#authentic damage from 1997!

[fantasyfantasygames]

The Anarchist Cookbook RPG

The Anarchist Cookbook: The Roleplaying Game, anonymous, 1997

For those who aren't familiar with it, The Anarchist Cookbook is one part a treatise on the author's version of anarchism, and (more notoriously) several parts a set of directions for making explosives, drugs, and poisons, as well as some suggestions for methods of sabotage. It is of... mixed accuracy on all topics and is widely considered an instruction manual for having a really bad week. Its author repudiated the book about five years after writing it, but it remains in print. There's more info at the link above.

The Anarchist Cookbook went out of print in 1991 thanks to a change of company ownership. The text continued to circulate on the early internet, which, as you may know, became An Extremely Big Deal in the late 90s. At that point, someone (identity still unknown) decided to create a roleplaying game based on it.

That game is a RIFTS clone.

The Anarchist Cookbook: the Roleplaying Game (TACRPG) lacks mega-damage and has perhaps a more reasonable approach to skill percentages, but it's still clearly RIFTS with the numbers filed off. The attributes are the same. The bizarre stat bonuses are the same. There's large focus on Mechanical Aptitude. The skill list still strongly incentivizes you to take Boxing so that you can get extra actions you can use to shoot guns.

The setting is our world. You play a group of people who have Had It With This Shit and are going to do something about it. The writer recommends figuring some of that out out-of-character and some of it in-character. In a very rare moment for 1990s game design, there are suggestions that you not use in-game consequences to deal with out-of-game behavior. If TACRPG were a different game, I might imagine that this is because the in-game consequences of sabotage, bombings, and drugging the water supply are likely to be pretty harsh. However, the game assumes that the PCs are going to get away with what they do and continue it as long as you feel like playing the campaign. There's an assumption of incompetence on behalf of law enforcement at all levels. I'm not going to disagree, I just think it's assuming the wrong type of incompetence. This is a pre-Trayvon game.

Because it's a RIFTS clone, TACRPG is class-and-level-based, with XP handed out for a variety of non-combat actions. Every level gives you some skill points to allocate in your existing skills. Classes (OCCs in RIFTS parlance) include some fairly direct copies of the Vagabond, City Rat, Rogue Scholar, and other low-level options. RIFTS itself was already up to World Book 11 before this was published (plus Dimension Book 3 and various other miscellanea), so there was a lot to draw from. They're all reskinned to be semi-believable experts in our own world: doctors, computer hackers, ex-military, ex-special forces (who have the exact same stuff as "ex-military" plus more), chemists, well-connected environmentalists, no-science hippies who are somehow pharmaceutical experts, etc.

I would probably not play this game. Part of that is because I'm not a fan of the RIFTS system. I think there are many, many better options for this game in the modern day. However, the bigger part is that it doesn't feel realistic. It so, so wants to be realistic, and it's just not. This is not a game where you can say "But I'm throwing a fireball, why are we worrying about realpolitik?" (Do not get me fucking started on the utter arrogance of "realpolitik".) This is a game set in our world, dealing with issues that are more important than most people realized in 1997, and it feels like you're bashing plastic soldiers into one another. It's an uncanny valley. I'd rather be more on the fantastical side, or more on the authentic side.

The original Anarchist Cookbook is back in print, but TACRPG circulates only in HTML2 form. Most versions have been wiped from the internet. Not intentionally, mind you. There was no IP battle, and no one went on some sort of deleting spree. It's gone just because old BBS servers are gone and people lost their e-mail in hard drive crashes. If you find a version with images, that's an even-more-unauthorized second edition, with additions clearly written by a different author.

[hadeschan]

WE’RE SORRY, THIS ITEM HAS SOLD OUT

item # K23C07

RARE Pra Somdej An-ya-manee Si Mueang Chanthaburi . A Buddha amulet made from fragments of Kieow Song, green Sapphires mined in Bang Kacha, Chanthaburi province, blended with polymer. The figure of Buddha is with dye ruby color. Made by Chanthaburi Province City Council after BE 2540 (CE 1997), blessed / consecrated by Luang Phor Somchai, the first abbot and the founder of Wat Khao Sukim , Chanthaburi Province.

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“Si Kieow Nieow Sap” in Thai means the green gem draws and attracts energies of wealth and prosperity. Kieow Song is green Sapphire found in the Bang Kacha district of Chanthaburi province, Thailand. Kieow Song is  called "the money stone," this gemstone is believed to bring good fortune and prosperity. It's said to enhance willpower, energy, and well-being, and to help with clarity of mind when discussing money.

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BEST FOR: Pra Somdej An-ya-manee Si Mueang Chanthaburi draws and attracts energies of wealth and prosperity. This amulet has a tendency to draw positive energy, and power of turning bad things in life to the better, and misfortune to the good luck. It brings wealth, abundance, and prosperity but also embraces the environment with happy vibes by eliminating worries. This amulet brings endless food with wealth & prosperity. Klawklad Plodpai (it brings safety, and pushes you away from all danger), Kongkraphan (it makes you invulnerable to all weapon attack), Maha-ut (it stops gun from shooting at you), Nang Nieow, a rock-hard skin that is completely impervious to damage with bludgeoning or piercing weapons. Metta Maha Niyom (it helps bring loving, caring, and kindness, and compassion from people all around you to you), Kaa Kaai Dee (it helps tempt your customers to buy whatever you are selling, and it helps attract new customers and then keep them coming back. Ponggan Poot-pee pee-saat Kunsai Mondam Sa-niat jan-rai Sat Meepit (it helps ward off evil spirit, demon, bad ghost, bad omen, bad spell, curse, accursedness, black magic, misfortune, doom, and poisonous animals). And this amulet helps protect you from manipulators, backstabbers, and toxic people.

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DIMENSION: 3.50 cm high / 2.50 cm wide / 0.70 cm thick

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item # K23C07

Price: price upon request, pls PM and/or email us hadesamulet@outlook.com

100% GENUINE WITH 365 DAYS AUTHENTICITY GUARANTEE.

Item location: Hong Kong, SAR

Ships to: Worldwide

Delivery: Estimated 7 days handling time after receipt of cleared payment. Please allow additional time if international delivery is subject to customs processing.

Shipping: FREE Thailandpost International registered mail. International items may be subject to customs processing and additional charges.

Payments: PayPal / Western Union / MoneyGram /maybank2u.com / DBS iBanking / Wechat Pay / Alipay / INSTAREM / PromptPay International / Remitly / PAYNOW

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[gabyparis]

Chanel Serial Number Guide

It goes without saying that Chanel's classic flap bag is one of fashion's most iconic styles. Shortly after Karl Lagerfeld joined the label in the mid-1980s, the handbag made its debut. Designed for the modern woman, the Classic Flap featured a more recognizable "CC" twist lock closure and leather woven straps. Its popularity was almost instantaneous, but with fame came concerns of counterfeiting.

In an attempt to limit counterfeits, Chanel began making handbags and accessories with serial number stickers in 1986. Used as a benchmark of authenticity, these serial numbers are attached to the inside of Chanel pieces and indicate when a part was manufactured. Each of these numbers is unique to the bag it is in, and no number is repeated.

NOTE: The serial numbers will match the authenticity card, but they will not help you determine the style/model of the bag. These serial numbers are unique to their item and the card.

When Chanel began using serial stickers, they began issuing authenticity cards, with corresponding serial numbers. These cards have seen slight changes over the years, but have always been a black plastic card with white text and gold borders. Below we have provided an example of a serial number sticker with its corresponding authenticity card.

Although Chanel bags made between 1986 and today are made with serial number stickers and authenticity cards, the stickers can be damaged or removed and the cards can be misplaced. If a Chanel handbag lacks these features, it does not always mark the piece as a counterfeit.

The first serial numbers

The first serial numbers were printed on white stickers with subtle interlocking "CC" logos. Each of these serial numbers has 7 digits printed on a cutout positioned on the left side of the white sticker, while an opaque film encloses the sticker. An example of a vintage bag, produced in the late 1980s or early 1990s, is shown below. The serial number is printed on the cut-out portion of the sticker and is a series 1, indicating that the handbag was manufactured between 1989 and 1991.

In the 1990s, Chanel's serial number stickers began to evolve with much more distinctive interlocking "CC" logos printed on the stickers. The serial number located on the bag below has dark interlocking CCs with an opaque film over the sticker.

The early Series 5 sticker indicates that this bag was manufactured between 1997 and 1999.

Evolution of serial numbers - Series from the end of 5th to the beginning of 2021

Starting with the end of 5 pieces in the series, Chanel continued its anti-counterfeiting efforts by adding additional features to its serial number stickers. The numbers are still printed on a white sticker, but the sticker is now completely covered with transparent tape with gold and blue glitter. These serial numbers are printed on two-layer holographic stickers. The bottom layer is printed with the serial number and incised with an X, making it impossible to remove without destroying the sticker. They feature a gray line that runs vertically along the left margin and a repeating "CHANEL" line with a very small "CC" logo that runs vertically along the right margin.

Below we have included examples of bags ranging from 6 sets to 26 sets:

The Series 6 sticker above indicates that the bag was manufactured between 2000 and 2002.

The Series 9 sticker above indicates that the bag was manufactured between 2004-2005

While the Series 14 bag was manufactured in 2011.

The Series 26 sticker above indicates that the bag was manufactured in 2019.

Additional information to consider about Chanel serial numbers includes:

Stickers are generally placed on items in two different ways:

Attached directly to the inner lining

Most items with a leather interior lining will have the sticker attached directly to the lining.

Stickers that are attached directly to the liner can be placed with the numbers facing right facing up or upside down.

attached to a leather tab inside the item

Serial Number Table

Below we have provided a table with the Chanel serial number format and their corresponding years of production. If you are curious about the year your Chanel piece was produced, use the following table to help you discover the year.

NOTE: Serial numbers 0 to 9 series included 7 digits, while serial numbers 10 series to present include 8 digits.

Today: The Plate

In April 2021, Chanel took an interesting new turn by joining efforts to eliminate counterfeiting. Much like Louis Vuitton's move to radio frequency identification (RFID) microchips and the elimination of date codes, Chanel ended the need for authenticity cards and serial number stickers. Starting with the handbags, their handbags will now include a plaque that matches the color of the hardware with a CC and a combination of seven letters and numbers engraved. Small leather goods will continue to include the authenticity card.

This new system is implemented to deter series removal since removing the plate will damage the bag. With a plaque, this also eliminates the loss of authenticity cards allowing Chanel to have information about the purchase.

[44gamez]

5 games to play first on your new PS5

Congratulations: You bought your arms on a PlayStation 5! Almost three years after launch, the PS5’s world scarcity is a factor of the previous and the console is promoting higher than ever. Now that you just’ve lastly gotten Sony’s newest gaming console, there’s only one easy query: What do you play on it first? Don’t sweat it. We’ve received the solutions. The PlayStation 5 has amassed a sizeable library of thrilling video games to play because it first launched again in 2020, from spectacular first-party exclusives to terrific third-party releases. Right here at Polygon, we’ve put collectively our prime picks for which video games new PS5 homeowners ought to play first with the intention to get essentially the most out of their new console. There’s a ton extra video games to select from than simply what’s on this listing, as our exhaustive listing of one of the best video games on PlayStation 5 can attest. These are our suggestions of the place you must begin earlier than gaming to your coronary heart’s content material.

Picture: PlayStation/Twitch Everybody with these two traits loves Astro’s Playroom. First, they've a duplicate of Astro’s Playroom and second, they’ve performed that duplicate of Astro’s Playroom. Usually there wouldn’t be a lot distance between these two traits; nevertheless, Astro’s Playroom comes bundled with the PlayStation 5 and, because of this, I typically fear it goes unnoticed as a result of Huge AAA Recreation is the precedence. So I’m right here to just be sure you, as somebody with refined tastes, don't make that mistake. Fireplace up Astro’s Playroom and be rewarded with a captivating, three-ish hour journey that's equal components PlayStation 5 tutorial and PlayStation historical past tour with simply sufficient exact platforming that you could be end up going again to scrub issues up for … make that 4, no 5 hours. And when it’s sadly throughout, you possibly can queue up the soundtrack on repeat (shout out to “I’m Your GPU”) and start the lengthy, painful strategy of awaiting its successor. —Christopher Grant

Picture: CD Projekt Pink CD Projekt Pink’s open-world first-person role-playing recreation set within the dystopian world of Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk tabletop universe has been on a wild journey over the previous three years. A notoriously buggy and damaged preliminary launch in 2020 turned to vital reappraisal following the sport’s 1.5 patch and the effusive reception to the sport’s first (and solely) enlargement. Cyberpunk 2077 has undergone one of the dramatic redemption arcs seen of any recreation of the previous couple years. In spite of everything that’s been stated and performed, you seemingly have solely two questions: Is Cyberpunk 2077 price enjoying? Is the sport lastly ‘fastened’? The reply to each questions is sure, and there’s by no means been a greater time than now to play it. Cyberpunk 2077: Final Version comes full with the unique 60-hour base recreation along with this 12 months’s Phantom Liberty enlargement, in addition to all the following fixes, updates, and free content material added to the sport post-launch. Tear by means of the darkish way forward for Night time Metropolis’s streets and make your title as a legend among the many metropolis’s mercs. —Toussaint Egan

Picture: Sq. Enix The PlayStation 5 glow-up model of Remaining Fantasy 7 Remake consists of not solely the award-winning authentic recreation but additionally the PS5-exclusive DLC starring Yuffie, a hyperactive teen lady activist with far more emotional vitality than the moody Cloud Strife. However in the event you’re a brand new PS5 proprietor who didn’t play FF7 Remake on the PS4, Intergrade is much more of vital. Regardless of having the phrase “remake” within the title, FF7 Remake is rather more than that, because it’s a complete reimagining of the unique 1997 RPG’s story. —Maddy Myers

Picture: SIE San Diego Studio/Sony Interactive Leisure When you’re a baseball fan who owns a PS5 (or an Xbox Sequence X, or a Nintendo Change), I've to think about that you just’ve already tried Sony’s perennially terrific MLB The Present collection. However I’d strongly advocate 2023’s version no matter your emotions concerning the sport, because of its terrific new mode Storylines, which lets gamers study and relive the historical past of Negro League baseball. The mode tells the tales of Negro League legends like Satchel Paige by means of sequences the place you play as them in period-accurate uniforms and ballparks. These segments are accompanied by instructional movies narrated by the charismatic Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick, which offer extra colour about these athletes’ careers and lives — with out shying away from the terrible actuality of life underneath segregation. Main League Baseball is enterprise a long-overdue effort to acknowledge and grapple with this shameful history, and doing it in a online game makes MLB The Present 23 a very particular work. —Samit Sarkar

Picture: Housemarque/Sony Interactive Leisure by way of Polygon Returnal is without doubt one of the must-play video games on PS5 just because there’s nothing else prefer it on the platform. There’s nothing else prefer it wherever, frankly. Most bullet-hell video games provide the advantage of a fowl’s-eye view — far sufficient away you can weave by means of the deluge of projectiles from a eliminated distance, hopefully safely. Returnal, in the meantime, throws you proper within the thick of it. The “thick of it,” on this case, is an exoplanet whose biomes appear to be playable heavy metallic album cowl artwork. Just about in all places you go, some jerk alien is lobbing a ceaseless torrent of vitality globules towards you. With out fail, everytime you assume you’ve dodged all the things and eradicated your aggressors, you'll die, after which you'll die once more, after which once more (and once more). Finally, by means of grit and perseverance (and presumably a substitute DualSense controller or two), you gained’t die. And the following feeling of victory? It’s certainly one of a sort. —Ari No Read the full article

[mikesavagenewcanaanusa]

The Ultimate Guide to Collecting Vintage Michael Jordan Sneakers: A Sneakerhead’s Dream

In the world of sneaker collecting, there exists a subset of enthusiasts who are particularly captivated by vintage Michael Jordan sneakers. These iconic shoes not only represent a piece of basketball history but also hold a special place in the hearts of sneakerheads. For those looking to embark on the thrilling journey of collecting vintage Michael Jordan sneakers, here's the ultimate guide to help you navigate this sneakerhead's dream. Mike Savage New Canaan Collections Blog

The Allure of Vintage Michael Jordan Sneakers

Michael Jordan's influence on the world of basketball and sneakers is unparalleled. His partnership with Nike resulted in the creation of the Air Jordan line, a series of sneakers that revolutionized the industry. Collecting vintage Michael Jordan sneakers offers several irresistible attractions:

Historical Significance: Each pair of vintage Air Jordans is a piece of basketball history. Jordan's impact on the game and the cultural phenomenon surrounding him make these sneakers highly coveted among collectors.

Design Legacy: The Air Jordan line introduced groundbreaking designs and technologies to the sneaker world. Vintage models often feature unique aesthetics and materials that set them apart from contemporary releases.

Nostalgia: For many collectors, vintage Jordans evoke powerful feelings of nostalgia. Owning a pair from their childhood or a significant era in sneaker history transports them back to cherished memories.

Exclusivity: Vintage Jordans are often considered rare and exclusive. Finding well-preserved pairs can be a challenging yet rewarding pursuit.

The Essentials of Collecting Vintage Michael Jordan Sneakers

Educate Yourself: Start by learning about the different models, colorways, and releases in the Air Jordan line. Familiarize yourself with the details that distinguish authentic vintage sneakers from replicas or reissues.

Condition Matters: When collecting vintage sneakers, condition is paramount. Look for pairs in excellent or deadstock (unworn) condition. Minor wear can be acceptable for older sneakers, but extensive damage or deterioration should be avoided.

Authentication: Authenticity is crucial. Seek out reputable sellers and platforms known for selling authentic vintage sneakers. Consider getting sneakers authenticated by professionals, especially for high-value or rare pairs.

Market Research: Keep an eye on the market and track the prices of vintage Jordans. Understand the factors that influence a sneaker's value, such as rarity, condition, and demand.

Connect with the Community: Engage with the sneakerhead community, both online and offline. Join forums, social media groups, and attend sneaker events. Networking with fellow collectors can provide valuable insights and opportunities for trades or purchases.

Storage and Preservation: Properly store and preserve your vintage sneakers to maintain their condition. Keep them away from extreme temperatures, humidity, and direct sunlight. Regularly clean and protect the materials to prevent deterioration.

The Holy Grails of Vintage Jordans

While the term "holy grail" is subjective and varies from collector to collector, some vintage Michael Jordan sneakers are universally recognized for their rarity and desirability:

Air Jordan 1 "Banned": These are the sneakers that started it all, famously banned by the NBA for not conforming to the league's uniform policy.

Air Jordan 4 "Eminem": Produced in collaboration with rapper Eminem, this limited-edition release is one of the rarest Air Jordans in existence.

Air Jordan 11 "Space Jam": Made famous by its appearance in the movie "Space Jam," this shoe features a unique patent leather design.

Air Jordan 3 "Black Cement": Known for its iconic elephant print and visible Air cushioning, this model is a favorite among collectors.

Air Jordan 12 "Flu Game": Worn by Jordan during a pivotal game in the 1997 NBA Finals, these sneakers are steeped in history.

The Thrill of the Hunt

Collecting vintage Michael Jordan sneakers is not just about ownership; it's a thrilling pursuit filled with stories, memories, and connections. Each pair represents a piece of basketball history and a testament to the enduring legacy of Michael Jordan. So, whether you're chasing your personal sneaker grail or simply reliving the nostalgia of the past, remember that the joy of collecting vintage Jordans lies in the journey as much as the destination. Happy hunting! Building Your Vintage Michael Jordan Sneaker Collection - Mike Savage New Canaan

[onenettvchannel]

ON THIS DAY in February 1992 (Bacolod local time)...

(Originally published in 2022, but was delayed for a year due to a limited news operations for Coronavirus Disease-19.)

BACOLOD, NEGROS OCCIDENTAL -- In mid-February 1992, Pepsi-Cola Products Philippines Inc. (PCPPi) introduces a lottery-based numbers game called the Pepsi Number Fever. The numbers will draw every night from 001 to 999.

Before the era of Generation Z in 1997 and a total fiasco of 349 incidents... A first winner from San Pascual, Batangas named Ernesto Dayanghirang takes home for PHP1M (roughly U$D18,000). And a Negrosanon participant from Bacolod City, Negros Occidental also bagged in for the said cash prize. OneNETnews cannot independently verify the authenticity of these individuals.

Some consumers of Pepsi are overwhelmed in the dark as they celebrating 30 years before the Coronavirus Disease-19 (CoViD-19) worldwide, which was later discovered to be a massive fraud of the 349 incident per reports exclusively from ABS-CBN News. Multiple winners failed to claim their prizes worth PHP1M, leaving only 1 legitimate winner from Batangas region, 1 from Negros Occidental, and another in lost media whose whereabouts in Negros Oriental remains a mystery -- who were purchased in sari-sari stores, and for the cash prize disbursements in a nearest local redemption centers nationwide.

As of this writing, at least 5 people were dead and some others raged into protest which lead to a colossal beverage boycott and a fine of PHP150,000 (or nearly U$D2,700) as according to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). And finally in late-June 2006, the Supreme Court forces PCPPi to stop distributing cash prizes of the said numbers game in the Philippines. But today in our theory, the beverage wars between Coca-Cola and Pepsi Philippines are both possibly facing massive charges for illegally competing the sweetest markets and also a fine of PHP100M each, in a reference of Republic Act #10667: Section 15 or The Philippine Competition Act of 2014.

Ultimately, the whole situation was attributed to a computer glitch, repeating the same number of 349 and some security codes, resulting in the other millionaire winners being all automatically disqualified in advance, per exclusion of legitimate winners. The internet, which were becoming an essential aspect of our Millenials, played a significant role in the discovery of this anomaly.

Us as Filipinos, the Philippines must come to terms with the fact that the damage to beverage companies of Pepsi is totally irreparable, and they can no longer offer an apology for themselves with these numbers game incidents of 349 that have been affected between the Batangas and a Negros Island Region.

PHOTO COURTESY: Romeo Gacad via Getty Images BACKGROUND PROVIDED BY: Tegna

SOURCE: *https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-hold-an-anti-pepsi-rally-outside-of-the-house-news-photo/51430974 [Referenced Classic Photo from Getty Images] *https://www.ccpw.org/images/documents/printadbig.jpg [Referenced Scanned Print Advertisements via Coalition for Consumer Protection and Welfare] *https://www.ccpw.org/images/documents/numberfever1big.jpg [Referenced LQ Winner Listings via Coalition for Consumer Protection and Welfare] *https://www.philstar.com/cebu-news/2006/06/26/344000/sc-decides-finality-pepsi-349-case [Referenced Classic News Article from The Philippine Star] *https://www.npr.org/2021/05/06/994388441/pepsis-number-fever [Referenced Mini News Article via National Public Radio] *https://apnews.com/article/36f0dcb35905b7fcefca81710aced498 [Referenced News Article via The Associated Press] *https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1993/07/29/a-pepsi-giveaway-gone-wrong/1a6af4b1-2b6f-4e5a-9b1d-5dc6799ac2af/ [Referenced News Article via The Washington Post] *https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/558202/pepsi-number-fever-promotion-failure-philippines [Referenced News Article via Mental Floss News Bureau] *https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocs/1/42523/ [Referenced Court Case via The Philippine Supreme Court E-Library Archive] and *https://lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra2015/ra_10667_2015.html

-- OneNETnews Team

[hotwaterandmilk]

Series: Rayearth OVA Artist: Kadonosono Megumi Publication: Anime V Magazine (06/1997) Source: Scanned from personal collection

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #472

Top Ten Suggestions for Future Star Wars Games

Concluding an accidental trilogy of Top Ten lists that feature the word “Star”, here we journey back to a galaxy far, far away. This is also one of those lists that’s been bubbling under for quite a while, since the announcement (feels like ages ago now) that Disney have shopped the Star Wars licence around to a number of developers, and we’ll get future games from companies other than EA. But really it goes back even further, because for me Star Wars and gaming are inexorably linked. I associate my teenage PC gaming phase very closely with Star Wars, because it occurred in the mid-nineties, when Star Wars games were truly ascendent. In a run that I would argue stretched from the release of X-Wing in 1993, right through to Knights of the Old Republic in 2003, it felt like just about every genre was getting a nod from the House of Skywalker, and generally speaking the games were excellent. This time also saw the resurgence of Star Wars as a multimedia powerhouse, with the films getting reissued on video (and in Widescreen!) before the 1997 release of the Special Editions, the subsequent DVD releases, and then in 1999, the beginnings of the Prequel Trilogy with The Phantom Menace. You could argue that that’s when the wheels fell off, because even with the “Han Shot First” controversy and mixed reaction to some of the new effects shots, the late-nineties releases had been warmly received, Star Wars felt cool and exciting all the time, and anticipation was building to fever pitch at the thought of new movies. Amidst the Jar Jar hatred there was, I think, a bit more antipathy towards stories set in the Clone Wars, and although there were still some very good games being released (the first LEGO Star Wars came out in 2005!), the spark of the Golden Age was mostly absent.

Could we be entering a new Golden Age, or at least a Silver Age? Maybe; hopefully! I really, really enjoyed Jedi: Fallen Order and Squadrons, even though neither are perfect and both have plenty of rough edges. Now that the Skywalker Saga is out of the way and the franchise as a whole is spreading out into new areas (check out the number of Disney+ shows on the way), perhaps we’ll see all different facets of the galaxy explored in games too. And that’s what this list is: ten possible games, set in the Star Wars universe, that I think would be cool.

For the most part I’m not trying to invent a whole game; rather, it’s “Star Wars in this genre” or “Star Wars with this hook”. There’s probably an exception or two here and there, but you’ll get the drift. Some of these have been in my mental wishlist for years, from right back to when I first played X-Wing on my mate’s Mac, or when I installed a friend’s copy of Dark Forces from floppy disk (we, er, did that in those days). One of the best things about Star Wars is that it contains multitudes; George Lucas really did create a whole galaxy full of weird side characters, intriguing backstory, and funky-looking locations (aided and abetted, of course, by a bevy of talented collaborators). What corner of the universe couldn’t support a game of some kind?

So here’s to the future, to the newly-rechristened Lucasfilm Games, and to ten titles that could all benefit from beginning with those classic blue words on a black background.

Jedi Padawan RPG: I’ve wanted a game like this for about twenty years: a third-person action-RPG where you play a Padawan. You create your character and build your lightsaber, and then follow your master on missions around the Republic, learning the ways of the Force and developing your character. In a way, Fallen Order has adopted some of these ideas; the fact you only use a lightsaber and Force powers, for instance. But in my mind this is more similar to something like the first Fable, or maybe Mass Effect, where you’d have a hub to return to (the Jedi Temple) and then go off on missions that you could choose. All the while there’d be a plot bubbling up, and an arc to follow, and all sorts of quasi-open-world Jedi shenanigans. It’d be cool if they could make lightsabers feel like the really dangerous one-hit-kill weapons they are in the films, or if you could use them to, y’know, open doors and stuff. Maybe this could be set in the “High Republic” era we’re starting to explore.

Deus Ex-style first-person RPG: I suppose this one could be reductively called “Cyberpunk on Coruscant”, but the idea is you’d play someone – not a Jedi, in my mind – going on quests or solving some kind of mystery, shooting people in first person whilst also upgrading your body and abilities in typical RPG style. I wouldn’t want it to be too dark; I don’t like it when people try to make Star Wars “edgy”. But that Mandalorian or Rogue One tone of seriousness interspersed with Star Wars’ typical melodrama and weirdness would be good. I see your character as a small-time crook or maybe a minor mercenary who by circumstance is forced to take missions for either the Rebels or the Empire (or maybe First Order and Resistance); perhaps mirroring Poe Dameron’s journey from spice smuggler to X-Wing superstar. It’d be cool if there was Fallout-style hit-modelling on characters, and if your arm or whatever got damaged, you could have it replaced with a robot one.

Star Wars meets Elite: I even have a title for this one: “Scoundrel”. Basically, like I say, it’s Elite but in the Star Wars universe; you have a ship, you fly from planet to planet, you trade goods or offer passage, you spend your money on upgrading your ship or buying a new one. You’re Han Solo, basically; hence “Scoundrel”. In my mind it’s set at the dawn of the Rebellion, so you can choose where your allegiances – and your ethics – lie. Take on official Imperial assignments? Help their war effort? Stay neutral but legal? Stay out of the politics, but, y’know, smuggle a little bit? Run a bit of spice? Or do you go all-in and work for the Rebellion – even take part in military action? Maybe it could even run all the way up to Return of the Jedi and give you the chance to fight in the Battle of Endor! C’mon, this one has “hit” written all over it.

Clone Troopers turn-based “Tactics” game: by “Tactics” I mean like X-COM or, well, Gears Tactics; turn-based team combat games. I think of all the groups of military characters most suited to this style, it would be the Clone Troopers; they’re a well-organised military force that functions as part of a team. We know there are loads of types of Troopers, with different uniforms for different jobs, so there’s lots of room for customising your team, as well as experimenting with different classes. Plus if they die there’s more to come, they’re just in vats! Get Temuera Morrison to voice them all for added authenticity.

A point-and-click adventure: this was the first ever idea I had for a Star Wars game, because at the time I was really, really into adventures. This could be anything; I’m not too fussed on the plot. Some kind of mystery obviously lends itself to the format. Whether you play as the same character all the way through or switch protagonists (a common genre trope), I don’t mind. But I want it to be a fairly straightforward, old-fashioned point-and-click game, with no action or QTEs. Make it look like Thimbleweed Park, make it look like Clone Wars or Rebels, make it look as real as possible, it’s all fine; just give me a slow-burn narrative adventure story in the Star Wars universe please.

Lemmings, but with porgs: yeah, there’s nothing more to add to this. Maybe you play one of the Space Nuns, or even Chewbacca, and you have to help out all these crazy porgs? They’re just wandering around, getting into mischief, chewing on the Falcon or playing with a lightsaber, and they’ll kill themselves if you don’t help. That’s it. That’s the game. Lemmings, but with porgs.

Rebel base construction/management game: my template here would be stuff like Evil Genius or Two Point Hospital: real-time games where you build different rooms or services in a given play space. So, the Rebels are constantly darting all over the galaxy, setting up shop temporarily and then evacuating when the Empire comes a-calling; here, you have to kit out the different bases, often to service different aims (a recon base, an aerial support base, a training centre, etc), and in different planetary conditions (think Hoth, Yavin, or Crait). Obviously there are essentials: communication, power, accommodation. Then you can build starship docks, weapons arrays, bacta tanks, astromech services, even Jedi training rooms. Instead of attracting “customers” the idea is to be recruiting new Rebels, so the bigger and better your base, the more troops you have. Maybe there can even be some kind of meta-game where the progress of the war is smoother if your bases are better? But there’d be virtually no combat, apart from maybe shooting probe droids or scaring away wampas. Anyway, I think it sounds cool.

Rebel Commandos cover-shooter: I guess this could also be a Clone Trooper game, but we’ve already had a Clone FPS, and I just invented Clone Tactics up the page a bit, so let’s spread the love. It’s basically Gears of War but with the Rebel Alliance. Think about the Battle of Endor or the Battle of Scarif; teams of well-trained and battle-hardened troopers up against superior odds but still kickin’ ass. Unlike the rent-a-clone nature of the Tactics game, this would be more story-driven, with a small team (four, maybe, as it’s a good number for co-op) who have to infiltrate and/or assault heavily-fortified enemy positions. I think this could be good with a nice narrative behind it, fleshing out the Star Wars universe, and maybe offering a bit of those Rogue One-style shades of grey.

Fallout Shelter-style Jawa Sandcrawler management game: utini! Jawas are great aren’t they? Whether it’s electrocuting Artoo, cheering at podracers, or just eating the shit out of a great big egg, everyone loves a good Jawa. How can you make a game about Jawas? Well, what about if you’re this tribe or group or whatever of Jawas, and you’ve got your own knackered sandcrawler. And as part of the game you have to develop it, tart it up a bit, recruit new bands of Jawas, and then, y’know, rob droids and flog ‘em. Like Fallout Shelter, you have to build and maintain different rooms in the sandcrawler to grow your people and earn more cash from droids, but you’re constrained a little by size. The sandcrawler can’t be expanded too much, and although you could upgrade to bigger ones, you have to make strategic decisions about where to allocate precious space. I see this as being quite low-fi and stylised (bring back Yoda Stories!), and working as a kind of chilled-out time-wasting game on Switch or something.

Homeworld, but in the Clone Wars: and we’re back to the Clone Wars again! But here, we kind of have to, as it’s the only war in the Star Wars wars that features two huge and evenly-matched armadas (Rebels vs Empire and Resistance vs First Order are both very much “scrappy underdogs up against vast organised militaries”). Playing as the Republic or the Separatists, you have to maintain huge fleets of capital ships, support craft, fighters and bombers, and go on missions to attack, defend, or escort. It’s probably the best way to recreate the feeling of that absolutely vast battles we see in the opening minutes of Revenge of the Sith. Maybe an add-on could even give us ground battles too, recreating scenes such as the Battle of Geonosis. Anyway, sounds cool don’t you think?

Incidentally – and speaking of the Star Wars of it all – this is the first week that we’re not watching a War for our family movie night. We’ve done ‘em all! All the episodes of the Skywalker Saga, the two live-action spin-off movies, and even (well, me an’ the eldest) the animated Clone Wars movie. I might do another Top Ten ranking them, based on the kids’ opinions; that’d be interesting. Although – of course – we’ve only got a couple of weeks to wait until the two Ewok movies hit Disney+. What a time to be alive!

Now, the Ewoks – there’s a good idea for a game there…

[galacticbugman]

Colorado Fun! Summer 2019 Part 1: Prehistoric Adventures

Greetings from Colorado! It was sure a wild trek I took a few weeks ago. It was so cool to visit some of the old hot spots and the new places. This was a photo of me taken at one of my favorite Dinosaur Museums. This place is called the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center. It has a lot of cool things in it. It may be a small little place but it has quite the collection. Here I am behind a model of a Megalodon’s Jaws. These suckers got huge. They wouldn’t have to bite just to swallow you whole. I am so tiny compared to this set of Shark Chompers. It was kind of freaky yet cool. I got a lot of neat photos so lets get started. Just a warning you will be hearing and reading a lot of Jurassic Park related stuff in this posting. 

Okay so you know I can’t pass up a Jurassic Park post it is one of my favorite movies of all time. This one is at the same place as the Meg jaws. This poster I am next to is an authentic original Jurassic Park (1993) Poster. I have all the movies and now the original books. Jurassic Park has had a big impact on my life and I enjoy the whole series. The movies are great and the books are even better. I have been a big fan and no trip to a Dinosaur museum is never complete without some references to classic Dinosaur films from the Sliver Screen. Did you notice my clothes? I thought you did. Yep I wore my Jurassic Park button down and my Jurassic World Raptor shirt for this trek. I went all out and even wore my fossilized Shark Tooth Necklace. I always have a theme when I got to certain places or at least I try to. 

On the other side of the theater area they have another authentic poster from my favorite JP movie in the series. This is an original poster from The Lost World: Jurassic Park which came out in 1997. This was so cool to see posters from the two best Jurassic Park films ever created. I really enjoy finding Jurassic Park based things. I just crazy about stuff like this. I really enjoy the novels that Michael Crichton wrote back in the 90s as well as the movies. I like both types of media and I know that when this movie came out many fans of the book were pretty outraged by the movie not being like the book like we saw with the first movie which did follow pretty close to the book with a few plot differences and things. Jurassic Park for me is one thing I really enjoyed growing up with I have some of the Toys, a Jurassic Park bed sheet set, all of the movies that does include the Jurassic World stuff. I have the Lego Jurassic World Video Game for the Nintendo 3DS, I have played countless Jurassic Park games including the Rampage Edition, the NES Jurassic Park game, the SNES game, I have played the demo for Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, I have played Jurassic Park Builder for Android, Jurassic World the Game, and Jurassic World: Alive. i even have the Jurassic Park: Danger board game. I am just a huge fan of this and have several shirts and things that I wear pretty often. I wasn’t able to watch the films until I was older. I was I was about ten or eleven when I was finally able to watch the films. Ever since I was able to watch them my mind was blown and I became an instant fan. Of course I did collect  the toys way before I saw the movies I have several that I might post in post of their own in a collection of my collectibles that I have collected over the years of being a huge fan of many things. Still a pretty cool find in one of the coolest museums on the planet. 

One of the coolest things about this museum is that they have the third Largest Tyrannosaurus-Rex. It used to be the second almost topping Sue; but in recent years there is another one that has been discovered to be even taller than Sue. Still this monster is one of my favorite dinosaurs and has always been my favorite since I was kid and it is one of my favorites in the Jurassic Park franchise. Tyrannosaurus-Rex was not really an active hunter but more of a scavenger. It’s teeth are kind of dulled out and only used for ripping and swallowing whole instead of chewing. What is the deal with the tiny little stubby arms you ask? It has been up for debate for years but some thing that they played a part in the mating ritual of this species but we are not too sure about that. It is just speculation which paleontology is all about. Still a fantastic and giant creature from the last Cretaceous period. 

 One of my favorite shark fossils is this one. This is an almost complete spinal region and skull of a shark. It maybe the only one in existence so far as we know. This is kind of a really interesting rarity. As we know Shark skeletons are made of cartilage and it often breaks down and deteriorates after a while but in this is one of those rare fossils of cartilage. It is kind of neat and this shark may looks small but it is pretty large. The photos don’t really do it justice than experiencing these fossils in person. Lets look at another cool fossil shall we. 

What is this weird creature? Is it an alien? Well it is from a time very different from our own. This is the Giant Ground Sloth and my brother and I saw this guy being put together on a display stand. This is one of the weirdest creatures. You may have heard of the Horse Apple or Bois De’ Arc tree. Well the horse apple was a favorite food of this species as well as the mammoths that lived here thousands of years ago. This one was pretty young and just a little taller than me. I am about 5′ 9″ and these guys could get up to ten foot tall so this guy was not even close to being done growing. This guy is kind of a weird dumpy animal but it is quite interesting to look at. It was kind of cool to see all kinds of extinct animals other than Dinosaurs. There was a bunch of neat stuff at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. 

As a huge Jurassic Park fan I couldn’t help but notice this skull hanging in the prehistoric wing of the museum. You may recognize it from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. This guy is the Stygimoloch AKA Stiggy in Jurassic Park. Sorry to bust your bubble on these guys but they can’t actually ram each other or solid brick wall. These guys would shatter their skulls if they were to do that. These guys may have used their heads to amplify noise or to show off for the ladies. These guys are still pretty cool to look at. I saw this and was instantly familiar with it. Stiggy is one of my favorite Jurassic World Dinosaurs for the chaos at the auction scene when we was running about causing panic and confusion to buy Owen Grady some time. This was one of the coolest fossils in their collection. This is the first one of these I have seen in any museum collection. 

A cool battle scene between an Allosaurus and a Stegosaurus. You might think of a Stegosaurus to have a pretty good defense due to those big thick bony plates; however this is simply not the case. The plates are actually very thin and were possibly only used for mating purposes. This made the plates more like a blood filled cookie. Still they did have their famous weapon the Thagomizer which was used as a weapon and could really do some damage. I will never forget the scene in The Lost World: Jurassic Park when Sarah Harding gets attacked by the family heard after her camera messes up when she is photographing the baby causing it to sent of an alarm call. Stegosaurus is a huge dinosaur and will always be one of my favorites. Fun Fact: In the first Jurassic Park novel by Michael Crichton instead of using a sick triceratops like they did in the film it was actually a sick Stegosaurus that Dr. Harding was caring for when the Toyota Land Cruisers came up to that point on the tour. That was one of the biggest differences in media but the same thing was going on with both animals in both forms of media.   

A close up of a Stegosaurus Thagomizer. 

A cool Hadrosaur fossil that was also at the Denver Museum. They had a lot of cool fossils but I didn’t get a chance to photograph them all. There was just too much and so little time to see the whole museum but heck it was really cool to see some of the Jurassic Park superstars in this museum. Hardrosaurus was not in Jurassic Park but this was one of the first dinosaurs I ever learned about. These guys are also known as Duck-bills for their goofy looking mouths. Dinosaurs had some of the coolest features from weird headgear, to weird mouth shapes, to their wild arsenal of weapons. Even in the time of the dinosaurs biological warfare was very weird. 

A rather cool replica I got on the trip was this cast of a Raptor claw. I am a huge Raptor fan and adding one of these to my collection was really cool. My collection is now in a nice display cabinet with some of my Jurassic Park toys in the mix just to make it more interesting. Fossils are just one of my favorite things to collect and even though this is a fake it is still a nice edition to my educational collections and too I got it reminded me of Alan Grant’s Raptor Claw from Jurassic Park (1993) and I am a huge JP Raptor fan. I will be doing a top ten Jurassic Park Dinosaurs post soon to show you what my top 10 pics are after the trip photos. So stay tuned more animals and stuff to show you from Colorado as my Colorado trip review continues. 

[alexsfictionaddiction]

Review: Love Frankie by Jacqueline Wilson

I have been a huge fan of Jacqueline Wilson since I was a child and when I heard that her new book tackled coming out and a first-time LGBT romance, I simply had to read it. It was a very happy day when I got my acceptance e-mail from NetGalley. 

Frankie is almost 14 years old. Her mum has recently been diagnosed with MS, her dad has moved in with another woman and the girls at school -led by Sally Mac- are making her life pretty difficult. So when Sally starts acting friendly towards Frankie, it feels suspicious but Frankie can’t help but be taken in by this pretty popular girl. But does she just want to be Sally’s best friend or is this something much more?

Frankie is a budding writer and she’s hopelessly insecure about her work. Her lifelong best friend Sam is one of her favourite people in the whole world but she is anxious about him reading part of a dystopian novel that she is writing. I think every creative of any age can fully relate to her in this. Sometimes it’s even scarier when someone close to you reads your work because their opinion matters the most. This fear and self-doubt rears its head again, when Frankie feels ready to come out to her family. 

She is an exceptionally caring, astute young girl who is very easy to relate to. Therefore, I was right by her side through all of the heartbreaking, confusing things that happen to her. Sally’s sudden change in behaviour towards Frankie had all of my suspicion detectors blaring and I worried that Frankie would start to lose her sensible level-head, as she fell in love. So I was relieved to learn that she was mature enough to keep a level of doubt about Sally’s intentions. I’m not sure I’d have been this smart at 14 but it didn’t damage her authenticity. I simply assumed that she was taking stock of the concerns raised by both her mum and her older sister Zara as well as remembering Sally’s previous treatment of her. 

Wilson is an expert at keeping up with how teens’ views and attitudes are changing. As a seasoned long-term reader of hers, I can confidently say that Ellie Allard, the protagonist of Wilson’s Girls series first published in 1997, would never have commented on the treatment of girls compared to boys, as explicitly as Frankie does in the above passage. Teens are becoming more socially aware and they’re much better at recognising injustices for what they are than they were 20 years ago. I would actually really love to write an essay on Jacqueline Wilson’s extensive career and how she has consistently managed to write fresh contemporary characters over decades -watch this space!

Frankie has been on a huge emotional and educational journey by the end of the book. She has gained confidence in herself and her writing through sharing her work with a wonderful librarian named Mr White and her fellow library inhabitant Ivneet. She is closer than ever to Sam, her sisters, her mum and Bear, her loveable German Shepherd. She has learned what really matters in life and has a clear idea of who she is and what she wants. Although the ending isn’t exactly happy and neatly tied up, I closed the book full of assurance that Frankie would be happy and successful.  

Love Frankie is a hopeful coming-of-age story that normalises romantic same-sex feelings, making it essential reading for pre-teens and teenagers. It is quite a lengthy book and it touches on some very serious subject matter including family illness, divorce, poverty and homophobia, so it will probably be enjoyed most by confident readers. Of course, it’s for adult Jacqueline Wilson fans too!

Love Frankie by Jacqueline Wilson will be published by Doubleday Children’s Books on 20th August 2020.

[hadeschan]

WE’RE SORRY, THIS ITEM HAS SOLD OUT

item # K21A30

RARE Paen Nang Na Pak Sua, Luang Phor Pern Wat Bang Phra. A piece of leather, a forehead skin of a tiger with a black ink marker hand writing Cabalistic Writings with in the back by Luang Phor Pern himself. Made by Luang Phor Pern of Wat Bang Phra, Nakhon Pathom Province before BE 2540 (CE 1997).

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The magic power of tiger skin would fill you with courage, ambition and energy. You will soon be a natural leader and go-getter, yet it also makes people around you feel sensitive, loving and emotional. You will be very competitive, and you are not afraid of taking up any risk for achieving what you want. You would gain honesty, generosity from friends and passionate from lovers. Tiger skin is also best for chasing ghost, warding off evil spirits, protection of bad luck, bad omen and unlock the spells.

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BEST FOR: Maha Am-naat, it provides Power of Authority to you, and improve your leadership qualities & skills. It helps make people who work under you follow your lead and encourage them to work hard for you, and it helps you have victory over your troubles. Nang Nieow, a rock-hard skin that is completely impervious to damage with bludgeoning or piercing weapons. Kongkraphan Chatrie (it makes you invulnerable to all weapon attack), Klawklad Plodpai (it helps push you away from all danger), Maha-ut (it stops gun from shooting at you or misses its target), and Metta Maha Niyom (it makes people around you love you, be nice to you, and willing to support you for anything), Wealth Fetching, Maha Larp (it brings lucky wealth), Metta Maha Niyom (it makes people around you love you, be nice to you, and willing to support you for anything), Kaa Kaai Dee (it helps tempt your customers to buy whatever you are selling, and it helps attract new customers and then keep them coming back, Maha Sanay (it helps turn you to Prince Charming in the eyes of women/men). It warns danger coming ahead. And Ponggan Poot-pee pee-saat Kunsai Mondam Sa-niat jan-rai Sat Meepit (it helps ward off evil spirit, demon, bad ghost, bad omen, bad spell, curse, accursedness, black magic, misfortune, doom, and poisonous animals). This amulet helps protect you from manipulators, backstabbers, and toxic people.

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DIMENSION: 5.50 cm high / 5.00 cm wide / 0.20 cm thick

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item # K21A30

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[blackswaneuroparedux]

In Two Minds: the polymorphous proficiency of Jonathan Miller

Sir Jonathan Miller was precocious polymath. Pretty much all the tributes to Jonathan Miller, who died aged 85 on 27 November 2019, end up using the term “Renaissance Man” at some point. Miller had a mastery of arts and science that few achieve. He was a doctor who specialised in neurology, a satirist, comedian, television broadcaster and writer, and theatre and opera director in which his transformative productions of classic plays and operas made him one of the most admired, as well as one of the most controversial, figures in the late-twentieth century theatre and opera.

Jonathan Wolfe Miller was born in 1934 in London. His father, Emanuel, was a child psychiatrist and his mother, Betty, a novelist and biographer. He had a sister, Sarah, who died in 2006. He attended St Paul’s, an independent day school, where he formed an intellectually precocious triumvirate with Oliver Sacks, later renowned as a neurologist and author, and Eric Korn, the writer and antiquarian bookseller. The three remained firm friends until Korn died in 2014 (Sacks died a year later). At Cambridge, Miller was a member of the Apostles, an exclusive intellectual club, as well as Footlights, the dramatic society. 

Miller studied medicine at Cambridge University where he was a member of the Apostles, an exclusive invitation only intellectual club (past members included Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, John Maynard Keynes, Rupert Brooke, E.M. Forster, as well as more notoriously the infamous Cambridge spies, Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess).

It was at Cambridge that he also joined the Cambridge Footlights, the university’s legendary theatrical comedy club, and performed in the club’s Footlights revues. Miller’s success as a Footlights star in the 1950s brought him to the attention of the producers of a new comedy stage revue, Beyond the Fringe, which opened in Edinburgh in August 1960. Subsequent transfers to London’s West End (1961) and to Broadway (1962) made Miller and his three Oxbridge educated co-stars - Alan Bennett, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore - instant celebrities.

Beyond the Fringe was in the vanguard of a new generation chipping at the walls of the establishment and poking fun at the rigid pomposity of british class and society in the 1960s. In many ways Beyond the Fringe pioneered a path for the next generation of Oxbridge satirists, Monty Python, to take up the baton and beat it over the head of the establishment.

Miller, who qualified as a doctor in 1959 and maintained a special interest in neurology and neuropsychology, returned periodically to the practice of medicine, but spent most of his working life as a stage and opera director.

Miller’s first directing assignment was John Osborne’s Under Plain Cover in 1962. Miller made his U.S. directing debut in 1964 with The Old Glory, a play by poet Robert Lowell that inaugurated Off-Broadway’s American Place Theater.

Within a few years, Miller’s work at Nottingham Playhouse and other venues brought him to the attention of Laurence Olivier, then the head of the National Theatre. Miller’s memorable productions at the National, where he was an associate director during the Olivier years, included The Merchant of Venice, set in nineteenth-century Venice with Olivier as a top-hatted Shylock, and The School for Scandal. In 1974, Miller directed a season of three thematically linked plays at London’s Greenwich Theatre, presenting Hamlet, Ghosts and The Seagull as “Family Romances” and using the same actors for each play. Miller later served a two-year term as artistic director of the Old Vic in London (1988–90).

At his best, Miller had no equal for wit, originality or sheer invention as a director, especially in pieces that engaged his passion for storytelling fully; Miller’s universally admired brilliance as a conversationalist made him a coveted talk-show guest in both the U.K. and the U.S.

Miller was also a compelling television writer and presenter, with the documentary series The Body in Question (1979) and Madness (1991) among his credits. When he was in mid-career, Miller began to balance his work in the theater with directing opera—despite the fact that he never learned to read music. Miller’s opera productions were manifestly intelligent and well-informed, but occasionally overbusy, loaded with cultural references and staging touches that did little to advance the action—or support the music. 

Miller’s first opera production was the 1974 British premiere of Alexander Goehr’s Arden Must Die at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London; Alan Blyth, writing in Opera, called Miller’s production “severe, and in the end, debilitating.” The Goehr opera was to be one of the few contemporary pieces that Miller directed: in opera, as well as in the theater, he preferred to work on the production of classic works or the occasional rarity. Miller made his Glyndebourne debut in 1975, with the company premiere of Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen.

He had especially fruitful working relationships with Kent Opera, where he directed a wide variety of repertory, including Così Fan Tutte, Falstaff, La Traviata, Eugene Onegin and Monteverdi’s L'Orfeo.

The British company with which Miller was most closely associated was English National Opera (ENO), which offered a gala celebration of his work with the company in 2016. At ENO, Miller’s vividly detailed stagings included La Bohème, Aida, The Barber of Seville, Carmen, Der Rosenkavalier, La Traviataand The Elixir of Love. Miller’s biggest ENO successes were his popular “Little Italy” staging of Rigoletto (1982) and a re-imagining of The Mikado (1986) that set Gilbert and Sullivan’s Japanese-themed operetta in an English resort hotel; both were presented in the U.S. and have been have been revived in London and elsewhere numerous times. Miller bowed at Covent Garden in 1993, with a modern-dress staging of Così Fan Tutte.

Miller made his U.S. opera debut in 1982, directing Così Fan Tutte for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. His other North American productions included Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at BAM; La Traviata at Glimmerglass Opera and New York City Opera, Eugene Onegin at Santa Fe Opera, La Bohème at Cincinnati Opera, Così Fan Tutte in Washington, D.C. and Tristan und Isolde in Los Angeles. In Europe, Miller directed La Traviata for Paris Opéra, Der Fliegende Holländer in Frankfurt and a Fascist-era staging of Tosca in Florence. On Broadway, Miller directed Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey in Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1986) and Christopher Plummer in King Lear (2004).

Miller directed four operas for the Met. His 1991 staging of Janáček’s Kát’a Kabanová was an unqualified success - a stark, stylized vision of the opera’s harrowing emotional world, designed by Robert Israel and Gil Wechsler. The critical and response to Miller’s other Met stagings—Pelléas et Mélisande (1995), The Rake’s Progress (1997) and Le Nozze di Figaro (1998)—was generally positive, but Miller’s outspoken criticism of what he saw as the Met’s lack of support for him damaged his relationship with the company, and he was never given another new production there.

His style of directing especially opera revolved around two maxims, “One is constantly fighting a battle between two forms of idiocy,” he said of the business of opera directing, the first being “mindless traditionalism” and the second the requirement that “the work be relevant to our time”.

As a theatre director, mostly at the National Theatre in London, he sought to avoid those two forms of idiocy when directing Shakespeare, which he did for the BBC in the early 1980s. A production of a Shakespeare play, Miller thought, should not try to preserve it in the aspic of spurious authenticity.  

Miller was a lifelong atheist and in 2006 he was appointed president of the Rationalist Association. Accepting the appointment, he said: “There is a large unrepresented constituency of people for whom religion doesn’t enter their heads.” But while his atheism was unbending, it was not militant. Miller maintained that the job of this “community” of unbelievers was not to extirpate religious beliefs but to “analyse them with an objective curiosity and a kind of anthropological attitude to what people do”.

Miller displayed that intellectual humility and profound curiosity in everything he did. Indeed he once said, “I wasn't driven into medicine by a social conscience but by rampant curiosity.“ The same drive he said for his artistic pursuits. Kate Bassett called her informative 2012 biography of Miller In Two Minds, which captured this split in his life. Miller was haunted by his decision to abandon the medical profession where he had hoped to excel.

Ironically Miller rejected the oft-applied title “Renaissance man"as a “vulgar journalistic slogan”. He would argue that, “What they’re really saying is I’m a jack of all trades and a master of none.” He may have felt that “this footling flibbertigibbet world of theatre” was a distraction from higher pursuits  - which is to say, the use of his Cambridge medical degree but these twin artistic and scientific interests seemed less opposed than complementary. If, as is said in “The Body in Question,” “by acting in and upon the world we remodel our own image in it,” everybody’s in show business, anyway.

To my mind, Miller’s arts and science background enabled him to cross disciplinary boundaries and make exciting connections and open new creative possibilities. He was the perfect riposte to that very British Two Cultures intellectual debate (1959-62) between F.R. Leavis and C.P. Snow, which focused on the lack of conversation between arts and science. If we consider how scholars now embrace interdisciplinarity, we should note that Miller blazed the trail. Miller should also be viewed as one of the architects of liberal Britain in the post-war period. He rejoiced in being an irreverent free thinker. And we should rejoice at having had the privilege of peeking into the polymorphic proficient mind(s) of one of this century’s creative and most curiousity driven of men.

I had the privilege of having meeting him on one or two occasions. Twice over dinner through my parents who were active patrons of the arts. 

One of my older sisters is a neurologist and we were placed either side of him. Jonathan was ever so affable and down to earth. He immediately set about making us laugh with his forensic wit and life observations. Between courses he would flit (not a typo, he didn’t flirt) between my sister and myself. With her he would talk shop about neurology and the latest scientific breakthroughs and with me we talked about opera, theatre, and the classics.

The funny thing was as the evening wore on his kinetic mind was a speeding race car and he suddenly forgot which lane he was driving in i.e. he forgot to whom he was speaking to between the two of us. So he would speak about realism theatre of Euripides with my older sister and neurological disorders with me. My older sister - I hate to admit this in print because she will lorde it over me until the end of days - was educated and eloquent enough to keep the conversation effortlessly flowing.

I would like to say that I too upped my game and rose to such elevated heights of scientific discourse but alas I fell like Icarus...but faster, as my mind felt like lead balloon tied to a one ton dead weight. I fell hard. He could see the tumbleweeds rolling across my vacant mind through my clueless eyes. Ever the gentleman he steered me to more friendly topics like the psychology of killing as I was seriously torn between going Sandhurst to become an army officer or returning to Cambridge to do a PhD. I saw him once or twice after that in other private settings and I always came away glowing because I learned some new curioisity about our human condition and the artistic ways we express the human condition in all its foibles and pathos.

RIP Jonathan Miller.

[hexthelore]

Famously Haunted: The Père Lachaise Cemetery

(photo by julia & keld)

The Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France is one of the most famous cemeteries in the world, with several million visitors every year. The cemetery is even still open to receiving new permanent occupants. However, the cemetery only accepts those who died in the capital city or who lived there, and even then there’s a long waiting list; perhaps because it has been a famous cemetery for as long as it has existed. When the cemetery first opened in the early 1800’s, it started out with bodies of well known people moved there. A long history and a lot of foot traffic has left the place with a history of hauntings, and even a bizarre hoax.

But this is just why the hauntings are known. I believe the reason that it is haunted in the first place is not simply because it’s a resting place of the dead. The dead in this cemetery are particularly restless, as they are often moved around. This started with the bodies of famous people being moved to Père Lachaise to bring acclaim to the cemetery, but eventually evolved. Now that it has gained popularity and has become more crowded, some bodies get moved around inside the cemetery grounds to increase space. Family members' remains are regularly combined into the same graves. Sometimes maseuloems will house dozens of members of the same family line, with graves that can be either combined or separated by only a few inches. Shelves are even inserted to help stack as many bodies as they can fit. 

The habit of reopening graves extends past just adding more family members to the same grave or mausoleum. Recently, the Père Lachaise Cemetery has offered up their eternal resting places to lease. It is standard for the cemetery to have a 30 year lease on a grave, and if the lease is not renewed by the surviving family, the body is dug up. The so-called abandoned remains are boxed up and labeled and sent to the Aux Morts Ossuary, which is still within the Père Lachaise Cemetery. It isn’t hard to imagine why the spirits here may be so active. 

While the common experience of living visitors to the Père Lachaise Cemetery is an unsettling, haunted feeling, it is not just haunted in concept. There are a few ghosts that have been seen more than once, and there’s a legend that, although it is definitively a hoax, leaves people feeling a little more than strange about the cemetery. 

Probably the most popular ghost of the Père Lachaise Cemetery is that of rockstar Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors. He went to Paris in 1971, attempting to get clean and reconnect with himself in the beautiful city. However, this trip turned tragic when he died on July 3rd. While the police report claims that his death was heart failure while at home, it is commonly believed that he overdosed because of the suspicious circumstances of the official report. If you’re interested in reading further on Jim Morrison’s time in Paris and the circumstances of his death, you can check out this article on it here. The struggle Morrison was going through before his death with his problems with drugs, alcohol and fame and the circumstances of his death itself may have led to his spirit being particularly restless, leading to sightings of his ghost at his grave. While there are plenty of mentions from people of feeling or seeing his presence when they visit his grave, the time that really led to the belief that he haunts Père Lachaise was Brett Meisner’s visit to Morrison’s grave in 1997.

(photo from paris info website)

Brett Meisner is a rock historian, and in 1997 when he visited Jim Morrison’s resting place, he took a photo that he later felt has left a negative impact. The photo shows Meisner next to Morrison’s grave, and in the background of the image there is a human figure that has no reason to be there. It genuinely appears to be the ghost of Jim Morrison, chest bare and arms outstretched. The photo can be found with a quick Google search, but due to superstition of the photo causing a negative reaction on the people who view it, I don’t feel comfortable putting it here. Mesiner didn’t realize how astounding the image was until years later, in 2002, when he had the image authenticated. Mesiner has said since that he wishes he didn’t have the photo; that he feels it washed a negative energy over his life and has led to problems in his personal life. Not only this, but fans of Morrison who have seen the image have told Meisner that they’ve had an uneasy feeling since viewing the image, or have felt that Morrison haunts them. It’s possible that Morrison haunts not only the Père Lachaise Cemetery, but haunts through the image of his ghost as well. Morrison himself believed in ghosts, and with him dying young and possibly dying due to an overdose, it’s possible that his spirit still lingers.

Jim Morrison isn’t the only famous ghost, though. Aldolphe Theirs, a prime minister of Paris from the 19th century, is said to haunt his grave at Père Lachaise. While there are no specific first-person accounts that I could find of Theirs spooking anyone, it is generally claimed that Theirs tugs on people's clothes when they get a little too close to his tomb. This may be Theirs wanting people to keep their distance from his mausoleum, or it may just be a way of him making himself known. 

The other main haunting of the Père Lachaise Cemetery is that of author Marcel Proust. It was hard to find specific actions of his hauntings, which leads me to believe that it stems from a general energy of sadness that comes from his grave. It is said that he haunts the cemetery every night in a search for his lost love. It isn’t clear who his lost love is specifically, but it is thought that they are buried in another cemetery, leaving Proust searching for his lost love forever. Considering that Proust was a closeted gay man, it is likely that this eternal search for his lost love is symbolic of the struggle with relationships he may have had in life, and the feeling of never being truly able to come together.

Although this one is not a haunting, the peculiar hoax that occured about Élisabeth Demidoff’s mausoleum deserves to be mentioned. A Russian Countess, Élisabeth Alexandrovna de Demidoff spent her last few years in Paris, and ultimately died there in 1818 at the age of 39. However, it wasn’t until 75 years later that her grave at Père Lachaise stood out amongst those laid to rest there. A posting went into papers in many places, but it seems to have primarily occurred in the United States, which has the earliest dated edition on the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1893. The posting claims that Russian Countess (sometimes Princess) Élisabeth Demidoff died only five years previous, rather than nearly a century before, and lays out a challenge to earn 5,000,000 francs: stay one whole year in her mausoleum, alone. Descriptively, it says that the person will receive no visitors, and won’t even be allowed to speak to the person that brings them food once per day. Their only activities - aside from staring at the Countess’s coffin - would be to read by the candlelight that is casted beside her (clear) coffin, and to take an hour’s stroll around the cemetery in the late evening or early morning, after the cemetery gates have been shut, thus not a living soul would be in sight. It seems the main purpose is to have this person be her watcher; there were descriptions of her mausoleum being covered in mirrors, so that anyway her watcher might look, their eyes would fall upon her preserved corpse. The article makes note that those who attempted to stay were not able to last long. Specifically, they were driven mad by not just their loneliness, but also haunting and mysterious sounds, shadows, touches, etc. 

(photo by Guilhem Vellut)

While no such will ever existed, the public did fall for the peculiar prank. Following the various articles depicting this bewildering proposition, articles were released explaining the nonsense of it all. They described Paris officials and those in charge of Père Lachaise receiving letters upon letters from people across the world, although especially in America, requesting to be given the opportunity to stay in the Countess’s mausoleum and win the 5,000,000 francs. Soldiers were especially known to apply, stating how they’d spent long periods of time with little to not contact with people while vigilant in the dark. Although no real damage was done, it definitely irritated the Parisian officials. Additionally, perhaps in an attempt to continue the legend, there has since been lore about Demidoff being a vampire. This appears to only be due to symbols and inscriptions that aren’t even very identifiable on the mausoleum, and people claim the supposed symbols point to vampirism. I don’t imagine that this is something anyone believes in; rather it’s just embellishment on what is already at its base an already known lie. 

Whether or not the Père Lachaise Cemetery is truly haunted, the cemetery is itself a haunting experience for visitors. The fact that the graveyard still actively takes in new residents, but that many of them have been or may be moved around, gives credence to a dark energy in the cemetery. However, even its tales of haunts aren’t too negative or distinct, which leads me to believe that Père Lachaise is more haunted in spirit than in anything truly tangible. Of course, visitors of the cemetery must decide for themselves. Its residents are the only ones who will know for sure.

sources: Amy’s Crypt (1) (2) - Bess Lovejoy - Chris Woodyard - Daniel Kreps - Discover Walks - Find A Grave - Marilyn Brouwer - Wikipedia

[imogengraham]

2 Mar 2020 Aardman Studios Research

Today I have researched Aardman studios after including two of their productions, Morph and Shaun the Sheep, on my A1 sheet of ideas for childrens’ comedy. I have looked more deeply into Morph, as well as Poly’s Feast a short comedy, and a climate change advert for Greenpeace.

Aardman Animations, LTD is a British animation studio. Aardman studios was founded on the 12th April 1972 and is based in Bristol. It started as a low budget project for founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton, who dreamt of producing an animation picture. They produced an animated series for the BBC series Vision On, and the company’s name came from the nerdy Superman character in the series. In 1975 the Claymation Greeblies was created which was a base for Morph. Going forwards to 1991, Nick Park’s short, Creature Comforts, became the first Aardman production to win an academy award. In 1997 Aardman and Dreamworks paired up to create Chicken Run, Aardman’s first feature film, which became their top grossing film as well as the highest-grossing stop motion film of all time. In 2006 Aardman’s first computer-animated film, Flushed Away, was released. Aardman has created many more successful feature films, series and adverts over the year; for example Shaun the Sheep and Wallace and Gromit.  

Morph

Morph was created by Peter Lord and David Sproxton. It was to feature in Take Hart, a children’s programme presented by Tony Hart. They made a simple figure, who was terracotta-coloured and able to metamorphose, and because of this ability they called him Morph. He first appeared on BBC1 in February 1977. Morph has always been hand made from one lump of clay and is 12cm tall and weighs 5.5oz. To ensure the clay is always the same amount, Peter and David would weigh the clay on an old scales they found in a ‘junk shop’ in Bristol, which has an “M” on at the correct weight. Chas, Morph’s alter ego, first made an appearance in 1979 as a one-off character – Morph's statue of himself that comes alive. However, Peter and David liked him and felt he was a good addition to stay on.  

Morph now has many 1 minute episodes, which I came across thanks to my 3 year old brother who loves the show. The episodes comprise of Morph and Chase playing practical jokes on each other. The episodes have dialogue; however it is not a real language – it’s more just a babble. When I first started watching it I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it too much as it was for children, however I could really appreciate the animation and the skill. Halfway through the episode I started laughing along with my brother at the pair of inaudible figures and just felt that the concept was so clever.

Poly’s Feast

Poly’s Feast is a CGI comedy short directed by Simone Giampaolo. It features a cyclops baby who seems harmless to the soldiers, however once agitated becomes violent and eats all the soldiers in its surroundings. The CGI for this short is done in an authentic style, looking like it could also have been done by hand with similar textures to clay. It is 3D CGI, which gives an amazing outcome but is also very time consuming.  

Turtle Journey

Turtle Journey is an advert for Greenpeace, produced by Gavin Strange (JamFactory). It’s just under 2 minutes long and is a mix between CGI and stop motion Claymation. It has a heart wrenching message to save the turtles in the ocean. The advert features a sweet family of turtles trying to find their way home, but being diverted by disruption to the ocean, ending with them and their home getting destroyed. Around halfway through the family encounters work to the ocean resulting in oil being spilled onto them. This is depicting the damage that has been caused to our oceans, and the negative impact it’s had on the life insider. In the end, the family reach their house with their neighbours having fled, and their journey ends abruptly with a bulldozer coming towards them. The background for this, I believe, is CGI with the family being clay stop motion. The clay turtles have Aardman’s signature facial structure and movement. The video also has a slight glitch effect to it, which foreshadows something going wrong. Overall, I think this is an incredibly effective advert for climate change due to the amount of emotion you feel for the family.

[ssdissatsifactionofdietculture]

Environment and Context

Diet culture is a huge force in what drives body dissatisfaction, as its center around the thin-ideal influences the ways in which women are represented (and objectified) in the media. While it may feel overwhelming to try to pin down the start of this thin-ideal and the start of dieting for weight loss purposes, both of these histories are actually rooted in the 19th century. As described in “The Inner Corset” by Laura Fraser, “Two of the most distinguished doctors of the age [the 1800s], George Beard and S. Weir Mitchell, believed that excessive thinness caused American women to succumb to a wide variety of nervous disorders and that a large number of fat cells was absolutely necessary to achieve a balanced personality. But when the plump figure fell from favor [Between the 1880s and 1920s], physicians found new theories to support the new fashion” (Fraser, 1997). In addition, the appreciation of the thin body was influenced greatly by the influx of immigrants into the US. As it became possible for people of lower incomes and social statuses to “become plump, being fat no longer was a sign of prestige. Well-to-do  Americans of northern European extraction wanted to be able to distinguish themselves, physically and racially, from stockier immigrants...status symbols flipped: it became chic to be thin and all too ordinary to be over-weight” (Fraser, 1997). Clearly, the body norms that we uphold can shift over the course of history, and with them the science that supports them. To reinforce this new thin-ideal of the 20th century, diets centered around weight loss (such as the “tapeworm diet” and the “Fletcherizing diet”) became popular. (Wdowik, 2017). 

As time has gone on, the thin-ideal has influenced how women are represented in the media. Generally, TV shows, movies, and ads primarily show us women in very slim bodies, and unfortunately, in many cases the women represented are sexualized or objectified. For example, The Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls shows that the “sexualization of women is particularly prominent in the world of advertising. In prime-time television commercials, for example, Lin (1997) demonstrated that women more often than men were shown in a state of undress, exhibited more “sexiness,” and were depicted as sexual objects  (9.2% of men vs. 20.8% of women)” (APA, 2007). As described in our previous post, sexualization and objectification can have serious consequences on girls’ and women’s health outcomes and their self image, and can push them more towards engaging in disordered habits for those with serious body dissatisfaction. Considering the fact that there is mainly one body type being represented on screen (a thin one), this gives off the message that people in larger bodies are not acceptable in the way that they look and that they need to slim down in order to be considered beautiful, thus pushing them to spend money on services or products that will make them them skinnier (diet pills, weight loss programs, diets, etc). 

Despite diet culture’s long history and the very real consequences that it can create for women, as of yet there have been no attempts by local state agencies in Oregon to try to limit the impacts of diet culture or the sexualization of women in the media to create a more inclusive, positive, and appropriate representation of women and girls. However, there are advocacy groups and organizations in Portland that are focused on repairing the harm done by diet culture and creating better options for those who have been impacted by weight stigma. For instance, one Portland based organization goes by the name of “Be Nourished.” Be Nourished was started in 2005 by Hilary Kinavey and Dana Sturtevant, and since its creation, Be Nourished staff have been dedicated to helping people heal from the damage done by body shame, eating disorders, cycles of dieting, weight stigma, and more. Be Nourished also focuses on using trauma informed approaches to help people recover, in addition to using fundamentals from intuitive eating and the Health at Every Size model. 

Another group in Portland dedicated to creating positive experiences for people in larger bodies who have been affected by diet culture and weight stigma is BigFatFunPDX. The organization “plans events and outings for the Fat-positive community. Each event aims to create a supportive environment where members can escape the weight of society, and feel free to be their authentic self” (BigFatFunPDX, 2018). BFFPDX hosts a number of different activities for participants, such as karaoke, game nights, “Fat Girls Hiking”, and more. Having organizations such as these ones helps chip away at diet culture’s power and empowers those who want to reclaim their bodies and create new mindsets centered around healing and finding community with others that have been impacted by the thin-ideal, diet culture, and the sexualization and objectification that we are so continuously exposed to. By starting this process of chipping away at diet culture, it brings us one step closer to having policies surrounding media representation and having more body inclusivity in the US. An additional bright spot is that in Michigan, weight discrimination is outlawed, and lawmakers in Massachusetts have actually “ introduced a bill that would make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of weight in that state” (Puhl, 2019). This means that there is hope for the future regarding weight discrimination, and I believe it is possible that more places might adopt this policy as well, giving the message that weight does not determine one’s worth or ability. 

Works Cited:

ANAD. (n.d.). Eating Disorder Statistics. Retrieved April 16, 2020, from https://anad.org/education-and-awareness/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/

Fraser, L. “The Inner Corset - A Brief History of Fat in the United States.” The Fat Studies Reader, vol. 1, New York University, 2009, p. 13.

Wdowik, M. (2017, November 13). The long, strange history of dieting fads. Retrieved April 24, 2020, from https://source.colostate.edu/the-long-strange-history-of-dieting-fads/

About Be Nourished. (2020). Retrieved April 24, 2020, from https://benourished.org/about/

Joy, A. (2018). What is Big Fat Fun about? Retrieved April 24, 2020, from https://www.bigfatfunpdx.com/about 

Puhl, R. (2019, June 21). Weight Discrimination is Rampant. Retrieved August 24, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/weight-discrimination-is-rampant-yet-in-most-places-its-still-legal/2019/06/21/f958613e-9394-11e9-b72d-d56510fa753e_story.html

[rcinberry]

hello pals . here thoust be with an about ? haha kisses love and respekt these hoes !

tw: familial death, murder 

STATS: full name: sebastian eli jung nickname(s): bas, bash, CALL HIM BA AND YOU DIE age: 23. date of birth: april 4th 1997 hometown: chicago, illinois  gender: cis male. religion: athiest. sexuality: bisexual. hair colour: blonde. here’s visuals of what he looks like currently, he’s always decked in accessories ! head to toe , he loves looking handsome n expensive, it’s like a personality trait to be that sexy yk?  .. xx (x) eye colour: brown. height: 5'10, i bumped up jimins height myob tattoos: (x) (left hand, the rose & cross only) , (x) (back of his neck), (x) on his inner left forearm,  piercings: two ear piercings in each, right cartilage piercing, (1) nipple piercing, had his tongue pierced when he was like 13 but that hole closed up now.

(i copied this family background from ellie bc she summed it up OFKMGDHG)

immediate family: richard & elizabeth jung (parents), silvia jung (twin brother, younger), and bambi & thumper (pure golden bred golden retrievers, bambi’s owner)

extended family: jeremy jung (uncle, father’s twin, deceased), jeremy’s husband (uncle)

started out as world renowned physicians, but would later own the best hospitals around the world

became a household name because of their big role/impact in the medical world and later the business world

twins run in the family and theres been a set of jung twins in every generation so far (aka richard & jeremy, silvia & sebastian)

mom was the hardass, dad was the softy

richard and elizabeth got divorced when the twins were 19 years old, the fortune/businesses was split between the two

the dad basically disappeared after the divorce happened, the mom is a witch

the twins were always closer to their dad and uncle

in addition to their family life 

sebastian does not get along w his mother at all, she sees him as scum and he sees her as disgrace and a money hungry person, he saw to that when she murdered his uncle before him. they hate each other but he’d never express tht hate in front of silvia, although when silvia isn’t around his mom hurls horrible insults at him and he fights back

will protect silvia till the end of the world he would jump fences for his sister, the only girl that he truly loves even if she hates him currently

loves his dog a lot, bambi is his baby.. his emotional support animal

misses his dad terribly and wishes he’d reach out, he’s tried a few times, hired the best PI and couldn’t find it. his dad doesn’t want to be found or does he? 

which leads to how sebastian is so afraid to be himself and love because mom, a bitch, dad? god knows why he bailed when he needed him the most. 

whomst is sebastian , condensed  !

sebastian is a boy who has seen his uncle die in front of him, so tht fucked him up a lot. like he can be difficult but that’s because he watched someone die and the loving boy he was once was no more... and then to lose his dad right after was a pretty fucked up burden for him to carry into his teen years, he tried not to let it show for silvia’s sake but that kind went down the drain in their 20′s

he rlly only ever looked out for silvia when he was growing up, he didn’t really care about anyone else and that was a product of his mothers neglect, he didn’t want the same for silvia to see her thrive made him happy, he loves his twin a lot 

after his uncle died, and they all got the riches of the family business, he rly saw his mom do a 360 and saw how much money changed the bitch, he rly hates that hag he rlly does, she lets her own son rot and makes sure silvia never feels the way he does around her so he sucks up his pride sometimes

anyways growing up !! he's always been home schooled, unlike silvia he never did anything? he doesnt need to? now that he’s dripping wealth he’s like i can buy excellence i dont need to be work my ass off like yall, bye <3

he’s very cautious of people, you know how the old trope goes.. once betrayed never trust again - that’s him, hardly lets anyone into his circle, it’s so small it’s just himself tbh

anyways , he spent most of his teen years traveling and wandering the world bc it's sexier than being home and u could be whoever u wanna be across seas , not tht he ever faked his identity, his name has meaning n he uses tht for his advantage. even home schooled, he’d be doing school in italy, france, greece, maldives you name it, his experience was the outside world and he’s seen a lot

sebastian doesn't hide himself , like what u see is . esstentially what u see x he has never faked it for the cameras, always authentically and annoyingly himself

he knows he's not a pleasant person and if u can't u can't hang. he's not gna make himself a pleasant person to hang out with , if u wnna curse him out ? curse him out he rly doesn't phase at all like he's rly heard it ALL from his mother that nothing else rly hurts , it takes a lot to hurt him

unless ur silvia, anything that girl says breaks his heart but he doesnt let it show his .00007 centimeter of whats left in his chest

moving on, he's rly the type to show up anyone out of spite . say he can't do it ? watch him do it perfectly the next day , he doesn't like being shown to be stupid bc as much as he does as dumb , he rly isn't the boy has a lot of knowledge up in his brain , he likes playing stupid for the aesthetic. like the jungs come from a line of brains and such, silvia has the brains and the drive - sebastian just... hides it, never shows up to class, pays it off by buying a new wing for the school.. 

but when he does do smthn to show up ppl, does it w grace and a smile on his face or if he wants to prove someone wrong, does it with ease

he interrupts people's tasks bc he doesn't want one of those tasks to be involving silvia at all 

he is a Whore , he just fucks anything honestly u yell at him n he's just . HE's jsut full of himself makes me wnna punch him uhh i thin kthats it!! hes just , a damaged self absorbed son of a binch u kno , gets his shit rocked sometimes and he just laughs it off wipes tears , god  bless