're together. they just really prefer hanging when they're both in a good mood or at least calm. whenever one of them gets upset, they stop hanging out together until that person feels better.

connected to the last point, you'd think that would mean they don't know a lot about each other, but they surprisingly do! they're both relatively observant people (tecna gets better every year) and they're actually really good at figuring out why the other is upset and what would help. they just don't talk about it.

although, on a similar note, the one time they did have an emotional talk, it was about timmy. tecna was feeling upset again and worrying over whether or not she's "too logical/not emotional enough" and it was the one time where she actually allowed herself to hang out with him while being upset. they had a genuine heart to heart about things and especially about how she's way too hard on herself. they thought it would be awkward since they actively avoided this kind of thing but it wasn't! it went very naturally and helia even teared up a bit. he's very proud of her and the effort she makes every day and since that talk has been much more vocal about it.

when they went to earth in s4, they both spent way too much time learning about Earth Things; tecna about earth media (canon), and helia about animals since that's what flora was talking about. he started calling tecna "chip" after that because chipmunks reminded him of her. she disagrees with this assessment and he refuses to admit he mixed up chipmunks and squirrels. he still calls her chip to this day, and fortunately, it's grown on her. unfortunately, he calls timmy "chip" too, and now it's a hassle to figure out who he's talking to.

helia is surprisingly interested in zenith technology despite not understanding it all! he enjoys walking through the streets of zenith with tecna while she proudly points things out so he can go "ooo aaa" at everything. sometimes she tries to explain how things work and his mind starts playing elevator music automatically. tecna has gotten really good at knowing when helia is just. brain empty no thoughts because she recognizes the Empty look in his eyes. she enjoys catching it live and trying to figure out why he's just. not thinking (usually it's because he either doesn't understand something or got bored) (this happens often when sky starts talking) (sorry sky)

tecna is one of the winx (besides flora of course) that helia trusts the most. not in an emotional or friend way, but in a physical, we're on a mission way. she has good control of her magic and knows how to use it. she's good at thinking of strategies and applying them properly to the situation. and after the omega dimension, he had a newfound respect for her previously unknown to him survival skills. if he were even in severe danger, she would be the first winx he'd call (depending on the situation, she is occasionally ahead of flora).

helia is really bad at sharing details. he tends to go straight to the conclusion but doesn't share how he got there (adhd king 😌) and tecna is the best person to call in when this happens. her logical questioning makes it seem so easy because she has the patience and knowledge to connect the dots and ask the right questions. when anyone else tries its more like (helia: i'm sitting in a pool of blood; person: uhm do you know where it's coming from?; helia: probably the stab wound; someone: did you get stabbed??; helia: oh yeah definitely.)

[samnyangie]

Since people liked rsl interview on dps, I’d like to share one of my favourite interview by him. I think it’s one of those rare interview where he wasn’t joking around that much but discuss acting quite seriously haha

So enjoy:DD

(Credit)

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1990 New York Times

Young Actor's Life Has the Makings of a Movie

by Lynn Mautner

New York Times

May 20, 1990

It would make a good movie. A 15-year-old sophomore at Ridgewood High School is playing the Artful Dodger in the musical ''Oliver'' with the school's theater group, New Players, when he is discovered by a casting agency secretary and whisked off to Broadway and the movies.

That's exactly what happened to Robert Sean Leonard, now 21, and a star of the 1989 film ''Dead Poets Society,'' which received an Oscar for best original screenplay.

''My mother took me to New Players' summer performances when I was 10,'' he said, ''and I loved the camaraderie of people, rehearsing and singing. I began spending more time there, painting signs and moving furniture, and soon became an element of the company, with small roles in 'The Miracle Worker,' 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,' 'Barnum.' ''

Starting as an understudy for three roles at the New York Public Theater (he never got on stage), Mr. Leonard amassed credits that include ''The Beach House'' with George Grizzard for the Circle Repertory Theater, television movies, ''Brighton Beach Memoirs'' and ''Breaking the Code'' on Broadway, plays at the West Bank Cafe on 42d Street and the recent ''When She Danced'' at Playwrights Horizons.

He has just completed a part as Paul Newman's and Joanne Woodward's son in the movie ''Mr. and Mrs. Bridge,'' filmed in Kansas City, to be released in August. ''I age from a 15-year-old Eagle Scout to 22, coming home from World War II with a mustache,'' Mr. Leonard said.

Mr. Leonard, who received a general equivalency diploma when he was 17, lives in New York City and attends Fordham University between performances. Soon to return from the Cannes Film Festival with his fellow actors in ''Dead Poets,'' he is next scheduled to go into rehearsal for the film ''Married to It,'' a romantic comedy.

Q. Do you remember when you decided on an acting career?

A. I never decided to pursue an acting career. It just has happened. I still think it's going to stop and I'll have to get a real job soon, but I'm afraid to question it because if I do, it will disappear.

Q. How do you think your theater experience in high school has helped you?

A. It was a great teaching experience that prepared me in a lot of ways. We did 10 shows in 10 weeks, so there was no time to think about method. It was running for the stage, hoping you'll make it in time for your entrance. In Steven Soderbergh's new book of his diaries when directing the film ''Sex, Lies and Videotape,'' he said that on a film set there should always be a chain of command, but never a chain of respect.

At New Players, those three to four years, everyone was given the same respect. You had to, because you'd be the lead one week and painting sets the next. That's a luxury that is not available in New York, unfortunately, because of the unions. You're an actor and that's it.

Q. Have you taken any acting lessons? Do you recommend them for others?

A. I've taken two classes - a video acting class to help me get from stage to film, with Marty Winkler, currently my manager, and an acting class at H. B. Studios.

Acting classes are tricky. It's like asking someone in therapy if they'd recommend going to a psychiatrist. For some people it's great; for some it's not necessary; for some it's harmful. The best way to learn acting is just to do it.

There's a danger to the classroom, because it's safe, and you can get addicted to it. The clique of people are there, and you might tend to remain with them and never go out on your own. So it can give you the safety net which can eventually strip away your courage to go out and really try. On the other hand, you can get a wonderful teacher who brings out the best in you and gives you the courage to go out and dazzle everybody.

Q. You went from high school to Off Broadway. What were your feelings and fears during your first professional performance?

A. The first time I performed in New York - in ''Sally's Gone, She Left Her Name'' - I played Michael Learned's son. I think I was too young. I wasn't even aware of reasons to be afraid. I was just there for the fun of it. Fresh out of New Players, I knew it to be fun. I've never worried about lines. In ''Brighton Beach'' I should have been tense, because it was Broadway. I was nervous, but not racked - more excited.

Q. What do you enjoy most about acting?

A. The people, and opportunities to learn, to travel, both physically and emotionally. To look at people other than myself and try to figure out what makes them tick.

Olivier said you never play a villain; you play a man considered to be a villain; that you have to justify everything he does first; you have to know that what you are doing is right and find a way to make it right - even murder.

I just played a conceited piano player in ''When She Danced,'' and I had to figure out what would make a person be conceited and make that O.K. with me. I learned where conceit comes from - from confidence and talent.

Worst thing you can do is play someone and judge him at the same time, saying: ''Here I am. I am so conceited.'' First you have to understand why you're that way so that people interpret you as conceited.

Q. Do you consider acting an escape?

A. I don't look at performing as escaping, as really becoming another person and leaving my problems for two hours, so I don't have to deal with me, because I don't become another person. I work, so that when I am working, in a way it is me at my best. I'm not leaving myself; in fact, I'm more focused on myself than ever. I don't become that person, but I fully understand him, fully explore him, as to why he does what he does and justify it.

You can't play a fool to play Bottom, who's the opposite of fool in Shakespeare's ''Midsummer Night's Dream.'' What makes people fools is that they're completely confident in what they're doing. They don't think they're fools; they think they're right on track, which makes them so funny and makes them look like fools.

Q. Who influenced you the most?

A. I have not had one person or experience that stands out that's a turning point. Every step in acting relies heavily on the one before. Everything I've learned colors everything I have known before, and suddenly changes it.

I have learned a little bit from everyone I have known, whether about acting itself, or living and working as an actor. Like a good detective novel, for every clue that is solved, two more appear. Every time I learn something, it opens two other doors. In ''Dead Poets,'' the rooftop scene, where I throw the desk set off, was improvised. Are instincts then a part of acting?

Q. Are there desirable qualities to have as an actor?

A. Concentration, perseverence, lack of inhibitions. There's no room for self-consciousness on stage. Also, there is an element in acting that is not fair. Whatever talent is, part of it can be learned and part can't. There are people that audiences like to watch or don't. In Soderbergh's book, he says that talent plus perseverance will equal luck. But I don't know what talent is; it is beyond definition.

Q. Do you learn by watching other films and plays? Your own? Other people?

A. Sometimes I watch for directing; sometimes for performing. There are lines in ''Dead Poets'' I would do differently, if given the chance. For example, Todd said: ''You talk and people listen to you, Neil. I am not like that.'' I answer, ''Don't you think you could be?'' I think I could have made it clearer. I don't get much from observing strangers, because although I see what they do, I don't know where they're coming from.

Q. What are the main differences between stage and film work?

A. I feel that as an actor, you should start in theater, to learn the process of creating a character, in rehearsal. Film is an arena for people who already know that, because on the set they expect you to know the character inside out.

Film work is harder, because this tangible part has to happen in your head before filming takes place. And it's more solitary. You create your character alone, without the give-and-take of other actors.

Q. What tips would you give young, aspiring actors?

A. Read plays aloud with friends at home; do any work you can do in high school. Hang out with jocks, leatherheads, and see what makes them work. Don't be a theater rat and only talk to actors. Read a lot. You really have to feel it; really want it; then take it. Don't take no for an answer. Seize the day.

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There’s another one I really want to share as well, I’ll bring it with me at some point:))