#and also that this turn of phrase is unique to english here <- major thing

[coffee-without-anesthetics]

ah yes, transcreation to substitute the expression from the SL to a culturally-adequate phrasing in the TL, here you are again

[thevapingsufi]

Scottish people really hate the 23andme diaspora, and I'm guilty of this too. A lot of hatred comes from these people having a disconnect from modern Scottish culture, and making a parody out of what they think it is i.e. kilts, mixing up Gealic, Gaelic and Scots, weird worship of generic ancestory. All of it seems at odds with actual Scottish culture.

The make up of Modern Scottish culture is defined by two major events one good and one bad. The good is the spread of civic nationalism, the modern idea of Scottishness is mostly based on are you born here, or did you spend a long time here? Then you're Scottish. My mum spent a long enough time here to culturally integrate, but never lost her accent and she was accepted as Scottish. Anywhere else I would only be considered half Scottish but I have been told firmly by people that I would have otherwise expected to be anti immigrant that I am most definitely Scottish, whether they or I like it. It's simply a fact.

The second is the Highland Clearances, a genocide on highland Scots but lowland Scots which has left the central belt the cultural heart of Scotland, and nearly wiped out most of the cultural and historical traditions people in the diaspora associate with Scotland, the clans, the kilts, the celtic poems.

Many of those people who are claiming Scottishness through blood are probably descendents of people ethnicly cleansed off their lands. Is it fair to deny them their ancestoral identity, an identity stripped off their ancestors, because the idea of Scottishness itself has moved on into something far more active, and tied to the land of the country itself.

Is it fair? I don't really know. Can we dismiss what might be a branch of a culture cruelly excised from its home because it's current examples are annoying Americans? Is it fair?

The story itself is also a lot more complex since another part of the Scottish Diaspora aren't victims but perpetrators. Time was the idea of Scottishness wasn't tied to civility and an open culture but cruelty. "Cruel as Scots" used to be a popular turn of phrase, and one our ancestors earned in spades. Where ever the British had a plantation, from India, to Ireland, to the Americas and the Caribbean a Scotsman was happy to hold the whip. Even the Scottish culture hero Rabby Burns once accepted a role as an oversear in Jamaica, before one of his poems became the talk of the town in Edinburgh. If that burst of fame had never came, or even came two weeks too late the great ideal of Scottish working class liberalism, a man who celebrated the American revolution and wrote poems humanising the victims of Slavery wouldn't has missed his boat and instead have been out there defending Empire and keeping enslaved people in chains.

This part of the Scottish Diaspora would go on to largely run the Confederacy and even before that formed the base of that Southern American pseudo-aristocracy. There's a reason the Confederacy flew the cross of Saint Andrew when going into battle.

Maybe these annoying Americans aren't the victims of ethnic strife, but the perpetrators? Does that mean it's easier to dismiss them?

A further kink in the story is the on going conflict between Scottish and British identity. In modern times this is largely tied to loyalty to the UK or desire for an independent Scotland, but religion and ethnicity also comes into this to add their own unique flavours. Can people with no ties to the land, having never once set foot in it identify as Scottish? Can people born and raised here deny their Scottishness? Can we really seperate out British and Scottish identity into two seperate things cleanly? Scotland struggles to do this now, define what is Scottish and what is British.

Glasgow is definitely seen as the Scottish City, while Edinburgh is the British, some times referred to as an English city by people on the West Coast (not as a compliment) but if you were to look into the history of either of these cities you would be puzzled as to why. Glasgow was once the second largest city in the British Empire, the second city of empire, it's shipyards growing to accommodate the empire's needs, it's geography defined by the wealth flowing into merchant square. Edinburgh on the otherhand had been the seat of power for Scottish kings, the cultural heart of the lowlands, and Scotland as a whole.

Scotland is also the birth place of the Enlightenment. Sounds silly but largely due to a mix of education access provided by the Church of Scotland, and wealth and opportunities provided by the British Empire Scotland emerged as the first major place in the world to support a middle class. Class, culture and identity all being interlinked this further divorced the diaspora from Scotland, and helped create a second great wave of Scottish emigrates, ready to administer the empire, with at varying times around 2/3 of employees of both the British Raj and East India Company being made up of Scots.

This also created a well educated but low income class of Scots who suddenly had the chance and ability to find employment abroad, something that developed into a tradition kept up to this day, and largely why I exist. Maybe these 23andMe Scots aren't the result of ethnic cleansing, or the remnants of the evils of empire but simply people that left their homes to find work, who found new homes away from Scotland.

I don't really have a nice conclusion to this rant, culture isn't a dead thing drowned in formaldehyde that can be studied and examined in stillness. I don't really know, and these are all very big questions to be brought out because I saw a very annoying American tourist.

[saintsenara]

scylla and charybdis - the masterpost

severus snape is looking for somewhere - anywhere - to belong. he makes the wrong choice.

severus snape/lord voldemort explicit graphic depictions of violence | major character death

read from the beginning here

chapter summaries: 1 2

author's notes: 1 2

moodboards: 1 2

this is a story about the pain of coming of age, the difficulty of choice, and the long shadow of regret.

scylla and charybdis are mythical sea monsters from greek mythology, who live on either side of the strait of messina, which separates the island of sicily from the italian mainland.

fast-flowing and with a unique current, the strait is one of the most difficult-to-cross maritime routes in the world. that is, to get from scylla to charybdis is to have to travel from one very difficult thing to another.

the phrase 'between scylla and charybdis' has, in english, similar connotations to 'being between a rock and a hard place'. which is to say, it represents being in a situation where one is stuck between two equally dangerous or impossible extremes, often with disastrous results.

it is a story about a lonely boy seeking a home.

scylla and charybdis is set between december 1976 and october 1981. it is canon compliant apart from its central pairing, which means it ends with lord voldemort going to the potters' to meet his almost-death.

it addresses why severus snape became a death eater and why he turned spy against the dark lord.

it shows him trapped between the life of grinding poverty which awaits him in the muggle world and the life of terror and bloodshed which the death eaters provide.

it shows him stuck between comfort and belonging.

it shows him torn between several people who have power over him.

it shows a generation caught between apathy and destruction.

it shows impending disaster.

it is a story about the future and a story about the past.

woven through the seventies setting are glimpses of snape's thoughts about the period in his later life. after all, he too is one of a pair, like scylla and charybdis - the feral boy of his youth and the grieving man of his adulthood, and the lost child trapped between them, just looking for somewhere to belong.

it is also a love story.

[potteresque-ire]

Chinese Central Television (CCTV) Reporting on Homosexuality: 2005-2017

CCTV is the state-controlled broadcaster of China, and its reporting on sociopolitical issues is often seen as reflecting the stance of the regime. I found this link (in Chinese) that marks the major milestones in how the station has chosen to report Chinese LGBT+ issues between 2005 and 2017. As this was published on the Chinese equivalent of Quora, I cannot vouch for its completeness, but the items on it do match existing news reports (which I’ll link below) and I believe this timeline may also be of interest to some. 

I’ve jotted down some key points under the cut. As usual, this is an ongoing lesson for me as well, and so, please feel free to jump in, add more things and point out mistakes!

(TL;DR: Things looked upward until 2013. Then, in 2017, things took a rapid turn downhill...)

BACKGROUND — Prior to 2005 : * 1997: China de-criminalized homosexuality, which used to fall under the umbrella of “hooliganism”. * 2001: China removed homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in Chinese Classification and Diagnostic Criteria of Mental Disorders (Chinese equivalent of DSM). However, homosexuals are still judged to be requiring psychiatric help. 2005: For the first time, CCTV investigated the lives of gays in China -- in the context of a budding AIDS crisis. This was the first time this up-to-10 million strong minority group found itself in the spotlight. I found a link (with English subtitles!) here of one of the shows, <<新聞調查·以生命的名義>>. The host was Chai Jing (柴靜), a well-known investigative reporter who would, in 2015, make an independent documentary about China’s pollution problem, Under the Dome, that would subsequently get banned. 

Some things to notice in this investigative report:  1) The high % of gay men who got married (90%).  2) How the show thoroughly omitted Communist China’s role in demonising homosexuality.  3) This memorable quote by the first AIDS-prevention specialist in China, Professor Zhang Beichuan (張北川), after being asked why Chinese society still viewed homosexuality as “abnormal”:

因為他們（違？）背了一種很落後的認識。 這種落後的認識就是說，性應該服從於生育。 把無知當作純潔。把愚昧當作德行。把偏見當作原則。

“Because they have this very backward belief, that sex is to serve reproduction. People take ignorance as innocence, foolish as purity, and prejudice as principle.”

4. Chongqing, being the test spot for the AIDS prevention program.

The tone of these shows towards homosexuality was positive.

2009:

On 11/29/2009, CCTV news reported that the city government of Dali, Yunan offered 120,000 RMB (~15,000 USD at today’s exchange rate) in funding to open a gay bar. The bar was to offer sex education and free condoms, and be staffed with volunteers from a local NGO that worked to prevent AIDS. The host called for attention towards the prejudice and unfair treatment of gays.

(The bar failed to open on its official opening date, December 1st -- World AIDS Day. The day after the newscast, the doctor who founded the bar, Zhang Jianbo, was taken away by officials. His hospital was inundated by calls. The rest of the volunteers were asked to leave the bar, and to never disclose the address of the bar again. They were reportedly assumed gay and harassed. The next day, Dr Zhang was quoted that the bar had stayed empty as potential customers refused to show up due to media scrunity. The bar finally opened on 12/20/2009).

2011: On 06/29/2011, after New York State legalised gay marriage, the actress Lv Liping (呂麗萍), a born-again Christian (note: China’s Christianity is state-controlled), caused a controversy on Weibo by quoting a New York pastor and calling homosexuality “a shame” and “a sin”. 

The surprise came when a well-respected news magazine on CCTV, 24 hours, defended LGBT+ groups openly and in no-uncertain terms, demanding the actress to self-reflect and asking for an end to the prejudice. Here’s the quote from the host, Xiu Qiming (邱啟明):

“我想，作为一个社会名人，有影响力的名人，自己应该反思或者反省一下。我们尊重名人本人的信仰，甚至我们也允许他们对事物有自己独特的看法，但是，这并不等于去认同一个具有社会影响力的公众人物可以如此公开地对一个在中国社会还有些特殊的群体去表达你的歧视。不用回避，在我们身边有一部分人的取向和大多数人是不同的，但是，他们也在为这个社会辛勤地付出着。同性恋者和我们一样，都拥有在这个社会当中生存和发展的权利，并且这样的权利不应该受到哪怕是观念上的侵犯。我们想对同性恋人群说一声，套用一句我们非常熟悉的话，‘我可以不认同你生活的方式，但我愿意捍卫你不同于我的生活的权利。’”

“I believe, as a famous, influential person (referring to Lv), one should contemplate or self-reflect for a moment. We respect the religious beliefs of famous people, we even allow them to have unique views on matters. However, that doesn’t mean we agree with an influential public figure so publicly expressing their discrimination against a group that has remained somewhat special in Chinese society. There’s no need to avoid this topic -- there exist some people around us whose orientation differs from most people. But they’re also diligently contributing to this society. Homosexuals are like us; they have the same rights to live and thrive in this society. They also have the right to not be assaulted, even if it’s just by opinions. We’d like to say to homosexuals this phrase we know so well, “I may not agree with the way you live, but I’m willing to defend your right to live a different life from mine.”

This one-minute clip was considered highly significant for LGBT+ rights in China. 

2013: On 05/17/2013, CCTV news posted on its official Weibo about the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. It ends with “放下偏見和敵意，你我做得到!" （”Put down your prejudice and animosity, you and I can do it!”)

2017: 

[Not CCTV related, but worth mentioning. On 05/26/2017, two days after Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage, Chinese authorities shut down the lesbian social media platform, Rela.]

On 06/24/2017, a lesbian musician from Hong Kong, Ellen Loo (盧凱彤), thanked her partner in a Taiwan awards show. Her segment was blacked out in China’s broadcast.

On 06/30/2017, also the day German parliament legalized same-sex marriage,  the censorship board updated its 2012 guidances for web-based audio-visual programmes and caused an uproar in the LGBT+ community:

“而《通则》中明确，网络视听节目中含有下列内容或情节的，应予以剪截、删除后播出；问题严重的，整个节目不得播出，具体包括：... — 渲染淫秽色情和庸俗低级趣味的，包括具体展现卖淫、嫖娼、淫乱、强奸、自慰等情节；表现和展示非正常的性关系、性行为，如乱伦、同性恋、性变态、性侵犯、性虐待及性暴力等；展示和宣扬不健康的婚恋观和婚恋状态，如婚外恋、一夜情、性自由、换妻等“

“And the guidances state clearly, that the following content or plotline in any web-based audio-visual programmes should be edited or deleted before broadcasting; those with serious issues, the whole programme will not be allowed to broadcast. They include: ...

— Advocation of pornography or cheap humour; including specific displays of prostitution, promiscuity, rape, masturbation; displays of abnormal sexual relationships and behaviour, including incest, homosexuality, sexual perversion, sexual harassment, sexual abuse and violence; displays and preaching of unhealthy views and conditions regarding marriage, such as extramarital affairs, one night stand, sexual freedom, wife swaps etc.”

LGBT+ rights advocates, unhappy with queer relationships denoted as “abnormal”, demanded an explanation from the censorship board. The request was denied. 

On 07/24/2017, Professor Li Yinhe (李銀河), sociologist, partner of a transgender man and an outspoken advocate for LGBT+, was silenced (禁言； the same term as the “magic” LWJ used on WWX to silence him) for 3 months. 

[Bonus: Here’s a photo reportedly taken in Chongqing on 07/01/2017, the day after the new censorship regulations were introduced (source):]]

[putschki1969]

My Experience with Japanese Online Shops, International Shipping and Proxy Services

In the last few months I have ordered from many different Japanese online stores and I have made use of a bunch of new international shipping and proxy services so I thought it would be a good idea to sum up my experiences and write a little review so everyone knows what to expect. Without further ado, let’s get to it.

Content

tenso

Buyee

WorldShopping

HMV International Shipping

CDJapan

Amazon.co.jp

1. tenso.com

A staple for everyone who wants to register for various Japanese services (e.g. fan clubs, streaming platforms, etc) or enjoys shopping in Japanese online shops. It cannot be said often or loud enough how indispensable tenso is for fans of anything Japanese, their service is a true lifesaver! The H-el-ical// Online store even recommends using them! These days many Japanese sites accept foreign payment methods but one thing that’s still almost always required is a Japanese address. And that’s where tenso comes in. They will provide you for free with a Japanese address and phone number which you can use to register on almost any site. You can have your fan club stuff and purchased items sent to that address (the tenso warehouse) and they will then ship it to you. There are not a whole lot of shipping options available but that’s fine. Air Mail is definitely their best offer but if your package is too big you will end up having to choose EMS (which is quite pricey but typically very fast - not during the pandemic tho, at least not for Austria). A big advantage is the possibility to edit the package description. You can lower the value of your items to avoid import taxes and custom fees in your country. Please note that tenso does require an identity verification which might act as a deterrent but I can assure you, they are totally trust-worthy and reliable. I get a LOT of use out of them. Of course I have all my FC related stuff sent to their warehouse but tenso also came in handy for my orders on Tower Records Online, Animate Online and the Universal Shop/H-el-ical Shop/mu-mo Shop.

※ With the exception of the Universal Shop, I was able to pay at all the above mentioned stores with my foreign VISA.

2. Buyee

Another staple and the very first proxy service I ever used. You will need them in all those places that do not accept foreign payment methods (there are still too many out there unfortunately). Their customer service is impeccable and I have never had issues with them. They have gone as far as to contact Japanese stores on my behalf even though it is not part of their usual service. They offer a very wide range of features and shipping options, their service fees are also not too high (although I will admit that they have slightly increased throughout the years). They operate on so many different Japanese online shops, it’s rare to find a big store that does not collaborate with them. Also, if you want to thrift Kalafina related items, THIS is your go-to service. Be it Yahoo Auctions, Mercari or Suruga-ya, you can use Buyee on all those sites. They even have their own English user-interface for some of the major Japanese online stores and you can take advantage of their browser add-on which makes shopping a lot easier. The only downside is that they will not allow edits to the package value so if you live in a bureaucratic country like myself with very strict tax and custom regulations, you will have to make sure to send your packages wisely or just expect to pay quite a lot of fees. This time I used them to order my Wakana cover album copies from Rakuten Books (I REALLY wanted their tokuten). Since Buyee offers the biggest variety of shipping options, I got these copies before anything else, they were here super fast.

※ It’s funny how I am able to register my credit card for Rakuten Pay in order to purchase music on mora.jp but I cannot use that very same credit card to actually buy stuff on Rakuten.

3. WorldShopping

A fairly new service as far as I know but it seems like they are quickly expanding and trying to give Buyee a run for their money. Their banner has been popping up on almost all Japanese sites I have visited in the past few months but up until recently I wasn’t really feeling like trying a new service (I am always hesitant when it comes to new stuff). At least until I found myself in dire need of the Sofmap store specific tokuten for Wakana’s cover album XD. Unfortunately Sofmap does not accept foreign payment methods and Buyee also does not operate on their site so I took a leap of faith and made my purchase through WorldShopping since their banner looked so inviting. It was surprisingly straighforward since they are providing their own interface on the Japanese sites. I didn’t even have to go to the WorldShopping main page to register or anything before using the service. Their fees are acceptable but not exactly low. I was a little wary because I didn’t have a proper account but they did provide a link in the initial email where I could more or less keep track of everything. It took VERY long for my purchased item to be registered at their warehouse (for tenso and Buyee it takes around 1 day) and I didn’t get a notification email that it had arrived so those are not the best aspects of their service. The only shipping method they seem to offer is EMS (which again, is very pricey). Anyways, at the end of the day, my package arrived unscathed in Austria (including the tokuten) so I am a happy camper. While I will probably not be using their service regularly in the future I can still recommend WorldShopping to you with a clear conscience. But please keep in mind to check your status link regularly!

※ Please note that the WorldShipping interface in Japanese online shops overrides the site’s very own purchasing option so if you want to make an order using your own account with your tenso address and a domestic shipping method (let’s say in the mu-mo shop for example) you will have to deactive all WorldShopping services on the page.

4. HMV & BOOKS Online International Shipping

Another first for me. I had no idea they offered international shipping so when I saw the little button on KEIKO’s Lantana page, I couldn’t resist. Since Amazon.co.jp is no longer an option for me, I was desperate to find other stores that offered international shipping and tokutens. Unfortunately, their international shipping service is not a very good replacement for Amazon.co.jp since it takes VERY long. I registered as a guest and made my order without any trouble. I expected them to ship the item on the release day (or the day prior) but that was not the case. I am almost entirely sure that they use a “hidden” proxy service but still promote it as direct shipping. Which is why the process is taking so long. I think it wasn’t until the fifth day after the release date that I finally received the shipping confirmation. Also, don’t get thrown off by weird phrasing in their e-mails. They kept saying that they had shipped “the first part of my order” when in fact there was only one part. Since they only offered EMS as shipping option it once again took quite a while for the package to get to me even though the shipping fee was very high (please note that EMS is typically very fast but as I mentioned earlier, COVID-19 has changed everything). Overall, I can’t really complain about their service, if you are willing to wait a while, HMV International Shipping is definitely worth a try. HMV always have some of the best tokutens so be sure to check it out.

※ I originally tried to register properly but that turned out to be quite complicated so I recommend registering as a guest just like I did.

5. CDJapan

The first site I ever used to order Kalafina-items. I have never had issues with them. They are very reliable and of course the best thing is that they ship directly to your country. However, these days I hardly ever shop at CDJapan anymore because they rarely have tokutens. Also, items you purchase on their site will not be calculated into the daily and weekly sales data for Oricon music charts so that sucks. As you know, I want to support my girls as best as possible (and that means contributing to their chart numbers). Sometimes CDJapan do offer tokutens so they are definitely a viable option for foreign fans. They have lots of payment and shipping methods to choose from and typically their packages arrive very quickly. I bought Hikaru’s RE of “disclose” (only the LE came with tokutens) and one of my “Lantana” copies (CDJapan did in fact have a tokuten for that. YAY).

※ If for some reason, CDJapan isn’t your cup of tea or doesn’t work for you I think YESASIA is a good alternative. However, I haven’t used their service yet so I am not sure how reliable they are. They offer free shipping if your order total exceeds a certain amount so that’s definitely pretty neat!

6. Amazon.co.jp

Amazon.co.jp has been very reliable for the past few years but this year they have really let me down. Just like HMV they do offer an international shipping service but theirs is actually a DIRECT shipping service and it’s SUPER fast. Also they estimate the import/customs fees of your respective country and they charge a deposit which they can use to pay the customs office to speed up the shipping procedure. If this doesn’t happen, packages will usually end up being stuck at customs for a very long time until they have been processed. Last but not least, they often have some of the coolest and most unique tokutens. These are all reasons why I loved to use them but it seems like the pandemic screwed things up for many foreign fans. When I was logged in and checking the product pages of the Kala-solo-releases, they would either show me that everything was out of stock from the get-go or no longer shippable to my country. However, when I wasn’t logged in and checked the Japanese version of the product page I saw that there were in fact still copies available. Now that the pre-order period is over they seem to have restocked a little bit and some versions have finally become available again for foreigners. For example, I could now technically order the LE of “Lantana” with a tokuten. I really wonder why that stuff wasn’t there when I needed it *grumbles*

※ I am not 100% sure if the pandemic caused all these issues but I kinda hope that was the reason because that would mean that next year things will hopefully work fine again. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

[dulce-deleche]

Adjusting, Finding Comfort, and Making New Discoveries

I stepped foot in this grand city at the mere age of seven years old. Being only but a child, I didn’t really comprehend why I was moving to an entirely different country. All I knew was that I had family here and so to me, that was reason enough as to why my parents had chosen for us to move. However, as I’ve grown older I’ve discovered that while that could have been part of the reason, the real purpose of our moving was to provide my sister and I with better opportunities. This was so that we could have better futures than the ones predestined to our parents who weren’t lucky enough to have all of the resources that have been provided to us now. 

To my parents, my sister’s and I’s education has always been a priority. As you know, a good education is the key to a successful life/future, at least that is what most parents drill into their children's minds. But, when you arrive in a country where you do not speak the language or know the customs, it’s a bit difficult to learn. First and foremost, I had to get a grasp on the language, which came to me surprisingly easily. But, it took a lot of effort and concentration on my part. I recall staying after school for the majority of my first school year in order to receive extra help. It had first started out with learning the sounds of each letter and then we progressed to reading books, which would always be below the level of the other students’ in the class because I was still only learning English. It only took a little over a year for me to fully comprehend the English language, although there were always cases where I didn’t understand a certain word or phrase. I believe that I was able to absorb it more quickly though, because I was still so young and children, as we know, are fast learners.

Looking back at it now, I also think that if it hadn’t been for the support of my third grade teacher, which was the grade I had started attending school here, my capacity to learn English so efficiently would not have been possible. I’m not only thankful to her for that reason, but also for introducing me to various books, which triggered my now immense and utter love for reading. I still even own a book that she gifted to me about 11 years ago!

However, things were not always easy, there were many hardships that I still had to endure after moving here. The truth is that even though learning English wasn’t as much of a struggle as I had initially thought it would be, there were other aspects of life in New York that were not as straightforward to deal with. For example, the concept of “fitting in” has always been one I’ve struggled with. I’m not sure if it’s because of the cultural differences, my lack of social skills, or both. The point is that for a long time, I felt a bit alienized among my classmates. It was hard to make one friend let alone two, so while I was a good student, I remained with an unshakable sense of lonesomeness. This persisted throughout elementary and especially middle school, where even though I excelled academically, I was miserable.

I found great comfort in art. It’s one of those things that I instantly fell in love with the moment I discovered it. It didn’t matter if it was drawing or creating collages with cut up images from magazines, I always managed to lose myself in it almost entirely. I remember taking an art class in the seventh grade and enjoying being able to use my (although limited) artistic abilities to bring my, often idiosyncratic, ideas into fruition. Art was not only something I experienced in school but something that I also experienced throughout my neighborhood as well, where there is graffiti art in almost every street. I always tried deciphering the written words or attempting to make sense of the more whimsical illustrations. It was fun and served me as a distraction from school bullies and my lack of friends.

Moreover, I have discovered that, for me, a life without art would be an immensely dull and melancholic one. I feel that, one way or another, we all benefit from the art around us, (whether we choose to recognize it or not). From the art we see in museums, that is always greatly appreciated by the masses, to the art we witness around our neighborhoods, which we do not always take into account and tend to overlook. This art deserves a lot more appreciation and recognition than we give it. It does not only shape our neighborhoods, but has the power to give them a sense of personality and uniqueness that sets them apart from any other place. Graffiti in particular is an art form that carries a bad reputation and in turn, not a lot of recognition. Here in New York City, we see it all around us and yet many of us are guilty of brushing it off or frowning upon it, which is rather unfortunate since many talented artists spend a great deal of time creating them. I have always found it appealing that we are able to enjoy this type of art without having to go far or pay any sum of money to view it and yet, it is definitely an advantage that we take for granted. Additionally, the art in our neighborhoods is oftentimes inspired from our very own cultures and is meant to further emphasize them. It’s always nice to walk outside and see either a well known latin figure or something pertaining to my culture, in the streets of my community. It just goes to show that we are seen and that we are not alone. A world without any type of art, is definitely not one which I would find appealing. To me, art will always be something that will bring me vast amounts of both joy and comfort.

Here I’ve included some cool art I saw around or near my neighborhood while taking a walk last week:

Photographs taken by me April 28th, 2021

[bookshopkat]

Asian Fantasy Novels for the Lunar New Year

Photo by Thyla Jane

Happy Year of the Ox!  The Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, is a major celebration in many Asian countries.  Marking the first new moon of the lunar calendar, this celebration lasts for days and is a time for family and friends, lantern festivals, dragon and lion dances, gifts of money, fireworks, and feasts.  There’s something enchanting about the Lunar New Year, with its bright lanterns lining every street and its sparkling starbursts lighting the night sky.  At its heart is tradition, cultural beliefs, and a mixture of mythology and magic.  Simple charms are used to bring good luck and drive away evil.  The supernatural has a firm place amid the celebrations, from shoe-stealing ghosts in South Korea to Vietnamese kitchen gods to the lion-like monster Nian in China.  As such, this holiday presents a marvelous opportunity to both celebrate various Asian cultures and conjure a sense of wonder.  So, to celebrate the Lunar New Year, here are four fantasy novels rooted in Asian culture and lore.

Jade City by Fonda Lee

On the island of Kekon, jade grants those with the ability to wield it special powers, but promises pain and death for anyone lacking the right genetics who tries to use it.  As a result, jade smuggling is a profitable business and those families with the capacity to use the mineral, called Jade Bones, make up the highest class of society. But now ordinary citizens are somehow gaining the ability to use jade, and it is throwing the society of Kekon into turmoil.  As suspicion fuels inter-clan warfare among the noble class, the future of the island nation hangs in the balance.  In the midst of this chaos stands three siblings. Kaul Lan, the new, young, peace-loving leader of his family, finds himself faced with the uncomfortable necessity of bloodshed as he tries to steer his clan through these uncertain times.  Lan’s brother, the hot-tempered and passionate Kaul Hilo, is like a warrior straight out of old tales: honorable, protective, and hungry for battle and glory.  Their sister, Shae, is an independent modern woman who chose to cast aside her jade along with her traditional roles in favor of freedom and marriage to an outsider.  Added to this cast of characters is Wen, Hilo’s forbidden lover, who is burdened by the combination of coming from a disgraced family and being a rare Stone Eye, a supposedly cursed person completely immune to jade.  All four have their differences and disagreements, and the tension between them mirrors the growing strain in their homeland at large.  It will take them all, however, to find out who is responsible for the dangerous drug allowing non-Jade Bones to wield the sacred stone before it is too late.

This is a novel that bridges high fantasy and urban fantasy, weaving a tale of heroism, betrayal, and intrigue against the backdrop of a thoroughly modernized enchanted society. Lee’s narrative is intricate and interesting, her world building is exceptional, and her magical system is comprehensive and intelligent.  Running throughout the entire tale are elements of Chinese myth and culture, with folklore concerning gods and monsters playing a vital part.  Complex, well-written, and engaging, Jade City is grand and unique fantasy adventure.

Tears of the Wind by Phung Lam

This collection of short stories is a touching as it is magical.  Taking place on the fictional Island of Wishes, each tale explores human nature and the deepest desires people harbor in dark corners of their minds. From a lonely heart seeking solace to a soul hungry with ambition, this anthology explores the not only the power of wishes, but the question: what would people do if the one thing they truly wanted most could be theirs?  It’s basically impossible to find an English version of this book, and I had to rely on the Smart Book translation application for the ebook format.  That led to some odd phrasing in portions of the text, but the collection was nonetheless enjoyable. That is because Lam writes not only with imagination but also with a keen understanding of humanity.

The narratives are dreamlike, the content somewhat akin to magical realism and the tone ultimately surrealistic.  Ranging from heartrending to horrifying, Lam weaves stories about the darkest parts of ourselves, when we harbor wishes we dare not name, as well as about the unforeseen and often terrible consequences of getting exactly what we think we want.  The author explores the nature of love, the power of longing, and the baser side of our very nature. It’s an engaging collection that seems, and its core, to turn upon one basic thought: be careful what you wish for.

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

Set in late-nineteenth-century Malaya, on the island of Borneo, this novel sparkles with folk beliefs and superstitions.  Li Lan is a spirited girl and only child from a family wrapped in what can only be called genteel poverty.  Her life is certainly not perfect—her mother is dead, her father, although loving, has allowed his grief to lead to opium addiction, and her marriage prospects are extremely limited—but things aren’t so very bad.  Apart from occasional longings for beautiful new clothing such as she sees other wealthier girls sporting, Li Lan would be reasonably content if it weren’t for one thing: her father has asked her if she would like become a ghost bride.  He says it almost as a joke, but the moment he speaks the words, the wheels of fate start to turn. The rare tradition of ghost brides is meant to mollify the spirits of wealthy young men who died without marrying, and it presents both tempting and terrifying prospects. While accepting would mean financial help for her aging father as well as a place for Li Lan herself in one of Malacca city’s most affluent households, it would also mean giving up any dreams of love, passion, or children of her own.

Li Lan, of course, refuses, especially when she starts to develop feelings for another decided living man.  But the choice may not be as easy as the thinks.  She finds herself haunted by Lim Tiang Ching, her spectral suitor, and he is determined to have her.  Tiang Ching, the young woman soon learns, was selfish and cruel when he was alive, and death hasn’t improved him. Desperate, Li Lan seeks the help of a local wise woman, and unwittingly finds herself embroiled in a supernatural struggle where ghosts are all too real and her only hope hangs on a mysterious young man who may be more than he seems, and who is most definitely keeping secrets.  On top of that, she begins to realize that the Lim family is harboring some dark secrets of their own, and one of them may be deadly.  

Choo’s narrative is imaginative as well as brimming with cultural folklore and traditions.  A blend of mystery and fantasy, it is engaging from start to finish.  Many of the characters are interesting and a little quirky, although a couple feel less well developed and there were a few moments when I felt the protagonist was a bit too flighty for my tastes. Nonetheless, this is a fun, entertaining fantasy book, perfect for an evening of light reading with a cup of tea or coffee at your side.

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller

This is a truly wonderful novel blending together magical realism, mythology, family drama, and a deeply touching coming of age tale. It’s a beautifully written and imaginative narrative where opposites don’t so much collide as they do interweave in a complex dance.  Dreams tangle with reality, childhood blurs with adolescence, Korean tradition intersects with modern America, folklore mingles with daily life, and stories become solid enough to touch. Through it all runs a profound understanding of emotion and the human spirit.

Lily has always loved visiting her Korean grandmother, catching stars to learn what stories they hold and listening to traditional tales from their ancestral homeland.  This, however, is different.  Now Lily, along with her mother and her sister, are moving in with the old woman because Lily’s grandmother is sick, and isn’t getting any better.  A new city, a new school, and new fears about her beloved relative would all be difficult enough, but Lily has another problem: upon arriving, she sees a tiger straight out of one of her grandmother’s tales.  This is both a metaphor for many things: words unsaid, terminal illness, fear, and long-ago mistakes.   It is, however, also an introduction of the magical real.  Upon informing her grandmother about the big cat, Lily begins unraveling the old woman’s greatest tale yet, and takes the first step in a personal journey to discover family secrets and leave her childhood behind.  As marvelous as it is heartfelt, When You Trap a Tiger addresses conflicts between generations and cultures, as well as the reconciliation of the past, through the lens myths and storytelling. At its core, this is a novel about the power of both love and stories, as well as about one girl finding herself.

Perhaps one of these books will make an excellent companion over the next several days as celebrations of the Lunar New Year progress. Blending Asian folklore with a sense of the fantastic, these works may prove to be the perfect way for those not immersed in these festivities to still capture a bit of the season’s spirit.  Readers hungry for an interesting narrative that is a little out of the ordinary will likely find any one of these to be a feast for the imagination, as well as a wonderful way to start of the Year of the Ox.  Happy Reading!

[za3k]

2020 Videogames

In 2020 I’m newly retired, so I’ve had free time. I think it’s fun to do reviews, so without further ado here’s every video game I played in 2020!

I recommend:

(4/5) Among Us – Very fun. It’s only fun with voice chat with friends, so I’ve only gotten to play once or twice. I’ve been watching it more than playing it. Also free to play for mobile gamers–I’m tired of the “everyone buys a copy” model of group gameplay.

(4/5) Brogue. Brogue is an ascii-art roguelike. It’s great, and it has a nice difficulty ramp. It’s a good “quick break” game. I play it in preference to other roguelikes partly because I haven’t done it to death yet, and partly because I don’t need a numpad?

(4/5) Cook Serve Delicious 3. One of the more fun games I played this year. You get really into it, but I had trouble relaxing and paying attention to the real world when I played too much, haha. I own but haven’t played the first two–I gather this is pretty much just a refinement.

(4/5) Green Hell. Price tag is a bit high for the number of hours I got out of it, but I haven’t finished the story. Great graphics, and the BEST map design I’ve seen in a 3D game in a long time. It feels like a real place, with reasonable geography instead of copy-pasted tiles. I love that as you walk along, you can just spot a cultivated area from the rest of the jungle–it feels more like it’s treating me like an adult than most survival games. Everything still gets highlighted if you can pick it up. I played the survival mode, which was okay but gets old quickly. I started the story mode–I think it would be fine, but it has some LONG unskippable scenes at the start, including a very hand-holdy tutorial, that I think they should have cut. I did start getting into the story and was having fun, but I stopped. I might finish the game some time.

(4/5) Hyperrogue. One of my recent favorites. The dev has made a fair number of highly experimental games, most of which are a total miss with me, but this one is fun. I do wish the early game wasn’t quite as repetitive. Failing another solution, I might actually want this not to be permadeath, or to have a save feature? I bought it on steam to support the dev and get achievements, but it’s also available a version or two behind free, which is how I tried it. Constantly getting updates and new worlds.

(4/5) Minecraft – Compact Claustrophobia modpack. Fun idea, nice variety. After one expansion felt a little samey, and it was hard to start with two people. I’d consider finishing this pack.

(4/5) Overcooked 2. Overcooked 2 is just more levels for Overcooked. The foods in the second game is more fun, and it has better controls and less bugs. If you’re considering playing Overcooked, I recommend just starting with the second game, despite very fun levels in the first. I especially appreciate that the second game didn’t just re-use foods from the first.

(4/5) Please Don’t Press Anything. A unique little game where you try to get all the endings. I had a lot of fun with this one, but it could have used some kind of built-in hints like Reventure. Also, it had a lot of red herrings. Got it for $2, which it was well worth.

(5/5) Reventure. Probably the best game new to me this year. It’s a short game where you try to get each of about 100 endings. The art and writing are cute and funny. The level design is INCREDIBLE. One thing I found interesting is the early prototype–if I had played it, I would NOT have imagined it would someday be any fun at all, let alone as amazing as it is. As a game designer I found that interesting! I did 100% complete this one–there’s a nice in-game hint system, but there were still 1-3 “huh” puzzles, especially in the post-game content, one of which I had to look up. It’s still getting updates so I’m hoping those will be swapped for something else.

(5/5) Rimworld. Dwarf fortress, but with good cute graphics, set in the Firefly universe. Only has 1-10 pawns instead of hundreds of dwarves. Basically Dwarf Fortress but with a good UI. I wish you could do a little more in Rimworld, but it’s a fantastic, relaxing game.

(5/5) Slay the Spire. Probably the game I played most this year. A deckbuilding adventure through a series of RPG fights. A bit luck-based, but relaxing and fun. I like that you can play fast or slow. Very, very well-designed UI–you can really learn how things work. My favorite part is that because it’s singleplayer, it’s really designed to let you build a game-breaking deck. That’s how it should be!

(4/5) Stationeers. I had a lot of fun with this one. It’s similar to Space Engineers but… fun. It has better UI by a mile too, even if it’s not perfect. I lost steam after playing with friends and then going back to being alone, as I often do for base-building games. Looks like you can genuinely make some complicated stuff using simple parts. Mining might not be ideal.

(5/5) Spy Party. One of my favorite games. Very fun, and an incredibly high skill ceiling. There’s finally starting to be enough people to play a game with straners sometimes. Bad support for “hot seat”–I want to play with beginners in person, and it got even harder with the introduction of an ELO equivalent and removing the manual switch to use “beginner” gameplay.

(4/5) Telling Lies. A storytelling game. The core mechanic is that you can use a search engine for any phrase, and it will show the top 5 survellance footage results for that. The game internally has transcripts of every video. I didn’t really finish the game, but I had a lot of fun with it. The game was well-made. I felt the video acting didn’t really add a huge amount, and they could have done a text version, but I understand it wouldn’t have had any popular appeal. The acting was decent. There’s some uncomfortable content, on purpose.

(4/5) Totally Accurate Battle Simulator (TABS). Delightful. Very silly, not what you’d expect from the name. What everyone should have been doing with physics engines since they were invented. Imagine that when a caveman attacks, the club moves on its own and the caveman just gets ragdolled along, glued to it. Also the caveman and club have googley eyes. Don’t try to win or it will stop being fun. Learn how to turn on slo-mo and move the camera.

(4/5) We Were Here Together. Lots of fun. I believe the second game out of three. Still some crashes and UI issues. MUCH better puzzles and the grpahics are gorgeous. They need to fix the crashes or improve the autosave, we ended up replaying a lot of both games from crashes. It’s possible I should be recommending the third game but I haven’t played it yet.

The Rest

(3/5) 5D Chess with Multiverse Time Travel. More fun that it sounds. If you play to mess around and win by accident, it’s pretty good. Definitely play with a second human player, though.

(1.5/5) 7 billion humans. Better than the original, still not fun. Soulless game about a soulless, beige corporation. Just play Zachtronics instead. If you’re on a phone and want to engage your brain, play Euclidea.

(3/5) A Dark Room. Idle game.

(1/5) Amazing Cultivation Simulator. A big disappointment. Bad english voice acting which can’t be turned off, and a long, unskippable tutorial. I didn’t get to actual gameplay. I like Rimworld and cultivation novels so I had high hopes.

(3/5) ADOM (Steam version) – Fun like the original, which I would give 5/5. Developed some major issues on Linux, but I appreciate that there’s a graphical version available, one of my friends will play it now.

(4/5) agar.io – Good, but used to be better. Too difficult to get into games now. Very fun and addictive gameplay.

(3/5) Amorous – Furry dating sim. All of the hot characters are background art you can’t interact with, and the characters you can actually talk to are a bunch of sulky nerds who for some reason came to a nightclub. I think it was free, though.

(0/5) Apis. Alpha game, AFAIK I was the first player. Pretty much no fun right now (to the point of not really being a game yet), but it could potentially become fun if the author puts in work.

(4/5) Autonauts. I played a ton of Autonauts this year, almost finished it, which is rare for me. My main complaint is that it’s fundamentally supposed to be a game about programming robots, but I can’t actually make them do more than about 3 things, even as a professional programmer. Add more programming! It can be optional, that’s fine. They’re adding some kind of tower defense waves instead, which is bullshit. Not recommended because it’s not for everyone.

(3/5) A-Z Inc. Points for having the guts to have a simple game. At first this looked like just the bones of Swarm Simulator, but the more you look at the UI and the ascension system, the worse it actually is. I would regularly reset because I found out an ascension “perk” actually made me worse off.

(5/5) Beat Saber. Great game, and my favorite way to stay in shape early this year. Oculus VR only, if you have VR you already have this game so no need to recommend. Not QUITE worth getting a VR set just to play it at current prices.

(1/5) Big Tall Small. Good idea, but no fun to play. Needed better controls and level design, maybe some art.

(0.5/5) Blush Blush. Boring.

(3/5) Business Shark. I had too much fun with this simple game. All you do is just eat a bunch of office workers.

(3/5) chess.com. Turns out I like chess while I’m high?

(3/5) Circle Empires Rivals. Decent, more fun than the singleplayer original. It shouldn’t really have been a separate game from Circle Empires, and I’m annoyed I couldn’t get it DRM-free like the original.

(3/5) Cross Virus. By Dan-box. Really interesting puzzle mechanics.

(4/5) Cultist Simulator. Really fun to learn how to play–I love games that drop you in with no explanation. Great art and writing, I wish I could have gotten their tarot deck. Probably the best gameplay “ambience” I’ve seen–getting a card that’s labeled “fleeting sense of radiance” that disappears in 5 seconds? Great. Also the core stats are very well thought out for “feel” and real-life accuracy–dread (depression) conquers fascination (mania), etc. It has a few gameplay gotchas, but they’re not too big–layout issues, inability to go back to skipped text, or to put your game in an unwinnable state early on). Unfortunately it’s a “roguelike”, and it’s much too slow-paced and doesn’t have enough replay value, so it becomes a horrible, un-fun grind when you want to actually win. I probably missed the 100% ending but I won’t be going back to get it. I have no idea who would want to play this repeatedly. I’m looking forward to the next game from the same studio though! I recommend playing a friend’s copy instead of buying.

(2/5) Darkest Dungeon. It was fine but I don’t really remember it.

(2/5) Dicey Dungeons. Okay deck-building roguelike gameplay (with an inventory instead of a deck). Really frustrating, unskippably slow difficulty curve at the start. I played it some more this year and liked it better because I had a savegame. I appreciate having several character classes, but they should unlock every difficulty from the start.

(2/5) Diner Bros. Basically just a worse Overcooked. I didn’t like the controls, and it felt too repetitive with only one diner.

(2/5) Don’t Eat My Mind You Stupid Monster. Okay art and idea, the gameplay wasn’t too fun for me.

(2/5) Don’t Starve – I’ve played Don’t Stave maybe 8 different times, and it’s never really gripped me, I always put it back down. It’s slow, a bit grindy, and there’s no bigger goal–all you can do is live.

(3/5) Don’t Starve Together – Confusingly, Don’t Starve Together can be played alone. It’s Don’t Starve, plus a couple of the expansions. This really could be much more clearly explained.

(1/5) Elemental Abyss – A deck-builder, but this time it’s grid-based tactics. Really not all that fun. Just play Into the Abyss instead or something.

(1/5) Else Heart.Break() – I was excited that this might be a version of “Hack N’ Slash” from doublefine that actually delivered and let you goof around with the world. I gave it up in the first ten minutes, because the writing and characters drove me crazy, without getting to hacking the world.

(2/5) Everything is Garbage. Pretty good for a game jam game. Not a bad use of 10 minutes. I do think it’s probably possible to make the game unwinnable, and the ending is just nothing.

(1/5) Evolve. Idle game, not all that fun. I take issue with the mechanic in Sharks, Kittens, and this where buying your 15th fence takes 10^15 wood for some reason.

(4/5) Exapunks. Zachtronics has really been killing it lately, with Exapunks and Opus Magnum. WONDERFUL art and characters during story portions, and much better writing. The gameplay is a little more varied than in TIS-100 or the little I played of ShenZen I/O. My main complaint about Zachtronics games continues to be, that I don’t want to be given a series of resource-limited puzzles (do X, but without using more than 10 programming instructions). Exapunks is the first game where it becomes harder to do something /at all/, rather than with a particular amount of resources, but it’s still not there for me. Like ShenZen, they really go for a variety of hardware, too. Can’t recommend this because it’s really only for programmers.

(1/5) Exception. Programming game written by some money machine mobile games company. Awful.

(4/5) Factorio. Factorio’s great, but for me it doesn’t have that much replay value, even with mods. I do like their recent updates, which included adding blueprints from the start of the game, improving belt sorting, and adding a research queue. We changed movement speed, made things visually always day, and adding a small number of personal construction robots from the start this run. I’m sure if you’d like factorio you’ve played it already.

(3/5) Fall Guys – I got this because it was decently fun to watch. Unfortunately, it’s slightly less fun to play. Overall, there’s WAY too much matchmaking waiting considering the number of players, and the skill ceiling is very low on most of the games, some of which are essentially luck (I’m looking at you, team games).

(3/5) Forager – Decent game. A little too much guesswork in picking upgrades–was probably a bit more fun on my second play because of that. Overall, nice graphics and a cute map, but the gameplay could use a bit of work.

(3/5) Getting Over It – Funny idea, executed well. Pretty sure my friends and I have only gotten through 10% of the game, and all hit about the same wall (the first tunnel)

(3/5) Guild of Dungeoneering – Pretty decent gameplay. I feel like it’s a bit too hard for me, but that’s fine. Overall I think it could use a little more cute/fun art, I never quite felt that motivated.

(1/5) Hardspace: Shipbreakers. Okay, I seriously didn’t get to play this one, but I had GAMEBREAKING issues with my controller, which is a microsoft X-box controller for PC–THE development controller.

(2/5) Helltaker. All right art, meh gameplay. But eh, it’s free!

(3/5) Hot Lava. Decent gameplay. Somehow felt like the place that made this had sucked the souls out of all the devs first–no one cared about the story or characters. It’s a game where the floor is made out of lava, with a saturday morning cartoon open, so that was a really an issue. Admirable lack of bugs, though. I’m a completionist so I played the first world a lot to get all the medals, and didn’t try the later ones.

(3/5) House Flipper – Weird, but I had fun. I wish the gameplay was a little more unified–it felt like a bunch of glued-together minigames.

(2/5) Hydroneer. Utterly uninspiring. I couldn’t care about making progress at all, looked like a terrible grind to no benefit.

(1/5) io. Tiny game, I got it on Steam, also available on phone. Basically a free web flash game, but for money. Not good enough to pay the $1 I paid. Just a bit of a time-killer.

(3/5) Islanders – All you do is place buildings and get points. Not particularly challenging, but relaxing. Overall I liked it.

(3/5) Jackbox – I played this online with a streamer. Jackbox has always felt a little bit soulless money grab to me, but it’s still all right. I like that I can play without having a copy–we need more games using this purchase model.

(3/5) Life is Feudal – Soul-crushingly depressing and grindy, which I knew going in. I thought it was… okay, but I really want an offline play mode (Yes, I know there’s an unsupported single-player game, but it’s buggier and costs money). UI was pretty buggy, and I think hunting might literally be impossible.

(2/5) Minecraft – Antimatter Chemistry. Not particularly fun.

(3/5) Minecraft – ComputerCraft. I played a pack with just ComputerCraft and really nothing else. Was a little slow, would have been more fun with more of an audience. I love the ComputerCraft mod, I just didn’t have a great experience playing my pack I made.

(3/5) Minecraft – Foolcraft 3. Fun, a bit buggy. Honestly I can’t remember it too well.

(1/5) Minecraft – Manufactio. Looked potentially fun, but huge bugs and performance issues, couldn’t play.

(4/5) Minecraft – Tekkit. Tekkit remains one of my favorite Minecraft modpacks.

(3/5) Minecraft – Valhelsia 2. I remember this being fun, but I can’t remember details as much as I’d like. I think it was mostly based around being the latest version of minecraft?

(4/5) Minecraft – Volcano Block. Interesting, designed around some weird mods I hadn’t used. I could have used more storage management or bulk dirt/blocks early in the game–felt quite cramped. Probably got a third of the way through the pack. I got novelty value out of it, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed it if I had ever used the plant mod before–it’s a very fixed, linear progression.

(5/5) Minit. This is a weird, small game. I actually had a lot of fun with it. Then I 100% completed it, which was less fun but I still had a good time overall.

(3/5) Monster Box. By Dan-box. One of two Dan-box games I played a lot of. Just visually appealing, the gameplay isn’t amazing. Also, Dan-box does some great programming–this is a game written in 1990 or so, and it can render hundreds of arrows in the air smoothly in a background tab.

(3/5) Monster Train. A relatively fun deckbuilding card game. It can’t run well on my computer, which is UNACCEPTABLE–this is a card game with 2D graphics. My MICROWAVE should run this shit in 2020. Ignoring that, the gameplay style (summon monsters, MTG style) just isn’t my cup of tea.

(2/5) Moonlighter. Felt like it was missing some inspiration, just didn’t have a sense of “fun”. The art was nice. The credits list is surprisingly long.

(2/5) Muse Dash. All right, a basic rhythm game. Not enough variety to the game play, and everything was based around perfect or near-perfect gameplay, which makes things less fun for me.

(3/5) NES games – various. Dr Mario, Ice Climbers. Basically, I got some Chinese handheld “gameboy” that has all the NES games preloaded on it. Overall it was a great purchase.

(2/5) Noita. “The Powder Game” by Dan-Box, as a procedurally generated platformer with guns. Lets you design your own battle spells. Despite the description, you really still can’t screw around as much as I’d like. I also had major performance issues

(3/5) Observation. I haven’t played this one as much as I’d like, I feel like it may get better. Storytelling, 3D game from the point of view of the AI computer on a space station. I think I might have read a book it’s based on, unfortunately.

(2/5) One Step From Eden. This is a deck-building combat tactics game. I thought it was turn-based, but it’s actually realtime. I think if it was turn-based I would have liked it. The characters were a bit uninspired.

(1/5) Orbt XL. Very dull. I paid $0.50 for it, it was worth that.

(4/5) Opus Magnum. Another great game from Zachtronics, along with Exapunks they’re really ramping up. This is the third execution of the same basic concept. I’d like to see Zachtronics treading new ground more as far as gameplay–that said, it is much improved compared to the first two iterations. The art, writing, and story were stellar on the other hand.

(3/5) Out of Space. Fun idea, you clean a spaceship. It’s never that challenging, and it has mechanics such that it gets easier the more you clean, rather than harder. Good but not enough replay value. Fun with friends the first few times. The controls are a little wonky.

(1/5) Outpost (tower defense game). I hate all tower defense.

(3/5) Overcooked. Overcooked is a ton of fun.

(4/5) Powder Game – Dan-box. I played this in reaction to not liking Noita. It’s fairly old at this point. Just a fun little toy.

(1/5) Prime Mover – Very cool art, the gameplay put me to sleep immediately. A “circuit builder” game but somehow missing any challenge or consistency.

(2/5) Quest for Glory I. Older, from 1989. Didn’t really play this much, I couldn’t get into the writing, and the pseudo-photography art was a little jarring.

(4/5) Raft. I played this in beta for free on itch.io, and had a lot of fun. Not enough changed that it was really worth a replay, but it has improved, and I got to play with a second player. Not a hard game, which I think was a good thing. The late game they’ve expanded, but it doesn’t really add much. The original was fun and so was this.

(3/5) Satisfactory. I honestly don’t know how I like this one–I didn’t get too far into it.

(4/5) Scrap Mechanic. I got this on a recommendation from a player who played in creative. I only tried the survival mode–that mode is not well designed, and their focuses for survival are totally wrong. I like the core game, you can actually build stuff. If I play again, I’ll try the creative mode, I think.

(3.5/5) Shapez.io. A weird, abstracted simplification of Factorio. If I hadn’t played factorio and half a dozen copies, I imagine this would have been fun, but it’s just more of the same. Too much waiting–blueprints are too far into the game, too.

(2.5/5) Simmiland. Okay, but short. Used cards for no reason. For a paid game, I wanted more gameplay out of it?

(0.5/5) Snakeybus. The most disappointing game I remember this year. Someone made “Snake” in 3D. There are a million game modes and worlds to play in. I didn’t find anything I tried much fun.

(1/5) Soda Dungeon. A “mobile” (read: not fun) style idle game. Patterned after money-grab games, although I don’t remember if paid progress was actually an option. I think so.

(4/5) Spelunky. The only procedurally generated platformer I’ve ever seen work. Genuinely very fun.

(4/5) Spelunky 2. Fun, more of an upgrade of new content than a new game. Better multiplayer. My computer can’t run later levels at full speed.

(1/5) Stick Ranger 2. Dan-box. Not much fun.

(3/5) Superliminal. Fun game. A bit short for the pricetag.

(3/5) Tabletop Simulator – Aether’s End: Legacy. Interesting, a “campaign” (series of challenge bosses and pre-written encounters) deckbuilding RPG. I like the whole “campaign RPG boardgame” idea. This would have worked better with paper, there were some rough edges in both the game instructions and the port to Tabletop Simulator.

(4/5) Tabletop Simulator – The Captain is Dead. Very fun. I’d love to play with more than 2 people. Tabletop simulator was so-so for this one.

(2/5) Tabletop Simulator – Tiny Epic Mechs. You give your mech a list of instructions, and it does them in order. Arena fight. Fun, but I think I could whip up something at least as good.

(3/5) The Council. One of the only 3D games I finished. It’s a story game, where you investigate what’s going on and make various choices. It’s set in revolutionary france, at the Secret World Council that determines the fate of the world. It had a weak ending, with less choice elements than the rest of the game so far, which was a weird decision. Also, it has an EXCRUTIATINGLY bad opening scene, which was also weird. The middle 95% of the game I enjoyed, although the ending went on a little long. The level of background knowledge expected of the player swung wildly–they seemed to expect me to know who revolutionary French generals were with no explanation, but not Daedalus and the Minotaur. The acting was generally enjoyable–there’s a lot of lying going on in the game and it’s conveyed well. The pricetag is too high to recommend.

(0/5) The Grandma’s Recipe (Unus Annus). This game is unplayably bad–it’s just a random pixel hunt. Maybe it would be fun if you had watched the video it’s based on.

(3/5) The Room. Pretty fun! I think this is really designed for a touchscreen, but I managed to play it on my PC. Played it stoned, which I think helps with popular puzzle games–it has nice visuals but it’s a little too easy.

(3/5) This Call May Be Recorded. Goofy experimental game.

(4/5) TIS-100. Zachtronics. A programming game. I finally got done with the first set of puzzles and into the second this year. I had fun, definitely not for everyone.

(3/5) Trine. I played this 2-player. I think the difficulty was much better 2-player, but it doesn’t manage 2 players getting separated well. Sadly we skipped the story, which seemed like simple nice low-fantasy. Could have used goofier puzzles, it took itself a little too seriously and the levels were a bit same-y.

(2/5) Unrailed. Co-op railroad building game. It was okay but there wasn’t base-building. Overall not my thing. I’d say I would prefer something like Overcooked if it’s going to be timed? Graphics reminded me of autonauts.

(2/5) Vampire Night Shift. Art game. Gameplay could have used a bit of polish. Short but interesting.

(4/5) Wayward. To date, the best survival crafting system I’ve seen. You can use any pointy object and stick-like object, together with glue or twine, to make an arrow. The UI is not great, and there’s a very counter-intuitive difficulty system. You need to do a little too much tutorial reading, and it could use more goals. Overall very fun. Under constant development, so how it plays a given week is a crapshoot. The steam version finally works for me (last time I played it was worse than the free online alpha, now it’s the same or better). I recomend playing the free online version unless you want to support the author.

(1/5) We Need to Go Deeper. Multiplayer exploration game in a sub, with sidescrolling battle. Somehow incredibly unfun, together with high pricetag. Aesthetics reminded me of Don’t Starve somehow.

(2/5) We Were Here. Okay 2-player puzzle game. Crashed frequently, and there were some “huh” puzzles and UI. Free.

(3/5) Yes, your grace. Gorgeous pixel art graphics. The story is supposed to be very player-dependent, but I started getting the feeling that it wasn’t. I didn’t quite finish the game but I think I was well past halfway. Hard to resume after a save, you forget things. I got the feeling I wouldn’t replay it, which is a shame because it’s fun to see how things go differently in a second play with something like this.

These are not all new to me, and very few came out in 2020. I removed any games I don’t remember and couldn’t google (a fair number, I play a lot of game jam games) as well as any with pornographic content.

2020 Videogames was originally published on Optimal Prime

[drunkbatya]

Notebook | Piano Man

Okay, guys, this is my (apparently unsuccessful) attempt to translate some of my short sketches into english. If I succeed in this, then I can move on to something bigger. Something, you know, that makes sense. But so far it looks extremely bad, so no big works allowed...

______________________

Gavin Reed x RK900 

3,406 words

Warning: alcohol, nothing happens

______________________ 

“Hey, John!”

Gavin pushed open the door and walked over to the bar with his head held high. The customers followed him with interested glances.

“Give me the damn drinks," Reed slapped a folded bill on the bar. “Don't give that shit. Pour something normal.”

“What the hell is this?” John, the barman, leaned against the counter behind him, crossed his arms and gave the detective a quizzical look. “Is there a reason to pour you something good?”

“Of course, hey!” Gavin smiled and lowered his head in embarrassment. “I finally fucking closed the case, and if that's not a fucking reason for you to pour me your best whiskey, then I don't even know what it could be.”

John narrowed his eyes and looked skeptical at Reed. Gavin was a good cop, it's a well-known fact, but you look at him — a fool of fools, winding snot around his fist, poking at the walls, can't tell the difference between a phone and an iron. However, at the current point of technological development, no one could do this.

“Closed it, huh?” John asked.

“You can't hear me or what?" Reed leaned forward, looking into his friend's eyes.

“I can hear you,” the barman said, “but do I believe you? Well, it’s another question.”

“Are you serious..?” Gavin's head snapped back. “I'm paying you my fucking money and still have to prove I'm worthy of a good drink, not this shit you pour for everyone?”

“Hey, John,” an indignant male voice came from the dark corner of the bar, “give our guy a proper drink already! Didn’t he deserve it? After all, you owe him…”

John grimaced and glared at the dark corner, but didn't argue. Two against one isn't fair. But so be it, he would pour Gavin the best whiskey. As an exception. And only today, as the hero of this day.

“What do I owe him?" the barman muttered. “I don't remember owing him anything…"

Reed just grinned.

“Thank you, Paul,” he saluted in the dark corner.

“At your service, mate,” the black man, hidden in the darkness, pulled his cap down over his eyes and smiled.

“Surely.” Gavin chuckled and turned to the bar, where a glass of whiskey was waiting for him. Reed nodded, but decided not to say thank you. Instead, he pushed the bill in John's direction with his fingers.

The barman was about to reach for the money when a low voice cut him off. A man's voice again, but not Paul's. It was someone at the other end of the bar, wearing an old-fashioned, narrow-brimmed hat and a dusty black coat, with obvious signs of a cat.

“Hey, John, friend,” he spoke calmly, and his voice was husky and full of charm, “are you going to take money from our detective?”

“I'll take,” the bartender said confidently.

“It's not Christian, friend,” the man shook his head. “Didn't our detective do a good job today? Isn't he a hero? Doesn't he deserve a glass or two of whiskey for free?”

“Listen, Dave,” John leaned against the bar, “I'm trying to run my business here. If I wanted to pour it for free, I'd be standing by the flophouse with a pot of soup. But it's not a flophouse and I don't have a pot of soup, so...”

John tried to take the money, but was stopped. Again.

“No, no, no, friend,” Dave said. “Give our detective his money back. If you're not going to give him a free drink, I'll pay for it.”

“No fucking way,” Reed snorted. “The offer is tempting, of course, but I'd rather not.”

“Why is that?” the man raised an eyebrow.

“I wasn’t born yesterday, Dave,” Reed leaned against the bar and rested his chin on his hand, “and I didn't grow up to be a complete fool. I know if a Jew buys you a drink, it's for a reason. So he wants something from you. Say it ain't so.”

“Why do you immediately think I need something from ya?” Dave said indignantly, spreading his hands, “what makes you think I need something, Gav, my friend? I just want to do what I think is right. Buy you a drink is right.”

“Now you're buying me a drink, and then you're asking me to turn a blind eye to your relatives' illegal activities, right?” Gavin waved a hand.

“Wrong,” Dave shook his head. He was completely lying, but because of his natural charm and that ingratiating note in his voice, his words sounded like the truth. “I don't even have any relatives.”

“So this is about your illegal activities?” Reed gave the man a meaningful look.

Dave gasped and clutched his heart. “What illegal activity? Why are you hurting me, Gav, my friend? Don't you believe I want to buy you a drink as a gesture of goodwill, completely unselfish?”

Reed laughed.

Everyone knew that Dave was a fence and sold valuable trinkets. Everyone also knew it was illegal. But whether out of respect or politeness, this interesting fact was ignored. After all, gold chains and diamond rings are not Kalashnikovs and grenades. It couldn’t hit anyone, except their wallet. In the current economy, selling it, especially legally, was unprofitable, but selling it by stealth is a good business idea. Gavin should have cared, but he didn't. Besides, sometimes Dave was damn useful when it came to the black market.

“I don’t believe,” Reed said honestly. Of course, he wanted truly believe that since he and Dave were old friends, there was at least some semblance of trust between them. If so, he could afford to believe in the sincerity of his impulses and their unselfishness. Except it was a trap. Jews... they were never to be trusted, even if they seemed to be. They are liars. Betrayal is in their genes.

“I swear to you, my friend,” Dave lowered his voice, pressed a hand to his chest, and looked into Gavin's eyes, “I give you my word. Here's a cross for you, if you want.”

He crossed himself, which only made Gavin smile ironically. John laughed nervously. Unlike the detective, he was a religious man, even if he didn't live like a Christian. But religion and faith are different things. It was possible to believe in the concept of the existence of a higher divine power and comfort yourself with it in difficult times without going to Church on Sundays. Although he considered himself a Catholic, he did not dislike Jews, but he felt a certain tension when Dave crossed himself in front of him and in order not to aggravate the situation with either his reaction or sarcastic remarks, he began to nervously wipe the wineglasses.

“It was unnecessary, I don't even...”

Gavin didn't finish. He was interrupted by the door opening with a creak, and his sentence no longer needed a logical conclusion, because everyone immediately fixed their eyes on the newcomer. Everyone except Reed.

The bar, which was already quiet, was completely silent. People seem to have stopped breathing. Gavin had his back to the door and couldn't see who had come in, but based on everyone's reactions, there were two possibilities: either the second coming of Christ had happened unscheduled, or Gavin's sober driver had decided to reveal himself.

“You weren't in a hurry, were you?” the detective rubbed his aching eyes wearily. Whether it is Jesus or the Lord himself, this phrase is appropriate in any case.

“Good evening.” The soft velvety voice rolled around the room in a pleasant enveloping wave.

John grimaced. He had nothing against drunks and rowdies, Jews and blacks, but he didn't want to see androids here. This was clearly indicated by the warning sign on the door, which was apparently ignored.

There was tension in the air. No one was happy about the android's appearance. They didn't like him. No, all androids were disliked here after that incident. And people did not even care that these android came in peace, because their good has already shown clearly that it is with fists. If one day your vacuum cleaner gives you a good electric shock, you will treat it with more caution, aren’t you?

In deathly silence, under the heavy gazes of those present, the android made his way from the front door to the bar and stopped a few steps away from Reed. The detective didn't even turn around. He nervously drank a glass of whiskey and motioned for John to repeat it. Gavin could feel the hostility of the customers on his skin. They stared wolfishly at the android, their eyes glowing like coals in the gloom. It seemed that if android made even one sudden move, they would immediately pounce on him and tear apart.

Gavin understood perfectly, these people sincerely hoped that he would throw his plastic companion out the door. They didn't want to see him here, but they couldn't do anything about it. This model — RK900 — had unique rights. And the customers simply had no right to prohibit this thing from being here as a part of the justice system. Besides, the android was technically Reed's companion, so his presence here was justified.

Probably in any other situation, these guys would have attacked the android no matter what, but now the presence of Gavin, who was respected here, stopped them. No one was going to fight the machine in front of him. It could be dangerous.

Gavin could resolve this situation, but he wasn't going to. The majority opinion did not allow him to defend the android. This meant going against the miniature model of society that the bar's customers represented at the moment. He would have to resist the opinion of his fellow friends, lose their trust and sympathy.

He couldn't ask RK900 to wait outside, either. He could be rude, say shit, or shoot him in the face, and he didn't care if the android liked him or not. He refusing to go along with the majority opinion not because he was afraid for his relationship with this machine. He was afraid of losing face in front of his plastic friend, because it would be obvious what exactly dictated his decision. For a man who had spent years trying to pretend that he didn't care what other people thought of him, even though he was dependent on their opinions, to show it openly was a blow to his pride. He could hardly bear the gleam of mockery in the blue eyes and the RK900's meaningful silence.

And Gavin did what real men do in this situation — nothing. He decided to simply ignore the android's presence, as if it would make the awkwardness and tension of the situation disappear. If he doesn't notice, if he acts as if nothing has happened, then others will, too. And he drank another glass of whiskey, so as not to feel the oppressive presence of the android, which was glaring at the detective with a cold stare.

“How's your ex-wife, John?” Gavin pushed the empty glass toward the barman.

“She's alive,” he answered shortly.

“It's fucking annoying,” Reed said, crawling over the bar. His cold fingers felt the hot skin of his cheeks. Whether it was the drink or the shame, he didn't know. He preferred to blame it all on the whiskey, although he knew perfectly well that the alcohol could not have taken effect so quickly.

Gavin was sober, and it was fucking annoying.

“It's been quiet here lately,” the detective glanced around the room, quickly counting the people on their heads. There were half as many of them as usual, which was depressing as hell. The news repeated as a mantra that the crisis was over, but it felt as if they were only sinking deeper into it. People were disappearing. Perhaps they were leaving Detroit in search of a better life. They ran the same way they did half a century ago. Did the city again expect desolation and destruction?

“When people start whiling away their days drinking in a bar, it means bad times have come,” John said wisely, he knew something about it, “and as soon as they suddenly stop, something fucking worse is coming.”

A heavy sigh escaped the customers' lips in unison. It was a silent agreement. Times are changing again, history is going into a second round and threatens to repeat its previous maneuver. Everyone felt it, but they didn't say it out loud. They were afraid that if they did, it would probably happen.

The android, taking advantage of the fact that no one was looking at him, climbed onto the bar stool. Gavin didn't say anything, didn't even glance at him. However, RK900 is already used to playing the role of a nightstand. He accepted he was only there when Reed needed him to be. It suited them both. When they existed in different universes', each on its own, they had less cause for conflict.

Gavin was silent for a long time, twirling the glass in his hands, staring blankly at his own muddy reflection in the splashing liquid, and he was so disgusted. As if he wasn't the winner today. The atmosphere of gloom and doom, that reigned in this bar, oppressed him.

“It's killing me,” he said quietly.

His soul was pounding like a wounded bird in his chest, and demanded desperately to either scream or sing. Hard and loud, a little drunk, not hearing yourself, confusing and gasping, barely pronouncing the words, but along with everyone. Just like in old times. In better times.

John looked at the detective in mild perplexity, waiting for an explanation, but the detective didn't notice. He was looking around for someone.

“Where the fuck is Bill?” Gavin exclaimed, obviously not finding what he was looking for.

“Bill?” John raised an eyebrow. “Have no idea. He hasn't been here in a while.”

“And I wonder why it's so fucking quiet here… Without his…” Reed tapped his fingers on the tabletop, miming playing the piano, “fucking strumming.”

“And thank God,” John's eyes widened meaningfully. “His strumming was driving me nuts. Are we at the Philharmonic or where?”

Gavin shook his head vaguely.

“No matter,” the barman waved a hand, “he still played very mediocre.”

It was hard to disagree with that.

Bill was a skinny, awkward guy, always on his own. He didn't drink much, just had a drink or two for the sake of convention, and then immediately sat down at the old, almost collapsed piano in the corner, which had stood there since the days when this bar was a quite decent entertainment place.

Bill didn't know how to play very well, he didn't graduate from academies, but he was so dedicated to music that no one could ask him to shut the fuck up. And every week from Friday to Sunday, he sat down at the piano and played around his meager repertoire of almost ten songs, of which he performed only two well.

Bill couldn't sing either, but he loved it. His voice was off-key, but heartfelt. Fortunately, the audience was not musical. They sang just as abominable, but after drinking a lot, they were happy to sing along, heartfelt and out of tune.

Gavin didn't really know Bill, hadn't even spoken to him once, but he was acutely aware of the lack of him. It had become so much a habit for him to drink to the same songs in a bad performance that he did not feel complete without it. The silence was empty, and it was all too obvious that the city was slowly dying out. It was impossible to bear. Alcohol did not help, on the contrary, it aggravated the shortage of people.

Gavin sighed heavily and drained his glass. He was beginning to gasp in the oppressive silence. It exposed all the things that he wanted to escape from: the real situation, the emptiness, his own thoughts.

Reed looked at John, and was about to say something when something flashed in his green eyes. He changed his mind and turned to the android.

“Hey, Richie,” Gavin said it matter-of-factly, and it sounded like "so where were we?", as if he hadn't ignored the android’s existence until just now.

“Wrong,” the android shook his head.

“Dick,” the detective said, lowering his voice.

“Try again,” almost sang RK900, enthusiastically brushing invisible crumbs from the counter with his fingers.

Gavin frowned. His drunken brain couldn't figure out what he was doing wrong. He suspected that he had confused the androids. Or their names.

“Nines,” he breathed out, choosing a win-win option.

“Accept,” the android agreed reluctantly.

“You're a jack of all trades, right?” Gavin leaned in confidentially to his companion.

RK900 frowned in puzzlement.

“Maybe,” he said hesitantly.

“So you can fuckin’ play the pinano?” the question sounded more like a statement, and his slurred speech showed a slight degree of intoxication.

“Never try,” honestly admitted the android.

“But you can, right?” Gavin held up his hand, pointing at Nines. He did not see any contradictions in his words.

“Most likely,” the android agreed.

"Then play for us…"

Gavin raised his eyebrows meaningfully. John frowned in disapproval.

“Play?” Nines asked, and took a long look over his shoulder at the piano in the corner. “This instrument?”

“Yeah,” Reed said confidently, in a tone that brooked no argument.

The android thought for a few brief moments. He clearly didn't think it was a good idea, and he quickly went over the pros and cons.

“What should I play?”

Gavin and John looked at each other and answered in unison: “Piano Man.”

RK900 wanted to clarify what piano man it was about, but he was an advanced model created to not clarify.

“Okay.”

He paused for a moment and slid gracefully off the bar stool. The way to the piano was made by him under the interested look of customers. There was no longer the old hostility in them, only curiosity and a certain amount of wariness. Nines stopped at the piano and tentatively touched the keys. He was afraid to touch the instrument, it seemed as it could fall apart even with a breath of wind. The android pressed lightly on the keys, and the piano echoed it with false notes that cut the ear.

“It's not in the mood, detective,” RK900 recoiled.

“So cheer it up, you idiot!” Gavin shouted.

“I don't think that's a good idea,” the android shook his head and began to back away, “nothing good will come of it.”

“Fuck, Richie, do something useful for once...” the detective breathed out in exasperation.

“Excuse me?” the android asked tensely, clearly offended that all his previous achievements had been ignored.

“Just fuckin’ play, ‘kay?”

Nines let out an annoyed sigh, pursing his lips.

“As you wish,” he growled sarcastically, but not loud enough to be heard, picked up the nearest chair and sat down at the instrument.

Again the deathly silence. Everyone froze and seemed to stop breathing. They were watching the Nines, and he felt like a pianist on stage. It was his debut, very exciting, but he knew well that he would perform his program perfectly. It is not in his nature to make mistakes.

He squared his shoulders. His hands hovered over the keys for a brief moment. Gavin took a breath, but didn't let it out. The first three notes were enough to fill the aching void. Everything fell into place again, and the dark bar seemed to become even brighter.

“It's nine o'clock on a Saturday,” Richard began softly, but with confidence “the regular crowd shuffles in...”

The bar lit up as if someone had flipped a switch. The cold light of the lamps turned a warm yellow.

Gavin shivered all over, as if someone had gently blown on the back of his head. A shiver ran down his spine. It was the first time he had heard RK900 sing, and his voice, already familiar and velvety, now sounded particularly pleasant. It touched his skin softly, enveloped him like silk, and filling his chest with a pleasant sensation that vibrated like a purring cat’s belly.

Gavin's head spun and he would have liked to say it was the alcohol that had gone to his head, but he would have lied.

“Fu-u-uck,” it was all Reed could say, because there were no other words to describe what was happening.

[elivechat]

NEW AI GOOGLE SEO RANKING RELEASED- CHECK HOW TO RANK NOW

After several months, Google has announced its latest AI update for search engines. This is going to change a lot of things in the SEO space. 

Either you are ready for it or not it is going to alter SEO webpage ranking. The new ranking factor is necessary owing to the way searchers querying Google. 

From the latest.  This algorithm will now allow Google to show  important web pages on search instead of the whole page.  

That is, paragraphs or related queries will show up if they contain searchers key phrases on Google. Some of these updates are affected already. 

Whereas; others will be carried out before the year ends. The technology behind this Artificial intelligence (AI) is called BERT-Deep learning technology. This is one of Google AI updates for search engine ranking.

 WHAT IS THIS BERT?

As Google is becoming more and more conversational in its information delivery. It is making sure searchers' demands are very unique and given correctly. That is the reason it has developed this BERTH Technology. 

BERT means Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. It is part of an Artificial intelligent learning algorithm which ensures a machine better understands users' query.

Artificial intelligence machine learning algorithm that works to deliver better search queries for Google search. As voice search is becoming a more valuable search feature now. 

That is BERT is being featured in the latest Google AI update for search engine updates. What is the implication of that to businesses?

It means that organic ranking on Google means to create content that will be “hyper-relevant” to users intention and what users queries. The mean point is to create an article based on these four (4) searchers' intentions. Which are arranging alphabetically?

·  Asking (informational)

·  Do (transactional)

·  Go (navigational)

·  Research (commercial)

  1.)  BERT INTRODUCTION IN ALL SEARCH QUERY

  This shift is needful to help searchers get targeted information instead of showing the whole web page. Though, that is not the whole update. More of these updates are going to be affected before the end of the year. 

Some of these latest changes are BERT, which is already implemented. This is an AI technique of understanding Natural Language Processing (NLP).  Looking at the growing rate of AI acceptance in the digital space. 

 Google have updated its search engine rules with BERTH to understand searchers intention and delivery exactly what is queried. And will affect only 10% of search. 

But will focus more on long tail key phrases in English language at the moment.

 According to Google; today we’re excited to share that BERT is now used in almost every query in English, helping you get higher quality results for your questions.”

2.)  NEW AI SPELLING ALGORITHM FOR SEO

Google came up with a new spelling improvement algorithm with AI. This technology will now understand misspelled words in its proper way. 

This is one of Google’s major breakthroughs in the last five years of research. 

The main motive is to know exactly the intention behind misspelling words in English language. The rest languages may be adjusted in the feature.

3.)  SEO PASSAGES INDEXING

After announcing the latest AI search engine updates, Google is going to start indexing passages for queries related to it. 

That means, this time if a query is made that would show a passage, or subtopic not all the entire topic would show instead the very passage is expected to show on the query. 

The point is passages are to be indexed on SERPs. And if it is valuable it is going to appear in the present of searchers. Though, this latest passage update will only affect 7% of Google SEO.   

Let’s hear from what Google said; we’ve recently made a breakthrough in ranking and are now able to not just index web pages, but individual passages from the pages. 

By better understanding the relevancy of specific passages, not just the overall page, we can find that needle-in-a-haystack information you’re looking for.

This technology will improve 7 percent of search queries across all languages as we roll it out globally.”

From all indications, it is going to affect only mobile search not desktop. This latest update is going to narrow the passage, not the entire page. 

The point is, businesses that want to appear organically will have to optimize passages to meet long key phrases of Google search queries. If the answer is found between the passage of a web page.  

           ALSO READ: SEM IN NEW NORMAL

 4.)  GOOGLE SUBTOPIC RANKING

Again, the next update of Google AI's latest algorithm is subtitle optimization. This one centers mainly on broad base searches or general search queries. For example, if this key phrase “sport equipment ” it may mean many things in general to a lot of people. And a broad topic to deliver. Because we have indoor and outdoor sport equipment. It will be difficult to rank this kind of broad topic because it is not specific or narrowed.

Another example is a topic like “Phone” since this key phrase is kind of a broad topic it may confuse search engines on what to show; because we have Smartphones, telephones and all kinds of cell phones. 

 It’ll present a random result, since the intention is unknown. Too, it may mean several things to a lot of people. And if you think you can gain high traffic through it think twice; if it is going to walk.   

However, the latest update allows webmasters who narrow or optimize subtopic to rank on Google search. Google has promised to implement this before the year runs out.

See how Google explained it; we’ve applied neural nets to understand subtopics around an interest, which help to deliver a greater diversity of content when you search for something broad. 

As an example, if you search for “home exercise equipment. We can now understand relevant subtopics, such as budget equipment, premium picks, or small space ideas, and show a wider range of content on the search results page.  We’ll start rolling this out by the end of the year”

Read also: SEO MEANING AND APPLICATION

 5.)   VIDEO BASE SEO LATEST UPDATE FROM GOOGLE

What does that mean, Google will now Optimize 10% of SEO to video content. It will use its AI powered algorithm to know different passages in a video. Give a tag to the video part, analyze and explain it vividly.  

And would explain its content; rank targeted video parts within it to video searchers directly. Now Google will not show the full video for the query but the part that is asked by the user. 

As a means of delivering mix content to search queries. In section by section in timely form.

 Again, it is a huge breakthrough if you ask me; to the video production industry. Google as a major content delivery brand will like to present quality pieces of information be it videos to its users.  

According to the Search Engine Journal;“this going to impact the SERPs and maybe video production and planning to make sure the videos are easily understood, section by section.”- SEJ

  This is how Google explain it:”using a new AI-driven approach, we’re going to understand the deep semantics of a video and automatically

 Identify key moments. This let us tag those moments in the video, so you can navigate like chapters in a book.   We’ve started testing this

technology this year, and by the end of 2020 we expect that 10 percent of searches will use this new technology.”

 6.)  Statistical report ranking

 By now you should know that Google search is not only for articles or videos but statistical data or reports from data mining industries. Data sellers or report about statistical information.  What this means is; the latest Google update for search engines will now show statistics directly.

Not the former way, where a query will show the entire webpage.  The motive is to allow searchers to get information quicker, better and faster.

Let’s see how Google said it:”Sometimes the best search is statistics. But often stats are buried in large datasets and not easily comprehensible or accessible online.  

Since 2018, we’ve been working on the Data commons Project, an open knowledge database of statistical data now we’re making this information more accessible and useful through Google search.”

All these are done with the aid of AI powered algorithms embedded into Google search engine to bring massive advancement in search engine delivery query.  Through deep learning technology SERPs will become increasingly tougher if SEO experts are not pretty flexible to the latest from the search engine giant.

 CONCLUSION:

 From the latest Google update for SEO, it will become harder to rank high on the front page from the old ranking algorithm.   Because, the latest improvement on SEO will create more variety in search results.     Which in turn will make organic ranking extremely difficult and tougher.

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Humphrey Udoh

 Elivechat Team

[scarlettsabetlondongirl]

Poet Scarlett Sabet

In conversation with poet Gerard Malanga for London Magazine.

The London Magazine is England’s oldest literary periodical, with a history stretching back to 1732. Today – reinvigorated for a new century – the Magazine’s essence remains unchanged: it is a home for the best writing and an indispensable feature on the British literary landscape-London Magazine  

See here

“After meeting at a French New Wave Cinema book launch in London in November 2019, poets Gerard Malanga and Scarlett Sabet have since kept in regular correspondence via email.

In this unique interview, conducted over several weeks while thousands of miles apart, the two writers discuss shared influences, the recent passing of the Beat Generation poet Michael McClure, and the grounding influence of poetry throughout the international lockdown. 

This interview is based on the poets’ original email correspondence and has been edited for clarity.”-London Magazine   

GERARD MALANGA: You ask how my week has been? I’ve been in lockdown now for 3 weeks or so, though I might’ve lost count. I have plenty to keep me busy in the house here, plus I have responsibility towards my 3 cats. And then there’s dreamtime, between 4 & 6 in the morning.

But suddenly I felt days back this ennui coming on, like, did the poetry suddenly disappear? Sometimes I’m concerned—but just for a moment mind you—whether I can match or even better the last one? There’s no way I can predict when the muse will appear. If I had the answer, it would vanquish the mystique.

Since I’ve been in lockdown, there’s no going out for me for the morning coffee and The New York Times unfolding on the table. Many a first draft has begun that way, but now with a physical displacement of sorts I can’t claim to be an habitue of the cafe life. The kitchen table serves me well – or wherever I happen to be outdoors – so long as I have a small notebook in my pocket. I even prop myself up in bed with a clipboard pressed against my knees. I follow where I feel a poem coming on. When I start, then I know I’m in for it, but don’t give it the slightest thought. I’m in for the ride.

SCARLETT SABET: Yes, I find sometimes walking in the morning, having a destination, getting into my body and moving get’s the ball rolling with writing. I can understand the ritual of going to a cafe. I’ve written on trains a lot, the motion and rhythm helps, and because I’m in a vacuum in transit I can’t be reached.

I love the image of your 4am dream writing, I think that’s a great ritual. Sometimes I write three pages first thing in the morning, and it’s just anything on my mind. I’ve also found meditation helpful, deepening my state of consciousness and then writing straight afterwards to see what comes out, kind of like automatic writing in the spirit of Austin Osman Spare.

We were both raised Catholic, I wonder if that has had any bearing on your writing or practices? I find a great sense of divinity in art, those moments of inspiration.

GERARD MALANGA: Funny that you would mention that. No one’s ever asked me about my spirituality, that I recall. People have weird notions about me, like I’m some kind of guy about town. I may have a little bit of that too. But spirituality for me is to be able to laugh at yourself. Even when I talk to my cats, I’m laughing at myself. I don’t mean physically laughing as such but going about life without being self-conscious. It helps when I’m writing a poem.

Back in 1970 or so, I had a spiritual conversion. One of my closest friends, a guy named Jim Jacobs, turned me on to the first two Carlos Castaneda/Don Juan books; so we were basically comparing notes and one of the themes that came through for us was to follow your nature to be happy. Suddenly we found ourselves wearing white clothing and calling ourselves the white lights. When we went to London we ended up buying an all-white 1939 Bentley convertible with one windshield wiper not wiping, and it basically gave us the freedom to go visit friends in the English countryside. It sounds hysterically funny when I look back at this, but we were quite sincere in our endeavors. If this was going to be our path we had to be true to the discoveries we made along the way.

During our travels we decided to split off and agreed to re-connect a couple of years later in the Massachusetts Berkshires where he’s from and continue where we left off. Jim ended up being one of the top dealers in the secondary art market handling the likes of Judd and Cy Twombly, and now he’s curating shows. I continued to write poetry without a care in the world and became more attuned to the pictures I was taking. I truly feel I’ve become a better photographer because of the experiences I had. You have to be courageous to suddenly drop out and then drop back in.

Back in ’74, I had this idea for a book of my spiritual poetry that would have as its cover one of those kitschy paintings of Jesus. I called it ‘Poems for the Fat Lady’. You know, the Fat Lady was a phrase I’d picked up from reading Salinger’s Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, where he’s actually equating Jesus with the Fat Lady, that they were one. That’s pretty neat, I thought. It didn’t go over too well with my publisher who rejected the idea outright. He thought I was joking. So I settled for a kind of even-balanced title, Incarnations,’ and changed the poems around.

Perhaps, the Fat Lady was the closest I ever got to God, though I don’t give it much thought these days. It’s the inspiration and the love that come from it which is the driving force and source for much of what I’m writing nowadays, and that’s the joy when I finally finish a poem. A state of happiness sets in for me.

SCARLETT SABET: And what you said makes sense, I can understand it. Did you have a period where you rebelled against spirituality or Catholicism and were, say, atheist? Although it’s bizarre for me to admit it, once I left school I did swing to atheism, I guess as a way of rebelling or a reaction. School can be dogmatic.

GERARD MALANGA: In hindsight, to embrace atheism, Scarlett, would deny the spirituality within me which accounts for a lot of my poetry as well. There was no real rebellion on my part. I always felt that my guardian angel was looking after me when I was fated to become a poet. Who would I be, otherwise? It’s a scary proposition, come to think of it.

SCARLETT SABET: True, looking back I realise I’ve always had a Guardian Angel too. I’m so sorry for the loss of [influential Beat poet] Michael McClure, and I was moved by the picture you took of him in San Francisco, 1972. What was that day like?

GERARD MALANGA: If I live long enough, God willing, I may end up not knowing anyone because at this juncture a lot of my friends have already passed. Many of them in the obituary series of my most recent book Cool, which you have. I don’t want to slip into a consciousness of perpetual mourning. Yet I hadn’t anticipated that I’d be writing a poem for Michael, but then I opened up to myself and his consciousness flowed right in. Perhaps I had a vacuum to fill at that moment from an external point of view, taking Michael’s place for the poem that would talk to him and he to me.

I remember little of that when I came to visit with him and made his portrait. It was a serene afternoon. Just him and me. I remember distinctly that we went off in his car, perhaps to a restaurant. We were driving somewhere, and that made sense. But for the life of me I remember nothing of what transpired over lunch. With all the history—and it ain’t an awful lot—there’s still a history there to be acknowledged. You know, I performed the part of Billy the Kid in Warhol’s movie which we adapted from Michael’s play, The Beard. Hardly anyone knows this; perhaps in part because I believe the movie has never been shown. So the friendships last and last and continue beyond the grave.

SCARLETT SABET: I’m always struck by the structure of your poems. I was wondering what your approach to this was, whether there was any major influence from particular poets of your youth, or even whether the way that you frame scenes and ideas within poems has any crossover influence from your work in the wider art world?

GERARD MALANGA: Yes, there’s probably a very strict structure to my poems, but it’s casually applied in what the work proposes as possibility, which I don’t even notice when I’m starting out. For instance, for a very long time, the opening to the work begins with an indented first line of let’s say 8 characters. It’s my way of engaging myself and the reader into a form of poetry that’s a radically different departure from what may be normally perceived. Yes, it’s a poem, but I like to think of them as prose poems as well.

I left ‘influences’ behind decades back. I’m pretty much on autopilot. I’m my own navigator. I travel the journey alone. My earliest influence when I literally started was Gerard Manley Hopkins. I was enchanted by his system of ‘sprung rhythm’ which he basically invented with no imitators following. That would’ve been 1959 during the start of the high school year in my senior class. In 1962, I believe, John Ashbery made a profound influence on my early work with his book The Tennis Court Oath. That became my Bible. I’d carry it around my duffle bag wherever I went. But it was Ted Berrigan with his Sonnets in ’64 that unlocked the door for me into what Ashbery was doing and that was a sheer liberating factor. From there the work continued to expand on its own.

The only ‘crossover influence’ that I imagine, as you put it, in the ‘wider art world’ would be my own life, and not the art world, per se. So what we have here is the tendency to open almost all the work in the form of what appears to be a letter on the surface, but is actually a message. I’m addressing the subjects of my poems directly; they’re not ‘about’ the subject. I’m talking directly to them, as if they’re right in the room, whether it’s a person or a cat.

SCARLETT SABET: You mention you don’t write about your subjects but address them directly in your poems. I think this is what makes them so arresting and intimate, particularly in the ‘Lives They Lived’ chapter in your beautiful collection Cool & Other Poems [published by Bottle of Smoke Press]. Each poem is a visceral portal, allowing the reader to be present with you, and witness Christopher Logue against a snowing sky before warming his hands around a mug of cognac, and Anita Pallenberg a vivacious, laughing woman sitting opposite you at Cafe Flore. Also in that chapter you include a poem entitled ‘Gerard Malanga dies’. The poem contains the line ‘I am my only guide now,’ which I found so powerful. Could you tell us how that poem came to be?

GERARD MALANGA: Putting together that section, ‘The Lives They Lived’, I figuratively had to step outside myself. That’s how close I was with many of those listed and to the memories I have of them held dear. It was not an easy section to compile. By the way, ‘The Lives They Lived’, is borrowed from the New York Times‘s annual round-up supplement. I called my contact at the paper to get permission to use it and he saw no problem involved.

Writing ‘Gerard Malanga dies’ was a tricky situation in the need to make it work. It was one of the final poems in the section and it presented me with an opportunity to address certain issues surrounding death and to those friends I’d already acknowledged over a period of nearly 40 years. I also lapse into a bit of my own personal history, as if I’m contemplating how others might see me after I’ve gone: ‘The rabbit hole is waiting for my plunge.’ Somehow, that image of the rabbit hole has emerged in a few of my poems and also echoes back to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, one of my favorite childhood books.

The rabbit hole is an image for both death and resurrection, as I see it. Here, I question myself, ‘Am I preparing for another life? A return to life?’ And so I treat this poem as slowly nearing its own end with a ‘journey’ back to life ‘…and on and on…’. I equate this with an actual journey I’d taken by train from ‘Glasgow down to Central London…’ back in 2014 where I’d been dreamily staring out the window at a passing landscape I might not ever explore at any other time.

‘Will I even find my way home to the Bronx’ alludes to a movie I’d seen years back I recall, called ‘The Swimmer’ adapted from a John Cheever short story. Starring Burt Lancaster, his character is swimming across a series of backyard swimming pools and encountering neighbors he knew poolside in attempting to reach home. And when he arrives in the pouring rain and runs up to the door, he discovers that the door’s locked and the house is empty. Such a potent ending and darkened cinematic metaphor, brilliantly done. And it’s these private memories in my life resurfacing that I feel nourishes my work.

SCARLETT SABET: We met at a book launch in London, and you were immediately swarmed, surrounded by people. I think that is a testament to the impact your writing has had globally and across generations. How has your home city of New York and its literary landscape changed and evolved for you over the years? Is it something you feel especially connected to?

GERARD MALANGA: Your question speaks volumes, but I’m going to try to be as brief and succinct as I can hope to be as the facts show. I’m seventy-seven now and there have been no accolades to show for it. Cool came out last year and Whisper Sweet Nothings two years prior and together they comprise the best of anything I’ve ever done, and yet they’ve been totally ignored by the New York literary press overall. In the five decades I’ve been publishing I’ve received not one grant or fellowship or any of the prizes totaling in the millions. Nada. Zilch. I can’t even get my memoirs published and I have thousands of fans waiting for this book. You would think that would count for something. I’m grateful for the European attitude towards my work. That’s what keeps the work alive for me. That’s where my audience is and they relate. I love what I do, and I know it shows through the work from the responses at the readings I give and that’s how my work thrives. I love my audience and that’s the truth of it.

SCARLETT SABET: A year ago today, I finished my waitressing shift, went home and listened to what Jimmy [Page] had produced from the recordings we had made of my poems. this became our spoken word album Catalyst. It was a joy to be able to give you our album as I am so moved by your work. It had a sense of synchronicity also, as years earlier, Jimmy had given me a signed edition of your beautiful poem ‘Devotion’.

You said that ‘Cut Up’ was your favourite track on Catalyst. I had christened that poem ‘Cut Up’ simply because it was the first time I had used the William Burroughs/Brion Gysin method. I always feel it’s a handing over, a leap of faith to a higher power, to introduce another energy to it, and it came out with it’s own dark, random rhythm. Burroughs said “when you cut into the present the future leaks out”, and in that sense it has a spell like quality or possibility.

Some poems I’ve written in one sitting, a sort of channeling, like ‘Fifth Circle of Hell’, which is also on Catalyst. But part of the reason I found the cut-up method so liberating that first time was that I was trying to write a poem to encapsulate that period. I felt cautious because the subject matter was focused on the events in Europe and the Middle East, and the horrors and blood shed of the Bataclan attacks in Paris. I think my own identity and ethnicity – my mother is French-Scottish and my father is Persian – gave this piece more weight personally. So really, the cut-up was a way of detaching through the process, which was effective. I suppose I wonder what your thoughts are on cut-ups?

GERARD MALANGA: Scarlett, cut-ups are a tricky business. They almost feel spontaneous, but with every move there’s no turning back. They’re the antithesis to parallel grammatical structures which is how we reform language to make things sound right. You see Bill [Burroughs] stuck with it all his life. Cut-ups were his language and he embraced the process. It’s okay to experiment with language so long as you come out at the other end with something that satisfies you and encourages you to want to do more, to go further. That’s a big commitment. The one thing you want to avoid is being self-conscious in the process, as you put it. There’s no room for self-consciousness in cut-ups. You have to operate on a more or less unconscious level like when you dream.

Of course, you realize this in dreams. I don’t need to tell you. In dreams, nothing really connects or relates. Dreaming is a series of visual and mental disconnects. One thing leads to the next but you don’t know why nor do you have time to stop to know why. It’s like you go with the flow. Excuse the corniness of this. Dreams are the cut-ups of the unconscious. You can’t go back to change anything to make it better. There’s nothing qualitative about it. When that happens to me, I try to maintain the balance of the good and the bad together. All of it. Yes, I’ve done a little tweaking here and there, but only because I’m now in the conscious state and I want to make the lines sound just right. So it’s okay to prune. Robert Lowell taught me how to prune. But you have to know what you’re doing. It’s trusting your instincts. That’s what I do. If I throw out a perfectly terrific line, it’s because I’m trusting my instincts. But, of course, only I know that. The reader doesn’t, nor does he need to.

One of my earliest poems was a form of the cut-up. My English teacher in high school, Daisy Aldan, who introduced me to the world of poetry, gave us an assignment in class to cut out words at random from the newspaper and fill a paper bag with them. The next step was to reach into the bag and pick out one word at a time and place them on a page, and then to transcribe those words into a text, including all the capital and lower-case letters. I did one better and glued them onto the page. This all had to do with chance. Remember, Stéphane Mallarmé, in his last poem ‘Un coup de dés’ said that a ‘a throw of the dice NEVER NEVER will abolish chance.’ Well, he was right about that. You take your chances, you trust your instincts.

SCARLETT SABET: I’ve started reading Gysin’s novel The Process. I bought it last year at Shakespeare&Co but started reading it now to feel closer to Morocco, a place that I really love, while still in lockdown. I wondered what places have meant the most to you?

GERARD MALANGA: I have Brion’s book on my shelf, but I’ve yet to read it. Perhaps I’m still not ready for it yet. Right now I’m immersed in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. What I like about it is that it reads like it’s not translated but written directly in English. That’s probably the best kind of translated work.

The first place that comes to mind that has meant the most to me, although there may have been others, is the Cafe Flore. It was my first introduction to cafe life when I arrived in Paris in the spring of 1965. And henceforth whenever I’ve visited Paris, I would arrive punctually every morning during my stays. There’s no other cafe that does it for me. Of course, there’s the cafe in the Luxembourg Gardens, but that’s more like a restaurant; a different ambiance entirely. The Flore has a certain something, a certain charm about it that allows me to immerse myself reading the morning papers or writing a poem even. The food’s good too. The croissants, the omelettes, the cafe creme. Some years back, I started referring to it as my ’office’ whenever I had an appointment to meet with friends. And I’d be certain to book a hotel room within walking distance. Anyway, the Flore is the start of my day.

SCARLETT SABET: Well, I hope one day, when the lockdown is over, we can meet you at Cafe Flore.

Photos: London Magazine

[reynaldorobinson]

Pre-Dawn Carbonara

Sometimes One goes out One's head / Sometimes One goes mad / Sometimes One makes good with that with which One should make bad

I don't want to alarm you, pre-dawn wanderers, but I think I accidentally invented the Reverse Breakfast Asparagus Carbonara. There was I, just picture it (and only picture it, if you please), at a simple first attempt toward carbonara. However, as you may well know of me, there is no more complexity as to how simple I can become when issued (even by self) a simple task.

(To wit: I over-complicate. Seeming to be clever, but reilly a twit, to wit (And that's all there's to it).)

Distracted by myself, as I always am, I cooked everything in reverse order, separated and beat my whites, only to scramble them back into their yolks, and throughout the pasta water, accidentally turned my sauce into eggs leavened to high heaven. The capocollo I was thawin' in a broken microwave and fryin' in a pan like I was tryin' to double-rei-cure it from dyin'. I went far past al dente with the pasta part of my repast, saving with a quick bake on a plate, dedicated to reverse-desiccate it to a past, more palatial, palate (pronounced, here, "pal-ATE") for One to eat (pronounced, here, "ATE").

I don't even remember sautéing the peppers, though they ring a bell.

As for the asparagus (as for us, I guess), it could not have turned out finer; Out-of-sight, in oven-bounds not bemoaning this One diner. Thankfully (and with one onion, on one's way) out-of-sight.

To whet, to spare us (to wit: not embarrass): breakfast was served, although be it last night.

#reversebreakfastasparaguscarbonara

Today is National Chocolate Eclair Day and National Onion Rings Day It is NOT Discovery Day, finally. Good goddammit.

And good morning.

~

* * *

In lieu of a poem (for you, dearest reader (the only one still reading at this point)), I have especially offered here the first three chapters from a book I never finished writing entitled: How to Read: A Comprehensive Guide. So, if you would like to spend your pre-dawn learning how to read a bit, you may do so now.

Or not. I know it's early.

~ How to Read: A comprehensive guide

First Unit

The Letters Letter One of Twenty-Six (A a) Pronunciation

[fig. 1], [fig. 2] As in the A in "this is how to pronounce the letter A."

[fig.3] As in "I can never remember if tall & large are the same thing when ordering coffee. Also, grande."

[fig. 4] As in the word "chat," which is the French word for "cat" and whose vowel is pronounced as that in "chat," which is the English word for "chat."

[fig. 5], [fig. 6] As in, uh, something.

~

Any alliteration assigns an author as amateurish and asinine. Also: an asshole.

~

A is a wholly unique member of the Alphabet. Not only is it the only letter whose position in the Alphabet is the same as its position in the word "Alphabet" (i.e. first and fifth), but it also begins the majority of single-letter English articles.

The primary nature of A is itself a lesson on the importance of starting things at their beginning. You will find, as you embark upon your quest for literacy, that one of the imperative strategies for reading is to read the beginning of the word first. This is key. In this spirit, our exploration of the Alphabet will commence with the first letter, A, which we have just covered.

Chapter A Exercises

1. Using what you learned in this section, complete the Alphabet:            __ B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 2. Compile a list of everyone you know whose first initial is A. Then, make a list of people whose last initial is A. Compare the lists. Doesn't the term "last initial" seem odd? I think it does. Letter Two of Twenty-Six (B b)

Pronunciation

Like "be" without the "e" (see E).

~

B was first discovered by early etymologists 45 billion years ago (previously known as 45 illion years ago), sparking a heated fissure that created the rogue, fringe group of ex-classical etymologists, known as "ontologists." 

~

There are no other facts about the letter B. This chapter is over.~Chapter B 

Chapter B Exercises

1. Write a short story using the letter B as a main character. Get it published in every literary magazine in the western world. Forget your dreams of becoming literate. Revel in your fame. Recieve an offer for a movie version of the story. Make a solid bundle. Move to a house made of strong, bare wood with a grand veranda that faces west. The house is on a cool, placid lake. There is a very large bed with very fine linens. Wake each morning in it with different, multiple sex companions who show earnest interest in your story, but know only the details of the film version. Watch less and less television as you see more and more commercials for fast-food figurine toys of the characters from the movie and spend less and less time online as you notice more and more internet ads for the book-on-mp3 version of the novelization of the movie (read by the actor who played B). Wake each morning with people who know nothing of your work nor any literature, really. Begin drinking first thing in the morning. Duck calls from your publisher, from the movie people. Curse the sunset from the veranda. Throw empty liquor bottles at the lake. Fall down your hard, wooden staircase and wake hours later, bleeding, in a small pool of vomit. Wonder how it has come to this. Buy a yacht and set fire to it. Cry every day, all day, in a soft and slow way. Breathe. Dig a shallow hole in the backyard, near the water, near the ashes, and sit in it. Hug the shovel and wait for rain that will not come. Do not shiver in the cool night that beaches itself in from the lake. Breathe. Think of another story, a longer one. One about a man who has nothing and is happy. He dies at the end, in a slow and terrible way and he regrets his happiness. He denies it and then he dies. Do not commit this story to paper or memory. Forget quickly its nuance. Make a mental note to buy a gun. Breathe. Letter Three of Twenty-Six (C c)

Pronunciation

C is pronounced like S (see ch. 19) or K (see ch. 11), as in "civic" and "coelacanth."

When C is paired with H (see ch. 8) it can have a pronunciation as in "lichen" and "chronometer."

~

While C is often referred to as the "bronze medal letter," its third-string placement in the Alphabet belies the integral role it plays in the world. Without C one couldn't comprehend. One couldn't compose. One couldn't couldn't. Without C the chaste would stop abstaining, in haste. It would be chaos, which would be haos, which is so absurd that this hapter is over.

Chapter C Exercises

1. Try to write an entire phrase without using this segment's letter. You will find that it is impossible.

[suzyundertale]

How we know the person in the intro of Deltarune is almost certainly Gaster

This post is a summary of all the evidence that the person speaking in the “vessel creation” portion of Deltarune, and by extension the Game Over sequence, is W.D. Gaster.

1. Connection to the Twitter

For those that don’t know, on October 30th, 2018, the day before Deltarune came out, the official Undertale Twitter changed its icon and display name, and tweeted a number of cryptic tweets, which we now know to be teasing Deltarune.

As you can see, the tweets are clearly written in the same voice as the person in the intro. This is a very unique voice, so it’s extremely unlikely it would be anyone else.

This gives us a hint to who the speaker is - look at the display name. It’s “██████”. If you can’t tell, that’s exactly six characters of black “censored” boxes - the exact number of letters you need to spell “Gaster”.

2. References to Entry Number 17

Undertale’s hidden “Entry Number 17” is one of the more well-known Gaster Things. But in case you don’t know about it, Entry 17 is a section of text, in the form of a True Lab entry, written in Wingdings font, and only accessible by editing the game’s files. Here is a video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jfHh88p5hk

Translated from Wingdings into plain English, it reads:

ENTRY NUMBER SEVENTEEN

DARK

DARKER

YET DARKER

THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING

THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER

PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE

THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT

SEEMS

VERY

VERY

INTERESTING

...

WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK

Of note is the part that I have bolded. The phrase “VERY VERY INTERESTING” seems to be a… catchphrase? of Gaster’s. It’s used in the tweets in the lead up to Deltarune to make a very clear callback to Entry 17.

In addition, another possible reference to the line is in the save menu screen of Deltarune before you clear the game. If  you don’t know, the main menu is different depending on if you’ve already cleared Chapter 1 once before, or if you haven’t cleared it yet. If you haven’t yet, the save menu will not only appear different, but the dialogue for copying and erasing save files will be different as well.

Of interest is a line of dialogue that only occurs when you delete 10 or more save files, then go to delete another one, then back out when asked if you want to “TRULY ERASE IT”. If you do this, the text will read, “VERY INTERESTING.”

Here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRnliRKGMBM

3. “mus_smile” in Deltarune

Speaking of Entry 17, You may have noticed the creepy “music” playing when it is being displayed. This piece of audio is titled “mus_smile” in the files. Interestingly, it appears in Deltarune not once, but twice.

The first is when you try to make a phone call while in the dark world. Any game music that was playing will stop, and instead “mus_smile” will play, and the narration says that the cell phone “doesn’t seem to be working”. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7FuP_AkbRU

The second is, of all places, in Hometown during the epilogue. Specifically, when you’re near the bunker south of town. If you’re close enough to it, a very slowed down version of “mus_smile” will play. Video showing the sound at both original speed and sped up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPQYXiUEpPk

4. Typer values and the number “666”

This one requires a bit of explaining on how Undertale and Deltarune function. Each line of dialogue, in both Undertale in Deltarune, relies on what is called a “typer” value. Basically, all the information about the text - the size, the font, what sound the text blips make - are all stored in this “typer” value. Usually, each character has a specific typer value associated with them, sometimes several. When a character says a line of dialogue, the game uses this typer value to determine how the text will appear.

And, again, we return to Entry 17.

You probably know that Gaster is heavily associated with sixes. In Undertale, his unused battle stats are all sixes - for example, his attack and defense are both “66666”. The “fun” value needed to encounter the “mysteryman”, commonly believed to be Gaster, is 66, and the fun values for all of the “Gaster followers” are in the 60s as well.

You may have guessed it by now - The typer value used for Entry 17 is “666”. This is definitely intentional, as the highest typer value below that is “111″.

So, then, what’s typer value “666” used for in Deltarune?

Why, it’s the intro sequence. Interesting. (Except the “No one can choose who they are in this world” bit - that part uses typer value “2”, which could provide further evidence that it’s a different person speaking.)

Similarly, typer value “667” is used for the Game Over sequence.

This, in combination with “VERY VERY INTERESTING”, seems to make it very clear that the speaker in Entry 17 and the mysterious speaker in the “vessel creation” part of Deltarune are the same person. Although you need knowledge of the game’s files to find this particular piece of evidence, you also need that to find Entry 17, which is a huge part of the Gaster Lore™.

5. What the “vessel creation” is actually called in the files

In Deltarune’s files, the “vessel creation” sequence is referred to as “GONERMAKER”.

This is significant, because the term “Goner” is tied to Gaster.

Gaster is pretty clearly linked with the “grey NPCs” in Undertale. Two of these grey NPCs are explicitly referred to as “goner” in the game files:

“spr_mkid_goner”

“spr_clam_goner”

The latter is the “goner” form of Clam Girl, who speaks of Suzy, and, in the Nintendo Switch version of Undertale, which came out less than two months before Deltarune’s release, claimed that the time we will meet her is “fast approaching” as she turns into her “goner” form. This was possibly foreshadowing Deltarune’s release. (I say “possibly” because we don’t actually meet “Suzy” in Deltarune, but “Susie”.)

In any case, these so-called “Goners” are almost certainly linked to Gaster in some way. We don’t know exactly how, but the fact that the intro is called “Goner Maker” is almost certainly very significant to the story.

6. The music during the “Goner Maker” sequence, and its title

Undertale has a hidden sound test which does not actually include songs from the game, but notably, includes a song titled “Gaster’s Theme”. In the game’s files, this song is called “mus_him”.

And, as you can see on the bandcamp page for Deltarune’s soundtrack... The title of the song that plays during the “Goner Maker” sequence is “ANOTHER HIM”. In addition, the song seems to use “Gaster’s Theme” as part of the melody, as does “Darkness Falls”, the game over theme.

7. Hidden messages on the Deltarune website

Way before Deltarune was revealed, the website still existed. But it looked a bit different.

Luckily, we have archives on the wayback machine, so we can see what the website looked like in the past.

August 17, 2016:

http://web.archive.org/web/20160817183540/http://www.deltarune.com/

The page appears to be completely blank. However, in the top left corner there is an image, titled “him.png”. when brightened, it reveals a message written in Wingdings:

It reads,

THREE HEROES APPEARED

TO BANISH THE ANGELS HEAVEN

Which, as we now know, is a quote from the Legend in Deltarune that Ralsei tells Kris and Susie.

However, there is also an archive of the link to the image itself. And it turns out this image was different at some point.

December 9, 2015:

https://web.archive.org/web/20151209013205/http://www.deltarune.com/him.png

When brightened, the image once again reveals Wingdings, this time reading:

THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT

SEEMS

VERY

VERY

INTERESTING

Which, you may remember from earlier, is a direct quote from Entry 17.

This, once again, strengthens the connection between Gaster and Deltarune.

These are all the major pieces of evidence that Gaster is speaker in the intro. Of course, we can’t 100% prove it just yet. But there’s no good reason to deny it. With so much of the evidence clearly pointing to Gaster, at this point Toby going “haha actually it was someone else the whole time” would just be bad writing. And Toby’s good at writing! I really don’t think he’d pull a pointless, unnecessary “plot twist” like that. So it’s very, very safe to say that this person is Gaster.

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 107: Mindful Education

“But it’s not, but it’s not, but it’s not, but it’s not, but it’s not.”

Here Comes a Thought is anything but a bad song. I can’t think of any songs I dislike from this show, but if I did, Here Comes a Thought wouldn’t be one of them. It’s a simple and moving ode to calming down, and Estelle and AJ Michalka elevate its message through their otherworldly voices.

But I do think it’s the most technically flawed song on Steven Universe. Which is a real bummer of a way to start this review, but I’m about to heap a ton of praise on this episode, and I don’t think the lyrical flaws ruin the song, let alone the overall story, so let’s just get my issues out of the way. If Mindful Education is about anything, it’s about confronting problems head-on!

Here Comes a Thought is a general song about a general problem, which I appreciate. I don’t need it to be specific to Connie’s dilemma, and in fact I think specificity would hurt the message. But my biggest gripe is that even though it speaks in broad strokes, none of the scenarios listed apply to Connie. “What someone said, and how it harmed you”? Connie wasn’t hurt by words. “Something you did that failed to be charming”? Connie wasn’t attempting to be charming. “Things that you said are suddenly swarming”? Connie didn’t say anything. We’re all the way to the refrain, and Garnet has yet to address the actual situation Connie is dealing with.

The closest we’ve got is “failed to be charming,” which again, implies that Connie was trying to impress someone rather than just going about her business and hurting someone by instinct. The phrasing is clumsy in a way Rebecca Sugar’s songs virtually never are: what I love about her lyrics is how natural and effortless they seem, which I’m certain comes from quite a bit of effort on her part. The sentence structure of “Something you did that failed to be charming” feels strained and unnatural, but the words must be said in this order for the rhyme and meter to work.

Which is doubly frustrating because the alarm/harm/charm series ends with swarm, which does not rhyme with the former three words in any dialect of English I know of. I’m not even a stickler for rhymes: for instance, “alarm me” and “charming” technically don’t rhyme either, but they sound similar enough that the pattern holds. But swarm uses an entirely different vowel than most other English words ending in -arm. I majored in linguistics and can get into serious weeds here with the International Phonetic Alphabet, but to make a long ramble shorter, the ‘w’ preceding the vowel alters it, which is why wart doesn’t rhyme with art and war doesn’t rhyme with bar and warn doesn’t rhyme with yarn and so on.

(This obviously doesn’t make Sugar a bad songwriter, any more than William Blake was a bad poet because he rhymed eye with symmetry in The Tyger. Nobody’s perfect, but that doesn’t mean nobody’s incredible.)

Anyway, I might be fine with this imperfect rhyme it if it was absolutely essential for the song, but the structure is so forced already to fit with this poor fourth rhyme that it sorta falls apart for me, especially because swarming comes at the moment it becomes clear that this song has said nothing about the issue Connie is personally dealing with.

Ugh. I’m losing sight. I’m losing touch. All these little things seem to matter so much that they confuse me. This song might lose me!

So yeah, I’m not insane enough to think that Here Comes a Thought was engineered to irk me just so the beautiful refrain can be a self-demonstrating affair in not letting small things like rhyme schemes get to me, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work. The song builds and builds and builds the stress by presenting bad situation after bad situation, and right when everything seems like it will fall apart, Garnet has the answer.

This is a highly quotable song and episode, so I had a lot of great lines to choose from for the header, but I don’t think anything matches the sheer relief that ironically comes from Garnet’s repeating a negative phrase. She usurps the power of “no” away from anxiety by chanting that no, nothing bad is going to happen. Her knowing smile on the last “but it’s not” seals the deal. She’s not just a teacher here, she’s a sage.

This is Estelle’s first full song on the show since Stronger Than You, and she pulls off subdued chill just as well as glorious anthem without losing an ounce of her commanding presence. But now she's fully matched by AJ Michalka, another professional singer that doubles as a voice actor. Unlike Estelle, I hadn’t listened to any of Michalka’s music before watching Steven Universe, so despite knowing she wa a singer, the sheer power of her pipes came out of nowhere for me.

I honestly don’t know what it is about Michalka’s voice, but I’m lousy at crying even when I really want to because it would make me feel better, and that voice doesn’t just choke me up. It makes me weep. The quavering vulnerability in “I’m losing touch” destroys me no matter how many times I listen to this song. Just writing about it makes me emotional. Michalka tells a story not just with her words, but the tone and levels of confidence of her voice, and the lesson is learned by harmonizing with the master herself. On the one hand, I’m glad her voice’s heartbreaking purity isn’t diluted by constant performances, but on the other, I’m not sure it’s possible for something so intense to be diluted. Add in the prominent harp, a fusion of the plucking from Steven’s ukulele and the gravitas from Connie’s violin, and I’m done for.

(My tendency to cry whenever Michalka sings might have to do with how well she’s primed on both occasions in the series: Estelle is a hell of a lead-in, while Escapism is introduced by a stirring callback to Greg’s guitar from Lion 3. But it’d be stupid not to credit the source, considering she’s the one that gets the waterworks going and she’s been spectacular at voicing Stevonnie from the start. It’s a damn shame Catra doesn’t get a song in She-Ra, but at least Michalka does a cover of the theme song.)

I haven’t even talked about the animation from Takafumi Hori, who gives a unique but familiar flair to the mindscape of Garnet and Stevonnie and their components. The facial animations and body language are given extra room to breathe, and the use of butterflies as symbols of fluttering stresses (butterflies in your brain are so much worse than butterflies in your stomach) pays off huge when we see them explode from Connie’s backpack. The unspoken story of Ruby focusing too hard on a single problem while Sapphire is overwhelmed by possibilities works wonders, and the fact that Connie’s problems are initially hidden hints at Steven also hiding problems, seeing as the kids are mirroring the Gems. Colin Howard and Jeff Liu would’ve been more than capable of crafting such a sequence, but bringing in a guest animator makes us pay special attention to this pivotal song.

Because yeah, this is an important song for Connie, but this is still Steven’s show, and it’s a huge song for Steven. In a brilliant development, it turns out his strangely normal behavior after the salvo of traumas at the end of Act II was intentionally strange, and Here Comes a Thought drags him kicking and screaming towards the true path to inner peace. You can’t, as he advises Connie right before Garnet steps in, “just try not to think about it.” The only way out is through, and it’s not gonna be easy.

Every fantastic aspect of Mindful Education benefits from fantastic pacing. Connie’s bad mood is established immediately, but so is Steven’s straining to be fun and upbeat. A series of questions pull us along: “What is Connie upset about?” becomes “How is Garnet going to help?” becomes “What is Steven upset about?” becomes “How is Connie going to help?” without missing a step. Both kids make us so worried, because Connie’s bad mood is out of nowhere, and Steven’s acceptance of his suffering is long overdue. Both sensations are heightened by the preceding episodes, as Steven has been acting way too okay with his mom being a killer, and we know Connie was enthusiastic about school in Buddy’s Book. So it’s such a relief to not only see their worries addressed, but to have an entire episode about addressing worries.

After three goofy episodes, Mindful Education transitions us into a more serious mood with a similarly goofy opening. Sure, Connie’s attitude is cause for concern, but we still get Garnet’s enthusiasm and sign-making skills, Stevonnie’s newfound ability to do a Yoshi-style flutter kick hover, and the most glorious fusion dance ever depicted on screen.

Here Comes a Thought is a showstopper about calm meditation, and while it obviously soothes Connie’s anxieties, it also quiets down the silliness without making a big deal of it: there isn’t a single gag in the episode during or after the song. This is a show that can and has pulled off humor during dramatic moments, but we go full sincerity mode for Connie and Steven working through their emotional turmoil, and considering how big of a turning point this is for Steven’s arc in particular, I appreciate the restraint.

It’s perfect for Steven to only realize he has a problem when Connie is so open about hers, because Connie has always been a catalyst for change, and Steven is more concerned about others than himself. It also serves for a checkpoint for their mutual character growth: we’re a long way from the open-to-a-fault Steven and pragmatic-to-a-fault Connie of Bubble Buddies, and their series-long balancing act continues to bring their attitudes closer together. This isn’t the last we’ll see of Sullen Connie, and it’s nice to see that Steven isn’t the only kid on the block who’s becoming more of a teen. 

Another sign of their growth is shown in the fluid action of Stevonnie’s training; even when they’re not on the top of their game, Steven and Connie’s developing physical skill is on full display as their fusion weaves about the battlefield. Stevonnie’s ambidexterity functions well as a signifier of which kid is in a healthier state: Steven’s shield is in their right hand in the first training session, while Connie’s sword takes its place in the second.

(Oh, and on the subject of subtle visual storytelling, don’t think we didn’t notice the damaged pink diamond floating above the Sky Arena.)

The first two acts of Mindful Education tell such a complete story about Connie that the appearance of a butterfly for Steven almost comes across as a twist: again, his terrible advice about bottling up emotions upon accidentally hurting people is a pretty big hint that he’s pushing down his feelings, but this is such a satisfactory episode already that its conclusion feels like a bonus. 

It’s harrowing for Steven to start working through how much horrible stuff has happened in such a short amount of time, but it’s oh so satisfying for us to finally see him process it. The transformation of Holo Pearl into Jeff (who I’m sure is named for Mr. Liu) was a neat way to show Connie’s guilt, but it’s complemented by a punch to the gut as Stevonnie impales an image of Bismuth instead of just getting thrown off by the illusion. And because Steven has let his problems pile up, the rest of his ghosts flood in. I love the inclusion of Eyeball, the foe that Steven logically should feel the least amount of guilt about (Bismuth was a friend, and Jasper refused help while blaming him, but Eyeball was an enemy actively trying to kill him). It shows that he really does care about everyone, and that the compounding problems only make the guilt worse: Bismuth and Jasper begin in their normal sizes, but Eyeball is massive in Stevonnie’s imagination. And then, as a horrible distortion of her theme heralds her arrival, we get the most important ghost in the series.

Obviously Steven isn’t able to deal with the Rose factor right now, but acknowledging that there’s a problem is the first and hardest step. And despite how talented Aivi and Surasshu are at enhancing the mood with music, there’s nothing like the stark silence that follows Rose’s theme to bring the impact home.

AJ Michalka once again shows off her talent for voicing Steven and Connie separately as Stevonnie has an internal conversation; it’s such a seamless interaction that it’s easy to forget that this scene shifts from one actor voicing these two characters to two different actors voicing the same two characters as Steven and Connie plummet to the ground. I mentioned in The Answer that my favorite Miyazaki movie is Castle in the Sky, so I’m thrilled to see another reference to two heroes falling hand in hand before slowing to a safe landing.

Our conclusion isn’t about Steven coming to terms with three failures in a row and a life-changing revelation. It’s about him realizing that it’s okay to admit that everything isn’t okay, and that he doesn’t have to put on a bald cap and be a ham to make everyone else more comfortable. This is something that friends can help with, but that he ultimately has to figure out for himself. Still, it’s beautiful that by working together, he and his best friend become strong in the real way.

But of course, they had help. I mentioned in Back to the Moon that our Big Three Crystal Gems each get an episode that acts as an epilogue to their Act II arcs, and it’s Garnet’s turn. Garnet begins Act II as a leader who’s quiet about being a fusion and who has a hard time understanding the anxieties of her less confident teammates. By the end, she transforms into a leader who’s more open and willing to share her own vulnerabilities, and a loud and proud fusion no matter whom she’s interacting with. Mindful Education leans in hard on her expertise in fusion, but just as importantly shows that she’s willing to coach others by revealing how Ruby and Sapphire work through struggles. Her growth is less overt than Amethyst and Pearl overcoming more obvious hurdles, but it’s still hard to imagine Garnet being this capable of helping Connie and Steven fifty episodes ago.

Garnet is also the source of two intriguing callbacks in the form of quoting past lines. The first is the wonderful “Hold the phone. Now give the phone to me,” which Steven tells Greg in The Message as a means of interrupting his song about Lapis Lazuli being a super mean riptide queen (sidenote: I’m sure Lapis would be flattered by Greg’s assessment). Garnet repeats this phrase right after Steven suggests that you can get used to not thinking about your guilt, and it’s a brilliant way of gently putting a stop to this bad idea.

The second is a pointed “that is to say” as she explains the importance of harmony within fusion. This is a common enough phrase, but it was so prominent in fellow sparring episode Sworn to the Sword that I can’t imagine it’s a coincidence. It connects Garnet to Pearl’s role as a teacher to both Steven and Connie; fortunately, this time the teacher is instilling a message of self-reflection instead of self-sacrifice.

I call these callbacks intriguing because Garnet herself wasn’t present for either scene containing the lines she’s quoting. And sure, this could just be standard screenplay magic without an in-universe explanation. But to me, it enhances the sense of Garnet as an all-knowing mentor, at least as far as this episode is concerned. Her wisdom is absolute, and it might be pretentious for a show to claim such certainty with its message, but Mindful Education has an outstanding message, so I’m all in.

But back to that ending for a second. It, like Here Comes a Thought, provides a calming answer to a scene of turmoil. It’s obviously a quicker moment of relief: just a glimpse of Stevonnie laughing, catching their breath, and reassuring Steven and Connie. However, like Here Comes a Thought, the episode keeps going. This time, in the form of the end credits. 

Since Bubbled, we’ve heard nothing but ambient waves as the credits roll, bereft of the comfort Love Like You has provided after nearly every prior episode. But now we begin the reprise, and this first segment is such an eerie departure from the norm that serenity once again takes a backseat.

With time, it’s revealed that this song is just more Love Like You. But in this period of uncertainty in Steven’s life, I deeply admire the decision to keep us lost in the woods for a while before figuring out that it’s something we’ve known all along. Just a thought.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

Remember my gripes with Here Comes a Thought, way up there at the beginning of the review? Yeah, they don’t keep this out of my top ten.

Top Twenty

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

When It Rains

Catch and Release

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

No Thanks!

     5. Horror Club      4. Fusion Cuisine      3. House Guest      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

[davidmann95]

A different theory on the Master of Masters’ Identity

The consensus at this point has definitely settled on that the Master of Masters is someone we know - when Back Cover dropped I would’ve guessed he was a whole new figure, but in the wake of what III pulls at the end I’d say it’s reached a point where he’s probably gotta be a familiar face for it to feel like he’s been appropriately set up (though I’d also kind of dig if he was simply a resident of the ‘realistic’ world of Verum Rex who was screwing with the Disney fairytaleland). At this point, the two big theories are that it’s a time-travelling eeeeeeevil future Sora or that Demyx has been pulling a very, very long con, and while I’m not sure if either or both of them started as a joke (I swear I recall ‘evil future Sora’ being an idea tossed around for multiple mysterious figures in the past), they’ve got serious traction now.

I’m sort of ignoring the possibility of Demyx here; consider that a parallel track to what I’m thinking, as opposed to Sora which I’ll discuss a bit directly as a compare-and-contrast with my theory. I actually think it’s not totally unreasonable, but after Luxu, it’d be real, REAL hard to pull that particular trick and not have it feel like it was coming up with diminishing returns. Not impossible, but hard. And for that matter I think it being Sora could also work; if nothing else it’d be interesting to see how that guy of all people gets from THAT point A to THAT point B, which I suppose is the core of the appeal.

But assuming a couple of givens - that it’s someone we know, that the Master of Masters is indeed a very, very bad guy even if he’s doing what he’s doing for what he might consider good reasons, and that he’s either the endgame opponent of the entire franchise or that he’ll play a critical role in said finale - while I’d agree he’s a time-traveler who’s broken bad (in a series so much about growing up, what’s a better final opponent than the threat that you ‘grow up’ in all the worst, most cynical ways?), I don’t think he’s Sora.

I think the Master of Masters is more likely to be Riku.

I’ll list off what I’ve got below in two categories, the first being evidence. I don’t think I’ve got any real indisputable smoking guns here, but to be fair, unless you consider MoM and Demyx both pointing at people to be a clincher neither does anyone else, and I’d at least say there’s enough that if I’m right people won’t really be able to say that it wasn’t appropriately seeded, with one or two points I think really do solidly support Riku in a way that doesn’t quite fit with anyone else that we know of. After that, I’ll go into why I think it’s the more interesting option character-wise/thematically.

Evidence

* Right at the top, regarding the one bit of physical evidence we have: if we’re treating Sora and Riku as the only two serious candidates given only they’d pack the necessary punch, the Master definitely sounds more like an adult version of the latter than the former, at least going by the English voices. For that matter Ray Chase also voices Noctis, clearly the main aesthetic model for Yozora who’s himself repeatedly and explicitly compared in-universe physically to Riku. A stretch, but between Xehanort and Eraqus being Star Wars vs. Star Trek in BBS and then Spider-Man vs. Venom in III, it’s perfectly fair game to declare that Nomura enjoys playing those kinds of meta games with the castings.

* Obviously the Master’s personality doesn’t quite line up with anyone we know, but while his degree of over-the-topness is unique, as is that he speaks like a ‘real’ person instead of a Disney or Final Fantasy character (and given Xigbar, Genie, and Hades all act a lot wittier and more casual than the other characters and the Master’s probably in that 1000+ year old club too, we might be able to assume that’s just a trait it takes awhile to pick up in the universe of Kingdom Hearts), most of his other traits can be traced back to Sora or Riku. He’s playful and encouraging like the former, sarcastic and biting and full of himself like the latter used to be. It’s been acknowledged more than once that the two have been picking up each others’ personality traits, with Riku picking up some of Sora’s exuberance and free-spiritedness (though he noticeably tended towards the expressive, dramatic side all on his own when lost in his own darkness) while it’s hard not to imagine Sora’s gotten some of his snark in his attempts at being more like Riku. But the big Master of Masters personality thing when he’s actually apparently being sincere and serious? That “you ultimately need to do what your heart feels is right”? Sora may be the one to say May Your Heart Be Your Guiding Key after he learned about the phrase, but Riku’s the one who in both II and III argues for the right of allies to seemingly lay down their lives in service of where their hearts guide them.

* Biggie: the Master of Masters has a connection to Dream Eaters, being able to create the Chirithy. Riku’s been one.

* Another biggie: the Master of Masters presumably carries a great deal of light in him, since he’s able to pass among the other inhabitants of Daybreak Town and seems to value it when waxing mournfully about events to come, but given what he goes on to do he surely harbors a great deal of darkness as well. So much so that it would be difficult to not notice, especially in a world where it was an anomaly, unless he was able to hide it where it couldn’t be felt by others. Contained within himself alongside his light, in a way that very pointedly only one character we’ve seen has been able to do.

* Not as big, but still notable: if there are physical differences between the Master and Riku, or if the Master as some have speculated has lived through the generations by possessing others like Luxu, it’s worth noting Riku’s worn another body before himself.

* A stretch post-III where it turns out acquiring new Keyblades isn’t the biggest deal, but it’s worth pointing out that Riku giving Kairi Destiny’s Embrace is still the only time we’ve seen someone directly give someone a Keyblade the way the Master apparently gave them to the Foretellers, rather than potentially bequeathing one in an Inheritance.

* While the Master is manipulative in general, it’s his treatment of Aced that most clearly stands out as him setting the stage for these friends to tear each other apart, and it’s him playing on his students’ desire for power and significance just as Maleficent once played Riku. If it’s Riku under that hood pulling the strings of impressionable youth, he hardly could have had a better example to follow.

* Speaking of the Foretellers, each of their names corresponds with the Latin title of one of the seven deadly sins. The one that doesn’t belong with one of the six and therefore presumably lies with the Master himself would be Superbia - as eagle-eyed players have noticed partially scrawled on the mysterious Black Box - meaning Pride. And if there’s one sin that most clearly defined Riku at his absolute lowest moment, it’s pride.

* The Master of Masters acts in a way that suggests he has some manner of not entirely malevolent intentions, even if he’s perfectly willing to use the worst of means to get there. And again, when at his worst, Riku’s the one who tends towards Going Too Far for Good Reasons.

* It can be reasonably assumed the Master has some sort of massive, cosmic role of significance given all these other mighty Keyblade wielders hold him in unquestioning reverence, and while we don’t know what his power might be, it’s presumably tied in some way to Kingdom Hearts. Riku meanwhile was originally going to be the one to receive the Kingdom Key, a blade that, while it hasn’t been directly acknowledged yet, clearly has a connection to the X-Blade, marking him from jump as a figure of tremendous import above perhaps every other major character until he botched it and Sora wound up with that gig.

* Assuming the Master of Masters wants to get at Kingdom Hearts - and of course he does, what else do the villains ever want in these - and’ll get closer than anyone else because he’s the final villain, it means Riku wasn’t wrong in the first game when he said “It’s up to me. Only the Keyblade master can open the secret door and change the world.”

* The Dark Riku alongside Xigbar in the Keyblade Graveyard is the only apparent instance of pair-the-spares when it comes to the villains in the final battle rather than having any thematic connection...unless it’s actually the (offshoot of a past version of the) Master of Masters and Luxu. In fact, including Ansem since he starts off as part of that fight, that brawl would then be a reprise of you battling the first forms encountered by Sora of the three biggest villains in the entire series.

* Speaking of the Dark Riku, his crack about the Mark of Mastery is notable in this context, especially since it comes out of nowhere and Riku doesn’t seem to know entirely what he means. Was that something deliberate?

* And speaking of Xigbar, I’ve already seen fanfics and whatnot centering around Sora-is-the-Master retconning in that Luxu was actually ‘babysitting’ his master’s past self. Worth noting in that light that he spends almost as much time around Riku as Sora: he meets Sora personally face-to-face at the beginning of II and III, but every other time they run into each other it’s when Riku’s right nearby, whether in an upper level of the Castle chamber in their fight in II or fighting both in III or Riku being in Sora’s dream during their DDD confrontation (mostly stuff that’s clearly just meant in the sense of ‘Riku and Xigbar often show up during important plot stuff, of course they’d end up nearby a few times’, but it’d be easy for the creators to retcon as Luxu keeping an eye on him while misdirecting to make it seem like Sora was his real target). But as opposed to his loud, scenery-chewing confrontations with Sora, he was trailing Riku in the Land of Dragons once upon a time - the first time we ever see him face-to-face - quietly in a way that isn’t usually his style even given his noted skill at recon. And if Riku’s the Master, Riku being the last one to say something to him prior to his ‘death’, declaring him unworthy of the Keyblade when a version of him will go on to entrust him with the Keyblade most important to his plans, gets a major charge.

* As someone’s pointed out since, this, which Nomura joked is the sort of thing only the Master of Masters would do (though A Fragmentary Passage really has so far been the odd man out in the secret movies in how little has played out of it; I guess Sora vanishing must have been knowing foreshadowing in retrospect, but a lot of the rest hasn’t come to fruition. Abandoned plans for the series, or ones yet to materialize?).

* Not actually evidence, but if he was the Master then the end of DDD where he mutters to himself “I’m...a Keyblade master?” is another bit that would take on a delightfully ominous air with the benefit of hindsight.

Thematic reasoning

In terms of character, I feel like this opens up considerably more in a much more organic fashion than the possibility of Sora being the big bad. Not that that wouldn’t obviously offer a great deal, but to do so would involve reshaping or inverting a great deal of the character and thematic arcs we’ve seen thus far, while having it all come down to the final fight for Riku’s soul and by extension the world of light as a whole would by contrast do a lot to bring things full circle.

For starters, in the ‘full circle’ sense, along with Riku being the first major adversary of the series (while Maleficent was pulling the strings, Riku was the one dogging your heels, the rival with a personal stake in the conflict at hand) the most prominent imagery now associated with Xehanort, Luxu, and the Master of Masters began for the players with Riku. The Gazing Eye, the outfit and fighting posture later taken up by Vanitas (a connection that remains tantalizingly unexplored to this day), the dark but unmarked Heart symbol of the X-blade, the very concept that there could be multiple Keyblades; he’s even one of the two we see wearing black cloaks in their first appearance. In the world of the game those are all forces that battered Riku about amidst his fall that had been set in motion before he was even born, but as a story experienced by the players those symbols all trace their origins back to him as the first, most personal antagonist. While he’s redeemed himself about as much as one person possibly could - and I’ll say right here that I think when it comes down to it he’ll grit his teeth and stick to his guns on that rather than becoming whatever the Master is - he is and always will be inextricably linked with the series’ imagery for the forces of darkness in a way no other character can be. Dig down past all the layers of continuity and Norts to the most basic idea of what a Bad Guy is in the world of Kingdom Hearts is, and a possessed Riku in front of Hollow Bastion’s keyhole is what’s waiting at the bottom. Any feasible last boss is already on some level an offshoot of that.

But that’s just why it would be a nice clean fit in terms of visual symbolism. More substantially, the Master of Masters being a potential future version of him immediately answers the question of what to do with the dude character-wise. Yozora makes it very clear he’s still going to be important going forward, but as III also made clear, his existing character arc has been closed. He’s fought his way back into the light, been willing to sacrifice that light in himself and any hope of returning home to help the friend he once betrayed, still found salvation, came to terms with the person he was and wanted to be, and was recognized as having mastered his power and his heart. His story could in every way that matters be done, but obviously it isn’t, which means there must still be something for him to deal with; something more than saving Sora, which while as serious as it gets is still for him old hat.

(Going into Sora for a bit: him being the Master of Masters could no doubt be fascinating, in the self-reflection it would induce in Sora, in the conceptual scale of the threat, in the horror it would induce in those close to him, and in Riku in being put on the other side of the equation of having to save his friend from himself. But even aside from how radical a departure that would be personality-wise, it’s a prospect that doesn’t really address Sora’s existing fears or flaws. He’s filled with doubt, yes, but regarding his perceived lack of strength rather than a simmering moral rot; his darkness when glimpsed in a few of his forms seems to be something feral rather than actively malevolent, and he already has a plot-significant counterpart to explore the darkness in himself in Vanitas. Perhaps a desire for greater strength to protect his friends could be written as leading to him losing his way to the extent necessary to pull such a 180, but that’s already Riku and Terra’s misstep to pull themselves up from. It’s shocking in a way that’s enticing, absolutely, but I think part of why it would be shocking is that without either majorly reframing some basic stuff or retreading well-worn ground, it simply doesn’t fit as well as you want it to.)

But if Riku sees a familiar face under the hood, and looks at the blue eyes that once sat in his sword and in the mirror and realizes that there’s no outside force making him do terrible things to people he loves this time? He’s faced with a threat new to the series: that in the end, redemption might fail. Whether there’s timeline shenanigans that mean this guy lived a different life, if he backslid, if he’s clear-headedly making decisions he believes are for the best, or if he just had a really bad day that knocked him off the wagon; the counterpoint to the idea that there’s a light in the dark - the way III demonstrated in such an effective way in the Keyblade Graveyard with the endings of so many enemies - is that there’s a darkness buried down no matter what that still has a chance of breaking through no matter how mightily you’ve steeled yourself against it. It’s a completely different, far more visceral and meaningful fear than the idea of Sora being the one to break bad: in that case, the idea is captivating because it’s so alien and foreign and bizarre. Here, it’s frightening because Riku knows exactly how it could happen, and he’s grown enough to feel the shame and horror of that possibility when he’s already had to live with the consequences of it once. The Organization spent III trying to poke holes in the basic tenants our heroes live by, and this is the ultimate manifestation of that spiritual challenge - that the growth our heroes have seen might come undone by their own hands. And Riku fighting desperately to prove he can remain the person he’s fought so hard to become, and Sora and Kairi fighting to save him along with themselves and each other, is the final conflict.

It’s not just a prospect that would bring urgency back into Riku’s character, it’s a possibility that would reverberate through the whole cast with a severity that it simply couldn’t with Sora. Obviously Kairi and Mickey would stand with Riku and believe he would manage to turn out alright no matter what (though that loyalty is still complicated given an evil/morally-dubious Riku would likely go after Sora - he may have already if he had something to do with bringing him to the world of Verum Rex), but what about the rest of them? They all believe in Sora and his inherent goodness and owe him their lives, but for most Riku’s simply some guy they know, a friend of a friend. Roxas was a victim of his darkness even when he was trying to do the right thing. Terra’s already likely consumed with guilt and could likely see the prospect of his hand-picked successor once again falling to darkness like he did to simply be another on the list of his own sins. Ven might look at him when in his dark outfit and be reminded of his brother. And while Axel knows friends can come back to you, he’s a pragmatic dude who’s seen just how much they can change in the first place. When the battle lines are being drawn in a war even greater than Xehanort’s, would every last one of them really stand with him when they’ve been told he’ll betray them, as he’s betrayed those closest to him before? A prophecy of Sora going wrong would just be a catalyst to bind our heroes closer together to prevent that. That Riku might turn on them could strike at the fissure that would threaten to blow them apart, or if it doesn’t that’s an even greater display of good faith on their part than it would be with Sora. Hell, even on the antagonistic end, Maleficent as an opponent seeking to usurp the Masters’ ambitions is an immeasurably different conflict if she’s up against a Riku who’s gone down the path she first steered him towards.

At the end of the day, the question is why this would be worth making the story of Kingdom Hearts about when Sora is still supposed to be the main character. I laid out earlier some of why I don’t think Sora as the Master would work, but the real deal is this: not only is the Master of Masters a counterpoint to Sora, the Least Disney character in this universe whereas even when next to Mickey Mouse the spiky kid is distinctly the Most Disney, but more importantly to be the Master of Masters would undo the last of Sora’s original premise. For all that he’s become, he was still born, as Xehanort put it, a dull, ordinary boy, surrounded by Chosen Ones and unique entities of every stripe who joined their ranks and ultimately led them purely on the strength of his decency and determination. Riku was literally a Chosen One courtesy of Terra, blessed with one of the ultimate Keyblades and tearing the sky down by sheer force of his will to be more than what one world could contain, the vessel meant to open the Door To Darkness and the one who conquered his own darkness in a way no one else could, who in the end was selected as Master. He is Maximum Protagonist, in every way a Figure Of Destiny, whereas Sora is so much not that, so profoundly the spammer in the seemingly inevitable works of fate, that the first time he meets the first trilogies’ main villain the guy comments on how unremarkable he seems to be, and the last time they meet Sora’s ultimate rebuttal is against the idea of destiny as a straightforward thing any one person can control. For Sora to actually be the guy writing destiny, to have always really been the most important of them all, is to undo that. For him to fight the ultimate figure of destiny, for that to be the guy who was his counterpoint from the very first scene before your Xehanort’s and Roxas’s and Ven’s and Vanitas’s and Luxu’s - the cool guy and fighter and dreamer and Serious Leader-Type Important One to Sora’s cheery, insecure dork in shoes the wrong size who seemed born to be the sidekick - is to bring that story full circle. And it’s to give him the chance to do the one thing he fought for in I and II that he was never able to do himself: save Riku. Because saving his friends is what Sora’s story, and all of Kingdom Hearts, always has to come down to in the end.

[min-minn]

Symphony - Chapter Five

A03

Summary: Viktor Nikiforov, tenor prodigy and top student at the Salchow Institute of Music, is looking for an accompanist.

And word around campus is that Yakov Feltsman, Head of Music and conductor of the prestigious Institute Band, is looking for new members.

Yuuri Katsuki is just looking to survive his next Piano recital

OR

The Yuri on CONCERT Music School AU that we all deserve

Pairings: Viktor Nikiforov/ Yuuri Katsuki

Rating: Teen And Up

Content Warning: Anxiety

A/N: *bows profusely* I'm so so sorry it took me this long, and I'm sorry it was a bit of a shorter chapter!

After finishing Fever I had to literally purge myself and get my mind back into this fic properly. This chapter felt like a bit of a warm up - getting ready to throw myself into the deep end that is the story to come. AND BOY AM I READY to throw myself in. I've never wanted to write something so much in my life.

AND ITS THANKS TO ALL OF YOU GREMLINS! Thank you so much for all of the support - I actually don't know how to describe how much it encourages me. Knowing there's people out there who actually want to listen to some crazy story I've dreamt up, it makes me want to wake up in the morning. I hope I can do this story justice and give you some half-decent food to keep us all satiated until YOI gets back from the war...

No music this chapter, but there'll be plenty in the next one! I'm writing it as we speak!I also hope to update this fic on a bit of a stricter schedule - After this weekend I'll be posting a new chapter (sometimes two) every Monday night PST! (Give or take because I'm at the other end of the world and Monday night is actually Tuesday evening for me~) I really want to challenge myself to write this fic as fully as I can, and I don't like keeping people waiting!

And also, of course, find me on twitter or tumblr if you have any questions. I also do art when my brain wants a break from writing which I post there, and I've met some great members of the YOI fandom already around my art and writing so I'm always open to making more! (YALL KNOW WHO YOU ARE, YOU SICKENINGLY BEAUTIFUL HUMANS)

ANYWAY LOTS OF BELATED LOVE,

- Min

Shortly after the practice session, Yuuri had completely thrown himself into his study. His anxiety was nothing new - after however many years of bathroom stalls and car parks and stage wings soaked in fear, the panic attacks were like old friends. And every time they rolled through him, passing through like a tornado and leaving him weak, his first thought was always music.

At least he had his music.

As a child, Yuuri had been blessed with plenty of time to practice. His life was easy-going in Hasetsu - school was simple, friends were simple, home was simple. If anything threw him into an anxious spin, nobody paid any mind when he would slip away quietly to his room, or sprint to Minako’s then studio to use her grand. It was a sort of therapy, he’d decided. There were probably better ways for him to find relief - ways that didn’t border on obsession - but he reasoned that if it worked, if it wasn’t hurting anyone else, then how bad could it be?

When he’d practice to calm himself, it didn’t matter what he played, so long as his fingers were moving along the keys. Sometimes it was Liszt. Sometimes Chopin. Sometimes jazz or simple accompaniment pieces. He even had a small folder of pop songs and film scores that slipped into his rotation every now and then. Phichit always loved listening to Yuuri play pieces from The King and the Skater – his ‘absolute favourite movie of all time, no exceptions’- though that usually only happened when they were drinking at home, Phichit screeching along at the top of his lungs while Yuuri stumbled his way through the chords.

Now that Yuuri was focussed on his thesis and composition, he had plenty to fill up his practice time. And so, after the disastrous practice session, blinded slightly by tears and desperate to get his hands on his keyboard, bitterly afraid of running into Viktor, he’d come home with Phichit and all but chained himself to his piano. Had run over the notes from his last session with Lilia. Practiced scales and glissandos and tremolos until his nails dug into his skin. Written pages after pages of ideas - notes erased and moved like chess pieces across the bars. Ideas scrawled in fine pencil in the margins - sometimes in English, sometimes in Japanese.

Very soon, as the days drifted past, the events of that practice session - and with it, the painful thoughts of Viktor - drowned into quiet at the back of his mind. Phichit was kind enough not to bring it up, though he was quite busy with his own practice and some latest video project he’d been commissioned to do.

Sometimes the thoughts would resurface - particularly if Yuuri spotted a flash of silver hair across the quad, or heard someone say his name in passing - but all in all, Yuuri felt he was slowly putting the whole thing behind him.

It had been a relatively productive week by the time Yuuri’s next session with Lilia rolled around. He was still slightly nervous - certain that she’d be just as cold and ruthless as their first meeting - but the edge was taken off ever so slightly since he knew, now, what to expect. He almost felt comforted, knowing with certainty that he was going to be chewed up and spat out by the diva. Kind of fitting.

He deserved it, after all.

Because that was the one constant as his mind reeled. As he tried to make sense of the strange events surrounding Viktor. As he tried to reason and brute force his way through all his emotions with some sort of logic.

He wasn’t good enough for him. Wasn’t good enough for The Institute Band. Wasn’t good enough to even be here at SIM…

“Do I have your complete attention, Mr. Katsuki?” A voice cut across his thoughts.

“Oh! Yes, Madame Baranovskaya. Of course,” he quickly straightened in the piano stool, Lilia was a constant presence behind him as she scanned his movements. He’d drifted off while playing again – working his way through the first movement of his composition piece to try and show her what he’d been working on.

“I admire your appreciation of the musicality of your piece, Mr. Katsuki, but we’re strictly working on tempo today,” she said coolly, eyes flashing as she looked down at him. Yuuri’s heart sank ever so slightly – if only he could keep his mind in check for one second perhaps he’d be worthy of Lilia’s time. But, of course, who was he kidding? He hardly had any right to be here, under her supervision, let alone at this school…

“And I do believe,” she said in an oddly soft tone, “This piece was originally intended to be played in a major key, correct?”

Yuuri blinked, furrowing his brow. Had he been playing in a minor key? He could hardly remember…

“Yes, of course” he dipped his head in embarrassment.

“Celestino did warn me about your tendency to get lost in the music,” she continued, pursing her lips as she appraised him. Her gaze never failed to set his teeth on edge. Like he was on display, completely exposed and slowly being picked apart. He swallowed as the silence dragged on, bracing himself for the inevitable reprimand.

“You can use that to your advantage, if you have someone skilled enough to record your playing,” and her voice was rather quiet. Almost as if she were speaking to herself. “You have a unique way of phrasing that would do you wonders if you were actually paying attention.”

Yuuri tried to hide the blush he could feel warming his ears at her words. Was it …meant to be some kind of compliment? He’d never heard someone speak that way about his playing before.

“I’ll see what I can do,” and her voice was back to its usual strict tone. “For now, Mr. Katsuki. Tempo.”

Their session lasted most of the afternoon, the sun dipping low as they came to a close after hours of metronome instructed exercises and Lilia’s constant reprimands and observations. It felt like Yuuri had run a mental marathon by the time she called the session to a close.

But it was a good feeling, in its own way. He knew he’d hardly have the mental energy to worry about running into Viktor on his way to the bus. To worry about what Lilia really thought of him as a student. It was like a kind of mental static – too exhausted to even bring up coherent thoughts as he slowly packed his sheet music and notes away.

Lilia offered him a few pointers for his practice at home, giving strict instructions for their next session. He bid her farewell and made his way to the door, only to be stopped by the sound of her clearing her throat.

“And, Mr. Katsuki,” she called after him. He turned back toward her and took in her severe silhouette as she stood by the grand, expression unreadable.

“Congratulations,” she said, mouth a hard line, though her eyes seemed … uncharacteristically warm.

Yuuri blinked.

“Congratulations?” he asked quietly.

Congratulations for what?

“Try not to celebrate too much this weekend,” and Yuuri all but choked as he watched Lilia … smile? It was thin, hardly reaching her eyes, but it was a smile nonetheless.

Celebrate?

What on earth—

Yuuri didn’t get the chance to question her, however, as her phone suddenly rang loudly, filling the room with a strange ringtone. Some kind of high staccato singing. She picked it up quickly and waved for him to leave, greeting whoever had called in a stoic manner.

Yuuri hurried out of the room. The whole meeting was quite strange – stranger than his first meeting that still gave him chills when he remembered how cold Lilia had been with him. Despite how exhausted he felt, he couldn’t help but gnaw on the thought in his mind;

Why had she congratulated him?

He was still worrying away at the question when he rounded the corner and came into one of the common areas. It was a large, spacious room with high ceilings – couches and coffee tables huddled in one corner with tables and chairs filling what remained. There were large expanses of wall space taken up by posters and flyers of every kind. It was the main common area at the school – the one where all of the latest news and postings always ended up. Things like simple advertisements for local concerts or gigs that students were involved in. Flyers looking for roommates or accompanists.

But there was also one wall dedicated to official postings. It was a dividing wall that cut through the room, and it was often crowded at this time of year.

Today it was positively crammed with students.

The noise was overwhelming, Yuuri finding himself flinching ever so slightly as he realised how many people he’d have to pass just to get to the exit. There was shouting and screaming, what sounded like someone practicing scales on a clarinet. There was laughter, and as the crowd came into view, Yuuri could see countless people jostling each other for space around the wall.

Yuuri distantly remembered that today was important, though he couldn’t remember why. There must be a posting – parts for the SIM Musical perhaps? Or maybe there’d been new chairs announced for the orchestra?. Yuuri knew none of it would apply to him, however. He hadn’t auditioned in years, preferring to just focus on the orchestra when he needed to. He ducked his head to make sure nobody recognised him, tucking his chin into his scarf and making his way toward the exits.

A familiar voice rang out across the din and he froze in his tracks.

“Yuuri! Yuuri, over here!”

Viktor.

Viktor’s voice.

His legs turned to water the second the realisation hit him, and he barely had the strength to turn towards the sound. He cursed his high-functioning anxiety for choosing to auto-pilot right at that moment. He wanted nothing more than to pretend he hadn’t heard him and bolt for the doors, but his body seemed to move on its own. Wooden and puppeteered by years of trying to appear normal in social situations. Not to mention the uncomfortable flip his heart did in his chest that took control of his pulse quickly.

He turned to see Viktor standing at the front of the crowd, shouldering his way through and making his way towards him with a beaming grin lighting up his features. It almost hurt to look at. Like staring straight into the sun.

Yuuri figured Viktor must be greeting him out of pity. He could see a few of the school’s best and brightest hanging near where Viktor was standing by the posting wall, so it was unsettling to see Viktor prying himself away from his elite friends, focussed on Yuuri instead. Christophe Giacometti, the school’s top double bassist, stood out instantly, his curly blonde hair all too visible in the sea of browns and blacks. He was one of Viktor’s closest friends, Yuuri knew, and the man seemed to be shouting something after Viktor, though his voice was lost as someone blasted a note on a trombone nearby.

“Congratulations, Yuuri!” Viktor cried, breaking free of the crowd and all but running over to him. The uneasiness of Lilia’s words returned with full force.

Congratulations for what?

“V—Viktor,” Yuuri said in a small voice by way of a greeting, though it sounded more like a question, a deep sense of dread beginning to work it’s way into his chest. He hadn’t spoken with Viktor since their last practice – hadn’t replied to the one text message he’d sent. He hadn’t even opened it, too petrified of what it might entail to even read the opening line. Viktor would surely be offended at Yuuri’s silence. It had been just over a week since their practice, after all.

“I’m so thrilled you decided to audition in the end,” Viktor said breathlessly, rearranging his shirt after being tossed around in the crowd. He stood just slightly too close, eyes bright as he watched Yuuri with all the excitement of a child.

Wait…

Audition?

“Wh—what?” Yuuri’s voice came out as a strangled squeak as he felt himself grow pale. Audition? As in—?

But before he could finish the thought, another familiar voice rang out across the room. He turned to see Phichit, red-faced and gasping for air as he all but sprinted toward Yuuri from the doors on the other side of the room, saxophone slung precariously across his shoulder, satchel bouncing against his hip as he ran.

“Yuuri my love!” He all but screamed, crashing into Yuuri with full force, crushing him in a hug. Yuuri barely had time to register Viktor clearing his throat behind him, crying out as Phichit tackled him.

“I’m so sorry! Did you find out already? Shit! I can’t believe I missed it! All that work for nothing,” and around Phichit’s senseless rambling Yuuri managed to gasp a few confused words and worm his way out of the hug.

“Phichit, what on earth is going on—?” but there was another strong grip on his shoulder that froze the words in his throat, Yuuri crying out in shock as he spun around. It was Otabek – the Otabek, from their practice session. And he was standing over him, clapping him on the back, face stoic as he nodded. The man offered a thumbs up, blinking once, not saying a word, before walking past him toward the exit. Yuuri watched him wide-eyed and more confused than ever as Otabek wandered toward a small figure with a guitar slung over his back.

Toward Yuri. The other Yuri. With blonde hair peeking out from a black hoodie, leopard print across its back. The smaller man glanced back to him with piercing eyes, waving at him in a way that seemed almost … friendly?

It was all too much. Why were they all here? Why was Yuri waving at him? Why was Viktor bouncing up and down where he stood, Phichit running his mouth like a stream?

Why was everyone so excited?

“Phichit,” Yuuri’s voice was weak, breaking ever so slightly as that same sense of dread bloomed into full-blown fear. “What's going on?”

“Huh?” Phichit glanced at him worriedly, stopping his rambling as he took in Yuuri’s expression, though he still had a ridiculously wide grin plastered on his face. “What do you mean?”

“Why is everyone congratulating me?” Yuuri whispered, eyes darting nervously between his best friend and Viktor as they stood, watching him like he was the only person in the world who didn’t know…

“Oh, Yuuri…” Phichit’s eyes grew wide, his feet shuffling as he took a tentative step closer, hand reaching out instinctively. “It’s okay, don’t—“

“What did he mean by audition, Phichit?” Yuuri said distantly, the light from the wide windows flashing off his glasses, eyes hidden.

Phichit swallowed.

“Yuuri, I need you to take deep breaths,” Phichit said slowly, two hands out now. Wary.

“What did you do?” Yuuri all but whispered, feeling his stomach threaten to drop to the floor. Surely not. Surely Phichit would never…

“Well,” Phichit swallowed again, rubbing the back of his neck and throwing Viktor a desperate look. “You know that, ah, project? The video one?”

“You didn’t,” Yuuri breathed, taking a small step backwards as his legs threatened to give way. He could fit the pieces together easily enough. The video project. An audition. All the strange secrecy and vague answers.

“I may or may not have,” and Phichit’s eyes were concerned. Fearful. But there was that typical sparkle of mischief and excitement that – in any other circumstance – would have won Yuuri over.

But this was…

“Wait, what’s going on?” Viktor asked cheerily, face slightly confused as he glanced between the two friends. He spoke like someone at ease with slotting himself into conversations, and Yuuri found himself marvelling at the social confidence, despite it all.

“Ah, I’m a terrible friend,” Phichit said with an exasperated smile. “I filmed our practice the other day and sent it to Yakov by way of an audition.”

Yuuri felt like all of the words were coming at him from a great distance – like he’d suddenly slipped into a well, sound and light having trouble reaching his senses. Audition. Practice. Yakov. Film…

“Yuuri please, hear me out,” Phichit said quickly. “I knew you’d never have the balls to audition on your own and now the hard part’s out of the way! You were accepted!”

Yuuri blinked.

“No I wasn’t,” he whispered matter-of-factly, shaking his head ever so slightly. He couldn’t have been accepted, it must have been some kind of mistake.

“But you were, Yuuri!” Viktor said with a dazzling grin, eyes bright as he reached and gripped Yuuri by the shoulders. The touch sent flames licking along Yuuri’s veins, and if it weren’t for Viktor’s strong grip, he knew he would have fallen right then and there.

“Come and see!” and he was suddenly being whisked through the crowd, bodies pressing against him tightly as Viktor reached down to hold his hand, tugging him along after him like a kite, Phichit trailing behind with a steadying hand on his back.

They made their way to the posting wall, faces crammed towards the small piece of paper pinned to the centre of the board.

It read, in a simple non-descript font:

2016 Institute Band Members

Saxophones

Alto: Phichit Chulanont

Tenor1: Guang Hong Ji

Tenor2: Leo De La Iglesia

Trumpets

1st: Jean-Jaques Leroy

2nd: Sara Crispino

3rd: Seung-gil Lee

Trombones

1st: Emil Nikola

2nd: Michele Crispino

Rhythm

Double Bass: Christophe Giacometti

Guitar: Yuri Plisetsky

Percussion: Otabek Altin

Piano: Yuuri Katsuki

Vocalists

Viktor Nikiforov

Mila Babicheva

Practice this Thursday, March 16th, 6pm sharp

- Yakov Feltsman

Yuuri felt the ground fall away beneath him.

“Yuuri? Yuuri!” Phichit managed to catch him as he fell, holding his shoulders firmly and giving them a slight shake.

Yuuri distantly registered that Viktor was still holding him by the hand…

“It can’t be real,” Yuuri whispered, attempting to steady himself. Yakov had seen him practice – had seen his lack-lustre playing with Viktor and Yuri and Otabek there to outshine him at every turn. Had seen it and …

Accepted him?

“I can assure you, it’s real,” Viktor said with a smile, and as Phichit helped Yuuri stay on his feet, Yuuri noticed that Viktor was smiling at him warmly. But his eyes were … troubled? He seemed to be searching Yuuri’s face, trying to figure something out…

“I’m … sorry,” Yuuri managed to squeeze out, heart clenching painfully as he realise that Vikor was probably disappointed. Probably angry that Yuuri had run him around. “I’m sorry I caused you so much trouble…”

And Viktor’s face fell into a mask of confusion, brows knitting together as those piercing blue eyes continued to search Yuuri’s face. Despite the raucousness of the room, Yuuri couldn’t help but feel himself getting lost in them. Reminded of their first practice session at Minako’s studio…

And Viktor seemed to be about to say something, eyes fervent as he wet his lips, but a hand on Viktor’s shoulder had him turning around before he could speak.

“Congratulations, everyone!” a lilting voice cut across the crowd. Christophe Giacometti. He was about the same height as Viktor, leaning in to offer a knowing smile to Yuuri and Phichit as he joined their little circle at the front of the crowd, pressed close together.

“It’ll be nice to finally have some … fresh meat,” and Yuuri watched on in horror as Christophe licked his lips, eyes heavy-lidded. He seemed to be directing his flirting towards Phichit, who took it in his stride easily.

“I do hope you’re gentle with me,” and he laughed, light and easy. Of course. It was all so easy for him. For everyone.

Yuuri found himself running down the list again, taking in every name and feeling his heart stutter uncomfortably in his chest when he saw his own name nestled among them. He knew them all – all accomplished musicians. All ridiculously talented. All self-assured and socially confident and…

“Let’s get a drink to celebrate!” Christophe exclaimed, wrapping an arm effortlessly around Viktor’s shoulder.

Oh.

Oh.

Yuuri took in the gesture and felt a strange twist in his gut.

“Yes!” Phichit jumped on the spot, pumping his fist and letting out another giggle of excitement. Yuuri reached for Phichit’s sleeve, tugging ever so slightly to get his attention. No. Not drinking…

Phichit seemed to notice, chewing on his lower lip and leaning in to try and speak with him in confidence.

“Come on, Yuuri,” Phichit whispered behind his hand, making eyes at him that made Yuuri feel guilty and angry and... “I know you’re freaking out right now but trust me. This will do you the world of good,” and before Yuuri could protest, Phichit suddenly creased his brow and gave him a pleading look, eyes darting back to Christophe pointedly, who was now chatting away with a few of the other members who had gathered around them.

Yuuri took the hint. Phichit had had a crush on Chris for as long as Yuuri had had a crush on Viktor. Of course, Phichit would want to take up the opportunity to go out drinking with him.

In the whirl of emotions and shock and terror that started to simmer just under Yuuri’s skin, Yuuri found himself helpless when he saw Phichit’s expression. When he turned and saw Viktor’s expression, wrapped in Chris’ arms and gazing after him…

Hopefully?

“Oh do come, Yuuri,” Viktor said gently, eyes warm, mouth set in a soft smile. “At least let me buy you a drink to apologise.”

Yuuri furrowed his brow and moved to speak; “Apologise?” But the words were lost as his voice broke and Chris let loose a loud laugh. There was another tall man with a trumpet case in hand – Jean-Jaques, Yuuri distantly recalled – talking with him. Was he coming too?

Yuuri felt like he was drowning. Everyone wanted to celebrate. All smiles and laughter and loud, loud, loud.

And between Phichit’s desperate puppy dog eyes and Viktor’s piercing blue stare, Yuuri found himself nodding, though everything screamed at him to run.