#and I am reminded that history rhymes

[tiredbit]

I’ve known I was trans masc since I was 14. I knew then that it would be years before I would be safe to transition (if I ever did at all).

It’s been years and I find little ways to express my gender but I’m in my twenties now and I still know it will be years until I will be safe to transition (if I ever will at all).

Which is a long way to say, I am trans masc and I haven’t transitioned yet. I look like a woman. I play the part of a woman for work, school and at home. People think I am a woman.

So, please tell me how I experience male privilege. Tell me how it’s misgendering myself to call the prejudice I face misogyny. Tell me how I materially benefit from my trans masc identity

[nightingale-prompts]

Finding Batboy

First| Previous | Next

Phantom

King

Fenton

Apprentice

Batboy

He just wanted to be Danny. Just Danny, nothing else.

But who was Danny anymore?

Danny was a 14-year-old boy who died in a tragic accident. Danny had a decent life with friends and a sister who he loved. Danny wanted to be an astronaut and loved the stars. Danny had an astrology phase that made him so annoying to everyone but Sam. Danny liked dogs and cats hated him for no reason no matter how much he loved them. Danny wanted to join the robotics club with Tucker. Danny still snuck into his sister's room when he was scared to sleep in her bed.

But Danny is dead. Danny has been dead for years now.

He missed being Danny.

Now he was Phantom.

No past.

No home.

No family.

But if that was true, what did that make Dick?

Just another person that he would have to leave behind. It wouldn't be long. History doesn't repeat but it rhymes. It can't last. It won't.

Danny flew to some abandoned factory located somewhere in Gotham. He hadn't really paid much attention. He just needed a desolate place to land. Somewhere even the ghosts have long abandoned.

Truthfully Danny didn't want to be alone. A part of him felt the urge to find that revenant that he had met. Something that felt familiar to him, someone that could understand.

But right now Danny wanted to rest and he wasn't picky about where. He wrapped his wings in a tight cocoon and plopped on the ground. His sleep was deep, more than he ever remembered having before, except once.

Danny walked through the halls of a spiraling tower that overlooked the Ghost Zone. The tower was decorated with stars and moons. Mist hovered just above the floor creating a icy blue carpet. Ghost sheep napped in corners. The scent of poppy and pine filled the air.

As Danny ascended to the top he met with a familiar face. Nocturne the ghost of dreams. The ghost's thick bridged nose reminded Danny of that of a sheep that matched his curled ramhorns. His red eyes with horizontal pupils reminded him of a demonic ram he had seen in a horror movie once. Danny could practically hear that line again: "Would thou like to live deliciously?"

It still gave Danny chills.

"Please refrain from making such comparisons." Nocturne said, his voice deep but soft at the same time.

Danny had gotten to know Nocturne some time ago. Apparently, he and Clockwork were close. They shared a high rank among ghosts as they were abstract manifestations rather then being that were once living like some. The hierarchy of ghosts was complex, and Nocturne was not someone to look down on.

"Nox, why am I here?" Danny said standing before the seven-foot frame of the amorphous ghost.

"You are spending too much time in the material realm. If you don't get time back in the realm to which you belong you'll go mad. It's already starting to happen. I stole your mind away for a bit to give you a mental break but your body is already starting to break down." Nocturne said waving a finger at him.

"My body and brain are fine Nox." Danny said crossing his arms.

Nocturne picked the boy up with one hand and held him at eye level.

"You are having trouble shifting are you not? Its not coming as easily as it should. The more attached you get to a form without the energy from our world to break it up the worse it will be. The Ghost of Time has already told me of the problem. You must stay here for the time being and recover. It is what's best. Mental weakness is the worst one can suffer and the remedy is sleep." Nocturne's breath smelled like warm milk and cinnamon. It calmed Danny's nerves and made his eyes heavy.

Clockwork had put him up to this. That old man...really was....annoying....Zzzz.

Back in the world of the living and awake mass panic has broken out.

Batboy is currently missing and Nightwing is not handling it well. The entirety of the Gotham Vigilantes team has been notified and is searching the cities of Gotham and Bludhaven.

"Have you searched the docks?" Nightwing asked frantically as he searched every rooftop in the city.

"I'm working on it. Do you really think he's here?" Red Robin said scanning every unit on the lot.

Red Hood didn't know what the BatBoy kid looked like other than the whole wings thing. If his little buddy Phantom could help it would help.

Although they had a slight resemblance Jason could see too many differences when looking at the pictures. Phantom had round ears, and silver hair that moved like fire and looked like a human. Batboy had long sharp ears, claws, pointy teeth, blueish-green skin, wings, and a white fluff around his neck. Clearly, they were different.

Batman searched the dark allies of Gotham as Signal and Orphan split up to cover as much ground as possible. Oracle searched every camera from the past few hours for the boy.

The good news was that Batboy was found. The bad news was who found him.

"Poor little Bluebird lost his fledgling and Batsy is looking for the lost pup. I should let them know that the little guy has been found! Ahahahaha!"

[sforzesco]

hi!! i’m a classics major and am so entranced by your art and how you interact with history and literature, it really inspires me and expands my brain all the time. SO spicy.

anyways, I was wondering if you’d be comfortable talking a bit about your degree (s) and how they’ve influenced your artistic/critical analytical processes??

oh man, I have exactly zero degrees. like a true jester, I went to a trade art school, so I don't even have an art related degree, I've got a certification of surviving hell completion

the way art and history interact for me is that a lot of it circles back to trying to find ways to talk about something. history doesn't necessarily repeat, but it often rhymes, haunts, and cannibalizes. some eras of history are equal parts history and a stage, and a stage serves as a place to say something without necessarily having to be in it. the bossism politics of the philippines rhymes with the faction politics of the late republic more often than it doesn't. watching the marcoses crawl back into power was like watching the medici return to florence. duterte said he was like julius caesar crossing the rubicon, and over 6,000 were murdered under his regime. somethings are the same.

a lot of it feels like a puzzle, and I like it when pieces come together. more often than not, there's something current going on that prompts me to look back into history for something comparable, either as a stage, or just to feel like I'm not losing my mind, that other people had to deal with this shit too.

I was a teenager when the original assassin's creed games were coming out, and I used to go to libraries with other fans and we'd just sit in the non fiction sections and read everything that was on a shelf, and then go outside or whatever and start talking about where the games diverged from history and try to figure out what the next game would do based on whatever we learned. and I just kind of. kept doing that even when I stopped playing the games because the story sucked ass, but because there's already a second intersection of fiction working along side historical analysis, it unlocks a bunch of other stuff in the back of my mind while I take notes on something.

the gore you read in the thebaid reminds me a lot of imperial chines torture literature, and now we've got imperial horror and while we've moved out of the ancient Mediterranean but it's a whole body of work that I'm now looking at while thinking about rome, and somewhere in there, I'll probably find some literary theme that's cool and I'll start researching whether or not someone's examined like. the renaissance from that lens. what does the gore mean. what happens when history unfairly maligns and scapegoats someone. what happens when a foundational sacrifice goes wrong.

one of the most gut wrenching things I ever read was about how rome took any record of spartacus' words and buried it, and now I spend too much time thinking about what words we put in the mouths of dead people.

[cosmerelists]

If Cosmere Characters were in the Locked Tomb series...

[Spoilers for Stormlight Archive through Rhythm of War AND for Locked Tomb through Nona the Ninth!]

Specifically, I am imagining which pairs of Cosmere characters would be best suited as the necromancer/cavalier pairs we meet in the Locked Tomb series. 

I cannot emphasize enough that if you’re coming here from Cosmere and have not read the Locked Tomb series, please skip this one! I am spoiling MAJOR plot points, and I don’t want to ruin these books for you! 

1. Ninth House: Shallan (as Harrow) and Adolin (as Gideon)

In the Ninth House, Gideon is the big, beefy, lady-loving himbo who really doesn’t know anything but sword fighting and porn mags. And Adolin may not read porn (because Sanderson) but he is a big ol’ devoted swordsman who has his himbo moments. Meanwhile there’s necromancer Harrow who:

Lived as a cloistered nun (=Shallan being shut up at home)

Pretends her dead parents are totes alive (=Shallan pretending her dad is alive)

Puppets dead people (=somewhat similar to Shallan with her Alters)

Gets herself lobotomized to suppress memories of Gideon (=Shallan suppressing, just, so many memories)

Guards the Locked Tomb but is also obsessed with what lies inside (=Shallan and her “mother’s soul” in the safe)

Is forced to leave home to restore her dying house (=Shallan doing, well, the same thing)

So even though Shallan isn’t exactly a bone-obsessed necromancer, she and Harrow have more in common than you may at first think!

2. Eighth House: Nightblood (as Silas) and Vasher (as Colum)

The Eighth House are soul siphoners, meaning that the necromancer uses the cavalier as a big ol’ battery. They’re also deeply religious and inflexible, at least in their Silas & Colum iteration. Now, I was trying hard to think of a Cosmere character who has powers akin to soul siphoning when it suddenly came to me! Nightblood! Nightblood literally does eat souls! Plus, Nightblood is notoriously inflexible in their whole “Kill Evil” standpoint. I could have used either Vasher or Szeth as the cavalier to pair with Nightblood, but I use Szeth below and anyway, Colum/Vasher have the longer history with Silas/Nightblood. 

3. Seventh House: Taravangian (as Dulcinea) and Szeth (as Protesilaus)

Dulcinea is a beautiful and sickly necromancer, having inherited her house’s traditional Blood Cancer, and she mostly lies around being beautiful and flirting with Gideon. However, it is eventually revealed that she’s not Dulcinea at all but rather big bad (?) Cytherea in disguise. And the cavalier Protesilaus is dead and just being puppetted around. This is all reminiscent of Taravangian, who pretends to be a kindly and sickly old man, harmless to all...but is actually a devious mass-murderer who is puppetting Szeth (by controlling his oathstone). 

4. Sixth House: Kaladin (as Palamedes) and Syl (as Camilla)

My love for Palamedes and Camilla knows no bounds, so this one was hard. But in the end, I think Kaladin & Syl fit the bill. Palamedes is incredibly smart and trained in medicine, ala Kaladin, and he and his cavalier Camilla have incredible amounts of trust in each other. They work together seamlessly, as do Kaladin and Syl. And if they ever get separated, say by Palamedes blowing himself up into many little bits, they will nevertheless do whatever it takes to find each other--which reminds me of Syl fighting to get back to Kaladin when he semi broke his oaths in Words of Radiance. Camilla also tries to downplay how smart she is to some extent, and Syl can literally be invisible if she wants to be. Plus, Kal and Pal rhyme, so there. 

5. Fifth House: Jasnah (as Abigail) and Ivory (as Magnus)

I mean, Jasnah pretty much had to be Abigail, since Abigail is a published scholar and the best historian of her generation. That’s Jasnah to a tee...even if perhaps Abigail tends to come across as a bit warmer than Jasnah. Magnus was harder because he’s (a) Abigial’s husband (and Jasnah is unmarried and Wit super doesn’t fit), (b) mostly an administrator / bureaucrat and ( c) a jolly sort who likes to play the embarrassing dad role. I went with Ivory as he is Jasnah’s true partner as her spren, and as a logicspren I think he’d make a good adminstrator perhaps. He’s not exactly a jolly father-figure, but what can you do?

6. Fourth House: Daorn (as Isaac) and Kaise (as Jeannemary)

The Fourth House is hard because their main characteristic is that they are literally children, and then they die. And I was having a very hard time trying to think of any pair of children who die or who even exist as a pair in Sanderson. So eventually I went with the children from Elantris--Sarene’s nephew and niece Daorn and Kaise. Mostly because they’re smart, somewhat sassy children. And Kaise knows some fencing, so that sort of fits for a cavalier. 

[Spoilers for Lost Metal but apparently Kaise grows up to join the Ghostbloods on Scadrial??? I had no idea that was her until I was looking her up in the wiki holy shit]

8. Third House: Siri (as Ianthe), Vivenna (as Coronabeth), and Parlin (as Naberius)

In the Third House we have two beautiful sisters...one of whom ends up being a “spare” who isn’t a necromancer at all (and it’s not the one you think at first). In a similar way, Vivenna and Siri were both tapped at various points to marry the god-king; everyone thought it would be Vivenna with Siri being the spare sister, but it ended up being the other way around. Siri/Ianthe then end up in the house of the resident god and are fiercely loyal to him. Vivenna/Coronabeth meanwhile join up with rebel forces who are opposed to the god that Siri/Ianthe follow. Yet still the sisters do care deeply for each other, even when they find themselves working toward opposite ends. Phew! Oh, and I’m not really sure who should be their (sacrificed) cavalier, but Parlin is there as a protector and then he dies, so...I guess him? Despite them having really nothing else in common; sorry Parlin/Naberius! 

9. Second House: Rlain (as Judith) and Eshonai (as Marta)

The second house is the strictly military one, so at first I was trying to make someone from Bridge 4 work, but it didn’t quite come together. Judith and Rlain do have a lot in common: they both work at gathering intelligence, serve as a spy after being taken in by an organization against their will (Judith with Blood of Eden and Rlain being sent to Bridge 4 which was not originally his mission), and are incredibly loyal through their chain of command. And they both have military training / experience. Meanwhile, Marta is just a star--she rises quickly through the miliary ranks, but then she dies before we get to know her much. Eshonai is a lot more fleshed out, but I am thinking about how she too quickly rose through the military ranks as she adopted Warform and shardplate and Stormform. And then she died, so.

10. First House: Dalinar (as John) and Evi (as A.L.)

John Gaius is, well, god--and he has what could be described as a problematic past (did you know that cows have best friends?). Dalinar may not be god, but he did bond the closest equivalent, the Stormfather, and Dalinar is pretty much the head of the Radiants, must as John is the head of the empire. Speaking of, both John and Dalinar built an empire! Meanwhile, there’s John’s “dead” cavalier A.L., whose name is not to be spoken--which reminds me of Evi, whose existence was literally excised from Dalinar’s head at one point. Now, it doesn’t seem like Evi is going to return and stab Dalinar where he sleeps, but, well, the series isn’t over yet... 

[nikki-tine]

So it's come to my attention that despite the page I have set up within the desktop version of my blog, I don't have a mobile version of an introduction post here. Oops! This one's newly written, too, in a different format than the other.

So, that being said - Hello!

I am Nikki/Niko (Whichever you prefer!) and I am a 28-year old Genderfluid artist person (My birthday is on January 9th!). I don't think there's too much to be said here, but I can and will say with confidence that this blog has been, especially in the last few or so years built up to be a catch-all for whatever I deem good to reblog or post (All of which typically related to fluff stuff, feel-good vibes or something that I may feel strongly about).

This place is, and always will be a safe space for a) People with disabilities (I am autistic, have ADD and Bipolar as well as Anxiety) and b) LGBTQ+-identifying people (I am, as mentioned before Genderfluid, and I'm Pansexual Panromantic!).

If a reblog or post makes you uncomfortable, then I will happily delete it if asked.

I make it a point to keep these posts SFW especially nowadays - however, I can't quite vouch for possibly the oldest of my posts (as I've been here since the early 2010s along with some ol' dumb teen thoughts involved and it'd take forever to sort absolutely everything out from over a decade ago at this point). I'm pretty sure that I've removed most of the NSFW stuff already from those years ago, but if I missed something then I don't mind deleting it as long as you let me know first (I'm incredibly disorganized and would appreciate a nudge in the right direction).

With these details out of the way - I am an artist that dabbles in various fandoms with no real sense of rhyme or reason outside of either hyperfixated interest or otherwise with the intent to update old ideas and refresh them into new ones. Like most artists on the internet, I ask that you do not repost without credit, trace and/or copy my work. I'm quite literally living paycheck by paycheck with my family right now. You CAN however use my artwork as a reference or as inspiration for your own work - If you do, lemme know! I'd love to see the result!

Here's a vague list of fandoms I dabble in (though my post history doesn't quite show that as I tend to leave most of my stuff to posting on Discord instead):

Pokemon (I've been a part of this one almost my entire life lol)

Sonic the Hedgehog (Another fandom I've been in for a grand majority of my life! I'm more of a casual fan as I haven't made much art recently, but I still absolutely love looking at what others come up with for OCs and stuff.)

Undertale (ESPECIALLY AU-centric)

Digimon (Passionate about this one specifically - I have a project I've been working with under this fandom since 2014 on and off)

Cookie Run (Kingdom primarily with a minor Ovenbreak focus for AU concept ideas)

Dark Cloud/Dark Chronicle (This one's SO obscure, but if you know these games then I give you a virtual baked good of your liking! These two games hold a very special place in my heart.)

Dance Dance Revolution, NotITG, Friday Night Funkin (I'm a rhythm game nerd and love the creativity of the communities surrounding these three - I just haven't been able to piece together anything for it yet visually except for FNF stuff on and off)

A Dance of Fire and Ice (Same as the DDR fandom part, but I've made a couple fanart pieces before so this one I may have an easier time of conceptualizing later)

FNAF (Specifically Security Breach AU work! This one's not as frequent as others but I still have stuff in mind for it. Security Breach is how I finally caved with the FNAF series as a whole after watching how the fandom grew over the years.)

Warriors (Warrior Cats, in our year 2024? Eeyup. I just like the funny spiritual witties!)

Team Fortress 2 (This one's in and out but it's one that I come back to a lot as my boyfriend, regularly interacting and involved in the GMOD animation community reminds me of my own TF2 stuff with his presence alone lol. Love you James! <3)

Persona 3, 4 and 5 (This one's a lil self-explanatory but I have AU ideas surrounding these games that I want to make more art for eventually)

If I have anything else not listed before, I'll add it to the list. C: Please keep in mind that although I dabble in these fandoms, AU versions of existing characters may be changed in terms of sexuality, personality etc to reflect the AU they are from (For example, I have a version of Cream Unicorn Cookie that uses he/they pronouns, and my Redeemed!Pomegranate Cookie from the same AU leans bisexual over lesbian for reasons relating to reflection of character and overall character development. I like to make characters more flexible while self-indulging, so keep this in mind). I note this because my own headcanons about certain characters have set off one or two people in the past unintentionally and they VERY much have pushed things in an effort to keep canon down my throat out of retaliation. Let's just say that this part in particular is a thing that taps a sore spot for me for personal reasons. :/

When it concerns making art of my characters - surprise or not, feel free to make art of them and mention me in post (and/or message me, either way works)! It makes me feel SO loved when I get art from others, and I appreciate every piece dearly. 💜💜💜 (I go so far as to hold onto an archive of art that was done for me - with artist names in-tact within the file name nowadays!)

A few things to consider when it concerns tickling-related matters with me:

MINORS - PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT WITH MY TICKLING CONTENT. Long overdue to add this one (as of 12/28/24) but I’m updating this now as I’m worried and anxious, and I want to be safe rather than sorry.

I am a Switch! I'm unsure how far Ler or Lee I am just yet, but I do enjoy tickling both ways. Unfortunately, however, I'm the kind of person that practically flies across a room when poked,, (if it comes down to tickling my sona - Niko Spirata - tie or hold 'em down if you want to wreck 'em with tickles lol)

My interest in tickling alone is purely SFW - It feels too weird looking at IRL photos/videos with very rare exception (a lot of the exception is the giggle the lee produces from ticklish contact). As a result, all the stuff I'll be reblogging and posting here is art or animation-related instead!

My favorite tickle trope is the one where a shrunken someone or a small something wiggles under the unwitting lee's clothing to tickle them! (Points at wormonastriing's Squirmles as an example of this trope :3) No, seriously. If I end up with art of any of my characters getting destroyed with tickles in this manner I will ASCEND BEYOND GALAXIES.

My favorite spots with tickling overall are belly, side and rib tickling - on rarer occasions, I enjoy tickling in other places (I prefer foot tickling if the lee has paws instead of normal feet!). This lines up with a particular enjoyment of characters being slightly chubby! I looove a good squeeze of the sides or belly, enough to get the lee blurting out giggles.

I have only a few tags I use now on a regular, but these are:

#nikki-tine (This is my user tag and I put it in with my art posts and other things I post sometimes. You may also see others' posts under this tag, primarily with stuff related to asks or when art's been posted for me in the past <3)

#art, #tickle art, #tickling art (These are self-explanatory!)

#NJEGNJ (Something to that effect, lol. It's not exact but keyboard smash tag is typically wrote similarly or around the same for several posts, all of which ones that got me chuckling or giggling like a dork!)

~

My Commission Status is currently set to OPEN (paypal prioritized for now).

It's really complicated, however, and I don't have any other methods than Paypal and Robux right now so if you have questions about that then feel free to message me and I'll try to clear it up as best I can!

I only have two prices, both fully colored and shaded.

Chibies are $25 USD (+ 5 for an extra character)

My normal art style is $50 USD (+ 10 for an extra character)

I do best leaving the BG transparent, but if I HAVE to work on one then I can do nature-themed backgrounds pretty okay. It’s not a strong-suit of mine, however…

My Art Trade Status is Busted Wide Open™ to Mutuals, but I'm a little picky and choosy with random people.

If I decline an Art Trade, please don't take it personally!

In terms of Roleplay, It's Closed on-blog, BUT I'm Open to Roleplay in Discord servers (Provided there's a Tupperbot there for me to use).

I've been looking to find an RP server that has mutuals/friends and allows Undertale-related stuff (especially of the tickling-related kind!), so if you're a part of one please let me know!

DM Status overall is Open (As long as you are kind to me, I will return kindness back!).

My Asks are ALWAYS OPEN! I really like getting stuff in my inbox (and I unfortunately don't get asks often at all).

I'm most comfortable interacting with other adults and SFW blogs (this is more-so for safety than anything else on my end. I don't have the emotional or mental energy to handle potential drama involving context-disconnected words). I don't mind interacting with NSFW blogs here but only if in the context of specific interests of mine and not much else.

I don't really have much in the way of who can't interact with me as long as you are respectful/mindful of chat etiquette and are aware of the kind of impact you may make in messaging people like myself.

I do my best to look at blog descriptions and respect DNI's - If I end up poking at something I shouldn't by accident, as long as it's not met with aggression in DMs, I will happily fix whatever problem you may have related to that. I HATE making others uncomfortable/upset!

If you have questions, feel free to ask! I don't really use other forms of Social Media, but I do use some websites with a social aspect to them casually.

Links:

Flightrising (Funny dragon site)

Chicken Smoothie (This one's a fun lil adopt site from the late 2000s)

GPX Plus (This is literally Pokefarm Q before Pokefarm Q lol)

Gaia Online (Another old site with unfortunate currency inflation, but it's the site that's kept me going with character designing and such over the years! The blog part here is old, but the avatar is updated from time to time. This site is the reason I lean on Monochrome + a color as an aesthetic a lot lol)

Bluesky (mostly inactive - want activity there? nudge me here!)

DeviantArt (It's VERY rare I post here now. Also a warning for those under 18 - there's suggestive and nsfw art in my favorites dotted here and there so look with caution. my gallery itself is SFW however and all the works that would have been nsfw are archived.)

Artfight (Self-explanatory!)

[thekingofwinterblog]

Ok so, having seen the Gameplay trailer that Bioware pulled out of their ass in the aftermath of possibly the worst videogame trailer in history, i have to say im not impressed... But i almost am.

Because they ALMOST got it right. Like all the building blocks are there, but it's always just one step off from being great.

Like the character models dont look anything the like the complete joke that was the fortnite DA trailer... But while you can tell the animators put their heart and soul into the models, they still look awful.

And it's ALL the lighting and coloring's fault.

The thing is, the models and enviornment doesnt look terrible in a vacuum... but the problem is that it ALL blends together. It's all just a mixmatch of colors and shades that makes the entire thing look like an uncoordinated mess with no rhyme or reason behind it.

Take this shot of minarathous. It's not just grey, on top of grey, but it sure looks like it. The colors, rather than contrast and embolden everything to make it look striking, instead makes it one, big, sloppy looking mess.

Here is one, single shot from Inquisition to illustrate the poiny. Notice how everything is very grey here too, but the way the lighting is, you can easily differentiate between everything, every character sticks out so much better and looks infinitly more interesting and memorablr just by virtue of not looking like they're part of the background.

It's not a coincidence that the only part of this gameplay showcase that looks absolutely stunning is Solas, because he is the only character who actually has the lighting to stand out, both when illuminated by the blue magical energy withouth the purple, white and blue mess that is now how magical energy looks, but also in the shots where he's illuminated by the veil.

I can tell you why it looks like this too.

The lighting and colorists of the development team was trying so, so very hard to make the concept art lighting translate to 3d models and enviornments... And it just doesnt work.

Maybe there is a way to make these pieces work in 3d, but this sure aint it.

Maybe the enviornments that are set in the daylight will look better, but i can tell you, that with this engine and style, every single nightshot is going to look absolutely atrocious, regardless of wheter the models look better than that horrible fortnite trailer.

Then there is the dialogue.

Now there are a lot of complaits that a lot of the dialogue is the usual by now terrible Marvel "banter" that the MCU unfortunately popularized.

You know, the quirky, dont take itself too seriously style of writing that almost never works outside the MCU pre Endgame.

But that's actually not my main vomplaint with it.

My complaint is how... Lifeless the voice actors sounds.

I just listened to these lines, and the thing that struck me is not that they're bad, but how i KNOW both Varric and Solas Voice actors are so much better than this.

"People are dying right now! You need to listen!" "People are always dying. It is what they do."

Like... These lines SHOULD work.

I know the common joke is that this is the usual terrible dialogue in the vein of "My face is tired from dealing with you", but the fact is that it's actually good on paper.

Varric here should sound like he's pleading, making one, last, final plea to his old friend Solas, reminding him that people are fucking dying all around them(Though the rest of the scene dont exactly convey that).

A plea to his humanity.

And solas throws back that he knows. He KNOWS people are dying. That's what they always do.

For anyone who knows Solas at all, this is such a good line. You dont need him to go into a spiel about how his entire reason for doing this is so that people no longer have to die all the time, that the entire reason they do die is because of him...

It should work... but it doesnt.

Solas Actor is NOT giving it his A-Game. At all. And neither is Varric's.

He doesnt sound like the emotional Solas we saw in Inquisition, and frankly neither does Varric. Any and all charisma both had are seemingly gone, replaced by two actors who make the characters sound like themselves, but eithouth the emotion that made them work.

Just hearing Solas telling Varric that this story does NOT end with his downfall just makes me think that the actor either didn't give a shit, or was bored... Which was just hammered in further when Solas just gives a pathethic scream of "Noooooo!" When his big plan is foiled.

Maybe it's that the rest of the writing is just so bad that they just gave up, or they had the same level of quality for their voice director that george lucas gave his actors during the prequel triology filming.

Either way, this really just hammered in the point for me of kind of game we're getting here... And i didnt even touch the gameplay in this post.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

KEN BURNS' COMMENCEMENT SPEECH AT BRANDEIS

TCINLA

MAY 29, 2024

Something worthwhile to read and consider at this fraught time.

I am deeply honored and privileged that you have asked me here to say a few words at such a momentous occasion that you might find what I have to say worthy of your attention on so important a day in all of your lives. Thank you for this honor.

Listen, I am in the business of history. It is not always a happy subject on college campuses these days, particularly when forces seem determined to eliminate or water down difficult parts of our past, particularly when the subject may seem to sum an anachronistic and irrelevant pursuit, and particularly with the ferocious urgency this moment seems to exert on us. It is my job, however, to remind people of the power our past also exerts, to help us better understand what's going on now with compelling story, memory, and anecdote. It is my job to try to discern patterns and themes from history to enable us to interpret our dizzying and sometimes dismaying present.

For nearly 50 years now, I have diligently practiced and rigorously tried to maintain a conscious neutrality in my work, avoiding advocacy if I could, trying to speak to all of my fellow citizens. Over those many decades I've come to understand a significant fact, that we are not condemned to repeat, as the saying goes, what we don't remember. That is a beautiful, even poetic phrase, but not true. Nor are there cycles of history as the academic community periodically promotes. The Old Testament, Ecclesiastes to be specific, got it right, I think. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. What those lines suggest is that human nature never changes or almost never changes. We continually superimpose that complex and contradictory human nature over the seemingly random chaos of events, all of our inherent strengths and weaknesses, our greed and generosity, our puritanism and our prurience, our virtue, and our venality parade before our eyes, generation after generation after generation. This often gives us the impression that history repeats itself. It does not. "No event has ever happened twice, it just rhymes," Mark Twain is supposed to have said. I have spent all of my professional life on the lookout for those rhymes, drawn inexorably to that power of history. I am interested in listening to the many varied voices of a true, honest, complicated past that is unafraid of controversy and tragedy, but equally drawn to those stories and moments that suggest an abiding faith in the human spirit, and particularly the unique role this remarkable and sometimes also dysfunctional republic seems to play in the positive progress of mankind.

During the course of my work, I have become acquainted with hundreds if not thousands of those voices. They have inspired, haunted, and followed me over the years. Some of them may be helpful to you as you try to imagine and make sense of the trajectory of your lives today.

Listen, listen. In January of 1838, shortly before his 29th birthday, a tall, thin lawyer prone to bouts of debilitating depression addressed the young men's lyceum in Springfield, Illinois. "At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?" He asked his audience, "Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the earth and crush us at a blow?" Then he answered his own question. "Never. All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time or die by suicide." It is a stunning, remarkable statement, one that has animated my own understanding of the American experience since I first read it more than 40 years ago. That young man was of course Abraham Lincoln, and he would go on to preside over the closest this country has ever come to near national suicide, our civil war, and yet embedded in his extraordinary, disturbing, and prescient words is also a fundamental optimism that implicitly acknowledges the geographical forcefield two mighty oceans east and west and two relatively benign neighbors north and south have provided for us since the British burned the White House in the War of 1812 and inspired Francis Scott Key.

Lincoln's words that day suggest what is so great and so good about the people who happen to inhabit this lucky and exquisite country of ours. That's the world you now inherit: our work ethic and our restlessness, our innovation and our improvisation, our communities and our institutions of higher learning, our suspicion of power. The fact that we seem resolutely dedicated to parsing the meaning between individual and collective freedom; What I want versus what we need. That we are all so dedicated to understanding what Thomas Jefferson really meant when he wrote that mysterious phrase, "The pursuit of happiness". Hint, it happens right here in the lifelong learning and perpetual improvement this university is committed to.

But the isolation of those two oceans has also helped to incubate habits and patterns less beneficial to us: our devotion to money and guns and conspiracies, our certainty about everything, our stubborn insistence on our own exceptionalism blinding us to that which needs repair, especially with regard to race and ethnicity. Our preoccupation with always making the other wrong at an individual as well as a global level. I am reminded of what the journalist I.F. Stone once said to a young acolyte who was profoundly disappointed in his mentor's admiration for Thomas Jefferson. "It's because history is tragedy," Stone admonished him, "Not melodrama." It's the perfect response. In melodrama all villains are perfectly villainous and all heroes are perfectly virtuous, but life is not like that. You know that in your guts and nor is our history like that. The novelist, Richard Powers recently wrote that, "The best arguments in the world," — and ladies and gentlemen, that's all we do is argue — "the best arguments in the world," he said, "Won't change a single person's point of view. The only thing that can do that is a good story." I've been struggling for most of my life to do that, to try to tell good, complex, sometimes contradictory stories, appreciating nuance and subtlety and undertow, sharing the confusion and consternation of unreconciled opposites.

But it's clear as individuals and as a nation we are dialectically preoccupied. Everything is either right or wrong, red state or blue state, young or old, gay or straight, rich or poor, Palestinian or Israeli, my way or the highway. Everywhere we are trapped by these old, tired, binary reactions, assumptions, and certainties. For filmmakers and faculty, students and citizens, that preoccupation is imprisoning. Still, we know and we hear and we express only arguments, and by so doing, we forget the inconvenient complexities of history and of human nature. That, for example, three great religions, their believers, all children of Abraham, each professing at the heart of their teaching, a respect for all human life, each with a central connection to and legitimate claim to the same holy ground, violate their own dictates of conduct and make this perpetually contested land a shameful graveyard. God does not distinguish between the dead. "Could you?"

[Audience applauding]

"Could you?" A very wise person I know with years of experience with the Middle East recently challenged me, "Could you hold the idea that there could be two wrongs and two rights?"

Listen, listen. In a filmed interview I conducted with the writer James Baldwin, more than 40 years ago, he said, "No one was ever born who agreed to be a slave, who accepted it. That is, slavery is a condition imposed from without. Of course, the moment I say that," Baldwin continued, "I realize that multitudes and multitudes of people for various reasons of their own enslave themselves every hour of every day to this or that doctrine, this or that delusion of safety, this or that lie. Anti-Semites, for example," he went on, "are slaves to a delusion. People who hate Negroes are slaves. People who love money are slaves. We are living in a universe really of willing slaves, which makes the concept of liberty and the concept of freedom so dangerous," he finished. Baldwin is making a profoundly psychological and even spiritual statement, not just a political or racial or social one. He knew, just as Lincoln knew, that the enemy is often us. We continue to shackle ourselves with chains we mistakenly think is freedom.

Another voice, Mercy Otis Warren, a philosopher and historian during our revolution put it this way, "The study of the human character at once opens a beautiful and a deformed picture of the soul. We there find a noble principle implanted in the nature of people, but when the checks of conscience are thrown aside, humanity is obscured." I have had the privilege for nearly half a century of making films about the US, but I have also made films about us. That is to say the two letter, lowercase, plural pronoun. All of the intimacy of "us" and also "we" and "our" and all of the majesty, complexity, contradiction, and even controversy of the US. And if I have learned anything over those years, it's that there's only us. There is no them. And whenever someone suggests to you, whomever it may be in your life that there's a them, run away. Othering is the simplistic binary way to make and identify enemies, but it is also the surest way to your own self imprisonment, which brings me to a moment I've dreaded and forces me to suspend my longstanding attempt at neutrality.

There is no real choice this November. There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment or the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route. When, as Mercy Otis Warren would say, "The checks of conscience are thrown aside and a deformed picture of the soul is revealed." The presumptive Republican nominee is the opioid of all opioids, an easy cure for what some believe is the solution to our myriad pains and problems. When in fact with him, you end up re-enslaved with an even bigger problem, a worse affliction and addiction, "a bigger delusion", James Baldwin would say, the author and finisher of our national existence, our national suicide as Mr. Lincoln prophesies. Do not be seduced by easy equalization. There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This is a choice that could not be clearer.

[Audience applauding]

Listen, listen. 33 years ago, the world lost a towering literary figure. The novelist and storyteller, not arguer, Isaac Bashevis Singer. For decades he wrote about God and myth and punishment, fate and sexuality, family and history. He wrote in Yiddish a marvelously expressive language, sad and happy all at the same time. Sometimes maddeningly all knowing, yet resigned to God's seemingly capricious will. It is also a language without a country, a dying language in a world more interested in the extermination or isolation of its long suffering speakers. Singer, writing in the pages of the Jewish Daily Forward help to keep Yiddish alive. Now our own wonderfully mongrel American language is punctuated with dozens of Yiddish words and phrases, parables and wise sayings, and so many of those words are perfect onomatopoeias of disgust and despair, hubris and humor. If you've ever met a schmuck, you know what I'm talking about. [audience laughs] Toward the end of his long and prolific life, Singer expressed wonder at why so many of his books written in this obscure and some said useless language would be so widely translated, something like 56 countries all around the world. "Why," he would wonder with his characteristic playfulness, "Why would the Japanese care about his simple stories of life in the shtetls of Eastern Europe 1,000 years ago?" "Unless," Singer paused, twinkle in his eye, "Unless the story spoke of the kinship of the soul." I think what Singer was talking about was that indefinable something that connects all of us together, that which we all share as part of organic life on this planet, the kinship of the soul. I love that.

Okay, let me speak directly to the graduating class. Watch out, here comes the advice. Listen. Be curious, not cool. Insecurity makes liars of us all. Remember, none of us get out of here alive. The inevitable vicissitudes of life, no matter how well gated our communities, will visit us all. Grief is a part of life, and if you explore its painful precincts, it will make you stronger. Do good things, help others. Leadership is humility and generosity squared. Remember the opposite of faith is not doubt. Doubt is central to faith. The opposite of faith is certainty. The kinship of the soul begins with your own at times withering self-examination. Try to change that unchangeable human nature of Ecclesiastes, but start with you. "Nothing so needs reforming," Mark Twain once chided us, "As other people's habits." [audience laughs]

Don't confuse success with excellence. Do not descend too deeply into specialism. Educate all of your parts, you will be healthier. Do not get stuck in one place. "Travel is fatal to prejudice," Twain also said. Be in nature, which is always perfect and where nothing is binary. Its sheer majesty may remind you of your own atomic insignificance, as one observer put it, but in the inscrutable and paradoxical ways of wild places, you will feel larger, inspirited, just as the egotist in our midst is diminished by his or her self regard.

At some point, make babies, one of the greatest things that will happen to you, I mean it, one of the greatest things that will happen to you is that you will have to worry, I mean really worry, about someone other than yourself. It is liberating and exhilarating, I promise. Ask your parents.

[Audience laughs]

Choose honor over hypocrisy, virtue over vulgarity, discipline over dissipation, character over cleverness, sacrifice over self-indulgence. Do not lose your enthusiasm, in its Greek etymology the word enthusiasm means simply, "god in us". Serve your country. Insist that we fight the right wars. Denounce oppression everywhere.

[Audience applauding]

Convince your government, as Lincoln understood that the real threat always and still comes from within this favored land. Insist that we support science and the arts, especially the arts.

[Audience cheering]

They have nothing to do with the actual defense of our country; They just make our country worth defending.

[Audience applauding]

Remember what Louis Brandeis said, "The most important political office is that of the private citizen." Vote. You indelibly... [audience applauding] Please, vote. You indelibly underscore your citizenship, and most important, our kinship with each other when you do. Good luck and godspeed.

[Audience applauding]

[thesinglesjukebox]

GLORILLA, MEGAN THEE STALLION, AND CARDI B - "WANNA BE (REMIX)"

Go Jukebox! Go Jukebox! Blurb 'em, Jukebox! Blurb 'em Jukebox!

[7.10]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Punchline after punchline, read after read, hook after hook, no fat: just three talented titans at their tyrannical, terrifying peaks.  [9]

TA Inskeep: Cardi joins Megan and Glo — clearly their spiritual daughter — for some real hot girl shit. The beat isn't anything special, but when you've got spitters this hot on the track, I don't care. [8]

Taylor Alatorre: The addition of Cardi B turns what was a fun little collab into a putative Event Song, a burden that the midtempo sameness of the Soulja Boy sample is perhaps unequipped to take on. It's a trunk rattler, sure, but it feels perpetually on the verge of starting and never going anywhere, much unlike the drop-centric "Pretty Boy Swag." The upside of this rhythmic severity is that it makes it easier for the listener to pick out the pleasing stylistic contrasts at play here: the way GloRilla splays herself out across two whole bars just to remind us that a year has 365 days in it, whereas Cardi barks the words "pop ass on jet ski" like she’s avoiding a shot clock violation. Meg’s role is as the stabilizing force between these two extremes, which is maybe the first time in history that anyone’s referred to Megan Thee Stallion as a “stabilizing force.” [6]

Katherine St. Asaph: These credits should really be in reverse order, to better represent the three rappers' respective firepower here.  [6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I’m filling out a Cardi B apology form after being down on “Miami” earlier this year — this verse is so good that when she gives herself a pep talk in the ad libs at the end it sounds deserved. Glo and Meg are also great, of course, and I’ll always be favorably inclined towards a rap hit that pays tribute to E-40, but the beat here lets the trio down — it creeps when it should at very least groove. [7]

Nortey Dowuona: I am going to repeat what a great black poet once said in regards to all my white colleagues in reference to Cardi B: Don't save her; she don't wanna be saved. (Megan and Glo are good on this, tho.) [6]

Julian Axelrod: "Wanna Be" feels gloriously unmoored from time, as Megan Thee Stallion and GloRilla play hot potato with the "Pretty Boy Swag" beat and shout out 2012 heartthrobs Channing Tatum and Justin Bieber. (To be fair, Channing has never looked better.) But in an era where guest verses are airdropped in from a tour bus several states away, the biggest throwback is their electric interplay on the chorus, which crackles with the kind of chemistry that can only be achieved by two baddies in the same room. Listening to them trade bars feels like walking into a conversation directly after the punchline; if you have to ask why they're laughing, the joke is probably on you. Spare a thought for Cardi, who's left to wander the empty space around them like Howard Hughes roaming his abandoned mansion. Hearing her root for herself on the outro after Meg and Glo finish hyping each other up is one of the most devastating depictions of third wheeling ever put to tape. [7]

Jonathan Bradley: The Soulja Boi flip is hot but the Project Pat flip is hotter. Glo is imperious ("Do I look like fuckin' Super-Woman" she asks, incredulous), but Megan is commanding, running a sword through a million misguided fantasies with a cutting "You ain't my daddy; I'm not your baby." (Nice Gucci Mane call-back, too; the references here are laser-focused on the early Obama era.) This is a remix, so we get bonus Cardi material. Unlike Glo and Meg, she has to hype herself up at the end, which feels kinda bad, but she could never be a third wheel, not when she's bringing fun phrasings like "hoes be chippity-chopped," which rhymes, of course, with "hickory dickory dock." [8]

Ian Mathers: The original didn't particularly feel like it was missing anything, but I'll happily take Cardi's fierce verse here for "my toes white like Matthew McConaughey" alone. And I'm not too proud to admit that at some point in the future I am absolutely going to refer to myself as "white boy wasted," either. [8]

Brad Shoup: Is Megan admitting to skiplagging? Megan, they'll ban you from the airline! [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[stepswowdsen]

【KagePro】 KagePro Manga Crit Rambles

(CW: Crit rambles)

Personal opinion/ramble piece.

I've been re-reading MR2's chapters, and while I enjoyed the character interactions + dialogue, I'm seriously not a fan of the generally undynamic art + janky pacing of the manga as a whole.

I also wish Kuroha/Saeru, especially the MR2 form, looked more monstrous and menacing and intimidating and dangerous in the manga art.

Like. Could we at least of had a hot snake demon man lmao cuz the manga is NOT doing him justice

Sayuki draws this form SO well in the Children Record Re:boot MV. Sayuki has such dynamic inking

I wanna see Sidu's concept art sketches... Iirc she was the one that designed Saeru's MR2 form

I personally dislike the KagePro manga art. I remember when I was a kid, I was like "I'm not a fan of the manga art cuz it doesn't suit KagePro"

And I would say now as an adult that the KagePro manga is so undynamic and boring to read.

It’s personally disappointing to me.

Like I bought the manga volumes despite my misgivings, out of love for the charas, and cuz I wanted to see the OG dialogues in JP.

So it's mainly the dialogue I'm interested in, though I am still grateful that we got a manga at all with visuals.

Along with the fact that Saeru would've looked hotter and more monstrous/intimidating in any other art style like ADHHDSHDHSH

Pretty unfortunate.

It doesn't have proper composition/page flow to connect scenes

So it's SO jarring when there are scene transitions, because it doesn't feel like it connects properly.

I've been especially thinking this while reading the final volume (chapters of MR2)

Cuz I feel like the entire manga desperately needed an artist that was capable of drawing more dynamic scenes, especially for MR2

Like the whole confrontation with Saeru at the end

The ending chapters of MR2 feel so abrupt and rushed to me

...

Even aside from the weak, un-dynamic art, the Kagerou Daze manga's art style is so boring looking and uninteresting to me

Iirc the KagePro manga was decided through an art contest/competition?

Mahiro was chosen as a beginner/amateur mangaka.

That’s fine, we all start somewhere. I also understand that making manga is hard.

But I personally wish the Kagerou Daze manga got a more experienced artist

Cuz the art just does not do the scenes or charas justice tbh

I was personally never a fan of the KagePro manga art style as a kid and that hasn't changed

And because the most important scenes lack dynamic-ness, it's hard to feel it emotionally too.

Like for example, the scene when Ayano and Mary are standing together to directly contrast the scene of Ayano turning her back on Mary in the rain

It's supposed to be an emotional scene, but the art doesn't convey it well, so I as the reader don't feel what it was intended to give off

Imo the Kagerou Daze manga's art style doesn't suit KagePro.

Hot take but the way the Kagerou Daze Manga draws Mary's Queen Form is my absolute least favourite out of all the KagePro medias.

Well, except for MCA (Anime Route), which is the fricking ugliest

It lacks the curls, weight, and volume of the hair, that all other depictions of Queen (Medusa form) Mary have. The hair looks so fricking flat, dude. It doesn't feel dynamic. It lacks depth

Sidu and Sayuki draw it really well.

Fate/Grand Order: From Lostbelt

I decided to put this one as an example because it has a storytelling style you'd tend to see in doujinshi. Simpler compositions with a focus on chara interactions + dialogue.

So I got reminded of Nakatani who's a manga artist who draws FGO: Anthology comic short stories

Like I expected interesting compositions from the KagePro manga more like these.

I'll show a few snippets of Nakatani's comics that depict short stories of the events of LB6 (Lostbelt 6) main story chapter in FGO

Ch. 18: Baobhan Sith takes a liking to the rhymes told from Panhuman History

Baobhan falling into the Great Pit + The Fall of the British Lostbelt (Faerie Kingdom)

"London bridge is falling down"

Ch. 16: Morgan's Downfall + Oberon Vortigern: The Curtains Close (The Ending Act)

While Nakatani's art isn't very dynamic, they still manage to make up for it by having interesting artistic interpretations of FGO scenes (in-game) and interesting visuals and compositions in their manga panelling, at times.

These aren't 1-1 adaptations of Visual Novel cutscenes, but a new and different take on them.

Nakatani has a creative approach to depicting scenes + compositions. Really fits with the "fairytale storybook" theme.

The art isn't dynamic, but they still make up for it via interesting compositions, poses, detailing, inking, etc.

(Art style is a personal preference.)

Some of the chosen panels and panel shots are interesting.

Like I love the shot with Morgan and Oberon sm...

The flow of Morgan's hair...

How Oberon is shown to be standing in front of the curtains after Morgan's death. And how he refers to Morgan's Britain and Faerie Kingdom as a "Fairytale storybook crafted by her"

I love Oberon's line about Morgan's kingdom and the British Lostbelt being a fairytale storybook crafted by her...

I also really enjoy Oberon's My Room Line towards Morgan in-game in FGO, "That's why I'll say this to draw the line. I didn't hate the picture book (fairytale) you drew."

KagePro Manga

For example, I feel like the scene portraying Mary's guilt for "wanting too much" while the fallen MekaDan members are around her, in her mindscape/dreamscape could've been presented in a much more interesting way.

Like it could've taken a more fantasical approach with interesting compositions, more creative/artistic liberties in scene settings

In the Kagerou Daze manga, the poses and expressions are so flat and the art style is uninteresting as well (to me, personally)

Preference in art style is a personal taste, though.

Here, Mahiro Satou is drawing Jin's story writing

The Kagerou Daze manga has almost nothing going for it visually to me. It doesn't even have interesting compositions.

I do like some of the scenes it gave us (cute interactions between the MekaDan) and some MR2 exclusive scenes (Ayano and Mary, Saeru's backstory), but that's... it.

Cuz it's mainly the story/dialogues and character interactions I'm interested in, not really the art.

It seriously feels like it lacks pages in between scenes to properly join them together. It lacks proper page flow

I wonder if this manga was rushed to completion cuz it's even MORE noticeable in the later volumes compared to the older ones

Cuz Iirc the later manga became less heavy on screentone usage (understandable tho if it's for a timeline crunch)

Though I've definitely noticed a lot of visible improvement in Mahiro's art compared to when the series first started.

I can’t blame the mangaka if the manga was rushed by publishers or higher ups, so I’ll cut some slack there.

Cuz I feel like the whole confrontation with Kuroha/Saeru just needed a more experienced artist to be able to do it justice.

It seriously needed an artist capable of drawing more dynamic scenes.

Either that, or to rely more on more creative compositions and more artistic/fantastical storytelling.

Also I'm rereading the ending volumes of the KagePro manga and the pacing is sooo fucking janky.

Like the Ch. 65 scene with Seto and Mary holding hands, and then it just abruptly cuts to Saeru.

Like it's so ???

Like why does it just cut from Mary having a conversation with Azami in the Kagerou Daze to Kuroha/Saeru killing Seto. And the other members suddenly knocked down on the ground.

The pacing is sooooo janky.

Though maybe the manga was rushed to completion? In which case I'll cut more slack.

[adapembroke]

New Moon in Capricorn: Musing on Dark Ages

When was the last time you took a break?

For me, it had been too long by the middle of December. It had been my intention the entire year to take a significant amount of time off during December to celebrate my baby's first Christmas.

I'm glad I had set that intention in advance. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have taken it. I would have told myself that I couldn't afford to take a break, and that would have been a big mistake.

It's a strange thing, the way human needs work.

There comes a point when you have gone so long without meeting a need that you don't even think you have the need anymore.

People who are starving don't get more and more ravenous. They eventually reach a point where they don't feel hunger. Even if they start to eat again, they can't dive in all at once. They need to start slowly, remember how to eat and digest.

When you go too long without an intellectual rest, similar things happen. Competence wanes. The well of inspiration goes dry. Your work gets harder. The results are sloppier, more and more derivative.

This bothers you, at first. Then it stops bothering you. Once it stops bothering you, you're in a dangerous place. Extreme starvation has its own momentum. It takes an outside force to intervene and keep you from limping along forever.

You might, from time to time, look back at things that you've done in the past with awe the way Dark Age Europeans looked at the ruins of Roman architecture. You know that you aren't capable of those great things anymore, but your curiosity is gone. You don't have the will or the courage to ask yourself, "Why are these things beyond me now? What would it take to get back to my full strength?"

Dark Age Europeans told themselves that the world was once inhabited by giants.

Did some part of them remember that they had been giants once? Did they ever wonder if they were just tired, or if they had fallen into decline?

They couldn't see the universities and cathedrals their children would build. They could only look behind with the certainty that they would never build Roman aqueducts again.

Maybe, they didn't think about those things at all. Maybe they told themselves that thinking about the past was a distraction.

Eventually, we know, they got back to work, meticulously copying manuscripts in a language they could no longer read, because, once upon a time, someone believed the task was useful.

The Dark Ages are a useful myth.

Recent historical scholarship suggests that the Dark Ages weren't as dark as we were once lead to believe, but the story of the years between the fall of Rome and the rise of the Renaissance persists because it is an important cultural myth.

The Dark Ages remind us that time moves in a circle and a line.

Rome is gone. Its language is dead, and its monuments are ruins. It is no longer possible to walk across the continent on Roman roads, and Roman tax collectors can no longer compel you to pay for their bureaucracy.

Rome is gone, but you can trace your finger along the arc of history and find empires that rhyme.

Some histories jump through time from monument to monument, empire to empire, but that isn't an accurate picture.

Human energy rises and falls, waxes and wanes like the moon. There are times when we active and growing to new heights, and there are times when we rest and decline.

Often, we are doing both simultaneously in different areas of our lives.

New Moon in Capricorn: Darkest Moon in the Darkest Season

I am writing this just before the New Moon in Capricorn. I am back from vacation, but I am still tired.

In the northern hemisphere, this is the time when the moon's cycle and the sun's cycle align. We are at the darkest phase of the moon's monthly cycle at the darkest phase of the sun's annual cycle.

It's time to be tired. It is time to rest.

Are you resting? When was the last time you really deeply, truly checked in with your heart? When was the last time you really asked yourself what you're hungry for?

I have rested enough to know that these are the questions I need to be asking, and I will be using Moon Mood Workshop to ask them.

If you are where I am, I'd like to invite you to join me.

[generation1point5]

Year of Reviews

I slept through my entry into 2023, and awoke to a new year while in a far distant country while spending my last days in 2022 on vacation. And in its own way, that near-seamless entrance now stands in stark contrast to where I find myself this year. The melancholy, however, has remained; a steady undercurrent that I see has been there since the beginning.

I still remember that trip as vividly as the day I had left; the sleepless plane ride, the cloudy, rainy morning on the highway passing through the mountains and the houses nestled into tall trees as I entered Taipei. I remember the food and the sights, the long and much-needed break where many new experiences brought up old memories, old haunts. In retrospect those sentiments were prescient, and perhaps in ways that ended up becoming self-fulfilling. Much of my life this year was spent as if I had the chance to do things all over again, and understanding what that sentiment truly is, and what it feels like. Like many things in life, it is bittersweet.

This year I have written more than I have in a long time; part of it is a compulsion and response to having recently switched to a high-powered, full-time job that has forced me to question my choice between a stable income and my artistic pursuits, which has since only been brought even further to the forefront. The other part has been the sheer amount of media that I have consumed that has inspired me, and from that, the new friends I've become acquainted with as a result. To think that it all started with a trip to Taiwan, and revisiting Nekojishi. It feels like a story all its own.

There's much I've come to learn and to appreciate about the culture of my heritage and my own place in it. It is so distinctly Chinese-American, but the prefix is made no lesser for it. Having experienced both the mainland and Taiwan's own branch of Chinese history, and having lived all my own, I understand the formation of my own racial identity as a very diffuse thing; a product of circumstances and material conditions as it is historical animus. I finally have an answer to the difficulty in translating my name. China as a setting and as a center for game development has experienced a resurgence in, something that I have enjoyed both as a matter of representation and also inspiration.

Revisiting the visual novel that had first made me curious about the island country of distant relation had also kick-started a wild direction to my life I wouldn't have anticipated otherwise, and now I look back on the beginning of the year almost as an oddity of a prior era. It is reminiscent of my first forays into online social circles. It has come to similar conclusions, also, and I am left with a better impression of how little I have truly changed from my years before. History did not quite repeat itself, but it has indeed rhymed. But that sentiment seems to be true globally as much as it has personally.

Sometimes, it feels like we’re only going in circles.

But things are not like before. I think about how much my life has changed from mere whims that had taken me to amazing fiction, to amazing people, and what both had inspired me to create. My best writing of this year was a memento of sorts, made in response to and kicked off by Echo. In that time, I have spent much of this year in a new community, meeting new people, and understanding my own place in a world that I have always been adjacent to but never truly a part of. But that has been a common pattern that has pervaded my life for a long time now, and that is not an unfamiliar sentiment that I have long since internalized and come to accept.

More than anything, I am appreciative of the journey, a journey of discovery as much as a reminder, a dark mirror from which I glimpse the parts of myself not easily perceived in the light. I have grown immensely for having put myself out there, as little as I have. I can imagine where I will go, and what I will see when I look back on this year many years into the future. I see shards like starlight, a constellation over a vast expanse, a picture and a tale long in the making. It is not a fire, so much as it is a glow; it's not too much, but just enough to give me hope in spite of many things this year.

Being 30, I had expected much in my life circumstances to settle, but it has continued to prove an unexpected, at times sobering adventure of smiles and pain. There are few things that I have kept for myself over the years, but what (and more importantly, who) has remained I have treasured beyond all measure that I could hope to convey.

For those new and old who have stuck with me thus far, thank you. I hope to create things worth the effort spent making them for many more years, and will always, always value the support offered to a solitary soul in a sea of talented, good-hearted people. The world is made bright and its beauty preserved because of the small and the insignificant; the signs of life and humanity in a world that seems to forget both beneath the weight of its own animus.

I go into the new year as I have like many new years' prior; without expectation, with hope, and a will to keep going. What I little I have kept for myself over these years, I intend to treasure to the very end.

[eilinelsghost]

If you haven't had a chance yet, this bonus pupper art is your reminder to go read Song of Sirion by @welcomingdisaster for this year's @tolkienrsb! I was so lucky to have my art claimed by Lena and am still just over the moon about this fic she created for it!

Minas Tirith burns. Finrod's company rides to the rescue. When an orc attack forces his servant Edrahil and his niece Finduilas to break away from the group, they learn much of each other, and of the land. But Edrahil can feel his doom approach, and Finduilas struggles with the loss of her city. Coming home will not be easy.

More sparrows landed on the rocks. Edrahil let them catch his gaze, and tried to remember the rhyme. “What is seven for?” he asked. Finduilas thought a moment. He could see her lips move as she recited it, the words coming to him in her half-whisper. Five birds for silver, six birds for gold, seven little birdies for— “Doom untold,” she said. Edrahil shut his eyes. “Lovely.”

[granvarones]

“here is a message to the super hoes”

whew, name a more iconic and sex-positive opening line of a hip-hop song released in 1998 - during the genre’s golden era? well, maybe i am being hyperbolic, but almost every lyric in “jimmy” by the pioneering new york hip-hop group boogie down productions is a foundational text.

music enthusiasts, critics, and historians all agree that the late 1980s was a golden era for hip-hop. artists like public enemy, NWA, eric b. & rakim, and boogie down productions (BDP) were all reshaping the genre’s landscape by utilizing powerful storytelling for social commentary and activism.

composed initially of KRS-one, d nice, and scott la rock, BDP emerged in 1987 with their explosive and critically acclaimed debut album “criminal minded.” the impact of BDP’s hard-hitting style of rap narrated the realities of life in the bronx during the ronald reagan era was immediate. sadly, BDP was dealt a devastating blow in august 1987 when member scott la rock was murdered, just months after the release of the album. he was 25 years old.

by the release of BDP’s sophomore album “by all means necessary” in april 1988, the group’s music had transitioned towards a more socially conscious and political commentary. inspired by Black revolutionary malcolm x’s philosophy of self-determination and empowerment, the album tackled topics ranging from racism, poverty, education, health, and the AIDS crisis.

“cuz now in winter aids attacks

so run out and get your jimmy hats”

written, produced, and performed by KRS-one, “jimmy,” short for “jimmy hat,” was a metaphor for condoms and was revolutionary for its time. amidst the track’s frenetic beats and melodic rhymes, the song delivers a crucial public health message about safer sex, prevention, and the responsibility we all have to protect our health and the health of our communities.

before the 1980s and the emergence of AIDS, condoms were primarily viewed and recommended as a means of preventing pregnancy, with their role in preventing sexually transmitted infections (s) receiving less emphasis. but by the mid-1980s, there was a collective effort by health organizations, activists, media and popular culture to normalize condoms and conversations about safer sex as a form of STI and HIV prevention.

“do me a favor, wear your hat”

while not officially released as a commercial single, "jimmy" was a standout track from the "by all means necessary" album and garnered radio play in the summer of 1988. just a few months after US surgeon general c. everett coop sent 107 million copies of a pamphlet titled understanding AIDS, to every household in the US. this effort remains the most extensive public mailing in history.

boogie down productions’ “jimmy” is a pivotal moment in hip-hop history, demonstrating the genre’s capacity to engage with pressing societal issues. through their innovative approach to music and social commentary, BDP set the tone for artists like bell biv devoe, ice cube, salt n pepa, and TLC to use their platform for advocacy and/or safer sex education.

“jimmy,” with its candid message about safer sex and HIV prevention, served as an essential intervention in 1988, utilizing hip-hop to reach young people. the song remains a powerful reminder of hip-hop’s role in public health awareness and the genre’s enduring impact on pop culture.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 2/7/23

feeling sort of neutral to apathetic about a lot of media this week! two pics of my cat tho to make up for it

listening

NOT feeling neutral or apathetic about the tuesdaysong, pont alexandre iii off the 1998 album Noir by alexander lasarenko. this is a sort of fun little film score exercise by a composer who did a lot of tv work, including PBS' NATURE. the drum fill does sound like it’s from 1998 and i mean that as a compliment. bond movies are emphathetically not noir although they occasionally borrow some visuals, but this piece reminds me of early daniel craig bond movies with the sleek synthy orchestra and subdued horns. they both have the same fuckin uhhhh. the british exotic location travelogue strings. the piano makes me think point and click mystery game.

-

reading

star wars: yoda dark rendezvous by sean stewart. i am about halfway through but this reread is reviving memories of my last reread in uhhhhh. summer 2011 probably. this feels like it was half a concept for a middle grade book about a padawan finding her confidence and ability after losing her master very early in the clone wars, and half a concept for an adult book about the deep sorrow and loss between the treacherous count dooku and his former master, yoda. and in the background of all this ventress (ventress my worstie i love her) is begging and pleading to be made an apprentice while dooku flatly refuses. a generous reading would be “this is all history that rhymes and points to how the master/padawan relationship is not a good pedagogy method for either side and is deeply fucked up” but i think this idea is quite muddied in the middle of this book. it does not always feel deliberate that everyone at once is having trouble managing either their padawans' or their masters' emotions.

the tonal whiplash between the first few chapters is absolutely bonkers. like it's star wars, you couldn't Really show torture on screen or on the page in this specific storytelling era, but it's certainly implied. and then we get a fun field games day for the padawans in the next chapter!!! you don't really consume any star wars media for the prose, but the prose here occasionally gets in the way of itself. it does take a few chapters to find its footing but it is, as i remember, a snappy and fast read. one of the most goth settings in the starred wars imo. the soft plush moss that will start to dissolve your skin if you take a nap in the blood forest has stuck in my brain in the. idk, decade plus since i read this book.

-

watching

The Big Sleep (1946, dir. Hawks) is just as good the third time around. i still have a great deal of difficulty following the plot, but this is a movie that first and foremost Looks incredibly good. shoutout to physical media once again bc this 2005 dvd from the turner classic media co. has solid, reliable, properly timed subtitles. none of the pirate streaming sites i like can boast the same for this particular movie.

in other news new felix colgrave short dropped and it is a bizarre perfect delight

-

playing

beat wolfenstein: the new order on the babiest level and it still took me like forty minutes to sit through the cutscenes. it does such a good job of presenting you with all these very fun environments to run through that you manage to forget that you are very much on rails and it's essentially a boomer shooter (over the top maximalist first person shooter) cramming itself into hallways until the last level in the castle, which feels like endless corridors. im also cranky they showed me so many airships but never let me walk around on an airship. or throw a nazi off an airship.

might wanna get that tesla coil on fire checked out. like i know it's my fault but someone should be alerted about this

i don't really know that this game stuck the landing, for me. i think the last castle level really dragged, and the courtyard arena + the last hallway arena with the catwalks felt very same-y. it's also annoying to me that they give me a sniper rifle but there's no real way to use it as part of a stealth run. there aren't a lot of opportunities for stealth in the back half of this game. it is too much of a shooter and not enough of a narrative/rpg for my tastes, i think. i don't think i'll be continuing on with the series bc i'm not terribly attached to blazkowicz.

this and fallout are like The big AAA alt-history tentpoles, but it's a very small tent. this game was fun for what is was, which was a self-contained and fairly short shooter you're meant to play through twice to get two slightly different narrative routes. it reviewed well at the time and i think the reviews are pretty fair, i had a normal amount of fun aside from the sharp glee of the moon exhibit ramps and crawling through vents in the moon base, i liked it a normal amount and will not be integrating it into my personality. so it fuckin goes sometimes.

-

making

a baby (not mine) blanket, which will absolutely not be ready for the baby (again not mine) in a month and a half. this is going to end up about 40" square and is this pattern off ravelry. it is some flavor of caron baby yarn (i cannot currently find the ballband) on 4mm bamboo circs bc u cannot make a delicate baby blanket. what's the point. its going to go through the wettest hell you can imagine bc a baby's one job is to make fluids.

this pattern is just spicy enough that it's hard to watch TV and count stitches at the same time so i am BURNING through podcasts. slowly but surely getting caught up on A More Civilized Age and their three hour discussions of each star wars episode of Andor. five star podcast five star runtime

[esausrpmemes]

Halsin (Baldur's Gate 3) Banter Starters (feel free to edit as needed)

I am ready, whatever may come.

Nature shall be defended, at any cost.

Such attention... I never realised I was so popular.

Unwise, perhaps, to poke a bear this much...

Admirable stamina, yet terrible priorities.

Calm yourself. There is plenty of me to go around.

Optimistic, to think I can fit through there.

Jest all you will. I believe now in your honest heart.

For your sake, I hope some of it is just a fantasy, deep in your heart.

Still though, when you are expecting nothing but desolation, even a small glimmer of hope fills the heart.

Perhaps I can yet turn hindsight into foresight.

Dispensing advice on matters of the heart would be like swapping boots - what suits me may be a poor fit for you.

Yet there is a burden to being the survivor… the witness to others' tragedies. It only grows heavier with time.

I doubt many will seek to surrender. But if they do… mercy costs us nothing, _____.

Folk of our stature can be a lure for drunkards seeking a brawl, I have found.

Some radical thinkers claim that peace is a valid option, you know.

This place reminds me of a magpie's nest. Random baubles, doodahs, and what-have-yous, all jumbled together without a care.

I cannot help but feel that destiny is tightening its grip on our forward path.

Nature affords us few greater powers of healing than what love can provide, _____.

You sound like a student - reciting words for a test without considering their meaning.

You are among friends. Whatever lies ahead, we shall face it together.

They say that history does not repeat, but it does rhyme, now and again.

When you care about something deeply enough, it consumes every thought and word.

Do I note some trepidation? Spirits are but echoes of nature's cycle.

I welcome all of nature's blessings, whether they come to me one at a time, or in multitudes. There is no shame in it.

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Barely Living in the 20’s

(Green Day’s new album)

Stephen Jay Morris

1/24,2024

©Scientific Morality.

I saw a pink flamingo on someone’s front lawn the other day, it reminded me of Taylor Swift. She is today’s American icon. I saw a helium balloon floating in the sky with Charlie Kirk’s face on it—The jealous Christian Nationalist, who wants to tame that Taylor shrew. Fuck that dude! I am waiting for an Amazon drone to deliver the latest Green Day album to me. I listened to the whole album on YouTube. I can’t wait!

I am not going to give the typical music critic’s review here. Some may love it. Some may dislike it, and anyway—does anybody listen to critics anymore? Go log on to YouTube and judge for yourself.

Music is the soundtrack of life. Believe me, it is. When I listen to a song from 1959 to 2024, it will conjure up memories in me. Yes, the olfactory route can do that to me, too, but music? Yeah, now that’s the ticket!

In 1969, at 15, I was jumped by a street gang. They took me back to their apartment and worked me over. On the radio, “My Cherie Amour” by Stevie Wonder, was playing. Now, every time I hear that song, I relive that painful moment in my life. It is a beautiful song. Then there are other songs that remind me of my ex-girlfriends. Or times in history.

I’ll say one thing about this album’s collection of songs. Their influences are obvious and fun to identify. So what? This could have been “American Idiot, part two.” You think I care?

These songs, however, are an emotional necessity to maintain one’s sanity in 2024. From genocide to political buffoonery, while humanity is making an ass of itself, an alienated poet spells out his alienation with lyrical rhymes. Like Billy Joe Armstrong, I am disenchanted with current American ambiance. Niro played the fiddle as Rome burned. Me? I play guitar as the American empire burns. Why not? Somebody should. Green Day does. They are not just a “let’s party band.” They’ve got poetic observations they want to share with everyone. My ears are open. Jesus! We need a soundtrack to these days of insanity!

Music won’t change the world, but it can change your mind. I cling on to that proposition like a crucifix in the palm of my hand. I need the tintinnabulation of bar chords and the feedback of amps. Before I used to go to demonstrations, I’d slap on my MC5 album to psyche myself up. I need emotional cleansing or the acids in my belly will eat me alive. Green Day has the goods to do that.

This summer, there will be a protest at the Democratic Party convention in Chicago. The last time it happened was in 1968. The MC5 performed at the festival of life at Grant Park. They were the only band who had the courage to show up. Wouldn’t it be neat if Green Day showed up? Yeah. It would.