#because it's not a straight up inverse no they get a little more creative in these thannthat

[transingthoseformers]

Yeah I'm sorry but SG!Optimus might be getting an Evil Babygirl membership card. Sure, he's gotta damn earn it, but. Look at him.

Also wait is that poster SG!Whirl

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Worldbuilding: !@#$ the terfs, be more creative with gender and bio sex than a binary system.

9.5 times out of ten the majority of gender systems I read in US books are really, really uncreative, and I do mean that because manga, has more creative gender systems than a lot of US books. I love you Melanie Rawn, but still, the inversion as good as it was in the uncompleted Ruins of Ambrai, still was largely a European system because it was largely a commentary on the European system. (Yes, I did understand that.)

And the US tends to, very much accuse other countries of having uncreative gender systems that are absolutely rigid, say the US to Japan. (Though the usually [white] understanding of Japanese gender is usually abysmal... but that's a whole paper and a half there.)

When building a gender system, be more creative! You have this other fake culture. You can do whatever the heck you feel like. Say, the Barbie Movie, which hilariously the alt-right USian detested, though it still was a commentary on mostly US gender norms.

Can't we loosen this up a little? You have literal aliens and you can't imagine a more creative sex and gender system than the binary? Oh really? Humans aren't even binary on either. I'm going to give cultural examples.

Introduction

Bugis have 5 genders.

BTW, someone got so mad when I pointed out the page they cited said that Bugis recognized 5 genders, they went on a youtube rant about it. lol Deal. BTW, people put a lot of emphasis on Bissu like how people hyperfocus on trans women in the US because masculinity is that fragile. Albanian is complicated.

Some countries/ethnicities have 3.

India has a 3 gender system in Northern India. Women, men, Hijra

I mean this list:

Some countries don’t even define the two gender system the same way (Europeans are sooo uptight. Loosen up.)

For example, a Korean man wearing pink--no problem. No one flips the hell out when a man in Korea wears a hanbok with a chima and a jeogori. They are like cool. He can do as he likes. Even baksu wear chima in religious ceremonies. They believe it gives them extra powers.

The whole pants. are. for. men. and. women. only. wear. skirts.

Oh c'mon...

Pants were invented for horseback riding--like the heel.

So let's get this mind-numbingly straight (pun somewhat intended here) Men, are men because of horses. (haha, yes, Barbie reference), thus have to wear pants. But are absolutely effing forbidden from wearing heels, which are also associated with what? Horseback riding. Hmmm...

And men still wear dresses and skirts, but they call it by other names.

Judicial robes for sale, and look, a man is wearing them.

But--But that's soo different from a dress...

https://www.net-a-porter.com/en-jp/shop/product/la-doublej/clothing/maxi-dresses/muumuu-printed-silk-twill-maxi-dress/38063312420399795

This is a dress because as Webster's Dictionary says:

: an outer garment (as for a woman or girl) usually consisting of a one-piece bodice and skirt

Yes, it's worn by a woman. I couldn't find another definition.

But men also wear sarongs. And bath towels, and kilts all of which look suspiciously like skirts. And togas. Which shows how fragile the definition is that you need to narrow the definition that much.

And freaking for those religious, God on the Sistine Chapel, by suspected maybe gay Michelangelo, has a vaccuum sealed butt on the Sistine chapel wearing a pink dress.

C'mon, we can be more creative than this, surely. I mean, if you look at this super rigid gender system, does it make any sense at all? OK, I'm NB and all, but seriously, I look at it and go, WTF happened to you?

You get so uptight about men wearing lace, stocking, high heels, dresses, pink but forget so quickly that less than 200 years ago, no one gave a damn, and if a man didn't wear those things, he couldn't make it in high society.

I mean...

Lafayette, wearing pink, heels, stockings, lace (his collar), and a wig. Give me a break here.

And gender definitions change over time...

Just about 100 years back, in order to be out and gay, it was thought your entire gender was different. There was nothing like a butch gay man. You were considered part female, in fact. And no one in the 19th century would have taken exception to that. It didn't change until much later in Europe.

But also Europe imperialized the world with gender expectations, leading to a rise of violence against third gender communities.

What was one of the first three rules of culture I posted? Culture changes. Koreans like to say, even in ten years the Mountains and rivers change. So gender can and will also change in definitions becoming more rigid, more fluid, recategorized, etc over time.

So given all of these things... let's rethink gender.

Gender doesn't have to be Defined by Sex Assigned at Birth

A lot of Human cultures assign gender this way. Born one way, raise them that way, hope it works out.

But you have a whole FANTASY WORLD and you can see, humans don't make a lot of logical sense when it comes to gender. I mean heels are for women, and men should never wear them, except when they are attached to boots, but the boots better not be too high , or you're *gasp* gay is the European "logic" system. And only what? 50 or so years ago, women were finally allowed to wear pants.

So you don't have to do it by genitals. You could do it by hair color. Gender affirming care would be changing your hair color, or horns, or whatever tickles your fancy. You could, say have a cephlapod species with smaller males that can present female part of the time, and based on their texture of their skin, that's their gender.

You could do it by color--the species has actually blue, dark blue, green, yellow, etc skin colors and they can change them at any moment and the one they tend towards, well, that's their gender.

You could also make it so you automatically need a polycule for the species to work out and reproduce. And thus there might be, say a 6 gender system. 2 possible genders for the three adults there.

C'mon. Nature is creative and sometimes has an all female species. Look at Mourning geckos. There are so few males, and they are sometimes called a lesbian species of gecko.

Even then, you have intersex, and not all intersex people are infertile.

Terfs only think it's wrong to "go against nature" when it has to do with gender presentation. Nothing else. But they have no, no problem with assigning a sex to an intersex child without their consent. That's culture taking over for nature. And how that is shaped, or not shaped, absolutely belongs in world building.

If your men aren't horseback riding, and your women aren't either, then dresses for all are fine. Deal with it.

I think it would be entertaining to see an alien species determine the gender of the child by holding up paint swatches to the child's say eyes and then saying, "Yep, a girl."

Or even well, the birther stayed in # temp rooms, for # amount of days, Oh, this is the expected sex of the child. But the gender, well, we will determine that by these [arbitrary] factors.

But seriously, you can define gender and sex however, you want. Is medical/magic intervention necessary or not? Who gets to determine it?

Next step is to find the rules for how gender is expressed in an idealized world.

Do you constantly call all of your girls and tell them they can grow up to be a princess? But tell all your boys they are going to grow up to be doctors and lawyers?

This is what Social Scientists would call socialization.

For this, I would suggest you make a spreadsheet and then put down arbitrary lists of things the "ideal" gender would wear. So for the US, Pink is for girls. Blue is for boys. How they should act. And finally, how they are taught.

It's so ubiquitous that even feminists often trip up and see a baby in a pink dress with lace and automatically pick up a doll. (I'm just saying, maybe think that one over a bit.)

Make a list for each column. And then for the individual characters figure out how they DON'T fit those norms and then terrorize them with it...

What do you threaten the privileged group with if they come out of line?

For men in the US, for example, you go with homophobia. "That's gay."

Because the threat of being gay is sooo outlandish. *eyeroll* It's an threat to everything masculine.

I'll go over this in more detail later in the series, but you need things to discipline the privileged group and the disadvantage group(s). What's the threat if you become this other group? Death? Social ridicule? Financial loss? Being outcast?

Or, do you get rewarded and become a shaman, a healer, or a celebrated hero for being able to not fit in? (This also is possible).

Cultural justifications

Cultural justifications for this are different from the actual historical reasons or the facts.

The historical reason that pink and blue switched was because dyes became more readily available for both and they felt like it.

Blue used to be more rare, and thus considered "virginal" because blue is rare in nature, but under industrialization as people became more and more disconnected from nature, and blue dyes became available, the idea of this became more diluted, and the switch was from blue to pink.

That's not what the cultural justifications were for this thought originally. The thought was that blue was a more "delicate" color, clearly more suited to women.

Because, if you have forgotten (yes a joke coming), humans constantly get amnesia on where things come from. Constantly. We've lost information in your own lifetime. You were born 2 seconds ago? Well, I hate to tell you, we've lost information in that 2 seconds.

So, when they can't remember the reason, Humans make up a reason to go with it, that's often frivolous and silly. Something that feels, what? Natural to them. Though remember the rule, Nature gives no fucks. So find and make up a logical reason for the cultural item and then find a stupid reason that people are willing to double down on it and there you go, that's culture. So say your species of aliens, the ones that are temperature linked to sex, link Iunno, gender to horn size. Bigger horns mean a certain class of gender. The original reason might be that bigger horned females are better at digging nests back when they were a pastoral society, thus better able to have larger clutches of children. But they've now reached the stars, so they completely forgot why and now just say that bigger horns are simply sexier because reasons. Or it could have flipped that smaller horns are in more demand, because big horns get in the way of industrial tasks, but no one says that. And now the bigger horned females, are considered a lower gender than the smaller horned females, who then raise all of the eggs.

See, the justification doesn't even have to follow any sort of logic. It's what they tell everyone to make them feel better.

And truthfully, a lot of culture is built this way. The reason you tell everyone isn't really the actual truth. I mean I did a whole series on Story Structure, and the justifications versus the reasons why it was made that way don't even close to match. People blindly parrot what other people tell them if it will help them succeed. (BTW, not saying I'm not guilty of this, I absolutely am.)

So I think this gives you a good basis to free yourself up for a larger system and be more creative with your gender definitions. Because absolutely both gender and sex are defined by culture, but in different ways.

You have effing demons, and you can come up with a more creative gender categories? You have unicorns and you don't have more creative gender categories. And you have kracken climbing buildings, but you can't imagine a third sex category for them when it absolutely exists in nature. C'mon. Hit me with your most creative and free yourself of your own culture's definitions of gender.

What if you nuked the entire Male/female/NB system. What would that look like? How would you justify it on two fronts? Blow that system out of the water and rework it. What would the Sexual orientation work like with a 3 sexes, 2 gender for each each system?

What stupid prohibitions would you put in for such a system?

[foxymoxynoona]

Tell Me What Changed Drabble #1: Couple Costumes

I'm sorry, no one asked for this but it just happened. Very first TMWC drabble ever, more to come eventually. Enjoy!

Story: Tell Me What Changed Characters: Alex & Jungkook Words: 1800 CW: Language, references to sex, their conversation may give you a headache

“Ok, hear me out, I have our Halloween costumes planned for this year,” Jungkook said, collapsing onto the bed beside her to interrupt her doom-scrolling. He showed her the picture on his phone and said, “This is me. This is totally me.”

“You and every other guy this year,” she scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Ken? It’s not even a little bit creative.”

“Alex, I can’t not be Ken. The public will expect it. I’m perfect for it. I’ve got the abs, I’ve got the tan–”

“And the hair?”

“I’ll go blond for it. That’s how serious I am. And you, baby girl, will be the hottest Barbie–”

Alex pushed up to her knees and interrupted, “Let me stop you right there. There is a Barbie in this relationship, and it is not me. I will be wearing that for Halloween,” she said, pointing to his phone. “For I am the Ken, and you shall be the beautiful Barbie.”

“Huh?” His face screwed up, adorably confused, and Alex felt her certainty grow that this was the way better idea. “But… you’re Barbie and I’m just Ken.”

“No, you are Barbie. You go through every day with main character energy, you’ve got great hair, great skin, and the balance to walk on your tip-toes everywhere.”

“No, babe, it’s a feminist thing,” he said, reaching for her hand. “It’s all about the reversal of the patriarchy and how Kens are defined by the female gaze and their association with a woman and the Barbies are the like, brains and power and–”

“Your summary of this movie is… incredible,” she snickered. She’d gone down many a rabbit hole reading all the think pieces after seeing the movie in theaters…. Twice. And she’d sent some of them to Jungkook but was not sure he’d read them. “It’s not really an inversion because there is no historic oppression of Kens, no dowries, no rape, no skewed physical demand placed on the Kens to have children–” 

“You get the idea. You’re putting me on the spot! But it’s proof I’m the Ken! You’re the one who read that big New Yorker article out loud to me while I cooked you dinner and pretended to listen,” he pointed out. “I’m the abs, you’re the brains! There’s not really anything more to me than my relationship–”

“Hence why you must now have your journey to discover your worth and identity, Barbie,” she insisted, shoving his shoulder. He didn’t budge, of course. 

“I can’t, I’m too busy taking selfies at the gym, Barbie. Everyone will expect me to be Ken –it doesn’t matter how many other guys do a shitty job at it, I want to go all in. For the ‘gram.”

“So you admit you think you’re hotter than me,” Alex said, crossing her arms under her boobs as a distraction tactic. 

“Uh�� what? No, I–”

“So you recognize that by demanding I be a Barbie with some kind of remarkable trait or inherent counter-culture statement because I couldn’t look less like Barbie, while you get to be just a Ken so you can show off your abs, you are feeding into the concept that women must be all that and a bag of chips while men get to just be hot and walk through the world like someone else will figure it out for them.” Alex tried her damndest to keep a straight face. She thought she had just made some excellent points… somewhere in there. Honestly she wasn’t too sure about her own execution of a point but she appreciated the blank look on Jungkook’s face as he tried to trace her reasoning.

“Wait no, the whole point is that you’re the main character. Of my life. I love you,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching as he tried to commit to the bit. Alex’s chest bounced as she tried to suppress the laughter. “You’d sell out. It would be like Taylor Swift tickets if they made an Alex Barbie.”

“Oh my god.”

“That’s why I’m saying I am your Ken and you, the sunshine of my life, are Barbie.”

“But that’s so narrow-minded of you. I want to be ogled and you should be allowed to be thoughtful and achieve something,” she insisted. “Unless you’re saying I’m not hot enough to be Ken? You don’t think people want to see me in a little vest?” She pouted her lips at him and sank back on her heels because her knees were tired, but also because she tasted victory. She could see it in the nervous way he was fumbling, trying to make sure he didn’t accidentally say something offensive. She thought it was hysterical.

“So… you think Barbie can’t be hot?” he clarified. And narrowed his eyes. “Babe, it’s the twenty-first century. Barbie can be anyone and anything.”

“So you’re saying I should go as Bimbo Barbie, reduced to nothing but my boobs, just an object to be looked at. How forward-thinking of you!”

Now she’d lost him and he defended, “That’s what you said you wanted!”

“No, I want to be Bimbo Ken. It’s totally different!”

“How is it different? You think Barbie can’t be just a piece of ass?” Jungkook demanded. “Wait, no! Only if she wants to be! Obviously she’s so much more.”

“That sounds like a great caption for the photo you’ll post of your Barbie Halloween costume,” Alex beamed. 

Jungkook flopped forward, arms pressed to his side. He rolled onto his side and back, a re-enactment of Barbie’s crisis in the movie.

“But I want to wear a fuzzy white coat and headband and two pairs of sunglasses and have everything think I’m hot and socially aware,” he whined.

She reached out and patted his back with a stiff hand, “I’m sorry, baby. You’ll look great in a pink jumpsuit though.”

“I guess there’s only one thing to do,” he sighed dramatically. And avoided eye contact, which was suspicious.

“What’s that?” 

“I guess we just have to be one of those couples who break up because of the Barbie movie and then we can both be Kens for Halloween. Don’t be sad, sweetheart, we can get back together on November 1st.”

“Shut up,” she laughed and kicked his ass over and over until he rolled away, shielding his balls from accidental assault. “You’re an idiot if you think I’m letting you roam free for Halloween night. You think I don’t know how you used to spend those?”

“Same way I intend to spend this one,” he grinned. “Balls deep in a real doll–” She didn’t know if he was laughing too hard at his own audacity to continue or because she’d kicked him in the stomach a little bit.

“You’re so gross! And also aren’t those things crazy expensive?”

“I wouldn’t know, never needed one…”

“I can’t believe you’re joking about what a fuckboy you were and yet you want to be Ken? You dare tarnish the reputation of the man who has eyes for no one but Barbie?”

“And the other Kens,” Jungkook quickly corrected. “It’s not gay, it’s patriarchy!”

“I… don’t think we watched the same movie,” she giggled, and at this point just flopped across him. He wrapped his arms around her and wrestled her over to pin her down. 

“Alex,” he said. “Let me be Ken. Be my Barbie in sexy sparkly hot pants.”

“That’s… who you think Barbie is?”

“You said you want to be sexy lookin’ Barbie!”

“No, I specifically want to be Ken.”

“Barbie Ken?”

“Oh my god I am getting stupider every second of this conversation,” she laughed. 

He grinned and rubbed his nose against hers, taunting, “That’s right, baby, feel the power of a true Ken.”

“Jungkook!”

“JungKen,” he murmured and tried to kiss her. When she was laughing too hard, he kissed her jaw instead, and then tried to get to her neck to really make her squirm. 

She shoved at his face and gasped, “Oooh what if you’re Alan?! You’re just my buddy! And I’m Ken. Obviously.”

“Alan?! No way! And then who’s Barbie?” 

“I’m sure there will be dozens of Barbies.”

“And I’m supposed to just stand around with my hands on my hips in flipflops while you chase after women?!” he argued, rolling off her with a definite sulk.

“Which is different from most days how?”

“Aleeeeex.” He slid his hands up her arms, pinning her wrists over her head. “Please. What do I have to do to get to be Ken? Don’t you want to help me oil my abs?”

“That’s just a day at the pool.” He kissed her, succeeding only in a momentary silence, because hey, how else was a girl supposed to react as Jungkook slid over her, all hands and lips?

“I’ll convince you. I’ve got time.”

“I don’t know, it’s already August…” she teased.

“Oh shit your birthday is coming up,” he realized, pushing up into a plank.

“See? A true Ken would never forget Barbie’s birthday because what else do you have to think about?”

“Barbie in sparkly hot pants. I spend a lot of time thinking about you in sparkly hot pants… ah, I want it so bad…”

“Ok, give me some of that plastic and I’ll think about it.”

“Uh… you mean… by plastic do you mean… I mean, that’s not plastic. That’s all man muscle–”

“Oh god, you really are a Ken,” she sighed. 

“Thank you. You’re a Ken too sometimes,” he assured her. 

“Wait, is that a red flag? If we’re both Ken?”

“Ok, no more Buzzfeed listicles for you,” he snickered. “But look, I’ll spend the next two months convincing you, it’s fine, you can enjoy it. What about right now? Should I, uh… keep this going? Were you in the middle of something?” His hand slid up the side of her shirt, fingers a question at the band of her bra. “Why are you still wearing this? You’ve been home for hours! Let me help you get more comfortable.” He undid the hooks with one hand.

Alex let out a roar of a yawn and stretched her arms, hands behind her head, “I take it back, you’re Thoughtful Barbie. But yeah, keep it going.”

“Alex. Admit that’s a Barbie line. You’re my Barbie!”

She hated how much she actually liked to hear him say it. God, was something wrong with her?! Was it about being the mass-produced mainstream doll that she had never looked anything like? White, blond, and teeny, all the things she wasn’t. Even Curvy Barbie was still so thin, what the fuck? 

Or was it something about being Jungkook’s sex doll….?

“All right, Ken, you win, now keep going, this Barbie wants her–.”

“Yesssssss.”

“Don’t interrupt me again.”

“Sorry, sorry, Barbie.”

[satellitesoundwave]

⭐️⭐️

Dealer’s choice! I decided to go with Your Own Hands but couldn’t narrow it down to just one bit. So here’s my commentary on two sections instead lol

From #13:

The machine’s base is a vast crucible, stout and steep sided. Pipes conveying in heat encircle the sides. The superheated air above it shimmers, transparent patterns twisting in the air as the molecules writhe. Pooling inside the cup of the crucible is a pool of liquified obtenteum.

Bathed in the fuel’s toxic green glow is Averruncus' heart; an octahedron bigger than a mech, hovering in the air as if it is beyond the purview of physical laws that everything else has no choice but to obey. Each of its identical faces is roughhewn like stone, and a shade of black that seems to swallow all light that falls on it and give nothing back.

Below the octahedron the obtenteum withdraws, repulsed, pressed flat to the crucible and rising up the sides like liquid in a centrifuge. It is flowing up the crucible’s walls like waves on a vertical shore.   

Okay, so, I reallywanted the causality-breaking-machine itself to feel unnatural and wrong. What it does is so implausible, like everything depends on cause and effect to exist at all. While plotting out YOH I found that trying to consider what that disruption would do to pretty much anything straight up hurts to think about if you try to do it too in-depth lol. I decided to lean into that and give the machine an appearance that also communicates that this thing should never have been able to exist to begin with.

It was partly inspired by the vibe Tarantulas has in SotW’s too. Stuff like the way that his hybrid organic-Cybertronian nature, and the wonky shape and distinct font of his speech bubbles, frame him as an aberration in the narrative. An intruder into the story. Averruncus is very much Tarantulas’ creation, and I wanted to communicate that by sharing the feeling of wrongness that its creator is marked by – Tara’s hybrid nature inspired the sentence “As the octahedron rises above the lip of the crucible it contracts like an organic heart, the sides dropping back down to squeeze out the liquid,“ as well, actually. Organic imagery where you would expect a more mechanical simile. Also kinda gross, which is a good fit for Tarantulas’ vibe too.

The other big inspiration for Averruncus was the gravity drive from the movie Event Horizon, because that thing looks cool as fuck. I saw EH for the first time while writing Your Own Hands, and the gravity drive had a real impact on me.  Mad kudos to all the people involved in designing and building it, I mean just look

so the gravity drive ended up being part of the creative foundation I built on to design Averruncus’ appearance as well

I also wanted to talk about snippet #2, because the stuff in #2 is actually the very first thing I wrote for YOH; I was originally going back and forth on whether I should sign up for the Big Bang, and decided to mock up a little section of the idea I’d picked out to potentially do for the event to get a feel for what writing it would be like. A lot of the approach I wanted to take to the theme and these characters got nailed down in that trial run (which also made it very exciting that this was the scene ashals-dream chose to illustrate). The section's too long to quote the whole scene, so I’ll do some choice bits:

This time he has relocated to a beach. His lure lies nestled on the sand, signalling while he investigates the nearby rocks, captivated by a tenacious little specimen of Niebla Effusa.

Lichen. The composite of fungi and cyanobacteria – or fungi and algae, of course – that possesses characteristics neither of these individual species do in isolation. Two individuals with one form, like an inversion of the typical Cybertronian’s nature for a single individual to have two forms. He longs to collect samples, but they would only go to waste. There is no time left for passion projects.

This is the point where I started to feel like I’d gotten Tarantulas’ pov nailed down. It felt right that he is constantly assessing the world around him through the lens of a scientist’s curiosity, and in an environment it’s the things that appeal to the curiosity which receive special attention from the narration (the composite nature of lichen is something I learned about from Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, which is a great read. Highly recommend)

Whipped onto the rocks by the buffeting wind, waves crash onto land, reaching for the sky until they dissolve into white foam that falls to fleck Tarantulas’ carapace with salty droplets. Prowl is too distant for the fine mist to reach him.

Distance is something I’m often thinking about with these two. The psychological/emotional distance between them is something of a blind spot for both Prowl and Tarantulas; they each think they have a particularly good read on the other, and in some ways they do… but there are key places where they really don’t, and neither is self-aware about those deficiencies. It gives the two of them a knack for unintentionally taking the absolute worst tact with each other – like how chronologically later in the fic Prowl manages to, from an interpersonal standpoint, completely fuck up in the way he saves Tarantulas’ life and be taken by surprise by the fallout. By noting the physical distance between them in this first meeting, I was hoping to gesture at that interpersonal disconnect too

“And what is it that you need, Tarantulas? Why have you been playing this game?”

Tarantulas walks up the dune, leaving the lure in the sand. He won’t need it again. Prowl is going to say yes. It truly is his only option, this time.

He walks right up until he can see himself reflected in that cold blue optic, until the muzzle of the blaster presses into his chest. There is nothing to fear from the gun. There isn’t a weapon in the world capable of making a difference to him anymore.

“This time, Prowl, I need your help.”

A physical distance that Tarantulas is the one to close, in the same way it’s his decisions later on that puts them on a path where closing that emotional distance becomes possible, and turns them away from repeating their damaging cycle but with Prowl as the person consequences splashed back onto this time around. Also, here’s the first place I decided to bring in the emphasis on Prowl saying ‘yes’ that comes up several times across YOH, to tie it into that thread from SotW.

I also really enjoy Tarantulas’ bring completely unconcerned about walking right up to the gun here. He might have decided that he’s okay with having to die in order to get causality stabilised, but he knows that until then Averruncus’ intervention means that he cannot be killed. Tarantulas’ confidence in the face of a deadly weapon is drawn from the total confidence he has in his own work

[108garys]

Let me wash away the taste of that filth

So Mark fits the archetype of the reluctant hero in the way that he's directionless at the start and initially pushes back on the call to action in his brief moment of agreement with Charlie on the idea that nothing was wrong but when it comes down to the moment of truth he always meets the challenge head on and grows as a person because of it, the heroic arch is then subverted in the complicity and ultimatum paths(imagine if they could exist in the same playthrough) where he reaches the point in his growth where he can be decisive but has fallen prey to Du'met's influence and has either been manipulated into making the wrong call or put in a no win situation where both options are unthinkable and for however long he lives he must have these things on his conscience and he shoulders it

Mark the over thinker, who talked himself out of pursuing his dream, who broke off a relationship with the woman he loves, who is stuck in inertia despite his considerable talent(the camera work was the only thing that got a wholey positive comment in the little hope TV guide), he steps up to choose good or bad, he challenges Du'met and is the only one who can physically contend with him in a straight up fight despite his nonconfrontational and layed back nature

He is artistically inclined, much like his coworkers he sees work as work but his pull to the creative is evident even if he doesn't get much chance to express it, this also makes him one of the few artists in the game loosely next to Charlie, Du'met and Sherman and I think that's worth mentioning in of itself that between him and Charlie there's a lot of respect for what mark does and how invaluable his creative eye is and to further contrast hector and Manny's dynamic where the artistry of murder is a driving factor in it all and the way mark shares a trait that not only aligned him with Du'met but makes his own positive relationship with his boss be an almost inversion of hector's relationship with Manny in which the person with more power is learning from or benefiting from the other(I do feel like this point is a little muddled tho)

His go with the flow vibe naturaly pushes him to the back when the cast is full of strong personalities, it's not his fault that tdim has an over abundance of outspoken characters, even the stereotypical "quiet girl" in Erin is much more opinionated than him and that makes the negative association much more magnified to the point that I feel people tend to subconsciouslay treat his moments as a type of ludonarrative disonence in which they see those things as their acts as a player and not marks as a character which is much easier for players that see the characters as themselves first and characters in a story second

Beyond that I believe he is relatable but painfully so, unlike Erin and her quirky song or Kate and her quirky crystal(not to downplay their issues but it gives people something to latch on to), Mark is facing the very comon horror of being suddenly 30 and not making progress in life due to his indecision, he has everything he needs to get ahead in life in theory but he gets in his own way, in this way his own beginning state of arrested development unintentionally holds a mirror up to people's own shortcomings

Combining these factors I think Mark fades into the background and makes people subtly uncomfortable in a way that they can't quite put their finger on and so they overlook all of his good qualities, so in conclusion to this completely off the top of my head pouring out of thoughts, I get why people feel the way they do but mark is a sorely mischaracterised heroic figure that was unfortunately done dirty by the sheer circumstances of being surrounded by strong personalities and louder specticale(not that changing him or them is the answer)

And for the last sorta irony of it all, fair or not if this was said about Alex Smith I would have jumped in about him practically being a playable npc, so I'm not above all that but mark genuinely has more going on than people give him credit for

Well apparently I really get these things happening when I'm tired as all hell so I hope this makes sense to coherent people who aren't me lol

I JUST SAW SOMEONE SAY MARK IS SO BORING THEY HARDLY EVEN SEE HIM AS A CHARACTER I HATE IT HEEERE

[mustlovemustypages]

Yuletide 2020 Letter

Dear potential writer,

I truly hope all is well with you and yours. No matter what state you find yourself in, my wish is that Yuletide boosts your spirits and gives you the extra jolt we all could use to usher in the new year. 

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter and thank you in advance if you decide to write anything for me!

Below are my desired fandoms and pairings along with story ideas that I would love to see written. Please don’t feel stifled by my prompts; I’ve also listed my general likes and dislikes at the very bottom of this letter if you decide to go a different route.

Little Women (2019):

Characters: Amy March and Theodore “Laurie” Laurence”

The main reason I adore this adaptation is because it made me see why Amy and Laurie ended up together. They had very similar worldviews and fit so well what the other needed. Both deserved to be with someone that valued them for who they are. With Laurie, Amy was not just financially secure but with someone who encouraged her to express herself creatively, politically, or however she chose. With Amy, while she grounded Laurie in reality and challenged him to be the best version of himself, he didn't have to fundamentally change to make her happy.

Story ideas:

These quotes really show how Amy's perspective on life was different than her sister's: "You are your family's hope." (Aunt March) "I’ve always known I would marry rich." (Amy March) That's a lot of pressure on someone so young. We heard some of Laurie's thoughts, mostly that he didn't think Amy should feel ashamed for wanting that. How would some of that pressure continue even after she got married, and what would Laurie say to make her realize they were in life together as a team and she didn’t have to suffer the weight of the world alone?

The conversation between Amy and Laurie in the painting studio showed just how level-headed and intelligent she was. Laurie, while not wholly agreeing, was respectful and didn't discount her thoughts. It would be interesting to see the impact on their story if Vaughn hadn't arrived, and this had played out more. Would the proposal have happened earlier and/or how would later scenes be altered as a result of further conversation?

What did the other characters think of Amy and Laurie's relationship, and how did it change after seeing them interact more as a couple? It would be interesting to read about Meg, Marmee, John, or some of the other characters realizing they were genuinely a good match for each other.

Post-canon, I'd love to get a glimpse of what kinds of conversations they had. Did Amy encourage Laurie to pursue a career and find what he was passionate about (music perhaps as Laurie mentioned writing an opera)? And similarly, did Laurie encourage Amy to pursue her art? Did they continue to have in-depth conversations about societal pressures and expectations of gender in certain economic classes?

Tenet:

Characters: The Protagonist, Kat, and Neil

Tenet is the first movie I've seen in theaters since Star Wars IX. There have been some mixed reviews, but my love for Christopher Nolan sci-fi films combined with the experience of stepping foot in a theater again made it a wonderful experience for me. Sure, the plot could be confusing at times, but it was fun trying to fit certain puzzle pieces together and oh so thrilling when things just clicked into place in the most satisfying ways.

I adored the dynamic between Neil and the Protagonist. The easy friendship, the banter, the suits... everything. I also loved the relationship between the Protagonist and Kat. It started off as each using the other but transformed into one of genuine care on both sides. Ever the romantic, I definitely saw something more than just friendship between the two and was slightly disappointed the movie didn't explore that aspect more.  

For pairings, I’m interested in friendships between all of the characters. I’d be interested in seeing a romantic relationship between Kat and the Protagonist if you’re up for that, but not between Neil and Kat, nor Neil and the Protagonist. If you really want to give a romantic partner to Neil, I'd be fine with Laura (or an original female character if she’s not the focus of the story), but please, no slash. While I’d be ecstatic to see all three characters together, if you can only find a way to fit in two, that’s wonderful as well!

Story ideas:

Even though Andrei Sator is gone, there are still other players in the game, some like Priya, who want to eliminate Kat or even abduct her with the delusional idea she can continue her husband's work. The Protagonist (and Neil, if you so choose) ensures no harm comes to her, and he realizes that keeping her at a distance may not have been the best idea.

I personally don't buy into the fan theory that Neil is Kat's son Max; however, I do find the idea intriguing and would be up for reading about how that worked. The Protagonist breaks his rule and sees Kat, helping to raise her son Max/Neil and eventually teaching him about inversion.

The Protagonist doesn't have to wait quite as long as he'd thought to see Neil again. It can be the Neil who had already met him and knows about Tenet or the Neil who knows nothing about inversion.

What conversations did Neil and Kat have while the Protagonist was asleep after almost freezing to death? Maybe Neil explained the finer workings of Tenet and inversion more in-depth. Perhaps they discussed the Protagonist. 

Clueless:

Characters: Cher Horowitz and Josh Lucas

This movie set the bar high for teen romantic comedies. How can anyone ever beat 90s Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd? Plus, the relationship between their two characters is fantastic. Josh and Cher just bring out the best in each other. Cher shows Josh that he doesn't need to be so serious all of the time and that people are more than their outer appearances. Josh makes Cher want to be a better person, and he believes that she's not just a pretty face. Their banter and playful moments always make me smile.

Story ideas:

Knowing Josh and Cher end up together, this brings a heightened awareness to rewatches. They have so many casual touches and exchanged glances (when did Paul Rudd's eyes get so blue?) that it's hard to miss their natural chemistry. It may take quite some time for Cher's dad to notice anything has changed because they don't act all that different from before. Is there something that makes him finally take notice? How does he react?

Sort of related to the last prompt, there's a moment where Josh decides to go to the dance to keep an eye on Cher and Christian, and you can tell by Mel Horowitz’s smirk he realizes Josh has a crush on Cher. Does he do anything to push it along or play matchmaker just like his daughter?

I've always been curious about whether or not Josh believes Cher's story about being assaulted in the car by Elton and then held at gunpoint. We skip over Josh pulling up to the phone booth and go straight to Cher already being in the car. How did Josh react when she reiterated the story, and does he instantly believe her, or does it take some convincing? I'd like to see if he comforts her and if they both go together to tell Cher's dad what happened.

Cher is obviously very intelligent socially, if not always so much academically. When it comes time to apply for college, what does she major in? And how is Josh a positive influence in Cher's life, encouraging her to be ambitious and not letting negative comments from guidance counselors or teachers dissuade her?

Things I don’t like:

Alternate Universes – For the specific fandoms that I picked, I really like the universes as they are. I’m definitely okay with deviations from canon, but please don’t make Little Women into a supernatural werewolf story or have Tenet take place in a mundane coffee shop setting. (I don’t mind Soulmate AUs or something similar because those can be incorporated into canon with little change to worldbuilding).

Non-Con/Rape/BDSM/Sexual Violence/Graphic Sex – I like my characters to be happy and everything within ships to be 100% consensual, no question about it (mentions of non-con if it occurred in canon is fine). I also prefer plot over porn, especially with one-shots.

OT3s – Two people per romantic relationship, please. Any more than that makes me uncomfortable.

Character Bashing - Unless a character is a bad guy in canon, I don’t want to read hundreds of words about how awful they are, especially if they are one of the characters that I requested. Don’t take it out on the characters. If you hate my pairings, just write gen.

Things I love:

Hurt/Comfort – There is nothing I love more than one character comforting another. The hurt can be physical, psychological, or both.  

Happy Endings – I’m all for the realistic endings… but if they could be plausible AND at least happy-ish, that would be amazing.

Expanded Scenes/Contorting Canon – Feel free to expand scenes and change up the canon to your heart’s content as long as it makes logical sense.

Humor/Banter/Snark – I thrive on this stuff.

Bonding/Building Relationships – Whether it be a friendship or a romantic relationship, I adore reading about two people growing closer together. When characters know each other so well that they can have conversations with just their eyes or anticipate the person’s next move (especially if it’s to the surprise/confusion of everyone around them), my shipper heart is thrilled.

Dark to Light – Seeing a character come out of a bad mindset or situation and get better is so satisfying.

Happy writing and I hope you get the Yuletide gift of your dreams!

- Maddy @mustlovemustypages (on Tumblr, Ao3, and FF.net)

[magpiejay1234]

The thematic changes in Kingdom Hearts

I was planning to make a larger post about this, but playing FF1 and FF2 gave me a realization about the Seeker of Darkness saga in KH.

The reason why the first three games hold dearly for many people and the latter games do not is probably not limited to stuff like Nomura’s influence, the retcons or nostalgia. There is a definitive shift in the themes, and it is not just serial escalation.

The Seeker of Darkness saga is effectively a thematic trilogy of its own, each of which are divided into their own arcs of sorts. First part sets up as a deconstruction of traditional Disney and Squaresoft stories, the second part is a discourse on this deconstruction, and the latter part reconstructs the story as a modern Disney and Square Enix story, with excessive doses of shonen.

--Original Trilogy: The Apprentice Xenahort arc--

*First three games are a simple drama with thematic escalation. First game is a simple crossover that turns into a more traditional shonen affair with a classical Disney character as the main character. Sora’s optimism and silliness deconstructs both the traditionally static nature of classical Disney characters, and the edgelord shonen archetypes of the early 2000s. Ansem SoD in this game is just another “king mook”, a large Heartless that controls the lesser Heartless, but he still has a Square style backstory.

CoM is a traditional mid-quel that set ups concepts like data clones and Nobodies without fully explaining them. This is because this game is really about Riku, who is the Squaresoft representative that deconstructs both the traditional Squaresoft “black knight” characters like FF2′s Leon and FF4′s Theodore/Golbez and the traditional shonen rival archetype. Because Riku is his own character now, he gets two Shadow Archetypes, one being the returning ghost of Ansem SoD and the other being the Riku Replica. First one represents what he can become and the latter represents what he was. Traditional shonen and Squaresoft stuff, but with important twists.

KH2 is the climax, and you start off with Roxas. Roxas may be Sora’s Nobody, but conceptually what he actually is really Sora’s Shadow Self, in a very Cecil in FF4 fashion even. Because Sora’s character is an immature kid that acts younger than his age, Roxas is an angsty existentialist teen, representing what Sora “logically should become”. Except of course, the twist is that Roxas actually develops a self-hood. The enemies of the game, Nobodies, despite later retcons, really represent the void, in the FF sense, just like Heartless represent the darkness. But much like Heartless, despite craving destruction eventually develop creative instincts and self-hood, Nobodies, despite desiring emptiness and representing logic, really want to exist and feel.

--The Long Intermission: Existentialism and Fate--

*The next two games, Coded and 358/2 Days, are an operatic intermission, and in true operatic intermission fashion, nothing absolutely happens. Just more setup for the later part of the Saga.

Well something happens actually. Xion happens. As much as I like the character, she starts the deconstructive take on the series, as her romantic relationship with Roxas kills the parallels between him and Naminé set up in the KH2, and recontextualizes Roxas as a being of his own, rather than purely existing for commentary Sora.

Coded does the same thing Naminé, who was also set up as the inversion of Sora’s idealized self of Kairi (a purpose later given to Xion), though Coded’s main purpose is to set up the Book of Prophecies MacGuffin, which also inserts theme of “fate” to the KH series, which obviously didn’t exist previously, at least not so profusely.

--The Second Trilogy: Master Xehanort Arc--

*The latter trilogy of games, BBS, 3D and KH3, effectively serve as deconstructions of the original trilogy, and this starts with retcons. While the KH series always had an ambiguous morality compared to other Disney properties, villains were still villains and heroes were still heroes. The latter part of the SoD saga, muddies the water in a not-so-positive, though still comprehensible way.

First game, BBS, is often called The Revenge of the Sith of the franchise, but it is also told in a Rashomon style. While this idea was previously used in other games, it was done a thematically consistent way. Here, each character have a different arc, which converge in the same event, return of the X-blade and actual Kingdom Hearts. The only constants in all three stories are Old Master Xehanort and Eraqus, who both literal manifestations of new Square Enix under Nomura and old Squaresoft under Hironobu Sakaguchi. The villains of this game are rather fitting nonetheless. The Unversed are the repressed emotions of people, making them a sort of proto-Heartless. Even though the Unversed we see are manifestations of only one entity, Vanitas, they work in this story as BBS is literally about miscommunication.

3D isn’t too interesting as it is just a standard training arc. The new enemies, Nightmare Dream Eaters and their good counterparts are not thematically relevant, the only relevance they have is their creation. Creating Dream Eaters as allies is obviously meant to tie in with M Xehanort’s vessel creation, but the time loop is not an important storyline, outside of being a reference to FF1′s plot. The villain, Young Xehanort, has little relevance to Riku, and no relevance to Sora. However, this game sets up the idea that old Master Xehanort and Sora are counterparts, as Roxas is his own being now.

KH3 is a clusterf*ck of themes, which makes sense because how are they going to resolve all these plot threads? Well, they do resolve them and open new ones for the next Saga, even though %90 of them are now answered by KHUx. Central theme of KH3 is the deconstruction of the intermission arc, rather than accepting fate and be satisfied with existence, you should defy fate, even if your very existence gets blown away. I can’t say this idea is thematically fitting or not, since the very idea of fate didn’t exist in original trilogy, as your mere presence already changed the so-called “world lines” of the various “world”s (which, despite loooking like planets, are actually parallel universes with their own physics rules), but defying fate in large pattern is always shown to be dangerous. That is basically the Terranort’s and his clones’ entire story arc.

Biggest flaw of KH3 and the entire latter trilogy is however it fully embraces the shonen archetypal storytelling with both traditional SE and SS elements, which is probably for better given the post-Nomura era of Square Enix after the company degenerated to being a Disney-Sony second party studio. What was then an ironic twist on expectations is now played straight. Sora has now a negative character arc that implies he might turn to darkness a la Tidus, Riku is now the Piccolo, Roxas, Xion and Naminé are now somebodies, and the new villain MoM’s plan involves weaponizing light somehow. And of course, Xigbar being Luxu is very traditional FF twist, just like Garland becoming Chaos, Mateus becoming the new Satan, everything about Cloud of Darkness etc.

I suppose Kairi got the better end of this in spades, but her thematic role or lack thereof needs another post.

[calleo-bricriu]

What I want to see is what over 100 years old Calleo and his cards have to say about Voldemort.

The hell do I need cards for that for? I could just tell you outright but, then, I’m sure you’d be back at me going on about how that’s no fun at all.

In the distant past, they’d described him as a bullheaded, reactionary wank cloth who’s prone to having violent tantrums when he doesn’t get his way–I’m condensing that down rather a lot but that was the gist of it; perfectly charming sort until he gets the idea that you think he’s roughly as interesting as watching paint dry.

But, hey, people change and maybe when he’s ready to try again he’ll have improved somewhat.

Which, in his case, would more than likely manifest as just becoming more wildly unpredictable with his meltdowns and moods but, you’ve asked my cards, not me, so here we go.

I wonder if he still does that thing where he tries to go as long as humanly possible without blinking because he could do it indefinitely with a little transfiguration and charms work.

Where was I?

Ah! The cards.

(( Larger resolution image is here. ))

Hermit’s pretty self explanatory; he’s been isolated, and should you find him and ask him he’d likely tell you that it was on purpose and/or for the purposes of enlightenment, introspection and contemplation–hopefully around why he didn’t account for basic defensive Blood Magic but, most likely not that. I know I don’t like to dwell on it when I miss something basic, I like to forget I did that and move on while also keeping it tucked away in the back of my head so I don’t do it again.

I’m going to go ahead and ignore that, all around, when the Empress shows up it she often signifies a pregnancy and considering Voldemort, unless he gets incredibly creative with trying to get himself back into a body (or just possesses the first thing he can manage that’s human) is not likely the sort to be able to get pregnant, which leaves the third option of someone else…letting him…do that to them.

It can also mean that he’ll just make an effort to be a little more creative and inspirational to anyone stupid enough to show up for a second round and with his recruitment efforts but if I had to have the mental image of somebody not only fucking Voldemort but letting him knock the up so the rest of you–and I say the rest of you because I don’t know specifically which one of you asked for this reading so you all get to suffer.

And I don’t think it’s that second one as the Ace of Cups revolves around beginning again which, fair, if you’re half-resurrecting yourself–but it primarily focuses around fertility and pregnancy. Someone is going to let that man knock them up.

Ew.

Getting away from that horrifying set of mental images, the Eight of Wands indicates he’s going to be about as good at being patient and planning things out (complete with contingencies or alternate plans in case the main one fails) as he was the first time around which is to say, not at all. However, since the Ministry is staffed largely by what I can only assume are tranquilised bonobos in suits, nobody here is going to care. Or notice. I’ll notice, I’ve already noticed, but I have enough benzos from Muggle doctors that I legitimately do not care.Or, if they do notice, they’re going to pretend they haven’t so all the progress speed, action, momentum, all that nonsense, is only going to seem speedy to the people who haven’t been paying attention.

The rest of us will have seen it slowly coming since roughly 1982.

He’s got abandonment issues head to toe based on the Eight and Five of cups, which is a large part of what makes him dangerous as, instead of focusing on the cups that haven’t been knocked all over the place and using those to rebuild, all he’s likely to focus on will seem, on the surface, to be a political revolution but that’ll just be a thin and fragile veneer covering the fact that he’s a desperately lonely, fundamentally unhappy, nearly always frightened basket case and that manifests (as it often does) in violent outbursts and an undercurrent of wanting to make everyone else suffer the way he feels he was made to suffer.

That’s not even all that uncommon, you can see it to a much lesser degree anywhere in Knockturn if you stay there long enough or visit often enough.

Queen of Swords is likely to turn out to be his most dedicated defender, coming from a point of power obsession and pity, though if she’s got any brains she won’t ever mention she pities him as it might get her killed, and wants nothing more than to shield and protect him, keeping him from harm; also indicates that she’s married–well, it mentions it in the inverse as a divorce, which would make sense if she’s one of those sorts that were pushed into a family alliance sort of marriage that she never particularly cared to be a part of to begin with.

And, at some point, he may be able to shake off all that flailing about to somehow manage to convince the general public that he’s not that bad, and he’ll do so through gratuitous shows of generosity, charity, investing in community (the community he envisions, at any rate; some of you will have to be his diversionary scapegoats, after all), and while everyone is distracted by someone who’s likely to be able to walk into the Ministry and buy them off with false gratitude, making them feel valued, paying them well, displaying what comes off as fairness unless you scratch the surface, he’ll get to work doing what he wanted to do in the first place.

And what does he want to do in the first place? Get himself into a position where he’s well liked, respected, viewed in a positive light, as a good leader, as someone who is successful, committed, has clear goals, and will lead the Ministry to greater things. This is someone who wants to be loved without having to leave himself vulnerable in the process.

For awhile, he’ll get it, and it’ll seem solid.

It won’t last, however, not for long, because that Eight of Swords is going to leave him feeling trapped, restricted, and lashing out at anyone or anything who he even suspects of holding dissenting views through harsh punishments, executions, imprisonments, persecution, “trials” in front of the Wizengamot that were rigged from the start, and at that point he’ll be at two distinct paths he can take.

I do love the Two of Wands for letting things go in different directions.

First potential path: If he goes that route, he’ll be able to leverage what little political and social capital he’ll have left after that mess I just described and, with a little creativity, should be able to pull it all back together in a way that cements his socio-political views as the new, accepted norm and any rebellion against it won’t be able to gain the following it’d need to challenge him for decades to come.

Second potential path: Nine of Swords circles back to the Eight of Swords, only more intense. Terror, not just fear, seeing enemies everywhere, being the subject of gossip, the narrative of which he will not be able to control as it will be a moving and largely invisible target that is perfectly willing to martyr itself if it means his downfall. As a result, he’ll fall further and further into paranoia, nightmares, despair, and stress, leaving him with an inability to cope with the reality of the situation which will only circle back to him lashing out at anything that comes within range, regardless of who or what it is, and when he hits his breaking point he isn’t likely to survive it.

The card between those two paths, as I was curious as to which route the deck thought he’d take, is a reversed Star.

Hopelessness, despair, the inability to take responsibility for one’s actions being what led them to where they are, lack or loss of trust in those around him and in himself, feeling as though everyone, even his closest followers, are plotting against him.

Considering that, I suspect he’ll go the second route to hang out with the sword filled guy in an egg costume.

Let’s see if one overarching card will give some closure here, shall we?

Regret, refusing help from those who legitimately want to give it (back up a bit and re-read the bits that mention paranoia) because, as surprising as it may seem, there are people who genuinely do care for him–in their own, strange way–disillusionment, becoming even more self-absorbed and depressed, focusing on the fantasy in which he’s–apologies, but I’m going to jump back to how two of my former Archivists often described him–seen as something greater in terms of charisma, success, skill, and political success than Grindelwald.

I watched that mess rise to power and fall from it spectacularly, and my memory has more than enough clarity to state with certainty that the only things I’ve seen that Voldemort is better than Grindelwald at are:

1) Keeping himself out of prison.

2) Being ballsy enough to apply for that Defence Against the Dark Arts position looking the way he did when he got that interview. He had to have known what he looked like, unless he doesn’t cast a reflection anymore and nobody told him how off he looked. Just to note, it’s not that I think he’d have been unqualified for the position so much as he may have come off as only wanting it to use as a recruiting platform which is–one of those things you really need to hide until you’ve got tenure, or at least a signed contract.

3) Being repeatedly thwarted by children yet still having followers willing to both overlook it, stand there with a straight face while he probably blames his wand for it (because they all do, you find any Wizard over 60 that has a spell fail and the first thing you get is some variation of, “I swear this has never happened before! It must be the wand acting up!”), and continue to follow him despite the fact that all they’d really have to do is walk away and start telling people what he’s really like and it’d kill any chances of recruiting anything with any skill or ability to follow through.

4) Talking to snakes, allegedly. Not entirely sure how useful that skill would be but I suppose snakes probably have some interesting things to say now and again.

At any rate, Four of Cups almost guarantees he’s going the Nine of Swords route so it’ll get a bit hairy for awhile but whatever grip he gets on anything is going to be tenuous at best and even holding onto it with both hands his reach is likely going to exceed his grasp.

I never like to see raw talent wasted like that, and he does possess a great deal of raw talent as well as the intelligence to have made it, with right people around him, into something spectacular; it’s just been–misapplied and left in the hands of people who never did have his interests at heart, and it’s easy to take advantage of a kid like that. See it all the time in Knockturn.

Pity, really.

[scatterthoughted]

Where There’s A Will...

At the ripe old age of fifteen, Pidge has finalized her will- and Lance is the first to find it (Pre-season  6)

Not a lot happened when Lance was left alone.

Time stopped and took a stretch, granting itself a rest from moving forward just so Lance could lose his mind in boredom. As his Abuela had always said, he was a ‘people’s person,’ an outgoing extrovert who just enjoyed the company (and attention) of others.

He liked to think she meant he was charming and bold- but left to his own devices on a drifting ship where the second closest life form was a cow (no offense to Kaltenecker), he realized it could just as well mean he got lonely easily. And bored. Really, really bored.

Today was one of those days where Lance was put to the test in the most torturous and brutal of manners, risking his mental state for the good of his crew and the universe. Other days he would fight for his life against a tyrannical empire dictator, but today was just as bad.

He was house-sitting. Or, well more accurately, spaceship-sitting. Castle-sitting? All of team Voltron had found some kind of mission within the span of a few days, all close enough that there was no need for the Teleduv. Coran and Allura were free to visit a planet holding trace elements of a long-extinct Altean flower, Shiro and Hunk were due for another diplomatic dinner within the same solar system, Keith had been busy with the Blades for the past few weeks doing missions who-knows-where, and Pidge went out to collect some rare metal stuff surrounding a star for her newest project. That left Lance to man the ship. 

Not that he was actually manning it- apparently the mice were more trusted than him, an actual pilot- but he did get the run of the castle. Which was fun for a whole five minutes after Pidge left.

Lance sat slumped on the couch, finishing up his second solo Monsters and Mana game (which was just as bad of an idea as it sounded) surrounded by empty containers that still held residue of Hunk’s gourmet creations. The space mice had made a bed out of his hoodie, cuddled up in a way that was very cute, but also very uncomfortable for him.

If only Pidge had fixed up their ‘playbox’ (what Pidge liked to call the hodgepodge of wiring and reactors she built to support Killbot Phantasm with Altean technology), he’d be beating their high score right now. 

But didn’t Pidge take it into her room to fix up a week ago? By Pidge-speed, she would have had it done ages ago- maybe it was functional already, and he could do something other than just sitting around and waiting for his team to return. Which was kind of pathetic.

“Oh, time practically flew- I barely noticed you guys were missing at all!” He shook his hands at the imaginary paladins in front of him. “In fact, I did tons-”

He sat up, having forgotten about the mice dozing behind him. They reminded him a moment later, scratching up the back of his neck with startled squeaks after being so rudely awakened. Lance shrieked and jumped around, knocking containers to the floor and encouraging the mice to run all the way down his body on their path to the stable floor. Not a pleasant feeling.

After a glaring stand-off with four rodents, Lance marched over to Pidge’s room. It was a mess as always, strewn with clothes, pictures, miscellaneous robot things, and other stuff she collected. She had certainly made herself at home in the castle. 

Even through all the mess and general stuff she had in her room, it was easy to spot the large console. The wiring was frayed and tangled, sticking out of the top like some sort of monster from an old sci-fi novel. Lance stopped in his tracks and frowned. Not finished then. He scratched his head, finding it odd that Pidge hadn’t finished in the time frame that she usually did when committing to a project- at most, it only took a handful of Vargas for something she already knew how to fix. Lance shrugged, deciding to add it to the end of the list of unexplained Pidge tendencies- right after her hoarding habits and distaste for peanuts (but not peanut butter cookies).

With a huff and decision to maybe try out the pool again, Lance started picking  his way through the maze of laundry and metal. He made a mistake the moment he glanced up to check his progress- Lance’s ankle swung right into something sticking out of the wall. He let out a howl at the instant pain flooding his ankle, instinctively clutching it in his hands and and hobbling around on his one good foot. Too far he jumped back, right onto a sweater- one that slipped out from under him, but not before pitching him forward onto the hard ground. There wasn’t even a well-placed tool-kit to break his fall.

He opened his eyes with a groan of pain- today was just not his day. To his surprise, Lance come face-to-face with what looked like an orange hard drive melded to the wall. Lance’s pain was quickly forgotten in pursuit of his curiosity, and he pushed himself up to get a better look at the strange device.

Hidden just under the lip of a low-lying shelf (terrible placement- his ankle still throbbed), it was a rectangle split in two; the upper half a lit-up orange light, and the lower half was what looked like a screen containing a pass-code pad. "Nothing like that in my room...” He murmured in confusion. “...what’re you hiding, Pidgey?”

As the respectful, non-nosy friend that he was, Lance instantly tried every pass-code he could think of. Her birthday, her brother’s birthday, what he was pretty sure was her father’s birthday... it occurred to him after a few Dobashes to be more creative. A super-hacker genius like Pidge obviously had an 80-digit code that was inverse Pi or something; maybe it was the entire Declaration of Independence in Binary or... Oh.

1-2-3-4 worked. Definitely suspicious.

The orange light blinked a few times, and words appeared on the screen that had previously been covered by the pass-code. Lance realized the device looked familiar, like the one they’d used to record their vlogs for ‘team-bonding’ reasons, except more compact. It opened to reveal only one file.

11/233/77645- Will

Will? Who was Will? Did Pidge have another brother he didn’t know about? Lance eagerly clicked on the file, and the orange light suddenly changed colour and concentration to project an image onto the opposite wall. He turned and stepped back to see Pidge, or at least a recording of her.

She was staring into the camera, looking uncomfortable. Her hair less unruly than it usually was (did she actually brush it back?) and she was wearing nicer, non I-needed-to-pretend-to-be-a-boy-to-sneak-into-the-Garrison-so-I-grabbed-my-older-brother’s-turtleneck clothes. Lance sat on the same bed she was perched on in the video, confused and curious about what was going on.

“Well, if you’re watching this, that probably means I’m dead. That I died... somehow.” 

Lance’s heart stopped. What was this?

Pidge’s eyes stared straight into his. “I knew from the moment I chose to stay and fight as a Paladin that the missions would be difficult. And, uh, deadly.” She swallowed, but then straightened. “I just want to say now that I knew the risks involved, and chose to help anyway. That no one should blame themselves for how I died, because I was ultimately the one who chose this fate.” Pidge looked down for a moment and the tiniest bit of regret shone through her determination. Her voice wavered so quietly that Lance had to strain for it. “Sorry, Mom.” 

Lance stood up with eyes wide, moving towards the projection with an incredulous mind and a pounding heart. She... expected to die by the end of this? That was nonsense, he and the other Paladins would never let that happen to her. They were a team, and teams stuck together. They wouldn’t lose each other.

“I never would have seen life going this way a couple years ago. But then Matt and Dad disappeared, and... I had to do something.” Pidge made fists in her mussed sheets. “Two years ago, I thought that by now I’d be exploring the world of tech in Matt’s footsteps at the Garrison. In the future, I saw myself growing old with my Nobel Prizes. Crazy how plans can change once an alien dictator and five flying cats enter your life, huh?” Pidge had drawn up her knee and rested her head on it, looking to the left of the camera in contemplation.

Lance’s heart sunk. Was she really that unhappy with being a Paladin? Sure, he got home-sick too and the job was dangerous, but it wasn’t all bad. They’d all met each each other and accomplished so much good in the universe because of their five flying cats.

“I’d be so bored with that life now.” She said with a scoff, clearing away Lance’s uncertainty. “Albert Einstein and Marie Curie would have gladly traded in their Prizes for paladin gear. I get to experience the universe’s wonders first hand.” She smiled. “With my friends. Who feel more like family every day.”

Lance was a little stunned. Pidge was the last to admit to gushy feelings to the entire crew- yet there she was, admitting to her closeness to the Paladins she had been prepared to leave mere months ago. Lance felt like a fool for not knowing better- that of course Pidge felt the same way towards the Paladins as they did towards her. Words weren’t always necessary to understand that.

Pidge cleared her throat. “I, uh, guess I don’t say it enough but... I really love you guys.” she looked right into the camera, and the honesty on her face reminded Lance of just how young she was. 

Not even old enough to drive yet.

“You won’t catch me saying that to your faces, probably ever. But I don’t mean it any less.”

Yet she had finished a video in preparation for her death.

“Mom, if you’re watching this... which I really hope you are if I never return... know that I don’t regret what I did. Even if I paid for it in the end, I will never regret finding Matt and saving Dad. You know it would have killed me in the end if I did nothing when I knew I could. That just isn’t me.” Pidge’s expression was fierce, pouring out the explanation she never had the chance to say in person. 

It was the most difficult thing Lance ever had to watch- but he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. His horror and shock rooted him to the spot, along with a pinch of painful curiosity- he’d never seen Pidge so open and up front with her feelings.

“I don’t regret it... but I do regret abandoning you, taking off without a backward glance.” Pidge’s face crumpled. “Their disappearances tore us apart when we needed each other most. I knew I was distancing myself, but I couldn’t accept their death and couldn’t stand being around so much grief...” Tears began to gather and her voice sped up. “I’m so so sorry Mom, I was all you had left and then I just left without a goodbye-” a sob broke through her words “Goodbye’s aren’t even that difficult when you know you’re coming back. I was so sure I would be coming back then, and now things are different which is why this goodbye is so much harder-”

The longer Lance watched, the more his heart broke. 

“Sometimes, I-I just want to go home s-so badly-”

He had no idea Pidge held this much grief and regret inside her every day- Lance had never lost someone he loved. He didn’t know she never expected to return home or see her mother again. 

The clip suddenly cut off and a new one began, with a calmer but puffy eyed Pidge. “If the Paladins ever make it back to Earth... I want you to have the digital photo album I’ve kept on my mini-projector. It’s got stills and videos of all kinds of things I’ve seen and done across the universe- the planets I’ve visited, the aliens I met. I can’t wait for you to see Beezer, he’s incredible. It’ll be our way of catching up, I guess.” She allowed herself a small smile. “My time in space wasn’t all galactic wars and hyper-drive, and I’ve always thought about how much you would’ve loved it out here. The variety and scope of vegetation alone would have had you drooling.” Pidge’s mouth quirked up at the edges.

The entire ship stood silent in the cold vacuum of space, holding its breath as Pidge ran through the family she fought so hard for, telling them not to miss her too much (but I’d be nice if someone named their kids after her or something) and listing what she wanted them to take- assuming they ever got access to it. 

And then she started talking to him.

“Lance...” His head snapped up and he leaned forward, desperate to know what Pidge wanted him to know if she never got around to it. With every other person, she had drilled straight through what she wanted to say, with cuts here and there for when she became too emotional. But here she paused.

And then a new clip began, skipping over what Pidge had been about to say.

“Take care of Kaltenecker for me- you know she needs a strong role model in her life. Also, you get my copy of Killbot Phantasm. Be careful though- since I just made the playbox out of spares and my own convoluted process, if you break it again, there won’t really be anyone to fix it...” 

There wouldn’t be anyone to play it with him at all, so what would be the point?

“I have something else I want to tell you Lance... but, uh, not as part of something I know everyone else will be watching. I’ll still probably be able to feel the embarrassment from beyond the grave.”

Pidge wanted her her last words to him to be something embarrassing? Why?

“It’ll be on the second file of this device.” She pointed at the camera accusingly. “Matt is forbidden to touch it.”

Lance frowned. There had only been the one file on the projection device.

She moved on, letting Allura know how much she admired her, telling Hunk that she’d always been jealous of how easily he connected to people.

“Never stop cooking, Hunk- you have a gift. I’m still shocked that you made me like the taste of Werfan Worms.” 

To Coran she expressed how appreciative she was of his father-like acceptance and to Shiro she thanked him for being a leader in the moments she was most lost. Even to Keith, she told him how much she respected him and his quiet but fierce loyalty. 

“I know you care more than you let on, Keith- I’m the same. But don’t distance yourself when you’re scared. It just hurts more.” 

Lance was the only one to get an extra file- but that wasn’t what he was thinking about by the end of the video.

“Life will go on without me, and I need you guys to as well. I know firsthand how difficult it is to lose somebody, and made this because I would’ve traded anything to hear their voices one last time...”

Another cut.

“I guess I’ll be waiting wherever Rover is. Don’t stop living if I do- someone needs to kick Zarkon’s ass if I’m not able to see it through. Also, make sure the next Green Paladin’s good to Green- let them know that I’ll come back to haunt them if they don’t.”

She looked so small in the frame. Her socks weren’t matching. 

“As Shiro likes to say, it’s been an honour flying with you all. Someday, I hope we get to fly together again.” 

The projection abruptly shut off, and it left a blank Lance staring at a blanker wall. The sudden silence built to a point he couldn’t stand, and Lance began to pace (as much as he could in the cramped obstacle course that was Pidge’s floor) just to keep his thoughts moving.

The possibility of Pidge’s death suddenly seemed all too real. Lance had long ago taken everything the smartest Paladin said as truth- if she thought she had no chance of surviving this war... was she right? What did that mean for the rest of them? 

Lance found it nearly impossible to imagine their team continuing on without Pidge. Who was going to hack Galran information right out from under their noses? Who would go along with his goofy charades and suggest jumping into a fountain when they couldn’t afford their favourite game? Who would finish a whole batch of peanut butter cookies overnight?

His hands were shaking and his face was wet. 

Lance couldn’t lose her- but watching her will felt like a sealing of her fate. How much time did any of them have left before they had to make the ultimate sacrifice?

“Lance?” The silence was finally broken by the room’s loudspeaker.

Lance yelped and jumped off of Pidge’s bed, heart racing a mile a minute. After hearing her voice ramble on for the past twenty minutes, it took a moment to convince himself that the projection hadn’t just turned back on. 

Pidge was back from her mission, alive and well.

Lance came back to himself, wiping away the moisture on his cheeks and in his eyes while frantically tripping over clothing piled in the way to the room’s comm.

“Lance? I’ve been circling the castle for the better part of five Dobashes- you better not be in the shower right now.” Pidge didn’t bother hiding her annoyance. 

Lance didn’t need anymore encouragement in his rushing. He held down the comm button.

“Yea-” His voice came out pathetically shaken and he quickly cleared his throat. “I mean, uh yeah, I’m here.”

“I’d be better if you were at the hangar’s instead, unlocking it so that my lion can get in. Honestly, I don’t see the point in the hangar‘s locking safety precaution; if the lion’s quintessence can be replicated, I’d say we have bigger problems on our hands-” 

“Maybe you can take it up with Allura when she gets back.” For the characteristically dramatic and upbeat Paladin, his words were oddly subdued.

There was a long pause. “Lance, is everything alright?”

He clenched his teeth against the sudden swell of emotions her words brought on. No, it wasn’t. It was definitely was not alright when the youngest, smartest, and bravest Paladin of them all was prepared to say goodbye. Indefinitely.

“Peachy.” His words were curt. “I’ll get to the hangar now.” Another pause. “Alright, if you say so.” Everything about her tone made it obvious she didn’t believe him.

The eerie silence in the castle did nothing to ease his tense mood, and he’d almost stomped over the space mice on his way down. Indignant squeaks brought him back to himself, and Lance let out a deep sigh when he stooped down to pick them up. Their calming chattering at his shoulder did nothing to quell the battle taking place in his stomach, and every step grew quicker and more frantic. It felt like awhile since he’d heard her voice- could something have happened to her because he took too long to get to her?

Lance reached the Green hanger’s doors at a run, newfound fear (the fear of losing her) making the steady hands of a sharpshooter shake. A pass-code and hand-scan later (ever since Kuron, Allura’s been a tad obsessed with castle security), the doors of the hangar slid open.

From his place behind air-tight doors, he watched as Green made her landing and the doors shut. Lance stepped into the hangar the same moment Pidge did, exiting from her lion’s mouth.

She removed her helmet and replaced them with the glasses she didn’t really need, but not before cleaning the smudges off on her shirt first. Pidge looked up then, and paused. Lance was staring at her as if she were about to disappear forever.

“Alright, something’s definitely wrong. What happened?”

(Part 2 coming soon!)

[marginalgloss]

toybox mentality

The thing about Milkman by Anna Burns, if it was described in the abstract, is that it might sound a bit dour. A bit unsettling. A bit difficult. This is a book about the Troubles, sometime in the late 1970s; it's written from the perspective of a woman who is being stalked by a man who may or may not be an intelligence agent; and the prose unfolds in long paragraphs dense with clauses. It is lucid, and sometimes exacting. Is it difficult? Kind of. 

Certainly it was a surprising choice for winning the Booker Prize last year. 'Experimental' novels are sometimes nominated for that prize but frequently don't win. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James is perhaps the closest recent comparison – both are historical novels, both have a decidedly post-imperial slant, and both have a playful approach to their own textuality. But that's about where the similarities end. James’s novel was a comprehensive take on a very specific set of real events, shaped a great deal of the creative licence that we expect from historical fiction. It was a big, engrossing novel as they might have recognised it in the nineteenth century. Milkman is a very different beast. A more apt comparison might be with James Kelman's How Late it Was How Late, which won the Booker back in 1994. That, perhaps, was one of the last truly controversial prizewinners, with one of the judging committee threatening to resign if it won.

Bizarrely, wikipedia currently describes Kelman's book as belonging to the 'stream of consciousness' genre, which seems like a peculiar sort of inverse elitism. If we accept that description (though it is more or less meaningless) one might well file Milkman alongside Kelman’s book even though they are written in very different styles. What they do have in common is a certain way of thinking about life as it exists under a state of imperial power and near-constant conflict. The causes of said conflict are so far removed from the lives of ordinary people so as to be rendered incomprehensible to the reader. Clearly there is an occupation of some sorts but how it came about might as well be the stuff of legends. But for both authors, language becomes a refuge for the spirit of the individual, and a means of passive resistance.

There are a couple of mistakes it is easy to make with books of this nature. The first is the 'stream of consciousness' misconception – the idea that in scanning each line we are somehow plugged straight in to the narrator's thinking, talking, acting, being. Joyce has a good deal to answer for in this regard, but the blame oughtn't to be laid at his feet; the problem is more to do with what is done to Joyce than what he actually did, since there is a great deal more to Ulysses than Molly Bloom's chapter. Describing a thing as a 'stream of consciousness' is invariably reductive. It assumes that what we're reading is the sum total of an individual, more so perhaps than if they were telling us a story in a sort of campside voice. And it's a convenient way of treating language that might appear disorderly or unconventional as if it were a kind of aberration. 

This leads us on to the second mistake one can make with a book like Milkman – mistaking the music of the text for a written recording of speech. Rather than looking at the words as words, if one takes this approach there's a tendency to become mired in concerns about historical and cultural accuracy. We start to make judgments line-by-line about accents, class, and status. Questions of meaning become sublimated to thoughts of whether or not what we read is accurate. And in most cases the only guide we have for this kind of accuracy is our own prejudice. Language is thus reduced to a signifier of authenticity.  

Questions of authenticity sound throughout every page of Milkman. It begins with the title: the 'Milkman' himself is the aforementioned spy-stalker, and not really a milk-delivering-person at all; the narrator is careful to differentiate him from the 'real milkman', a totally different man who actually delivers the milk and maintains an active belligerence towards local partisan groups and, in fact, pretty much everyone in the community. Most of the other characters in the book aren't properly named, and are referred to only in relative terms – from 'maybe-boyfriend' to 'third brother-in-law' and all varieties of familial relations in between. The point is that in this community, naming names puts a person beyond the pale, or worse – but since gossip forms the metabolism of the community, talking about things without using their true names becomes an essential part of everyday life. 

This creates a sort of puzzle for the reader. Part of the work necessary is in unpicking the narrator's oblique references to what has come before, and what will come after; we have to work a bit to decipher, to cross-reference. A family tree would have been helpful for the reader, if dangerous for the narrator: we get the impression that all this obscuring with name-confusion is part of the point. The impression is of a text that has been coded for safety. Yet it isn't coded in such a way as to truly anonymise everything. Ireland itself is never explicitly mentioned here, but it would be impossible to mistake this for a book about anywhere else.

This raises a question which I feel entirely unequipped to answer: does this process of un-naming render the book more equivocal than it would be otherwise? I found it hard to find much in the way of politics in Milkman. There's little here of the outright anti-imperialism we can find in James Kelman. Instead, the narrator maintains a sort of light contempt for both sides in the conflict. Their motivations are always obscure. History is expressed mainly in a record of tragedies, most of which seem more or less gruesome and inexplicable. The present conflict is a heap of local dogs with their throats cut by the state forces; it is the scurrilous rumours about a car part from a Bentley, which may or may not bear the British flag; it is the local agents threatening a group of second-wave feminists, before the local women calm them with a show of practical contempt for the ‘toybox mentality’ of the renouncers. 

All of this seems horrible and absurd, all the more stark because it is stripped of much of the context that would enable an understanding of how the world came to be like it is. Everyone is about as bad as everyone else, except for the few who aren't. It is all only boys playing with their toys. Another unanswerable question: is the pursuit of this literary effect only a way of side-stepping awkward questions about cause and effect, or is it a sincere representation of how it felt to grow up in such a society? Milkman isn't exactly apolitical, but it doesn't seem especially invested, or interested, in any kind of ideology outside the survival of an individual consciousness. 

Black comedy is very much the dominant tone here. At first something will happen that seems as though it's going to lead to disaster until (in most cases) the author slowly deflates the issue. There's a sort of tension between the constant aura of threat and the linguistic thicket thrown up by the narrator's incessant thinking and talking. Language becomes her only means of defense, and sometimes her means of attack. Absurdity is part of the comedy at play, but it's a very specific sort of absurdity. Flann O'Brien feels like a fair stylistic comparison: we have here the same relish in verbosity, that same arch, dilated, expansive use of language. 

And yet for all the tension there is no quietude. The narrator is not actually threatened into silence. The overwhelming presence of the text is proof of that. There is no anxiety here – quite the opposite. In life we're given to understand the narrator is bookish and somewhat solitary but in her own story she is in absolute control. This is not a surreal novel in the way of O'Brien. The narrator here is always specific. Words are used to say precisely what they mean, but the narrative could be called a literal interpretation rather than a transcription. To put it another way: we are told exactly what the characters say, think and do, but we aren't told it in their own words. The question of reliability never seems to come up. We trust her, I suppose, because we must trust her. In a meaningful sense there isn't really anyone else in this novel.

Sometimes this feels suffocating. This is a long book: a tad under 350 close-set pages in paperback. It feels its length. I have sympathy for criticisms I've read that take aim at the narrator's tendency to repeat the same adjectives under slightly different names. This kind of repetition, recollection, raking-over (for that is what she does) isn’t the literary maximalism it could be mistaken for; I think it has more in common with a certain kind of minimalism, given the focus on a relatively small, specific quadrant of human experience. 

It is exhausting to read because it attempts to be exhaustive. What we're left with is a book which tries obsessively to re-word, re-frame, re-cast a certain very specific sort of strange experience in a strange place in a strange time – a young powerless woman being followed obsessively by a powerful older man. Until eventually the sheer weight of the thing itself – the book – wrenches the situation around until this dynamic of power is neatly, effectively inverted. Would it work if the book weren't so weighty? I'm not sure. 

[vanaera]

For a While

5. Things you didn't say at all (football player! jk + bestfriend!au)

Summary | In which you’re Jeongguk’s rose and he thinks he’s your prince (or Jeongguk likes the stories you make and the worlds you create but most definitely, he really likes you).

Genre  | Flufffff

Wordcount | 1, 419

Read more of football!jk drabbles in The Prince and His Rose

     With his ankle propped up on a pillow, Jeongguk only thinks about Leo Buscaglia, a writer that you mentioned in his literature class you had with him yesterday. He doesn't remember that author's biography, how many books he wrote, or if he was even popular at all. He only remembered one thing you quoted from him that struck a chord in his ever romantic heart : "A single rose can be my garden, a single friend can be my world."

     Laying on the bed of the clinic with no other student than him, Jeongguk doesn't want to look at the horrible bruise that bloomed on his ankle. The school nurse told him he'll be given a break from playing for his full recovery. Jeongguk feels lucky the annual school's game was already finished so he doesn't have to worry about his team. Playing for the school holds a special place in his heart not just because he loves the thrill of football but also this sport guaranteed his acceptance in the same college as you. 

     You always had been a big fraction in Jeongguk's life given that you went in the same school as him since grade school. When his family moved in the house next to yours when he was seven, Jeongguk thinks it's automatic to be attracted to the girl with long straight hair always holding a giant storybook with her small hands that could barely carry, with nice stories her small mouth can't even pronounce properly. In middle school, he remembers being so happy for you when you joined your first writing contest. His hands were so red from clapping too  much when you went to the stage to receive an award. Although it wasn't the first place, Jeongguk thinks your story about a prince and his rose and a thousand planets against him is pretty cool. With people orbiting around you and your creative storylines, he guessed people are attracted to you because they like your ideas.

     It wasn't until high school that he understood how great the attraction you had on people can be. You sent him a poem you made when he told you he's been feeling sad for a while now because he doesn't know what he likes to do in the future. Each word, each line laced around his immature, young heart and he can't believe how empathy could travel from every letter, how powerful to make someone feel just because of words.

    With your encouragement, he tried every possible activity he could get his mind into until you managed to get him to a grass field and asked him to play football with you. He found his passion in this sport through you and he swore he never understood what having a bestfriend felt until he met you. He wanted to to be by your side as long as his chance could let him so the moment you told him about your dream college, Jeongguk aimed to get there too with a sports scholarship. At first it's because he felt it would be pretty weird not having you by his side. It's only last year when Jeongguk realizes it's because of other things he would like to keep to himself for the mean time.

     All of his thoughts come to a halt when you make your entrance with a swing of the door and a flushed face.

     "Jeongguk, Taehyung called me and said you - Oh my God, what happened to your ankle?!"

     Jeongguk looks down at his leg, biting his lip. "Uhhh I just twisted it on the field-"

     "That doesn't look like you just twisted it!" You exclaimed pointing at his leg bandaged from his ankle upto his calf. You look like you're going to burst with your face still red from your running and Jeongguk thinks it's unfair you're being too cute right now when he's in pain.

     "Okay, fine. My ankle's being funny since a week ago and then it finally gave out at practice today," he explains.

     He'll leave you at that. He won't tell you the pain on his ankle started last Monday when he did a bad landing on the foot of the mini bridge in the park behind your dorm as he chased a couple of pages of your write ups the wind blew that day. It didn't register as an injury yet when your smile painted with relief filled his mind because he rescued the pieces of your project from getting wet. By Wednesday, he already noticed the swelling and it was just his luck that a big game is scheduled on Friday. You told him you're gonna be there with his name on a banner so he just dismissed it with a spray of painkiller. He thinks it's all worth it when you hugged him real tight and exclaimed "You're really great! I can't believe you won again!" and treated him in his favorite pizza place. And  now here he is, calf bandaged in white after he did a bad kick in practice that twisted his ankle even more that he felt splitting pain shoot up to his waist.

     He still sees worry etched on your forehead so he adds, "I'm okay though, no need to worry." He already had painkillers but maybe he just felt a whole lot better when you came.

     "No need to worry? Jeongguk, we could have prevented it from worsening," You sit by the bed he's laying, hands grazing his bandaged calf as you try not to imagine the pain he must felt. "This wouldn't be this bad, I could have gone to your dorm and give you many ice packs, you know." You look at him, "Why didn't you tell me?"

     "I just thought it was a normal sprain,  no biggie," Jeongguk shrugs, giving you a lopsided smile he knows that annoys you. In the back of his mind, he's afraid you're gonna sense he's been hiding a lot of things from you these days. He didn't tell you yet about the offer he got yesterday to go professional in football. He also didn't tell you he's been dying to know who your inspiration is when you presented the poems you wrote in the literature class two days ago; he just teased you with imitating your voice in a nasal pitch that earned him a smack on his shoulder and you leaving him in the cafeteria.

     There's a whole lot of things you don't know yet. You didn't know the animation he did for his computer science major was about your childhood  together filled with worlds you created for the two of you. You also didn't know he writes in his little notebook the poems and proses you send to him for his feedback. And you most definitely don't know he's the one who's sending you love letters under the pseudonym Little Prince in your locker whenever he feels like it.

     And he knows he can't tell you all of these yet. He knows mass is inversely proportional to volume and the weight of his feelings must be too much for your pull on him; your world together could collapse without the fundamentals of forces of attraction and gravity. He needs a little more time, a little more courage, and a little more ways to balance his pull on you to make you feel what he feels, to be also your rose and your world.

     Your tap on his shoulder brings him back to where he is with you. "Hey, I asked you have you eaten yet?"

     "Uhh no."

     "Okay, just stay there and I'm gonna get you something."

     Jeongguk grabs your hand before you stand up. "Don't you have your physics class next?"

     You shrug."I could skip it for today; I don't even like physics."

     "Okay, okay. Whatever you say, Y/N."

     "Don't go being stupid while I'm away okay, I'm going to treat that sprain when you go back to your dorm before your mother could butcher you."

     He laughs as he waves you off but he didn't miss the blush coloring your cheeks as you close the door.

     As he close his eyes and wait for you to  return, he hopes this is a sign he might just get the balance he needs a little easier than he initially thought.

All Rights Reserved © Vanaera. Reposts, modifications, and translations of content are not allowed without direct permission.

[glovenose82-blog]

Social Media Has Made Hip-Hop About Rapping Again – Not Creating Songs

Guest post by Martin Connor. This article originally appeared on Soundfly’s Flypaper

Here’s the thing about being the dominant musical genre in the world: you get so ingrained into mass culture that you simultaneously become indispensable and invisible — almost like air. You become so widespread that people barely notice when you show up now; you’re simply always there.

This happened to rock, then it happened to rap, and it will happen to whatever youth-embraced genre comes next. But social media platforms and the complete industry overhaul towards streaming have added a special twist to the usual story of musical ubiquity. Now, someone can be a rapper without even really releasing a song, much less a single, or, heavens forbid, an album.

And to me, this is really exciting. It is yet another example of how hip-hop has been able to innately adapt and creativity respond to whatever the world throws at it, which is, for many rappers, a fundamental tenet of the genre’s content as well.

“People are tired of glamorous pop acts?” Fine, us rappers will show the ugly side of life in our lyrics.

“The courts won’t let us producers sample music without paying insane fees?” Fine, we’ll release it for free and we’ll be our own labels from now on.

“Rap has no melody — they don’t even write their own music!” Oh yeah, how about The Roots, Kendrick Lamar, Chance, Dre, J. Cole, Odd Future?

So, how can a rapper “rap” without releasing a song?

Cruise the social media pages of any rapper under the age of 21, and you will find no announcements of forthcoming tour dates, no photos of them gracing a recording studio vocal booth, no links to new singles dropped on Tidal. It’s just rap, in the purest and most unadorned way possible.

Take Deep South up-and-comer RichBoi Streeter, for example. In tweets like these, RBS takes rap off wax and puts it on Twitter. The cinematic emojis make up their own little music video as Streeter writes in alternating accented and unaccented syllables that clearly spell out the structure of a normal musical bar.

Lil Yachty, now newly 21 years old, raps on his Twitter all the time.

Here’s a quirky zinger by the newly 22-year-old rapper Ugly God. 

Social media is the vessel now; it’s gone beyond “streaming platforms” for some young rappers. Now, releasing music is more about putting it immediately in the ears of their fans, with no filter. Take 15-year-old rap phenom Bhad Bhabie. Her discography boasts no more than nine songs, three of them have somehow miraculously made it onto the Billboard charts, and her fans have memorized the lyrics to all of them. How is this possible?

Surely, Bhabie’s national viral fame was aided by an appearance on the Dr. Phil show, but she was bound for internet success no matter how you play it. Her maximization of fame from a minimum of recordings is a result of the generation of organic buzz traffic from social media with tweets like this.

Take a look at that video, and wonder: it’s someone else’s rap, with someone else’s beat, and she obviously lip syncs lyrics — and yet, there’s no plagiarism or rhyme-biting being thrown around here. But of course, she’s got serious chops when it comes to fan network validation tweets like this one.

It’s the post-2000s iGen generation’s way of engaging in the celebrity, social-media conversation that pop music culture — that is to say, hip-hop — has become. And you could call this evidence that contemporary art-making is being overtaken by image, superficiality, or marketing… or you could look at it as yet another way hip-hop culture has sought to go back to its roots: that pure, unfiltered message delivered straight to the people with no middlemen. Twitter is the new Bronx street corner. 

Is there actually a difference between either format’s artistic integrity if the work is good?

For young rappers of this generation, YouTube channels and Instagram stories are the new version of the seemingly antiquated “label demo.” Why keep these gems private and unheard? Share every tiny musical advancement with the world and bring your audience into your world every chance you get!

RichBoi Streeter’s Spotify page only has two songs, both of them are , and there’s definitely no physical release out to support them, but they haven’t gotten much love (less than 1,000 plays each). “Hang Around” is especially great — it would feel right at home in the playlist of any listener who enjoys other trappers like Future, Migos, or Gucci Mane. On RichBoi’s YouTube page, however, which only dons four home-produced tracks with no real “video” element, three of the tracks are up over 10,000 views.

When this young generation of rappers do end up “publishing” songs, they often can’t help but communicate on them like it’s still a social media post. When the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting happened in February 2018, rather than using 280 characters to share his thoughts, late rapper XXXTentacion created and put out a song almost immediately dedicated to the victims called “Hope.” By releasing it within just a couple days of the shooting’s occurrence, XXX managed to transport the immediacy and urgency of social media to his music, rather than the inverse.

XXXTentacion’s song “Hate Will Never Win” so frequently intersperses snippets of Donald Trump’s equivocating press conference after the violent 2017 event in Charlottesville, VA, that it sounds like a real-life “Twitter @me battle.”

Rappers who claim they’re not rappers, like Lil Yachty, are supposedly proof of rap’s empty value system. In reality, Lil Yachty and his insider-outsider brethren aren’t disrespecting the culture; they’re simply recognizing the reality of how the “music industry” reflects only a part of what hip-hop really is right now, and they’re trying to reclaim this nomenclature as greater than the reductionist view of “studio artists making songs and publishing them.”

This dynamic is also found in Childish Gambino’s proclamation that he doesn’t want to be a rapper; it’s in Kanye West’s assertion that people use the word as a slur against him; it’s in Blac Youngsta’s diss track against the old guards of hip-hop; it’s in Jake Paul becoming a YouTube superstar and then deciding to start his own record label like his idol Dr. Dre. And so these pronouncements are less a dissociation from rap, and more an aspirational expansion of what rap can and should be. Social media has thus helped to take rap back to the basics — nothing but “beats, rhymes, & life” (as A Tribe Called Quest put it back in 1996).

Hip-hop is really just a way of life. Full stop.

And it isn’t the most important genre in the world today simply because people somehow magically like rap more than, say, EDM. It’s storytelling in real time, every day, out on the street and buzzing in your pocket, not waiting two years for the record store shelves to fill back up. Hip-hop is the most popular genre in the world because it makes use of all available contemporary communication media to tell its stories, and it does that really, really well. 

Source: http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/social-media-has-made-hip-hop-about-rapping-again-not-creati.html

[englishtogether]

Case Study: L2 Vocabulary Acquisition

Learning a second language involves getting to know its grammar and vocabulary equally in order to have the skills necessary to interact with other people. Vocabulary and grammar are the base for any language, with them, people can practice their listening, reading, and speaking skills. But should people give priority to one over the other? Of course, they go hand in hand, but which one should be the learners' main focus?

David Wilkins (Thornbury, 2004, as cited in Dapo, 2014, p. 170) stated that "Without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed". Many researchers support this statement, as even if a learner knows when to use "is" and "are", if he or she does not know a certain list of nouns and verbs, the grammar will be useless, let alone in a real-life experience with native English speakers. It is important to note, however, that the process of learning new words never stops, even for first language acquisition as people will go through different environments and situations throughout their life.

Teachers are key when it comes to students taking advantage of the learning process. They need to have high expectations and create challenges for students in order to maximize the positive results. In order words, educators must be motivated and actually show it for their students to be engaged in the learning activities since part of their role is to make a difference in their students' learning choices in the future, and experiences, whether they mean it or not (Dapo, 2014, p. 171).  One aspect that is hard for teachers to achieve is to create a classroom in which students communicate in the language they are learning. There is a discussion about only the targeted language, or both (L1 and L2) being used. According to Pan (2009) the use of L1 in the classroom is justified, but it should have its limits: “L1 should only be used to help construct knowledge in the target language, facilitate interpersonal interactions, and increase efficiency.”

Different activities can help with the acquisition of vocabulary. Some examples are:

·         Labeling of pictures with the targeted objects.

·         Flashcards to review new vocabulary.

·         Using Wh- questions, questions for intonation or inversion, unfinished sentence questions, either/or questions.

·         Questions with which the answers are related to the learners' personal life.

·         TPR (Total Physical Response) which involves the teacher demonstrating actions, and then getting the learners to perform them. Learners are expected to only speak once they are ready.

·         Magic box which is a box filled up with flashcards. Whenever a child takes one, they will say a word related to that picture.

·         Creating a Pictionary.

·         Presentations with new words.

·         Posters for the students and the classroom with the new vocabulary. This vocabulary can be related to the students' personal life as this helps engaging the students in the learning process.

·         Using songs.

·         Miming actions, giving the freedom to children so they can be more creative.

Through these and any other activities that teachers can come up with, the students’ vocabulary list can grow overtime, and their proficiency will be higher. Educators should keep in mind that grammar is important as well, so they should add activities for this. Learners have shown a great development in their skills when they receive the proper feedback and are part of a healthy and rich learning environment. A good syllabus is key for this, but keep in mind that changing plans halfway through is also an option if the results are not as expected because at the end of the day education is not a straight line nor black and white.

References and Bibliography

Dapo, L. (2014). Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition for Young Learners. https://ulacit.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_4848_1/outline/assessment/_895630_1/overview/attempt/_750720_1?courseId=_4848_1

Pan, Y. (2009, December 11). The Use of L1 in the Foreign Language Classroom.  http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0123-46412010000200007

[fantroll-purgatory]

@plumb1tes

(The image was made by me)

It’s a real good image. I want to let you know from the beginning of this review that CD and I have both been raving about what a good troll Charyl is from the second she set (prosthetic) foot in our inbox. She’s so so creepy and we both love her so much.

FIRST: Alternia, and she’s closer to being in the Hiveswap setting then the Hivebent one.

I think given our current info re: Hiveswap all that tells us is that she is living before Feferi was hatched.

Name (preferably include how you came up with it and why): Charyl (derived from one of the Deathstalker scorpion’s venom known to cause paralysis) Thytue (from a genus of scorpion called ‘Tityus’)

Age: 7.85 sweeps

Strife Specibus: Needlekind (the sewing kind)

I like it, especially since you can also swap it with the hypodermic kind. If I may suggest another option, maybe stringkind? She could use anything from silly string (comedic), to thread (thematic), to fishing line (deadly).

Fetch Modus: I can never think of a good one, lol.

I have two for you! The first is a simple SINGING MODUS based off Singer sewing machines.

The second is a CLAW CRANE MODUS like the ones you see in arcades and are invariably rigged to some extent. I like this for a few reasons:

1) it harkens back to her toy theme which is present throughout her bio, and

2) you could have the “claw” of this modus be her limp doll hand, which would just look so creepy.

Blood color: Cerulean,

Symbol and meaning: Scorrius, sign of the cunning (Hope + Derse)

We’ll get to that later in your bio!

Trolltag: tetraplegicTrinket (it’s referring to her dolls, which are trolls that are essentially permanently paralyzed, and she dolls them up)

It’s a good name! If you want to alter it slightly you can go for quadriplegicTinkerer so her abbreviation can be QT.

Quirk: Sh3 tr13s to 1ncoporat3 h3r s1gn 1n h3r sp33ch! (i want to find something that suits her better, if you have any suggestions!)

|-|-|-|- H(::)w about that she begins and ends her sentences with f(::)ur stitches and replaces “o” with (::)? -|-|-|-|

|-|-|-|- B(::)th as a d(::)llmaker and as s(::)me(::)ne with bifurcated visi(::)n eightf(::)ld? -|-|-|-|

|-|-|-|- Als(::) it mimics the cutesy way s(::)me l(::)lita girls talk by making their (::)’s r(::)under -|-|-|-|

Special Abilities (if any): Vision eightfold, with it being split to both her eyeballs, to appear like buttons, going along with her doll-like theme. It doesn’t really do much for her.

I mean tbh that holds up. We don’t know how much of Vriska’s own abilities were from her vision eightfold, her psychic mutation, or her eventual role as a Thief of Light. The girl had a lot of stuff going on.

Lusus: ScorpionMom, a giant scorpion that paralyzes Charyl’s dolls for her with her giant stinger. She also eats the trolls that die after being turned into dolls. Charyl also laces her needles with her lusus’s poison, to kidnap trolls she finds fit for being turned into dolls. Their relationship is pretty good, all things considered, though ScorpionMom keeps to herself, most of the time. This adds on to Charyl’s feeling of isolation.

I think this is oddly permissive for a ceruleanblood lusus; while Vriska’s Spidermom was obviously an extreme case, it seems that bigger lusii generally need to get fed, and will not necessarily take kindly to their ward dangling almost-available food in front of them while they finish playing with it. I think it makes more sense that Charyl uses her lusus’s poison to paralyze (and eventually kill) her victims where Scorpionmom’s full sting would out-and-out kill a troll. It can still play into her isolation because she’ll need to work to keep away from her mom while her doll is still alive, and it still gives her an easy method of getting rid of the bodies.

Apperance: She is a tall troll, around 5’9, and rather thin. Charyl has vision eightfold, though split, and makes her eyes look like buttons. She styles her hair into two long twintails, and a bow wrapped around her horn that has her symbol on it. Charyl dresses in gothic trollita garb, which is mostly made by herself, consisting of a black, frilly dress with a cerulean bow, and mary janes, and knee-high socks.

GOTHIC TROLLITA. HOLY SHIT I LOVE IT.

Charyl is a quadruple amputee, from an accident where one of her dolls, a fellow cerulean blood, was under-dosed, and managed to mind control Charyl into breaking and contorting her own limbs, as a way of revenge. The cerulean blood escaped, and Charyl managed to recover from the life-threatening experience. She managed to take some rather large doll parts, and fashion them into workable replacement limbs with the help of an acquaintance experienced in robotics.

Hm. So I like the premise of this a lot. With that said, do we have evidence that psychic cerlueanbloods can influence their peers? After all, part of what makes them so dangerous is that they have psychic abilities on par with a lowblood sans their requisite vulnerabilities. If I may suggest a different scenario with a similar outcome, perhaps an indigoblood with a particularly STRONG immune system failed to succumb to the poison in the expected timeframe and overcame her with their remaining strength. This could spur her distaste for kidnapping highbloods and still leave her disabled.

Personality: She’s pretty bubbly and energetic, and quite motherly. Sometimes she wishes she were a jadeblood so she could take care of a wriggler. She also treats her dolls (both living and nonliving), like her children, loving to dress them up and take care of their needs. However she is also very controlling, and is quite uncomfortable whenever she isn’t able to offer her opinion, or do things how she wants.

She’s pretty spoiled from her highblood upbringing, but is equally friendly to both highbloods and lowbloods, due to her not caring about the hemospectrum that much (though she turns more lowbloods into her dolls than highbloods, due to them being easier to abduct). Charyl is a lonely troll, and uses her dolls as a way to not feel as alone as she does, due to her lack of friends outside of the ones she meets online.

Yeah kidnapping lowbloods sure is easier when everything about the hemospectrum makes them easier to kill huh?

Due to the experience with the cerulean blood (which is one of the reasons why she prefers lowbloods for her dolls), she hardly leaves her hive, aside from going outside to find new victims. She is also socially awkward, and prefers the company of her dolls, mostly due to not fearing the social apprehension she feels when interacting with highbloods.

Interests: Charyl absolutely loves fashion, especially gothic trollita clothes. She likes sewing, and making her own dresses and accessories, for herself, and also her dolls.

If it wasn’t obvious, she also is obsessed with dolls, though her favorite type are the trolls she kidnaps, and permanently paralyze with her lusus’s poison. Most are unable to speak, and eventually die to the poison. Charyl dotes on them, dressing them up and taking care of their needs. She has a rather large collection of both living and nonliving dolls.

Charyl also likes playing doctor, though treats “patients” through the process of bloodletting, with the same needles she uses for her sewing.

Title: (got any suggestions?)

I do, because I don’t think she’s actually a Hope player. I mean if we wanted to stay on that track she’d be more likely to be a Rage player because her whole schtick is narrowing her own and others’ options, and I could make arguments for her being a Life or a Doom player, buuuuut.

You’ve made her bio one that’s very Of Things. She likes having material things, whether they’re bodies or dolls or clothes. And her hobby of kidnapping real, actual trolls to turn them into dolls is technically a form of recycling and of creativity.

Basically, she’s a fucked-up kind of Space player. More specifically, she’s a Thief of Space, which is GREAT because she’s like if Kanaya and Vriska had a creepy and fashionable lovechild, ESPECIALLY given that you said she sometimes wishes she was a jadeblood!

Her inverse would be a Page of Time, which I think kind of works given that she’s effectively fucking with others’ time both by freezing their progress and by dramatically shortening their lives!

Land: Doesn’t have one yet! Still on the fence on if she’ll actually play sburb or not

That’s fine! For the sake of argument let’s say her land is Land of Chloroform and Frogs (LOCAF). All these frogs just floating in chloroform. Maybe some of them are splayed out like an anatomical diagram. Maybe some of them have been taxidermied. Many of them will be dissected like a high school bio unit. It’ll certainly make it easy to see which frog have the anatomical traits you want in the future Bilious Slick. The Land probably isn’t even safe to traverse without a gas mask given how damn fast the stuff works. It’s macabre and fits really well with how Space players’ frogs tend to be frozen in time in some manner.

Dream Planet: Derse

I definitely agree that she’s a Dersite given how much she seems to be in her head. With that, she’s a Scorga, sign of the Deviser, which sufficiently vague that I guess it works?

…Oh MAN I just looked that one up and the fuckin’ arrow tail looks like a scorpion poised to strike! It’s perfect for her!

Thanks again!

Thank YOU for this creepy creepy lady! My redesign will be very very minimal but HOO BOY did I have fun making her sprite!

This is gonna come with my requisite list of credits especially because I do not have a tablet and had no goddamn idea where to start with spriting her dress. That base is from deviantart user Thefantrolls and was then heavily edited to match your picture. The horns are straight-up Vriska’s, the bow is from naphal, and the hair was made by compositing like 4 different fan-troll templates.

For the redesign, I used a prosthetic base by hmnj to make it a little more obvious that her legs are prosthetic while maintaining the doll aesthetic. For the hair I wanted to do the scorpion callback but didn’t want to do anything as obvious as the stinger braid (especially since it might lose the lolita aesthetic), so I took a note from Gothorita’s design and tried to give her scorpion claw buns?

Anyway thank you again for this scary scary woman I can’t wait to see her in action.

-TR

[remiensrecountsbct]

Come, Let Us Laugh At My Failures Together, And Laugh We Shall

I lied

There is no humor here, give me your wallet

Anyway, gather around, time for our monthly reflection session.

How have your views on failure changed?

The "failure" part being italicised feels like a personal attack but I'll let it slide for now.

Now I've always seen failure as a natural process, simply because the idea that "everyone fails" has been ingrained into my mind for a very very long time, because if there's a lesson some wise old person is going to tell you I can comfortably bet that it'll be about failure and come our victorious 9 times out of 10. Yet despite my apparent comfortability with failure any time I ever mess up in public I instinctively try to cover it up, often to the inverse effect I had wished for. So I'm "comfortable with failure" yet my natural "defensive" reaction is to shield myself from any sort of failure. What am I missing here? I genuinely don't have an answer, I want to know.

One actual development I've come along with failure is that I used to see it as a straightforward process. I used to go alright, I'll fail until I get it right, but I still tried to avoid failure any chance I got in the search for success. I thought either I'll fail with one less wrong way to do it or I'll succeed. Yet the Week 8 PowerPoint showed a simple picture of failure not being the opposite of success. Which being a very logical person I thought "Well, of course, that makes so much sense". Yet this whole time it was always something I wanted to avoid because technically it takes me further from success than succeeding. Now, rather than avoiding failure, I will try to embrace it to learn as much as I can, and should I succeed? Add more problems until it breaks, see what the flaws of an idea are, most of the time you'll learn more and rarely you'll be surprised to find out that an apparent flaw is actually the hidden solution you've needed all along.

How do you contribute to a creative team?

I have many viewpoints, backgrounds, experiences. I have sympathy, I have many feelings, I possess the ability to think, not just like myself but like others. I don't know, I can't answer that question. I don't know what it's like to interpret my contributions because what I think of comes naturally to me, I don't know what it's like to not think like me. This seems extremely contradictory to what I literally just said but, I lack the words right now to express what I truly mean.

What techniques/methods have you used, what do you think about your process?

I don't really have a technique, just masterful stubbornness. If something doesn't work right away or how I think it'll work well then, I guess whatever I'm working on is getting well acquainted with me 'cause we're spending a whole lot of time together, 'cause I'm trying every method from here Hell and back until I figure out something that works.

How do you apply the principles of visual communication?

As little as I see myself using "theory", I've used this in my project design to use certain objects or images as indicators rather than just decorations. I've used 3D hexagons to present movement and depth, accent markers, and sliders in the shapes of triangles to using the point to subtly show flow and direction.

That's all I have for now, how does one conclude a blog?

Oh right, as a note sorry if things are incohesive. I write as if I'm talking and such effects are missed in writing. If you have any questions straight up ask.

[photodesignexpert]

How To Create Black And White Background in Photoshop CS6 2021

Introduction:

The black and white background in Photoshop CS6 is a kind of premier thing, especially for the computing workers and graphic designers. For those, who are not affiliated with the term to create such backgrounds, they must know it has a nice guideline.

You may have heard about the transparent background. But can you figure out the accurate steps of white and black background? If no, then my article will help you for sure with complete abstraction of required methods. So don’t waste your time on finding bulky solutions and have a glimpse here.

Black and White Background Backgrounds in Photoshop CS6

Thinking of creating a black and white background? Then don’t think of a specific outcome, you can have lots of shades of that background. For example- black and white effect, black and white stripes, remove background, easy selective color effect, etc. And a nice option for doing such tasks is the Photoshop CS6.

The Photoshop CS6 is a nice tool you can use for video editing and image editions. Color adaptations, image layers, backgrounds are the salient features of it. Usually the backgrounds are not the focal point of any picture. We mostly avoid what’s there in the background.

When you go to the bottommost layer, you will find that the background layer is shown locked. That means, it’s impossible to change any order like, opacity, blending, or stacking. But when you will start to create effects and editions on your backgrounds, then this option will come to be the valid one.

As we are talking about the background, first we need to know how we can create a simple background at first. In short, let me explain to you the basic techniques.

Step 1

We know that Photoshop is available for free. So you have to download it and make sure that you are using an updated version, be it Photoshop CS6.

Step 2

Select Model Layer from the Layers panel and again select Quick Selection Tool. Then click on Select Subject and after that click on Select and Mask.

Step 3

Now it’s time to refine the selection. So drag the Shift Edge slider to the left and click on OK. You will have the option of adding a layer mask.

Step 4

Coming to unifying the colors, go to the layers panel, press alt+ and shift the background layer to make a duplicate of that.

Step 5

Now, how to give effects on the color? To do so, go to the layers panel and select New Adjustment layer, and select solid colors.

This is how you can create a genuine background for your image using the Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 6.

Black and White Background in Photoshop CS6

If you want to create a background or remove a background, then you will get available solutions with concepts about it. But what about the rarely used background of black and white?

Do you want to transpire that as well? Then it’s going to be a little bit different than creating a simple background. And why I talk about the Photoshop CS6 is, it is an updated version of Photoshop.

There are also many other Photoshop versions, like- Photoshop CS4, Photoshop CC, etc. These are the latest one you can have just like the Photoshop CS6.

Until now, it was easy to have a simple background for your image. But now comes the hero of our concept. Which is background black and white. If you want to appeal to your background with black and white color, then you must follow the given steps.

Here, I have recommended some traits that you must go through before you want to work to portray your background with black and white.

Step 1

First, go to the File menu and click Open from there. Can you find the option to insert photos? There you have to provide the image that you will choose to edit.

Step 2

You have already heard about the Quick Selection Tool. You will definitely need that for the workings in the background. Go to the toolbar to select some segments of the picture. It’s sure that you won’t want to have the overall changes of your picture.

So, select that area which you want to keep unchanged.

Step 3

Now, to plume press on the button Shift f6 key from your keyboard. On that way, you have to select that specific area from your image.

After it, what you have to do is, go inverse. How will you find that? Can you see the Select menu? There you will find numerous options, just click on inverse once you get it.

Step 4

Up to this was clear and now we have reached at approximate completion. As you have now clicked on inverse, now it’s time to select the image menu. You can choose the adjustments directly and continue.

Again, you will find some options from there, like- Color Balance, Color Lookup, Photo filter, and so on. Go to the option of black and white as we want the background of that color.

Step 5

Now, with the bilking press of the subsequent window, you have to deselect your selection. You will get the option of deselect from the select menu, just as you got the inverse.

In account of the finish off, you smoothly made a white and black background.

Black and White Striped Background

Are you thinking that, how it’s possible to have a striped background? This is another thing which is hardly ever done. But why not try that?

It will be splendid if you can create potential backgrounds, be it black and white effects or striped. If you can make your background saturated with black and white stripes, it will come out to be outstanding.

You must have seen black and white stripes. These are like the pattern on the zebra with thickness of every line. Did you know that you can also create Doppler effects with the help of it. You can create those stripes on various shapes, like- horizontal, vertical, concentric, radial, straight, and others.

Do you want to know how to create black and white striped background in Photoshop CS6? Then you have to follow some additional steps for it.

Step 1

To make you understand easily, let me explain with an example. Suppose, you took a small document of 40 by 40 pixels considering the measurement.

From there, select the RGB color mode which will appear as a white background. What you have to do is create stripes of black and white color.

Step 2

When you perform the task, the document will seem to be a very little size. For that, you will need to zoom it so that it will view larger and you can see clearly. Make sure that you are ready with the Rectangular Marquee Tool.

Drag the document’s half, it can help you to check the size of the selection of your marquee. Another thing important for that is, a little pop up towards the mouse pointer’s top right.

Step 3

I hope so far it was quite simple for you. Now you need to change the measurement with 40 pixels in length and 20 pixels in width. You must have got it, now we are working on half of the entire document.

Step 4

You don’t have to use the left mouse button, so leave that for now. Stuff it using the black color by pressing D from your keyboard. You will get it in the foreground of default colors.

Then press the alt and backspace button which is an option to delete on Mac. To select the selection, press on Ctrl or Command D. It’s just as the same as you chose.

Step 5

You will get a barrier in between the white and black background. This is the chief thing that you need to create a striped background. Now you have to edit by pressing Ctrl or Command A and from there, choose the edit option.

Then choose the pattern of stripe and select OK. Again make a new document to check your new file pattern and choose New.

Step 6

Now it’s time to create a large document with a mine size of the screen. So, adjust 1920 pixels in length and 1080 in width and then click on create. What’s left? Choosing a layer.

You will see the option of New fill layer. Select on pattern so that you can add it in your document in the simplest way. By this way, you can have a pattern and scale it as per you want to. It’s going to be very easy and handy for you, because this process is the same as the pattern we just created.

Step 7

The scaling will be shown 100%, but if you want you can make it smaller for example 75% and select OK. This was a regular pattern and if you want an irregular pattern, you can also follow the same procedure. Inversely, go to the file menu and select new by going to your old document of 40 by 40 pixel and click on create.

Zoom in to see accurately. Then create a pattern that is combined with large areas of white color and small areas of black color.

Step 8

It’s time to use the rectangular marquee tool again. Then drag out the size of the relationship that you want between the stripes and empty places. So if you want your stripes to be white, go to the alt backspace. And to fill the stripes, press on Ctrl or Command D.

And to deselect the selection, choose select all and again choose edit from the menu. From there, you are going to define the patterns and this one will be the stripe 2.

Step 9

Now it’s time to come back to our working document of the layers palette. Henceforth, we have to fill the layers and it’s like a pros of using that layer. You will get a new layer option if you double click this. Hereby, you can go back to the selecting new pattern.

Then fill the pattern we have just created and it will last long of course and put it in the document. Now take it to the hundred percent, as it is it’s original size and select OK.

Step 10

Now, here comes a different stripe pattern. With that, you would want to set up your documents with the layers along with your given proportions. It’s not like, you can only stripe with black and white colors. You can also have multi color stripes if you want.

Easy Selective Color Effect with Photoshop

Isn’t it amazing to make a color as the focal point which has been picked from an image? That makes the whole scene commendable. That’s only possible by using the Easy Selective Color Effect in Photoshop.

In this process what we do is turn the whole image into black and white but keep the main object’s color consistent. It makes your image more beautiful and unique.

Why do you need to use it? That’s because this effect will add a nice pop of color to your image smoothly. When you have a black and white image, you will find the colors in different barriers.

I will recommend to you to use the Easy Selective Color Effect. Because you are going to have an absolutely nice and quality standardized picture.

So, how to do that? Below are the required steps that will assist you make your image splendid with a nice effect, by the Easy Selective Color.

Step 1

At the initial stage, choose any image you want to use for such edits. For example a boy in a picture, or a girl dancing, something like that. Once you use the selective color tool, you will see that the whole background became black and white except the boy or the girl.

Now comes, how we can create an effect of selective color. When you open the image in Photoshop, there comes the option of Background Layer in the Layers Panel.

Step 2

To give a selective color effect, you have to go to the adjustment layer or the New Fill layer. That’s on the Layers Panel below. Now, from the list box, click on Black and White.

After you do that, your image will be converted to Black and White. What’s more to do is adapt the version of black and white.

Step 3

Then go to the Properties Layer, by this you can control the Black and White adjustment layer. If you drag the slider, your image will get darker and by dragging right, it will become lighter. It completely depends on you, how you want to give effects in your image.

There’s an Auto button to predict the best for black and white version. This is also up to you if you want to adjust the fine tune, then you can give it a try.

Step 4

If you want to contrast between your original photo and the black and white version, then go to the adjustment layer and click on the visibility icon. Now, you have to use the Brush Tool. The adjustment layer of Photoshop has a nice feature of a built in layer mask.

There’s also a layer mask thumbnail. Remember that, if you use it then the whole image will turn out into white color. Select the Brush Tool out of Tools panel to divulge the real color of your image.

Step 5

Now reveal the Brush Preset Picker by right clicking on your document. Then go to the thumbnail area on the upper left side and select the soft round brush. Then again press Enter from your keyboard and close the Brush Preset Picker.

Step 6

The current Foreground color is used as the brush color by Photoshop. Now on the layer mask, we have to color it Black and for that, we have to make the foreground color black as well.

Press D from your keyboard and set your foreground with white and background color with black. Now press X to swap the layers and your foreground color will turn black.

Step 7

Color the inner areas to reinstate the color of an object. If the size is large, then use a bigger brush for that. If you press the right bracket continuously, then the brush size will become larger. And if you keep pressing the left bracket like that, then the brush size will turn smaller.

Again, the right bracket can be used to make the edges harder. And the left bracket can be used to make the edges softer.

Now it’s time to adjust the conversion of black and white. So, go to the properties panel and shift all the color sliders.

Wrapping up

From the whole concept, I hope it was quite evident to how you can create a black and white background. Are you ready to start your operation? Then don’t think twice, and summon these steps at the time when you start.

You can obtain various kinds of background. So which one you want to make, wholly relies on you. All being well, get your perfect background for you image and have a happy learning.