#but at the same time that doesn’t stop me from wanting a spinoff to consume

[bicheetopuff]

Every day that goes by, the more terrified I become of the my hero academia live action project

[fishylife]

Guess who caved and read all 66 chapters of Painter of the Night? I don’t normally like to read comics that are still ongoing because I don’t like losing momentum while waiting for updates but here I am 🤡🤡

Spoilers.

 I typed this while distracted so sorry for any muddled thoughts.

Story

I am glad that I read up to Chapter 66 because a huge misunderstanding was cleared up (the fact that Nakyum legitimately did not run away this time). I would’ve been pulling my hair out if the misunderstanding went on further (I HATE misunderstanding/miscommunication as a plot device).

A lot of people on the subreddit theorized that this was a huge turning point in the story. For the first time, we’re seeing Seungho show legitimate remorse and sadness over Nakyum’s suffering. Hopefully we’re going to see change his behaviour and act more reasonably towards Nakyum, and be more communicative about why he’s doing what he’s doing.

Though I think Nakyum is still a bit confused about his feelings for Seungho, he’s past the point of hating Seungho and wanting to leave. He said that he’d tried to run away before but he had nowhere to run to. He acknowledges that Seungho is a constant in his life, a protector and an indirect caregiver. But he’s still struggling with his feelings for Seungho.

In that way, Seungho and Nakyum are sort of opposite. Seungho recognized his romantic love for Nakyum first, but he couldn’t see how he was hurting him. As for Nakyum, he figured out how he could make Seungho happy early on, but he’s still struggling a bit with regards to how he feels about Seungho, likely because a part of his heart is still with Inhun. Again, he definitely recognizes Seungho as his protector (he’d instinctively called out to Seungho for help when he was kidnapped), but he’s still struggling over whether he’s in love with him.

This week we’re getting a continuation to the spinoff story so we won’t see the story pick up again until next week.

I do think the spinoff story is interesting. Currently, Seungho holds a lot of power over Nakyum, both in terms of political/administrative power, and physical power. But with Seungho as a peasant and Nakyum as a son of a noble family, Nakyum holds the social power over Seungho and it evens up their power dynamics a bit, which I do like. It feels safer for Nakyum lmao.

In terms of the style of story telling, it’s mostly angst, I’ll be honest. And it is rather melodramatic because miscommunication tends to be something the author uses quite a bit as a storytelling technique. Luckily, they’re not dragged out for too long.

Art

The art is pretty nice. It’s all in full colour, which surprised me. The art is extremely detailed. I wonder how the artist can do so much in a week lol. I hope they’re not overworked.

Seungho

Both Seungho and Nakyum have had their share of past trauma, but my thinking is that they’ve manifested in different ways.

It’s implied that Seungho’s father knew about his sexuality from a young age and tried to treat it through medical means and then by locking him up, which effectively stopped his education, despite him having been a bright student. Seungho then lived out his young adult days in debauchery. Early on, he implied that he was just living by his father’s principles, or something along those lines. My guess is that his dad left him behind so he could debauch in isolation without affecting the rest of the family.

So Seungho grew up without many close friends. He was surrounded by servants and yes men (like Jihwa) who would not call him out on his bullshit. So I think that’s how he developed his extremely bossy and abusive behaviour.

Why Nakyum was different for Seungho was that initially, he didn’t have power over Nakyum. He would tell him to do things, but Nakyum would not necessarily heed his commands, not painting, or trying to run away. His heart was still fully loyal to Inhun. So I think that was why Nakyum elicited extra violent behaviour from Seungho. Seungho had never been defied like this.

But I think Seungho was also intrigued by Nakyum. Nakyum was a contradiction because he drew smut but was always super embarrassed when faced with sexual situations irl. Seungho should've felt better when Inhun was sent away and Nakyum became submissive during sex and yet that’s when Seungho felt like something was wrong. Nakyum just kept eliciting unexpected emotions from Seungho. I definitely think Seungho saw him as a plaything at first, but came to care for him after he got to know more about him and his personal life.

Nakyum

Nakyum also came from a tough background. He was an orphan, and was raised along kisaeng ladies. Inhun was the first authority figure whom he’d had a positive impression of, and he latched on to him. He admired Inhun so much that he tried his best to listen to him when he told him not to draw erotic art anymore.

Inhun unfortunately didn’t see their relationship the same way. He showed a kind face to most of his students but he looked down on their lowly statuses. Only when he saw Nakyum as a pawn, did he give him attention. But he never hid his emotions, visibly expressing his anger when Nakyum wasn’t being a good spy, brushing off Nakyum’s confession of love.

Nakyum’s love for Inhun was so extremely pure and all-consuming. I cried when he was so swiftly rejected and condescended upon by Inhun T_T Because I knew how much courage it took for Nakyum to confess, how he wanted nothing but for Inhun to have good things, and Inhun cared not for any of that because it wasn’t want he wanted. Nakyum wasn’t helping him in the way he needed, and he cared far more for ambition than romantic love (not to mention romantic love from a lowly peasant).

After the rejection, Nakyum internalized Inhun’s words when he called him a prostitute. A part of him still loved Inhun and if he said that, Nakyum figured he must’ve been right. The other part of him decided that acting submissively to Seungho was the only way to survive.

Basically, Nakyum’s going through a huge emotional journey because his hero Inhun has kind of abandoned him (though he hasn’t forgotten him completely), but Nakyum hasn’t found a worthy person to give his heart to.

Seungho & Nakyum

I’m still thinking about their relationship and why we ship them despite the shit they’ve done (mostly the shit that Seungho’s done to Nakyum).

For Seungho, I think Nakyum was the first person he met who had a different way of expressing love. He’d never met someone like Nakyum who would stuff he despised just to help out Inhun. Even when Inhun didn’t show an inkling of appreciation. Perhaps Seungho felt that he didn’t know what love was until he met Nakyum.

As for Nakyum, he theorized that he was only desperate for affection and that was why he felt himself drawn to Seungho. I think that is technically true. But more than that, I think Seungho has arguably shown more levels of care to Nakyum than Inhun has. Yeah, Seungho has done horrendous stuff to Nakyum, but he’s also shown more affection to Nakyum. That includes physical affection, but Seungho also bought him warm clothes, called on a doctor to care for his health, etc. Again, all of the care absolutely does NOT cancel out the abusive behaviour on Seungho’s side, but that’s how I think Nakyum found himself feeling more and more comfortable with Seungho. Loving someone is about showing your bad sides as well as your good sides.

I think both Seungho and Nakyum are finding affection/care in forms that they’d never experienced before, and that’s why they are drawn to each other.

Problematic?

I had a feeling that this would be a story that a lot of people would consider problematic. It’s probably because I’m older now, but it doesn’t really bother me. I obviously know that there is toxic behaviour shown by the characters and I would never want that in real life, but it’s really not difficult for me to separate what works in fiction vs. what works in reality.

This was a different time period, when rich and powerful people could just do whatever they wanted. Not excusing problematic behaviour, just explaining the entitled behaviour of some of the elites.

Seungho for sure shows extremely toxic behaviour. I think the point is that he is a problematic man who has trouble expressing emotions the normal way, and it ends up hurting those around him and those he cares about. He’s definitely an imperfect person who’s unpleasant to be around, but I think one thing the author wanted to show is that bad people are still capable of having emotions. By no means do I excuse his toxic behaviour. But I am all for showing that flawed people are still worthy of attention. We are still interested in what Seungho does in spite of his poor behaviour because we recognize that he is still a person.

I also recognize that Nakyum is woobified a lot. He’s constantly put in situations where he is the victim and he doesn’t/can’t fight back. In the latest event with Jihwa ordering Nakyum’s kidnapping/murder, the Nameless one had threatened Nakyum’s life so that he wouldn’t reveal the fact that he’d kidnapped him, and that caused all of Seungho’s meanness in the past few chapters. I recognize that whump is a popular trope, but usually because it ends in comfort. (I specifically can’t enjoy whump if it doesn’t end in comfort) It sets up a situation in which it feels reasonable for the victim to receive comfort. Again, this is stuff that I only enjoy in fiction. I recognize that in real life, people shouldn’t have to get hurt to be worthy of love and care. But I can see why people may say that Nakyum being the victim might be a problem.

Other

I thought Jihwa & the Nameless one were going to be a side pairing from the moment I saw the Nameless one’s jaw lmao. It was angular and I was like, that’s a handsome man’s jaw. I’m glad that Jihwa realized before hurting Nakyum that he couldn’t possibly fix his relationship with Seungho anymore. He recognized that even with Nakyum out of the picture, Seungho wouldn’t want to come to him. Seungho’s mind would always be filled with Nakyum, and if Seungho had found out that he was behind the murder, he’d hate Jihwa even more. Like Nameless one, despite the despicable things that Jihwa had done, I did pity him. He was in love with Seungho for a long time, and thought that giving him everything he wanted (including letting him have sexual relations with others) would endear himself to Seungho. But they were just not meant to be.

But Min implied that Jihwa had crossed the line already this time by kidnapping Nakyum. After the happenings of Chapter 66, Seungho’s going to have a field day with Jihwa and I’m not sure how he’s going to get out of that one. Not sure if Nameless one can do anything to help.

I don’t know how long this manhwa is supposed to be, but there are several story lines other than Seungho x Nakyum that haven’t been addressed yet. Like I said, I think we’re going to see Jihwa x Nameless one expanded upon a bit. There’s some stuff going on with the Yoon family, since Seungho’s brother keeps coming over. I wonder if Seungho’s going to try starting a career (this isn’t based on anything, I’m just wondering). And I also have a feeling that Inhun might return, which will likely force Nakyum to choose between Inhun or Seungho once and for all.

To be completely honest, I don’t want this manhwa to drag out for too long. For selfish reasons because again I don’t like waiting for ongoing comic chapters. I don’t know how long the manhwa is intended to be, but based on my paragraph above, it’d still take a lot of time for all of those loose ends to be wrapped up. But considering the fact that Seungho and Nakyum’s relationship is probably finally going to get better, hopefully we’re over half way through? Just me being hopeful.

Final

I didn’t write a full review for this on my Dreamwidth because, like, this comic isn’t even done yet. But as you can see, I enjoyed reading it. I feel like I’m missing a hundred things that crossed my mind while reading this. And there are a lot of interesting analysis posts on Tumblr and Reddit that are opening my mind to other interpretations too.

I had a BL manga phase when I was a teenager and now I’m like “...is it time to get back into it?” Lol. In any case, it’s interesting reading BL as an adult now because like I said, it’s so much easier to separate the fiction from the reality now. I can read BL purely as fiction while recognizing what tropes are not healthy, and they don’t diminish the story. It’s melodramatic because it’s exactly that: melodrama.

[dawniebb]

I’m tired so let’s talk about crack headcanons

May I present you

The Team Sketch as Trauma the Animation World Seeded In me (cause’ it’s the only type of media I consume) and Still Haunts Me to This Day:

Nova:

-”The movie wasn’t about VictorxEmily. It was about Emily learning she can’t just fix her life by ruining somebody else’s. Pls stop talking shit about Victoria.” -C o r a l i n e. -Unironically likes Despicable Me bc Found Family trope (but she hates the Minions like any thinking individual would do). -”Really folks pls leave Victoria alone what did she ever do to you?” -Unironically likes Robots even though she hasn’t watched that shit in 11 years. -Won't watch Legend of Korra but she can’t think of an specific reason why she won’t. -Phineas & Ferb bc clever jokes™ -*Patiently waits for the Catrademption* *wants Adora to choke her*

-Thinks Megamind is underrated and everyone should watch it bc good shit.

-Can and WILL fight everyone who talks shit about The Boxtrolls bc why would you find flaws in an animated movie that harshly criticizes rich people and the government :) THE CHEESE IS A METAPHOR :)

Adrian:

- *Cries in LAIKA* -"You know, like that one scene in Spirited Away where...” -*Cries in Ghibli* -Still not over the fact Brave won the Oscar over ParaNorman - *Screams "PARANORMAAAAAN" during Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark bc same vibes* -"I heard there’s gay people in Ocean Waves” -*Watches Storks 263719173 times* - *Respects Frankenweenie bc of the dog and its animation although he doesn’t care that much about the plot* -ATLA is God. -TDP is the Holy Spirit. -"LOOOOOL THE MAIN VILLAIN IN KIPO IS A WHITE LADY AFGSHJAGB” -His dads wouldn’t let him watch Total Drama. 

-Still not over Spider-Verse.

-Probably won’t ever be over Spider-Verse. Ever.

-*Screams in pain during the amputation scene in I Lost My Body*

-Voltron ruined his life.

Ruby:

-GRAVITY FALLS -*Unironically likes Kick Buttowski* -*Unironically likes Phineas & Ferb* - *Wants to watch Milo Murphy's Law but is secretly not over Phineas & Ferb yet* - *Thinks every classic Barbie movie is a badly animated masterpiece but the newer ones suck* - *Gets traumatized bc of Balto for some reason and refuses to watch it again* -*Repeats the previous action but this time w/ The Fox and The Hound* -*Unironically prefers the third Cinderella movie* -"Does any of you remember The Legend of Sleepy Hollow? Bc I do" -SVTFOE 

Oscar:

-S H R E K - Likes the opening song for Shrek the Third but hates the rest of the movie -*Gets unironically depressed over the concept of having Fairly Oddparents  bc of the fact people must forget about them at some point* - YING YANG YO - The songs from Mulan 2 are the shit -Was fixated on Kung Fu Panda but stopped watching after the first movie -Likes The Cat in The Hat and thinks about it as an animation movie even though he knows it’s not -"Sokka invented comedy yall" -USED TO WATCH THE REPLACEMENTS IN THE EARLY MORNING. -*Unironically likes the Lilo & Stitch spinoff* -Doesn't understand why everyone hates the first Cars movie -THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE

-How To Train Your Dragon took his life with it when the trilogy was done.

-Would die for Rayla.

-Voltron ruined his life x2

Danna:

-WILL STAY FOR THE LESBIANS - "I heard there’s gay people in Ocean Waves x2" -"THERE’S GAY PEOPLE IN PARANORMAN" -*Thinks Spink and Forcible from Coraline are lovers* -The Princess and The Frog -*Likes the first half of Brave but not the second one* -*Despises Ralph Breaks The Internet* -*Pretends Frozen II doesn’t exist* -*Likes SU until everyone starts crying* -GRAVITY FALLS. Is a Pacifica stan :) - Megara. Just that. Megara :) - One eye in Rayllum. The other in Jamaya -"Literally the only bitches I respect are named Callum and that includes the Treadwell one.” - *Gives up on Catra but stays for the rest of the lesbians* -"Really guys what did Jackie Lynn Thomas ever do to you? " - "What did Victoria ever do to you x2? " -*defends every single one of the Disney Princesses and counts Kuzco as one of them*

-Fucking hates the ending of When Marnie Was There. Everyone thought she was crying of sadness but in reality she was just enraged.

[reddogcollar]

Then speak friend!!

trust me its impossible to shut me up about anything ever and none of the things I'm about to say will connect

I have unfortunately watched multiple episodes of the spinoff show emperor's new school which shows kuzco going to high school and it felt like like a slow slow decent into madness I recommend it entirely because I want someone else to have this mark on their soul

far more fortunately I am now watching the owl house finally and I am on but the second episode and I think I am losing my shit? eda sounds exactly as I assume she would. a cat man just disintegrated in front of my very eyes

since multiverses are just a thing its so very possible that instead of landing in hell for 30 years ford could up on mewni or smthng from star vs the forces of evil and get his hands on dimensional scissors and fall out of a hole in the fabric of everything onto his basement floor next to Stan like "hey" "what the absolute fuck"

words like supernatural and extraordinary are the worst kinds bc they describe things that are the exact opposite of their structures (super natural implies extra normal stuff but describes things that don't occur in nature and ya know) and I hate them so so much

I am still obsessed with how shifty is just like deadass stanfords fucking son what in the name

one or all of the pines's should have some kind of speech impediment specifically cuz I struggle with talking and project often ❤

invasion of the body snatchers is a neat movie I watched it like in October or something

I am now on the third episode of toh and this kid freaking out over stepping on a flower is like same. this other kid having an abomination in a pot is also like same.

I often think about ghost aus and should finish writing (or just rewrite cuz it sucks now qkxnwksnws) the one that I have

au where stan never breaks the project but they drift a part anyway and its just really very bitter and sad and stuff

similarly au where things just like work out that night and the point of it all is stanford ends up in gravity falls still and often calls up stan at unreasonable hours to infodump about the weird shit. this concept is important to me for no real reason I just like the thought of ford getting to be happy about things

luz rising out of a pot saying "I'm an abomination" is like same

mlp characters seem to be animated with forward facing eyes? which is concerning. you could say they've evolved past the need for field of view over depth perception due to being like sophisticated and stuff but their world is also full of way dangerous monsters that maybe they as prey animals might want of field of view for. especially pegasai. no bird or horse has front facing eyes.

I am incompetent. that thought was going somewhere about like idk repeatability to some characters due to basing self worth on accomplishment and humor alone but it just stopped there.

I peel skin off my hands and lips all the time and idk why really it hurts a lot but also I cannot stop

bag tho by danny gonzalez with pacifica. consider it.

alligator skin boots and/or blue eyes like the devils water by mcafferty with stan. consider it. 

in atots stan is shown to sit upside down and no straight person has ever sat like that I would know bc I sit like that and I am not straight

I do not know who rick sanchez is and I am not able to find out because I find it hard to consume new media

I am incapable of deciding whether I want to be hugged or if anyone touches me ill die and its an issue

I have so many overdue lessons but when I try to do them my brain shuts off completely and I just end up clicking through the tests and I am a straight f student and its stressful as hell 

its 4 am I shouldn't be awake

one time before we got together my ex directly told me, word for word, "I want to kiss you on the lips" and somehow I took that as platonic until she told me she had a crush on me and I think about that a lot

the owl house is just good. doesn't matter that all the twists have been spoiled for me I don't care its good

that's like all the nonsense I can pull out of my brain I am sorry and good bye

I swear and apologize too much

[gershwinn]

Cole Sprouse on How ‘Riverdale’ Transformed Him From Disney Child Star to Leading Man

Most child actors don’t thrive in Hollywood past puberty. Cole Sprouse opted out on his own terms. The 2005 hit Disney Channel sitcom “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody” turned Cole and his twin brother, Dylan, into the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen of their generation. But after the series and its spinoff wrapped, Cole was ready for something new.

Sprouse tells this story between cigarette breaks while sitting on the “Riverdale” set in Vancouver. The show became an instant hit for The CW Network when it debuted in the winter of 2017. Sprouse’s role as the sardonic narrator Jughead has allowed him to reinvent himself as an actor in his 20s. This year, he starred in his first grown-up film, “Five Feet Apart,” as a man with cystic fibrosis who falls in love with a patient down the hall. The drama, distributed by CBS Films in March, became a sleeper hit, grossing almost $46 million at the domestic box office.

“It’s very difficult to make the jump from Disney child star to serious leading man in Hollywood,” says Justin Baldoni, the director of “Five Feet Apart.”

Sprouse spent the first 18 years of his life acting, guided by other people’s decisions. “My mother and father divorced at a young age,” he says. “I never knew them to be together. Our mother was really the main fuel for us to pursue acting. We booked a diaper commercial, and that got the ball rolling.” One of his earliest professional memories is from the ABC sitcom “Grace Under Fire,” where he shared the role of the family’s infant son with his brother. “Oh, we were exploiting child labor laws,” Sprouse says with a smirk Having two identical boys meant that they could collectively work a full day, by splitting the job in half..

That was an arrangement they used often — although sometimes they’d take roles on their own (such as when Cole portrayed Ross’ son on “Friends”). Their big break was getting cast together in the 1999 comedy “Big Daddy,” playing an abandoned kid adopted by a boorish bachelor in the form of Adam Sandler. Sprouse recalls how one night during the shoot, a fire alarm went off in the hotel the cast was staying at in New York. “Adam Sandler carried me on his shoulder down 45 flights of stairs, which was really cute,” he says. “We were taught every single bad word. So when my brother and I went back to school, we swore like sailors.”

Most of the time, they were homeschooled. “I don’t feel like I missed out on the United States public high school education,” Sprouse says. “My brother and I both have ADHD, and I needed one-on-one attention from a tutor.” Getting their own sitcom on Disney Channel made their careers explode. “It was the golden ticket,” Sprouse says. “At the time, being the leads of a sitcom as kids was the most stable job we could think about in the industry. In terms of technical acting, it’s only 30 minutes long. My brother and I were really thankful for it.”

They were able to avoid the scandals that consume other Disney stars because of their strong family network. “Cole and I had each other,” Dylan says. “We were blessed to have someone experiencing the same thing at the same time, as an objectivity to the reality of it all.” Dylan recalls one day, as a teenager, getting into a drag-out fistfight with his brother between takes — it was broken up when a fan asked them for a photo backstage. “It was such a weird and funny moment that we actually calmed down, laughing at each other.”

They spent six years at Disney, with three seasons on “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody” and another three on the spinoff, “The Suite Life on Deck.” Despite an offer to do a third series with Disney, Cole and Dylan knew they wanted to attend college, and both were accepted to NYU. Still, it took some adjustment. “The amount of rumors that were spread about Dylan and I were incredible,” says Cole, who heard stories about how he’d fallen down the stairs at the school library. “When you’re a public figure, people use you to build their identities. And I think that was a bit daunting. But also because I’d been homeschooled, I had no idea what it was like to interact with other people socially.”

(..) But Sprouse isn’t in a hurry to graduate from “Riverdale.” He says the show has given him a renewed appreciation for acting, one he couldn’t have when he was younger, because he was so focused on being his family’s breadwinner.

“I’m somewhat of a workaholic,” Sprouse says. “Maybe that’s my child-star brain, where I just can’t stop thinking about being a commodity.”

On the day of our set visit, the four “Riverdale” actors are shooting at a house on the outskirts of Vancouver that’s been converted into an ominous location. This episode, which will air in the fall, is a tribute to Luke Perry, who played Archie’s dad and died in March at the age of 52 from a stroke. Sprouse has talked about what Perry meant to him, and how his passing affected him deeply. Between takes, the actors are mostly quiet.

Sprouse says that these scenes — which involve Jughead helping Archie say goodbye to his father — have required some thought. “The important line we’ve all been trying to draw is how to separate, how we can portray real emotions, but in the eyes of the characters,” he says. “If I was making this an entire sob story about my relationship with Luke, it wouldn’t be a job well done. My job is to do it in the eyes of Jughead.” And he doesn’t think Perry would approve of tears. “Luke was the kind of guy who would not like people crying about him,” Sprouse says. “I hope this episode does him justice, but I think the way we lived with him does him justice as well.”

Dylan thinks that Cole could become “a great cinematographer or director.” When he’s not acting, Cole sidelines as a professional photographer, shooting spreads for magazines and fashion brands like Moncler, which sent him to Iceland for a campaign. “Most of the people that I speak to initially don’t know him from his acting,” says his photography agent, Glenn Wassall, who represents Annie Leibovitz. He describes Sprouse’s aesthetic as “fashion within landscape,” as in a portrait of a woman bundled in a glamorous coat against a backdrop of ice-covered mountains.

Cole could see himself working again with Dylan, who has also gone back to acting, with an indie film, “Tyger Tyger,” out next year. “We’ve talked about it,” Cole says, adding that it wouldn’t be a reboot or a reunion for Disney. “The whole kitschy twin thing, I don’t think that really sells anymore.” He explains what would convince them: “It’s about feeling passionate for acting again. If it’s a cool project, I don’t have a problem with that.”

Source: Variety

[mostlysignssomeportents]

After more than a decade, Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg's YA classics The Plane Janes are back!

[I adored Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg's YA graphic novels The Plain Janes and Janes in Love, which were the defining titles for the late, lamented Minx imprint from DC comics. A decade later, the creators have gotten the rights back and there's a new edition Little, Brown. We're honored to have an exclusive transcript of Cecil and Jim in conversation, discussing the origins of Plain Janes. Make no mistake: this reissue is amazing news, and Plain James is an underappreciated monster of a classic, finally getting another day in the spotlight. If you haven't read it, consider yourself lucky, because you're about to get another chance. -Cory]

Cecil to Jim: How interesting or difficult was it for you to go back to match a style from 11 years ago?

Jim: It was impossible!

When I started drawing Janes Attack Back, I was so anxious. You can’t unlearn how to ride a bike and a lot of my style from 11 years ago included my limitations as an artist. I hope I’m much better now than I was then. But when it comes to style, I just couldn’t quite do it the same. After a page or two, I stopped trying. I figured that as long as the character designs, grayscaling, and lettering were consistent that it would be a 90 percent match. Combined with the different ink colors, I think it flows pretty well. But it was definitely tough to figure out in the beginning.

It was interesting for me to revisit the original art and to get back into characters that I had spent so much time with, but that was over 10 years ago. It was a very strange feeling in my head. Nostalgic but also filtered through thousands of pages of progress since I drew the first two books. It was like studying a different artist, trying to get back to that style.

How much of an issue was this from a writing perspective?

Cecil: It was the same!

When we first did Plain Janes it was my first time moving from prose to comics and I remember that I called you up crying once because moving the story from panel to panel was so difficult to figure out at first. Comics is not prose! But now I have a better understanding of comics and I would write those books way differently now. So it was hard to go back to being more naive. But it was an interesting challenge for sure.

Cecil to Jim: We had sort of hammered out this story as a four book thing back in 200. For Janes Attack Back, we compressed. Is there anything that we left out that you kind of wish we’d been able to keep?

Jim: I’m very happy with how this turned out. I remember we planned to have the Janes all go their separate ways for the summer. I think you did a terrific job compressing that. We still see them do their own things and drift apart. I like these characters so our original plans were fun--seeing them on their own allowed a different side of them to emerge.

But I think the story works best in this final version. I don’t miss the longer solo adventures. Although I refer to the Janes as my X-Men, since they are a team, and team books often have spinoffs where characters have solo adventures. So maybe a longer solo adventure would be fun. I did draw quite a bit of Brain Jane at space camp many years ago! But overall, I say no. I’m so happy with this final story that I don’t regret anything we cut to make this final story! Who knows, we could always follow the Janes as they go off to different colleges and post high school adventures...

Cecil: I’m glad I have those Brain Jayne space camp pages. But yeah, I don’t miss their solo stuff. I’m glad that we just really follow Main Jane. But it’s interesting because I think that kind of goes with the question above. I think writing that whole Janes Go Summer was the book that I would never write now because I’ve learned that you can just go to the next best part and you don’t have to tell every part. Like moving time from panel to panel.

Cecil to Jim: What was the hardest thing to draw? And which art attack did you love the most?

Jim: Not exactly an art attack, but I think my favorite art thing was when Jane visits the museum in France and she appears in several paintings. That was fun to draw, but also it fit the story perfectly. As a cartoonist, that’s the best I can hope for--when the art gets to shine within the context of the story. That moment feels magical to me--in terms of both the story and the art.

Does the school dance count as an art attack? I like flowers so when the gang covered their dresses in flowers and Brain Jane hit them with a spotlight, that was something I enjoyed drawing.

Cars are hard to draw. Kissing is hard to draw. Crowds are tough. Perspective...I could go on and on!

Jim to Cecil: Craft--is there a difference between writing a novel and writing a graphic novel? If so, what are those differences?

Cecil: There are more words in prose. That seems obvious, but it’s a big deal because that’s what you paint your pictures with. So you can really dive into the minutiae of a moment but it’s very different than with comics where you dive into a moment because you are really dictating what you want the brain to pay attention to. And you have to really understand that each reader is going to have a wildly different understanding of what that picture should be. In comics, it’s right there. So you can be very specific and focused and the words are not really important. They are but I throw out a lot of them.

I think I over-write my script as a scaffolding for you, the artist, so you don’t have to do all the mental heavy lifting. But the best thing about comics is the throwing out of words. And silence. You can use words to describe silence but it’s still very busy and loud. But in a comic, a silent page or panel speaks for itself, and you can have a pause and rest that you can’t have in prose. I love writing both and that is why I really think that a story tells you how it best wants to be told. Because prose and comics have different gifts in terms of telling the tale.

Jim to Cecil: I sometimes describe The PLAIN Janes as my X-Men comic since it is a “team” book. So I’m curious if you have a favorite character in The PLAIN Janes?

Cecil: Oh! That’s so hard! I mean of course it is a team book and I love that you always referred to it as an X-men comic. They are superheroes in my mind; each overcoming things inside of them and bringing their own special skill to solve a problem.

But it’s too hard to pick which one I love! I mean, I identify with all of them for different reasons at different times. I guess that is what makes a good team. But I do have a soft spot for both Brain Jayne and Theater Jane. I think that they both have such distinct voices and points of view that they were fun foils to write for Main Jane.

Do you have a favorite?

Jim: I love Theater Jane’s exuberance! And of course there are things I love about all of them. Good job on giving them unique traits and personality. But I would say in the end, I enjoyed Payne. She was a foil and heel and that brought the best out of all of the Janes. She was like a mirror that forced the Janes, especially Main Jane to really think about her values and what she wanted to do in her art practice. We had talked about Payne for a decade. Seeing her in action and seeing Main Jane play off of her was the best. Plus her anger at the status quo is something I remember feeling as a teenager.

Jim to Cecil: Write what you know, right? With that in mind, what parts of The PLAIN Janes are closest to your own personal experiences/truth?

Cecil: Yes. Although the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, of course it is put through the ringer and shook up to come out as something very different. Like Main Jane, I was in a bombing when I was young. The IRA blew up a stage where the British Army band was playing. I was in the most damaged house, a beer museum. A window shattered above me and it was very scary. (I write about this incident in my memoir, Girl on Film).

I remember the next day, my family took me to an art museum and there were huge skylight windows everywhere, and I thought they would explode down on me. So I kept focusing on the art. And so while no one was injured in the attack that I was in, and I did not find a John Doe, I certainly found solace in art when I most needed it.

Another thing that came from my life directly was just engaging in street art and loving conceptual art. How that kind of art can say so much and be so profound. I’ve talked before about walking through subway stations filled with Keith Haring chalk drawings in the 80s and that being so inspiring. That idea of art being everywhere and being a delightful surprise. The core truth of The PLAIN Janes is that ART SAVES. That is probably the most true thing I believe.

How about you? Was there anything that you brought to the book that was close to your experience or truth?

Cecil: I was an art kid in school, so that made sense. And also the feeling, like I was an outsider and wanted more than school and a small town could provide. Some of the art class stuff brings back memories. The biggest thing for me were the friendships. The way the Janes pulled for each other and supported each other as they followed their own interests. I’ve been lucky to have that kind of support in my life. Some of those moments felt true to my own experience. And yes, I believe art saved my life--whether it was the stories and art I consumed or made. It had a huge impact on my life and helped through good and bad times.

The Plain Janes [Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg/Little Brown]

https://boingboing.net/2020/01/07/janes-janes-janes.html

[lia-nikiforov]

Fall Anime 2018 Watchlist

We’re about halfway into the season so this is probably kinda pointless by now, but here’s a quick rundown of the stuff I’m watching this season.

Dropped

Jingaisan no Yome: This is a 3 minute show and I won’t spend longer than that writing about it (I’m timing myself). I didn’t know it was a short going in. I’m not really into shorts, Saiki kun being the only exception and the story was less MahoYome and more... i don’t even have an apt comparison, it just was maybe more serious about the “marriage” thing than something with a giant floofball character should be.

Tokyo Ghoul: Re 2: It’s simple. I watched episode 1 and realized I had no fucking clue of how any of this related to the ending of the first season, no idea of who half the characters were and where did they allegiances lie and what is Kaneki even trying to do. Although not loyal to the manga, the first two seasons of Tokyo Ghoul had a story that could be followed and made sense, this, however, is just jumping over plot points with no rhyme or reason and there’s nothing but confusion.

Bloom Into You: There’s nothing actually wrong with this show and I was kind of looking forward to a yuri romance that wasn’t rapey or incesty bullshit, but something about this one just didn’t click with me. Like Touko fell in love with Yuu too quickly, and given Yuu’s ace/aro identity, it would feel weird for her to do a 180 and suddenly fall in love with Touko. I kind of want more fun and emotions in my romance stories and this one didn’t have much of either.

Chopping Block

Given a few things the past two weeks that didn’t go according to plan, I fell behind on my anime watching after keeping it in control for the first third of the season and i’m quite annoyed. And because of this, and my upcoming research trip to Japan at the end of the month, I might end up having to drop a couple of series.

Bakumatsu: Objectively speaking, this show is really bad. The production values are poop, the story is a wacky mess that takes itself a bit too seriously and the characters are flat and uninteresting, the villain is egregiously boring. This show also has Matsuo Basho as a secret tive traveling ninja, and that puts me at quite the predicament. I want to see more of this utterly bonkers historical reinterpretation, but boy do I wish they could make it more exciting.

SAO Alicization:  The only reason I, a notorious SAO hater, is watching SAO is because I hate myself. With that out of the way, boy is this SAO boring. We’re four episodes in and the only thing that’s happened is they cut an old tree because nothing can stop Kirito and his new friend, Yellow Kirito. This show needs to start getting offensive and/or stupid soon or i’ll die of boredom.

Karakuri Circus: I hear this one’s from the same mangaka as UshiTora? I love UshiTora and I can see the resemblance between giant guy whose name I can’t remember and Tora. His character and his schtick are so far the most interesting thing to me, with the kuudere puppet girl whose main purpose seems to be to get paired with him  having yet to make an impression on me. I’m also still not really certain what the overall plot is. I do love stories about found families, so hopefully I can stick with this one

Hinomaru Sumou: If my watching schedule were normal, this wouldn’t be in this section. Whilst not the best sports show of the season, and chock full of some of the most eyeroll worthy aspects of sports shonen *cough cough* toxic *cough cough* masculinity *cough cough*, Hinomaru Sumou has the fire and passion for an underrepresented sport that’s usually enough to hook me. I just don’t have time, and if push comes to shove, I’ll prioritize other shows over this one.

Banana Fish: Yo, okay, before you lynch me for being a hater or whatever, let me tell you I have zero issues with Banana Fish. I don’t hate it, I don’t think it’s Bad Representation(TM) whatever the fuck that means, I definitely don’t think it’s fujobait or just another BL. It just doesn’t make me happy. This probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I’ve never been a fan of tragedy. It’s also part of the reason I’m dropping Tokyo Ghoul. I don’t like hopeless stories and tragic romances. I’m somewhat spoiled on how the manga ends and each time I find myself less and less inclined to watch the newer episodes because the descent into misery is just not enjoyable for me. It’s not the show’s wrongdoing, it’s just not the kind of story I like. I’m probably too far along to drop it at this point, but also I kinda wish I could drop it because I get so little joy out of it. Also, my main hook is of course Ash and Eiji’s relationship, but 15 episodes in (I’m behind, as is evident) the time they’ve spent together is so minimal, I can’t even appreciate that a whole lot.

I guess I’m watching this? 

Dakaichi: Me: Man I really want a yuri anime without rapey bullshit. Also me: watches BL anime with rapey bullshit. I have literally no excuse. I think the basic setup lends itself really well for a romcom and Takato is a very likable character, it’s a shame it’s the same old rapey bullshit. In my defense, episode two was really sweet and I’ve been hoping for more stories along that line, even though the show has failed to deliver them since. Episode 5 may have pushed the line even beyond what I’m willing to tolerate, but it’s unclear. I might end up unexpectedly dropping it after episode 6. HEY JAPAN WOULD IT KILL YOU TO MAKE A BL ANIME THAT WASN’T RAPEY BULLSHIT? JUST ONE?

(honestly, Takato deserves better)

wao episode 6 was maji disgusting i might drop it after all

Fairy Tail Final: I just want closure man. This adaptation retains all the worst attributes of the previous season, terribly slow pacing (what for?! the manga is over!!) minimal animation, recapalooza. The color palette is slightly brighter than before, which I appreciate. Fairy Tail’s last arc wasn’t as bad as Bleach’s, but it was still pretty bad in the manga; still I hope seeing it animated will make it feel less messy and slightly more coherent. The FT anime has also in the past filled in some blanks that existed in the manga, so hopefully they can make the best out of it here.

(Erza is still my wife)

Tsurune: No, this isn’t the best sports anime of this season either. Although that’s hard to judge given how it’s barely on its second (third, i’m behind) episode. Technically, I feel more compelled to drop this than Hinomaru, but also I want to give it a fair chance. That said, the first episode was.... profoundly underwhelming and borderline upsetting, with how everyone put Minato on the spot in spite of his having an actual psychologic condition that drove him away from kyudo. I’m all in for stories about growing and surpassing your own obstacles, but I hope they go about it in a less mean-spirited way. Also, the characters feel pretty shallow so far. I’m not even gonna pretend the main reason I want to keep watching isn’t gorgeous guy with the ponytail-san, because I’m now old enough that I immediately gravitate towards the senseis rather than the teenage protags.

i am so weak to long hair  _(:3」∠)_

welp he cut his hair right next episode, thanks for nothing kyoani

In spite of everything, Anime is, in fact, Good

Golden Kamuy: Like with many split-cours, there’s nothing much to say beyond “if you liked the first one, you’ll like this one”. The production values are still tragic, but I think the pace has improved, and the dynamics between the different factions are so fluid and constantly changing they make the story very enthralling. It also continues to have the Best Reaction Faces.

Gakuen Basara: Listen, listen. You all knew I was gonna watch this. And I love Basara so much I still think this show is a masterpiece even when it’s objectively atrocious. I do not reccommend it to anyone who isn’t already a fan (and I mean a blind fan willing to consume anything from this franchise, even in its cheapest, dumbest, worst looking incarnation). That said there are a couple of interesting things, namely the power rivalry between Hideyoshi and Nobunaga, this never happened in the original series because Nobunaga died before Hideyoshi was introduced. Anyway, just shoot that Masamune x Kojuuro fanservice straight into my veins please and thank you

Zombieland Saga: One of the two biggest surprises of the season and one that was nowhere near my radar. An original production by studio MAPPA with perhaps the wildest premiere episode of the season that’s somehow making me like idols?! It’s also giving us the most Miyano Mamoru has ever Miyano’d and it’s amazing and histerical. The characters are also very charming, specially bikegang leader Saki and the always legendary Yamada Tae and the show isn’t scared of letting its cute idols get gross and silly and dirty. There’s also a feeling of mystery that I find very appealing. Definitely didn’t expect this one to be one of the highlights of my week, yet here we are.

SSSS Gridman: Just when I’d vowed a giant fuck you to Studio Trigger, in they come with one of their most quiet productions yet, with characters that speak their lines in soft, leveled voices, tragedies that feel palpable, emotionally climactic battle scenes and a sense of tension and mystery that makes it impossible to take your eyes away. It does have the caveat of oversexualizing the female characters, specially the villain, and not giving Rikka virtually anything to do, but past that, it’s been a very pleasant and intriguing surprise. Also of note, I have no background knowledge of the Gridman tokusatsu series but that hasn’t really been an impediment to enjoy this series.

Double Decker: Doug & Kirill: A spinoff to the 2010 superhero hit Tiger & Bunny, we have a less superpowery buddycop comedy with a cool and diverse cast, whose main character wants to BRING DOWN CAPITALISM, okay, put an end to economic inequality and classes, but that’s basically the same thing. The show is pretty far along because it premiered early for some reason, and so far it’s been mostly one-shot stories very thinly connected to the distribution of the illegal drug Anthem, with our main plot having only come up two episodes ago with the fantastic Zabel and Bamboo Man twist. The dynamics between the main duo are great and Kirill is a riot as a protagonist. 

Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteiru: Or Run with the Wind. Now THIS is the best sports anime of the season. Brought to you by the studio behind Haikyu, based on a novel by the author of Fune wo Amu. Firstly I love that it’s set in university, because it gives the cast a lot more variety in their interests, ages and personalities, their goals, their baggage, and it makes the process of bringing this team of misfits together even more interesting to watch. The characters feel very human in the way they speak, their worries, their relationships, their actions. The show’s done a great job so far in building the characters and making them worth cheering for. Also Ouji is my spirit animal. If you ever wanted a show to motivate you into running, this is what you’ve been waiting for! Another great surprise of this season for sure.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo: Finally part Five is here! And in it we get perhaps the most interesting Jojo protagonist right off the bat, with troubled Giorno and his difficult past and his wonderful Stand ability. His new set of allies is also quite eccentric and interesting and every scene and dialogue has that special Jojo flavor of crazy and ridiculous and always a load of fun. This one will have 39 episodes, so we’re barely getting started and I’m already loving all of it.

Thunderbolt Fantasy 2: Urobutcher’s favorite puppets are back with a vengeance! Every bit as fun, insane, cool and over-the-top as the first season, with the added value of the rapport between the characters, evidenced by how brilliant the few scenes in which Shang and Lin share the screen are. With a brand new story that expands the world of our favorite puppets, and even more new gorgeous puppets added to the mix to make Shang’s life a mess, this show is definitely my favorite this season and potentially of the year. Let Urobuchi keep doing puppets for as long as he wants!

ooof i’m finally done. It’s midseason so probably nobody cares but do hmu with your favorite shows of the season and if there’s anything worth hatewatching that I may be missing ;)

[jennaschererwrites]

How TV Is Putting the ‘B’ in LGBTQ — And Why It Matters – Rolling Stone

“Mom. Dad. I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I do. I might get married to a man, like you so clearly want. And I might not. Because this is not a phase, and I need you to understand that. I’m bisexual.” That’s Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s resident no-nonsense detective, pouring out her heart to her parents in the show’s landmark 100th episode. To which her dad (Danny Trejo) stoically replies, “There’s no such thing as being bisexual.”

Beatriz, who is bisexual herself, wrote in GQ: “When does it end? When do you get to stop telling people you’re bi? When do people start to grasp that this is your truth? …When do you start seeing yourself reflected positively in all (hey, even any?) of the media you consume?”

There’s a real cognitive dissonance to identity erasure. You can be standing right in front of someone telling them exactly who you are, and they can just look right through you, and intone, like a Westworld robot, “That doesn’t look like anything to me.” Nevertheless, it’s a daily reality for LGBTQ folks, and bi- and pansexual people in particular. (The term pansexuality, which has come into wider use in recent years, intends to explicitly refer to attraction to all genders, not just cisgender people — or, as self-identified pansexual Janelle Monae put it in Rolling Stone last year: “I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.” However, many in the queer community define bisexuality the same way. You can read more about that conversation here.) Until recently, sexual and gender identities that existed outside the binary have been anathema to mainstream culture — and often, even, to more traditionalist branches of gay culture.

For a long time, people who identify as bisexual or pansexual didn’t have a whole lot of visible role models — particularly on television. But as our understanding of the LGBTQ spectrum has become more diverse and nuanced over time, there’s been a blossoming of bi- and pansexual representation. In the past few years, characters such as Rosa on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, David Rose on Schitt’s Creek, Darryl Whitefeather on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Leila on The Bisexual — to name just a few — have been at the forefront of a bi- and pansexual renaissance on the small screen.

But it wasn’t always this way. Even after television began to centralize gay characters and their experiences — on shows like Ellen, Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, and The L Word — the “B” in that alphabet soup fell to the wayside. Bisexuality was seldom mentioned at all, and if it was, it existed chiefly as a punch line — an easy ba-dum-CHING moment for savvy characters to nose out someone who wasn’t as in the know as they were. On Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw called bisexuality “a layover on the way to Gaytown”; and on 30 Rock, Liz Lemon dismissed it as “something they invented in the Nineties to sell hair products.”

Even some of the earliest shows to break ground for queer representation didn’t factor bisexuality or pansexuality into their worldviews. The designation basically didn’t exist in the gay-straight binary world of Queer as Folk, and was largely seen as a phase on The L Word. Buffy the Vampire Slayer gave many TV viewers their first-ever depiction of a same-sex relationship in 1999 with the Wicca-fueled romance between Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara Maclay (Amber Benson), but the show too neatly glossed over Willow’s years-long relationship with her boyfriend Oz (Seth Green) as a fleeting step on the way to full-time lesbianism. Or, as Willow succinctly put it in Season 5: “Hello! Gay now!”

Characters who labeled themselves as bisexual were considered to be confused at best and dangerously promiscuous at worst. On The O.C. in 2004, Olivia Wilde’s bi bartender character, Alex Kelly, appeared as a destabilizing force of chaos in the lives of the show’s otherwise straight characters. On a 2011 episode of Glee — a show which, at the time, was breaking ground for gay representation on TV — Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) savagely shot down his crush, Blaine (Darren Criss), when Blaine mentioned that he might be bi: “‘Bisexual’ is a term that gay guys in high school use when they want to hold hands with girls and feel like a normal person for a change.” By the end of the episode, Blaine assures Kurt that he is, don’t you worry, “100 percent gay.”

One of TV’s first enduring portrayals of nonbinary sexual attraction came with the entrance of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) into Russell T. Davies’ 2005 Doctor Who reboot. (Davies also created the original U.K. Queer as Folk.) The time traveler swashbuckled into the series to equal-opportunity flirt with the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and his companion Rose (Billie Piper), because, as the Doctor explains, “He’s a 51st-century guy. He’s just a bit more flexible.” Captain Jack went on to feature in his own spinoff series, Torchwood.

Then came Callie Torres on Grey’s Anatomy. Portrayed by Sara Ramirez (who came out as bisexual herself in 2016), Callie had a seasons-long arc that spanned from her burgeoning realization of her bisexuality in 2008 to her complex relationships with both men and women over the years. Callie’s drunken rant from the 11th season would make a great T-shirt to wear to Pride if it weren’t quite so long: “So I’m bisexual! So what? It’s a thing, and it’s real. I mean, it’s called LGBTQ for a reason. There’s a B in there, and it doesn’t mean ‘badass.’ OK, it kind of does. But it also means bi!”

Once the 2010s rolled around, representation began to pick up steam. True Blood’s Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley), The Legend of Korra’s titular hero (Janet Varney), Game of Thrones’ Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal), The Good Wife’s Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), and Peep Show’s Jeremy Usborne (Robert Webb) all were portrayed in romantic relationships on both sides of the binary. But these characters’ sexual orientations were seldom given a name.

In some cases, this felt quietly revolutionary. On post-apocalyptic CW drama The 100, for example, set a century and change in the future, protagonist Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) is romantically involved with both men and women with no mention of labels. Because on the show’s nuclear fallout-ravaged earth, humankind has presumably gotten over that particular prejudice. On other series, however, not putting a name to the thing seems like a calculated choice. Take Orange Is the New Black, a show that has broken a lot of barriers but steadfastly avoids using the B-word to describe its clearly bisexual central character, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling).

A few years ago, though, tectonic plates began to shift. On Pop TV sitcom Schitt’s Creek, David Rose (co-creator Dan Levy) explained his pansexuality to his friend via a now-famous metaphor: “I do drink red wine. But I also drink white wine. And I’ve been known to sample the occasional rosé. And a couple summers back, I tried a merlot that used to be a chardonnay.”

Bisexuality got its literal anthem on the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with “Gettin’ Bi,” a jubilant Huey Lewis & the News-style number sung by Darryl Whitefeather (Pete Gardner) about waking up to his latent bisexuality as a middle-aged man. “It’s not a phase, I’m not confused / Not indecisive, I don’t have the gotta-choose blues,” he croons, dancing in front of the bi pride flag. Darryl’s exuberant ode to his identity felt like someone levering a window open in a musty room — a celebration of something that, less than a decade before, TV was loathe to acknowledge.

For Hulu and the U.K.’s Channel 4, Desiree Akhavan (Appropriate Behavior, The Miseducation of Cameron Post) cowrote, directed, and starred in a series picking apart the subject, titled, aptly, The Bisexual. In it, Akhavan portrays Leila, a thirtysomething woman coming to a dawning awareness of her bisexuality after having identified as a lesbian for most of her life. The show navigates the tricky territory that bisexuals inhabit when they’re misunderstood — or sometimes outright rejected — by queer and straight communities alike. Akhavan, a bisexual Iranian-American woman, has said the idea for the show came to her after repeatedly hearing herself described as a “bisexual director.” She told Vanity Fair that “there was something about being called a bisexual publicly — even though it’s 100 percent true! — that felt totally humiliating and in bad taste, and I wanted to understand why.”

As Leila shuttles her way between sexual partners and fields tone-deaf comments from friends on both sides of the binary, The Bisexual offers no easy answers. But it also never flinches. “I’m pretty sure bisexuality is a myth. That it was created by ad executives to sell flavored vodka,” Leila remarks in the first episode, unconsciously echoing 30 Rock’s throwaway joke from a decade ago. Except this time, the stakes — and the bi person in question — are real.

The next generation — younger millennials and Gen Z kids in particular — tends to view sexualityas a spectrum rather than the distance between two poles. Akhavan neatly encompasses this evolution in an exchange between Leila and her male roommate’s twentysomething girlfriend, Francisca (Michèlle Guillot), who questions why Leila is so terrified to tell anyone that she’s started sleeping with men as well as women. When Leila tells her it’s complicated because it’s “a gay thing,” Francisca responds, “So? I’m queer.” “Everyone under 25 thinks they’re queer,” says Leila. “And you think they’re wrong?” Francisca counters. Leila considers this for a moment before answering, “No.”

Representation matters, and here’s why: Seeing who you are reflected in the entertainment you take in gives you not just validation for your identity, but also a potential road map for how you might navigate the world. For many years, bi- and pansexuals existed in a liminal place where we were often dismissed outright by not just the straight community — but the queer community as well. Onscreen representation is not just a matter of showing us something we’ve never seen before, but of making the invisible visible, of drawing a new picture over what was once erased.

[scifimagpie]

Game of ZZZs: How Long Stories Ruin Everything

I've been putting this one off because I was kind of busy writing an 18-part series deep-dive involving journalism and undercover work, but since Lindsay Ellis has released her video essay conclusion, I have finally put my thoughts in order.

So, today we're going to talk about something contentious. I have no issue with books being long, or shows being long, or movies being long - but at the same time, I do. And yes, I know some people adore epic scale stories for their own sake.  Not everything needs to be a thousand-page-long ten-book series with three spinoffs and prequels. Oh, sure, market forces and advertising play a role in this, but creators still participate in it.

But sometimes a story isn't long because it needs to be, it's long because the writer thinks it HAS to be. From my personal experience as a reader and writer, and especially as an editor, I've come to some conclusions about how stories are artificially extended. And in a world of global warming and climate change, shouldn't we be fighting waste everywhere, on every level?

Now, a certain show ended its eighth season not long ago; Big Bang Theory came to a whimper of a close after ten seasons, and Veep - which I only heard about towards its grand finale, alas - has also finished up a seven-season run. 

I'm not saying all of these shows participated in various errors. I'm saying pretty much every show, book, and movie series will partake in them eventually. So how do we do better than the bad ones, and how do we echo or even improve on the good ones? We can't fight what we don't know about, so let's get into it.

Spacing

Everything happens, but not right away. No, the important events are distanced from each other, to the point where there are long stretches of dead zones or deserts of nonsense in between them. I'm not talking about character interactions as nonsense here, but unfortunately, a lot of authors seem to think that they count, and that human drama isn't interesting enough to be a climax. Older fantasy works--cough, cough, Wheel of Time--can be particularly bad about this. The problem with spacing out events and using human drama between the big McGuffin/army-driven fights is that readers get frustrated by the human drama rather than finding it rewarding. Or worse, they find the army and McGuffiny-crap a distraction from the human stuff.

Padding

I know about this issue from the inside. Bad Things that Happen to Girls started off as a book called Foreverland, and then was untitled for a while before getting its current name. It went through two full rewrites before arriving at its current published form. When I wrote it at first, I thought it absolutely had to be a long novel, with lots of details about the girls' lives and a slow-burn breakdown, then an extended road trip in the middle and a bunch of scenes about their experiences in university.

I didn't realise I was padding it, but when I experimented with radically decreasing the timeline of events, I had a revelation. I didn't need years and paragraphs on paragraphs chronicling their lived experiences, full of pointless dialogue and meandering descriptions. All I had to do were give little samples and important moments, and that would get the idea across. Sometimes a flash reveals more than a long exposure shot, to put it in cinematic terms.

Cramming

EVERYTHING MUST HAPPEN AND IT MUST HAPPEN NOW AND HERE ARE TEN NEW CHARACTERS AND A NEW SUBPLOT AND HOLY CRAP WE MUST MAKE UP FOR WRAPPING UP TOO MANY THREADS AT THE END OF THE LAST SEASON OOPS.

The caps lock here was entirely necessary and appropriate, because with cramming, the story often feels like it's shouting at you. (Probably in German.)

The biggest problem with cramming, too, is that it requires glossing over things. If readers get interested by a small detail, they might end up screaming, "wait, go back!" long after the author's moved to another topic, or three other topics. Finding the balance between this and padding can be tricky, but the best solution I can offer is "external perspective." Get someone to read over your work, and when they lose attention, that's time to cut. It's a trick I often use with editing manuscripts - the minute my attention wavers, I mark it, just in case.

Crashing

this tends to happen to shows that have lived past their expiry date. Supernatural is a fine example of this. This is where "shark-jumping" tends to come into play; characters do things that go against their nature and development for the sake of jump-starting a narrative or adding some excitement.

Oh, the shark-jump. That's worth a mini-section of its own. Honestly, most shows either end or jump the shark in order to keep going. There's no such thing as a perfect writer or a perfect story; mostly because these things are subjective, but partly because keeping all the balls in the air for a story is just plain hard. 

Endless escalation 

Science fiction authors are prone to this, and so are epic fantasy authors. In an effort to keep reader interest, stakes rise and rise and rise, and then lose sight of the human scale of things. The problem is that stories are made of people, and if you forget about the people, you don't have a story anymore.

As with Cramming, this can lead to glossing over interesting bits as well. The full impact of a big change or shift isn't always felt if we rush to the next big, shiny thing. In real life, though, long-reaching consequences of events can have ripples for decades or even centuries. The Magna Carta was a big deal when it was signed; the effects of the Spanish Inquisitions, the Crusades, the unification of China (which happened more than once), the Viking cultural expansions, and the colonization of North America (by which I mean the land-theft and genocide of Indigenous peoples) are all still talked about to this day. 

Bad things that happen to characters need room to resonate. PTSD and trauma are not only interesting, they're natural, and even when people mostly recover from them, they leave a lasting impact. Let your characters get wrecked by something. Have characters reference things that have happened. Let characters get fatigued, collapse, and have to fix themselves. It'll not only demonstrate the actual impact of your events, it'll keep you from having to throw together another big, shiny thing to make the story more exciting (looking at you, Avengers series and mainstream comics). 

So, what tends to actually cause these writing techniques behind the scenes? 

Burnout or boredom

One of the most difficult and important factors - one which arguably contributed to the absolute mess that was the GoT finale - is just getting tired of your own damn story. When this happens, authors and creators will end up trying to revamp something with weird new twists partly to keep themselves interested, might engineer an awkward left turn to justify a foreshadowed plot element, or might just do a half-hearted wrap-up of the previous plot elements.

Here's the thing - audiences don't always consume stories at the same rate as authors write them. Many times, readers or viewers will stumble on a work and binge it in a relatively short time, so what took years for the writer will take months, at most, for the consumer. This can make tonal clashes very jarring. 

In other cases, an author will abandon a series due to writer's block or life events - a sin of which I, cough, am guilty - and then try to pick it up later. This will still impact the story, often negatively. Maybe one has just gotten well and thoroughly tired of the subject matter, or it's been done to death in the popular sphere. It doesn't really matter - either way, authors are subject to the world around them, and sometimes, the only way to deal with burnout or boredom is rotating to another project. That's fine - the only issue comes when the first project is completely abandoned, and languishes, unfinished. 

Societal changes and personal development 

I'm combining these two because the world around us affects us, and sometimes, we even affect the world. If you'd told me that Donald Trump and Boris Johnson were going to rise to power during my lifetime, I wouldn't've believed you. To many, it sounded like a bad dream. Well, here we are, and the long night has not yet come to an end. Using art to cope with dark times and critique them is a long-celebrated human trend, and there's no reason to stop now. Sure, we might fear our work aging poorly - but stories that try to be timeless always age anyhow, and an earnest time capsule often lasts longer, because it can tap into the problems of an era (which echo forward, as discussed in the section above).

If you'd told me that I'd be able to deal with my family issues in a more satisfactory way, I might have believed you - but realising the impact of that on my writing both as a Game Master and an author is another matter. However, the additional perspective and maturity of healing has, rather than distancing me from characters' struggles, provided additional objectivity and even empathy. Fixing ourselves and healing doesn't "take away our artistic magic" - far from it. If anything, getting over issues unlocks the ability to deal with them in fiction much more effectively. 

Disillusionment and insecurity

These are nasty brain demons, all right - perhaps one has taken a look at the broad span of one's work, compared it to one's goals, and feels they are just - well, left wanting. Every creator struggles with this at some point, whether crafting a story for a D&D party or for hundreds of readers or thousands of viewers. The only way to deal with it is with external perspective and turning to objective sources of both external critique and validation. 

After all, we tell ourselves things that may or may not be true all the time, and measuring them against the perceptions of the audience can drastically correct things. Your readers might just be happy to see the characters get married - never mind that it took you five years to write about them getting together. And even if they don't like something specific or complain about it or nitpick - hey, they're coming back. You compelled them. Even if the readers, say, abandon their fandom and proclaim it a trashfire - they're still paying for or giving your story attention and money. And ultimately, from a marketing perspective attention is always neutral or positive - even if that attention is controversial - because it increases profits. 

How do we even begin to fix all this? 

But.  All hope is not lost.

By acknowledging burnout, boredom, disillusionment, insecurity, personal development, and societal change - the factors which often lead to writing shortcuts detailed in the previous section - we can compensate for the natural creative struggles by accepting and anticipating them. 

Try to write books in a series in a continuous stretch when possible, making it harder to lose track of the tone or style or character journeys. Plot things out, and get yourself a hands-on editor and/or extremely trustworthy beta-readers. And forgive yourself for screwing up - then get back to writing. At least, that's what I'm doing! 

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people's manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * 

* Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

[whatimconsuming]

Q&A: Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud on how the company is helping large and small companies use video, its growing OTT business of making TV apps for creators, and more

At the end of 2020, Vimeo had over 1.5 million paying customers generating $83.8 million in revenue in Q4 alone. In fact, Vimeo grew so fast in 2020 that it accidentally turned a profit in the third quarter even as the company was trying to reinvest in growth. Later this year, Vimeo is going to go public in a spinoff from its parent company IAC. That’s a remarkable success story — all because Anjali decided to stop competing with YouTube, Netflix, and other consumer video companies and find a better market to play in.” Vimeo is a 16-year-old video platform, but we’re really three, four years into a very different strategy. And I became CEO to pivot the company, as you said, away from being a viewing destination or media platform, like Facebook or YouTube or Netflix, and really into a video SaaS or software company for businesses. Much more like a Slack or a Dropbox model, but for video. Fundamentally, YouTube is still focused on entertainment, and their business model is advertising. So YouTube wants to attract creators and content to their platform. They want to keep eyeballs and time on site up on their platform because that’s how they make money. Vimeo has actually never made money from advertising. We’ve always been a subscription product. And specifically, we monetize through the actual creators accessing our tools. And so that’s a very different model. And what it means is that we are not focused on eyeballs and content on Vimeo, and we actually don’t want Vimeo to be an entertainment destination where people come. We want to help businesses and professionals create video content and get it wherever their audience or their customers or their employees are. And that actually, most times, that means it’s off Vimeo. And we actually build tools to help you put your content on Facebook and YouTube, and in your secure company portal and on your website and on your blog. And that’s actually how we are successful, and then thereby how we make money. So to me, our goal isn’t to entertain and to then monetize through entertainment. Our goal is to help any business or professional or organization, use video the same way that they use text or image as a powerful way to communicate. ”We provide a tool set that allows any creator to stand up their own Netflix-like service. They own the brand. They can stand up their own apps, Amazon, Roku, iOS, websites. They can charge whatever they want. They own the customer. They own the email, they own the relationship. And basically, what a lot of YouTube creators are doing is, they reach a certain amount of size and they’re like, “Wow, I can make way more money if I get a subset of my followers on YouTube to actually come and subscribe to my own channel and pay me directly, I can make more money than just purely on an ad model basis.” And so that’s a great example. That product’s called our Vimeo OTT product. It’s on fire right now. It’s growing incredibly fast. And we’re seeing so many creators and brands, everybody from like the yoga instructor to the church starting to do this, and I think that’s awesome.That’s a way you can support creators, put more money in their pockets, help them take their brand and the following they built on YouTube, and turn it into a thriving, sustainable business, but that doesn’t require Vimeo to become a social media platform, which we have no interest in doing.

[darrenfranich]

RIP, Star Wars

Of course Star Wars isn’t dead, you say, it’s going to live forever, didn’t you read that Wired story? But, counterargument: Something can be dead and still be here. Peter Cushing died in 1994, and he was in as many films last year as Rachel McAdams. Alec Guinness died in 2000, but if you ask people "who is Obi-Wan Kenobi in real life,” I bet the majority of people over 22 won’t say “Ewan McGregor.” Jesus, look how long ago Jesus died, how many times you think he came up in conversation today? The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past. But that doesn’t mean it’s the future.

A lot of people think Star Wars is still alive, that this franchise still has a pulse. Look at The Force Awakens, all those young people swinging lightsabers, wow a desert planet AND an ice planet AND a forest planet, two billion dollars! Look at Rogue One, haha that droid was funny, one billion dollars! A new trilogy! A Han Solo trilogy! Bounty hunter spinoff! Trevorrow! Trevorrow!

Message to everyone who said they loved Rogue One: You can never complain again about...

....Hollywood endlessly developing franchises, remakes and reboots and sequels and spinoffs, take that complaint out of your arsenal, you saw Rogue One so you gave them the ammunition...

...the Hollywood studios’ utter disrespect for filmmakers as anything but traffic-cop content creators...

...young filmmakers’ utter lack of interest in any human behavior not previously observed in the fantasy films they enjoyed when they were children, why develop your dream project for seven years, your pal Colin got all the money for Jurassic Park 4 and Star Wars 9...

...modern fantasy’s dedication to the Chosen One narrative, yes Jyn was a Chosen One even if she wasn’t a Jedi, her dad was SO IMPORTANT and her foster dad was SO IMPORTANT and she inspired the Rebellion to become a Rebellion, if you think Rogue One is about “normal people” go watch an actual movie about normal people sometime, go watch I, Daniel Blake, and if you don’t want to see I, Daniel Blake that’s fine, but consider the possibility that you know very little about real people and movies...

...actors’ inability to find a good movie to demonstrate their talents because they’re too busy chasing relevancy convincing themselves there is some honor in spitshining greenscreen melodrama, did you see fucking see Boyega in Attack the Block, god damn that is a fucking star, how much of this next decade will be Star Wars and Pacific Rim and surely someone on his team would love to fit in one more, look at Jennifer Lawrence, she just signed up for another X-Men even though she stopped caring halfway through First Class, “But Jennifer” her people said, “Passengers, Jennifer, Passengers,” hey for real no judgements and I like Pacific Rim, and I believe in anything sight unseen, I believe in Pacific Rim 2, I mean look at Christian he’s great and he did Batman and maybe this is my Batman is the rallying cry of every actor who does these movies, nobody ever dares to consider this is their Terminator Salvation, now go back and watch Terminator Salvation and marvel at how similar it is to Rogue One, it might as well be Rogue One, fucking Terminator fucking Salvation even did the whole digital-actor thing six years early and it actually looked better because the Terminator isn’t supposed to be a person, but people used to care when humans didn’t look like humans..

....and you can’t complain about the fact that Disney just fired the first good Star Wars directors since Irvin Kershner.

You can’t complain about any of this, because it’s your fault. It’s my fault. It’s us, the people who see these movies. I didn’t like Rogue One, but I saw it, god damn me. This thing I’m writing is whose fault it is.

No, this wasn’t LucasFilm’s fault, although of course LucasFilm is just another lame Silicon Valley company pretending to explore bold new ground while actually just maintaining their consumer base with a religious dedication to the sacred trademarked IP. And of course LucasFilm is no better than any Hollywood studio, sorry George, we all know Hollywood can be awful place but the studios you despised didn’t just make Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and now all the studios have become just like you, all they want is their own Star Wars, look in the mirror, see the face behind Darth Vader’s decapitated helmet, recognize yourself, time to build your museum in Los Angeles, see if you can defeat history by writing your own, 50 miles northwest and 40 miles southeast of your museum the Kathy Kennedys of Reagan and Nixon are trying to do the same thing.

And this isn’t Disney’s fault, because of course Disney doesn’t care about filmmakers. When has Disney ever cared about filmmakers? Why would you ever think that? Have you seen Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s movies, all that playful deconstruction? What makes you think Disney fucking wants to be deconstructed? Remember when Shrek came out and the nice twist at the end was that the beauty became a beast because actually LOOKS DON’T MATTER? Remember 17 years after Shrek when Disney released yet another movie about a beast who becomes a cute doofus because sure looks don’t matter but also HUBBA HUBBA? Quick, guess which made more, Shrek or Beauty and the Beast Except Now Nobody Can Sing? Disney is an engorged capitalist carcharodonic fun-monster, it moves ever onward devouring childhood and recycling its glittering defecation into some untold generation’s primal dreams, Disneyland’s great, I love it, but it’s not what you’d call a place that is open to bold new ideas, they just replaced the Twilight Zone ride with a Guardians of the Galaxy ride, I hear there was a controversy about that, either the term “controversy” has lost all meaning or nothing matters the way it’s supposed to.

What an age we live in. Directors are fired midway through production of their movie, and the charge is serious creative differences between the filmmakers and the producers and the studio. Wow, this is some serious Easy Riders Raging Bulls shit! Man, what were they working on? A bold political statement about our tattered society? A scathing dark comedy guaranteed to outrage everyone and thrill future generations? A boundary-bursting romance that promises to break down our preconceived notions of sexuality? A wild provocation from a fiercely independent creative spirit? What was this film that was too dangerous to be made, your grandchildren will ask you. Was that your generation’s Brazil? Your generation’s Dr. Strangelove? Another Brokeback Mountain? Something that can measure up to the sheer explosive power to Wertmuller’s Swept Away? WHAT WAS THIS WORK OF RADICAL CINEMA your granchildren will ask WHAT WAS IT THAT OFFENDED THE GATEKEEPERS SO?  

...it was tenth film in a franchise, or eleventh or thirteenth depending on if you count the animated film and the Ewok movies.

And it was a prequel about the most popular character in the franchise.

This is what we have creative differences about now. “Is the Han Solo movie going to be too funny????” I guess, or maybe “Is the Han Solo movie going to match up to Rogue One?”

Rogue One, LOL. They pushed out that director after production and nobody cared. They spent half the movie flying random places with random people for no motivation besides SAVE THE UNIVERSE and MY DAD!!!! and nobody cared. They spent the whole movie talking about how cool the Death Star was literally 39 years after the movie that already showed you how cool the Death Star was, and nobody cared. Felicity Jones nudged a satellite dish a few degrees left as the big climax and nobody cared, hahaha wow look they took stock footage of all those X-Wing pilots and made the stock footage look more modern-er than before, “Let’s see it again but now more modern-er!” seems to be the rallying cry of us all now, of audiences and of critics and of people everywhere who should want something new.

It’s all so funny. What a laugh. This will make such fine subtext for 23 Jump Street. I blame myself, you should blame yourself, feel bad about this, we caused this. Take nothing seriously but our own complicity. And next year, whenever Han Solo Origins: A Star Wars Story directed by Phil Lord & Chris Miller & [insert scab here] opens in theaters, ask yourself: Do you have to see this movie? Consider advice from Jyn Erso. Isn’t this a rebellion? Are you ever going to rebel?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Sorry, seriously, not joking, I just remembered: That line didn’t make it into the movie. It was just in the marketing. Star Wars sells rebellion, but nobody involved with Star Wars – not the characters, not the filmmakers, not the audience – rebels against anything anymore.

[youremyonlyhope]

Nightvisiting

Is this episode going to cause feels? Probably.

Yep. We’re 3 minutes in and I’m already about to start crying. It’s the song’s fault. What song is this? This is Van Gogh all over again. It’d be a sad enough scene but then you add the perfect song and it makes everything ten billion times worse. Is this going to be like Father’s Day? Because I can’t handle that again. NUH UH. MM HMM. NO. NUH UH. NAH. NO. NOPE. THIS WENT FROM SAD TO TERRIFYING REAL QUICK. I JUST SHOOK MY FINGER AT MY TV AND SAID NO. OOOOOOOOOOOOOH NOOOOOOOOOOOOO OH NOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OH HELL NO THERE IS A THING IN HIS BACK. ARE THEY ALL OVER LONDON!??!!?!???! Awww poor Matteusz. Oh Ram wants to talk to Tanya about what happened that’s adorable. Never mind, just physics homework. Their friendship is still adorable. *Reading the Hunger Games* “Did this really happen?” I LOVE HER. Why is Quill’s sister in human form? Shouldn’t she appear as an alien like Quill remembers her? Deadly mistake on the alien’s part or was the make up not in the budget? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO TANYA’S MOM? IS SHE OK? PLEASE TELL ME SHE’S OK. See, Ram has the right reaction to seeing a dead person. To run away. I JUST JUMPED. THIS IS TERRIFYING. YOU KNOW. I HAD HOPED THIS WOULD BE LIKE FATHER’S DAY. THIS ISN’T LIKE FATHER’S DAY. THIS ISN’T SAD IN A SWEET WAY. THIS IS TERRIFYING IN A HORRIFYING WAY. Tanya, girl, be on the offense. Don’t trust that thing. The Lankin, or however you spell it, probably doesn’t actually consume souls or whatever, they probably just tap into people’s memories. You know, being surrounded by the souls of people you know being either heaven or hell is a good explanation. Maybe it’s all one place and your experience alive affects how you see it... hmm... TANYA NO DON’T. Ram better save the day now that he sees it’s everywhere not just in his room.

Ram: *Cuts the vein/vine/thing* Me: Ew. Vein/vine/thing: *Grows back together* Me: No. Rachel-thing: Ram. Me: NO.

YES QUILL. EXACTLY! Why is her sister in human form? Why? Because it shouldn’t be! Tanya. Yes there are good aliens out there, but I highly doubt this is one of them. HE JUST GOT LIKE SNATCHED. OH HELL NO. But then what happened to Tanya’s mom if she’s still there and just covered in the veins/vines? Why is Tanya’s “dad”’s vein/vine way thicker than the others? Is he like... the source or something? Great. It’s a trunk. Ok so vines not veins. I blinked when he blinked so I didn’t see what happened. Did he blink weirdly? It made a weird sound. OH ok so they’re not being taken away completely. IS THE ENTIRETY OF LONDON COVERED IN THESE VINES? “I think the world is ending.” YEP SAME. Showing gay sex? Yep. We’re officially completely on the Torchwood side of the Doctor Who spinoff spectrum. I’m just happy to have something like Torchwood back. That sucks for April. OK. Ram just saw his girlfriend die in front of him very recently and still affected by it enough to completely freak out and run away from her. April... I don’t care if you two just had a moment... it’s probably too soon. Especially with the entire population of London being covered in vines. Just... wait till tomorrow. “Alien shadows will kill me. Alien tattoos will kill me.” Yep. “Do you normally see your parents after sex?” LOL TANYA NO DON’T. I keep looking away or blinking whenever he blinks. Is it just making a sound or does he have like a second set of eyelids like a frog or something? Why would there be songs about nightvisiting, if the Lankin say they haven’t come to Earth until recently when the rift started opening? Has the rift been open for a while but to them it’s only been a short amount of time? “I have like, a hundred missed calls from April.” YEAH YOU DO. YOU’RE LUCKY THIS ISN’T A HORROR FILM OR YOU’D BE KILLED FOR HAVING SEX.

Quill: No one disgraces the memory of my sister by making her nice. Charlie: By the way Matteusz lives with us now. Quill: Whatever.

Tanya, girl, he has stuff coming from his sleeves. NOTICE IT. Him standing up is horrible oh god. The blinking needs to stop. Ram is smart about pointing out that it’s a cycle. Ew that’s a sickly green. Aww but that’s sad that she was so angry at her dad. QUILL. GIRL. ARE YOU ABOUT TO CRASH INTO TANYA’S HOUSE? Never mind, she just casually cut his vine using a bus. Really? No one remembers it? “That’s convenient” Yeah.

Yeah so that episode caused feels. Mostly FEAR.

[entergamingxp]

Rune Factory 4 Special Review — It’s Always Been Special To Me

February 25, 2020 1:30 PM EST

Rune Factory 4 maintains its full and outstanding spark, charm, and polish for the Switch audience. The new content isn’t substantial, but the old content remains exceptional. This is absolutely worth your time.

Ahhh, Selphia. I missed you. It’s good to be home again.

I played the ever-loving hell out of Rune Factory 4 back on the 3DS, so getting the chance to revisit the Switch version was a welcome task. Even with this prior history, however, I’m amazed at how effortlessly it drew me in. The hardest part of writing this review has genuinely been dragging myself away from the game long enough to do so. Odds are that once I’m done here, I’ll be right back to it. Let that stand as a ringing endorsement of the game if nothing else.

“The hardest part of writing this review has genuinely been dragging myself away from the game long enough to do so. “

For those just tuning in, Rune Factory is a farming life sim that began as a fantasy spinoff of the Harvest Moon series (and which changed its name to Story of Seasons following disputes with Natsume over the title). It sought to spice up the more relaxed series by introducing magic, monsters, and other such elements to the mix. Rune Factory 4 was the latest in that subseries, and it added the most features, opportunities, and mechanical depth to date. 

The game opens with a brief introduction of the player character (you choose the name and gender but no other customization at first) on an airship. They’re on a mission, but we don’t learn what that is because they’re promptly attacked by stowaway soldiers. Moments later, it’s revealed that they’ve come down with a case of amnesia — a Rune Factory staple — and promptly get punted off the airship.

You crash land on top of a dragon named Ventuswill, who assumes you’re the prince that’s due to arrive in town. It’s quickly clear that that’s not the case when the actual prince Arthur shows up, but that doesn’t stop him from foisting his responsibilities on you to focus on other tasks. With your sudden royalty established, you’re set up to live in the town of Selphia until your memory returns.

Though it comes across as something of an excuse plot at first, there’s a lot more going on here. As you play more, new characters will be introduced to Selphia, and new plot threads are uncovered. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s present, and it’ll take you through several interesting arcs over the course of the game.

With that in mind, Rune Factory 4 never forces such a thing on you. Like the series it originates from, it’s a farming life sim first and foremost. Your day-to-day activities will involve you restoring and managing the farm in Selphia, growing crops, and taming monsters. Beyond that, you can wander the town and interact with the many characters. The real meat of the story is in the dialogue of this colourful cast. Even the most bizarre or bland of them quickly proves to have a lot of personality, and I found myself happy to chat with and befriend them as the days passed.

No good life sim is complete without the ability to take those friendships one step further, however. To that end, there are 12 romanceable characters among the cast: six bachelors and six bachelorettes. There aren’t any same-sex options, however, so keep that in mind if that’s something you’re looking for. And no, the dragon Ventuswill is not dateable. As you befriend your chosen waifu/husbando, you’ll get the option to profess your love, go on dates, and eventually marry and have a child. Margaret is best girl, don’t @ me.

“There are 12 romanceable characters among the cast: six bachelors and six bachelorettes. There aren’t any same-sex options, however.”

For many, this is likely the thing they’ll aspire towards in Rune Factory 4. With all that said, relationships take time to develop, so you’ll be off partaking in the rest of the game’s activities in the meantime. Beyond farming and interacting with Selphia’s denizens, you’ll be able to roam around the game’s world, fighting/taming monsters and plumbing the depths of dungeons. There’s a hell of a lot to find in these places, and lots of materials to gather from defeated enemies or resource points scattered around.

Once you’ve got your haul back to Selphia, you can choose to sell it off or stockpile it for use in the crafting system. You can make all sorts of weapons and equipment, as well as farming implements or medicines. There’s also a ton of cooking recipes as well, many of which offer consumable buffs that will be crucial in clearing some of the harder content. You can also level up your equipment by fusing various materials to them for added effects, so there’s a use for damn near everything you find.

Leveling up also extends back to your farming, too. Better farm tools make your chores quicker, which means you can expand your operations to more fields in less time. Improving the quality of soil and seeds means the crops you grow also improve, having stronger effects and higher value. You can grow crops into giant versions of themselves, have an orchard of replenishing fruit trees, or even grow a dungeon to clear out. Everything you do ties back into farming, and in return it allows you to excel at these other activities.

One of the best features of Rune Factory 4 is the skills system. Much like an Elder Scrolls game, your character will pick up a huge array of skills that can all be individually leveled up. Your various weapons, magic elements, and crafting types all fall into these, but even basic or esoteric stuff like Eating, Sleeping, and Bathing all have a skill. Increasing these will gradually increase your base stats as well, so no matter what you choose to do, you’re making progress and becoming more capable.

Because of this, the wealth of content on offer in Rune Factory 4 never becomes too overbearing. You don’t have to rush the plot, or maximize your farming early, or any other such thing. It’s up to you to determine what you want to do on each given day. There’s a lot more to do than another game of its ilk, but the leisurely sense of playing at your own pace remains.

It’d be fair to say that Rune Factory 4 is very much greater than the sum of its parts. Part of the reason it can flood the player with content is because most of the pieces are fairly simple. There’s depth to juggling all the various moving parts and maximizing your stats, sure. But taken on its own, each mechanic is fairly straightforward. 

Combat is an action-RPG affair that sees you mostly mashing your attack button with your weapon of choice. You have the ability to dash as a soft dodge, and this can combo into a different attack, but beyond this, it’s very basic. You also can equip magic abilities to supplement this, but you’ll rarely be doing anything truly complex. Dungeons are long sequences of small rooms with very light puzzles and a mix of enemies on offer. Even on the higher difficulties, it mostly comes down to moving at the right times and having higher stats or more healing than the opponent.

Again, though, this all ends up serving the package as a whole. Combat isn’t too deep, but it increases your skills and grants materials for crafting. The crafting lets you proceed further, and also helps you with the farming. The farming likewise can give you stronger materials, consumables, or produce the right items to gift townsfolk. You can even use them on some monsters to befriend them, taking them into combat to supplement your abilities or keeping them on the farm to do chores and produce materials. Simple pieces, but it makes for a very large and beautiful puzzle.

“Rune Factory 4 is very much greater than the sum of its parts.”

By now, you hopefully have a good idea of what’s in store for you in Rune Factory 4. Everything I’ve said so far has all been true of the original 3DS release, though. So what else is new about Rune Factory 4 Special?

There have been a few adjustments made to compensate for the lack of the 3DS dual screen on a Switch. The second screen was usually dedicated to a minimap or other information, but instead, this is now presented in a transparent window in the corner. You can resize the minimap with a press of ZL, though, so it doesn’t get too intrusive. There’s also been a number of tweaks that allow you to enlarge text boxes, while ZR has been mapped to the frequently used Escape spell. Enough care and concessions were put in to make sure the transition to a different screen size is smooth, which is appreciated.

With all that said, it’s still very much a 3DS game in terms of appearance. The resolution has been increased and many of the models or images have been smoothed out, so the game looks far less pixelated than the original. Unfortunately, this is something of a double-edged sword; many of the flat images now look dull and simplistic despite the clarity. It was a lot harder to tell how everything was compressed to fit a 3DS screen and cartridge, but now that illusion has been lifted. The 3D models look good enough, but it’s all still clearly born of a handheld game. Those expecting high graphical fidelity won’t find it here, though the developers have done their utmost nonetheless.

Beyond the presentation, a few little additions have made their way into the port. English and Japanese dual audio is now available, toggled from the menu. There’s a new difficulty mode that’s quite punishing, but I honestly just found it more of a nuisance than an interesting challenge. Some games better suit being challenged on high difficulty, but Rune Factory 4’s combat depth is too basic and stat-driven to really warrant it. It’s there should you desire, however!

As for the new content… there isn’t all that much to it. Both showcased additions to Special are available on the main menu, but you won’t be able to access them immediately. Another Episode is a series of short segments displayed and voiced like a visual novel, each one focusing on a romanceable character. There’s also a bonus one for Ventuswill, which is the closest fans of the dragon goddess are gonna get this time around. Ultimately, these are simple, short, sweet, but not a particularly large chunk of content. They’re also DLC, but will be free for the first month or so if you get the game early.

The Newlywed Mode adds more gameplay in the form of an epilogue with your partner after you get married. Again, there’s one for each, and these remain locked until you marry that specific character in a playthrough. Given the overall length of the game, only the absolutely dedicated or determined are ever likely to see all of these.

But here’s the rub: I didn’t get to play any of these episodes in the course of my review. This isn’t for lack of trying, either. I clocked up well over 40 hours of playtime on Switch, and I’ve beaten the 3DS version previously. I know what I’m doing to speed things along, but outside of rushing and ignoring non-essentials, it didn’t happen. Not only did I not make it to marrying a character, but I’m not even close! I only really just started dating my waifu of choice. As such, I honestly can’t tell you about the quality of this new content or what’s entailed. I intend to come back after the game has launched and cover it once I get there, but I just wasn’t able to get through enough to make it in time for this review.

Despite this conundrum, I think it loops right back around to showcasing just how much content there is in Rune Factory 4. This game is utterly enormous. It’s varied, it’s engaging, and it’s a great time. Whether doing chores at a relaxed pace or grinding hard to overcome a particular challenge, this holds true.

There is a major criticism I can offer, however. Town Events will spring up at random throughout your game. These involve a selection of the cast and some antics going on in their lives, and often lead to some great insight into their personality or history. Nonetheless, these events are random. On a day determined by the game (it’s not set), one of these events will trigger. Your save file will always have an event trigger on that day, and reloading prior to that day will let you cycle through events to access a particular one if you’re dedicated.

“This game is utterly enormous. It’s varied, it’s engaging, and it’s a great time.”

Now, this might not be an issue if these were exclusively minor little events. The problem is, these Town Events also include a number of key scenes. In order to marry your partner, you’ll have to see all their prerequisite events, and some have more than others. More egregiously? The entire third Act of the plot including the last major area is locked behind this! 

If you didn’t look online and just try playing at your own pace — as I did on the 3DS — it might take you a frustratingly long time to even realize that the plot continues and there’s more to do… only for you then needing to cycle the events until you trigger the right one. It’s utterly maddening, and the largest complaint I could level against Rune Factory 4. I was hoping this would be adjusted for Special, but alas.

As major an issue as this is, however, it’s one that you can overcome with a little patience and a touch of frustration. By the time you’re likely to reach this point, you’ll have played a tremendously large chunk of video game already, with still more ahead. It really astonished me just how much content was in a 3DS game, and this is still remarkable even now on a different system. Given that this is my only problem with the game outside of small nitpicks, it’s far from a deal breaker.

“While no individual aspect is the best of its kind, the overall package exudes charm and entertainment that is hard to match.”

So this is where we stand. Rune Factory 4 Special is an amazing game. It was my personal favourite 3DS game out of the large and varied library. It’s a game that I was more than happy to return to even if there was no new content whatsoever. I still know my way around Selphia and relish my time with it. Many love Stardew Valley, but as quality as that game is… I’ve never been able to play it without eventually going back and replaying Rune Factory 4 instead. I expect I’ll still be playing even when Animal Crossing rolls around. While no individual aspect is the best of its kind, the overall package exudes charm and entertainment that is hard to match.

If you haven’t played the original and this sounds even remotely like your kind of game, I heartily encourage you to try it. If you did play the original, you probably won’t get too much that you didn’t already experience. Should you just feel a little nostalgic for it and want to go back to one of the best farming life sims ever made, though? That was more than enough for me to adore my time with Rune Factory 4 Special, and will continue to do so long after you’re done reading this. Here’s hoping the upcoming Rune Factory 5 manages to capture that magic again.

February 25, 2020 1:30 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/rune-factory-4-special-review-its-always-been-special-to-me/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rune-factory-4-special-review-its-always-been-special-to-me

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Letter to $AMFE Shareholders

Ahh the audit. I feel everyone’s frustrations. I truly do. As shareholders and as myself, I urge everyone to keep in mind that we are invested in a piece of the business and not the audit. The business is doing great! Hands down. However, the relaying of timelines that were provided to the company, and then on to the shareholders which were then not met has created the cloud hanging over our heads that has been, in my opinion, hindering the correlation between the company’s progress and the progress in terms of the market. The company today is in the best shape it’s ever been in however the market is not reflecting that. Frustrating, I get it. I have been avoiding discussing the topic recently as we are still closer then ever before but not yet completed and so any update which is not “The process is complete”, is not a positive one or what anyone wants to hear. Each week that has passed since the last timeline we relayed on to the shareholders, I truly believed was going to be it. However due to the amount of time that has passed, I do believe an update is necessary in all fairness, so the rumor mill doesn’t begin to churn in full force. The unfortunate part about the whole ordeal is that I’m sure every shareholder, including myself wants a specific reason to be pointed at to say, this is the cause of the delay – but it is just not the case. It is ‘the process’ in general. When a footnote or a line item is modified there is a ripple effect that causes additional changes which just takes time. The fundamentals of the audit have not changed at all throughout this entire process. Just as I mentioned previously, the audited statements to this day stand and read with the same adjustments. As mentioned before, we will be filing revenues for the Fiscal Year Ended 2017 of $8,329,767, which is up $1,698,794 from the $6,630,973 we posted unaudited. This is due to the recording of some transactions only on the net side in error during consolidation. As mentioned before there will now be a ‘couple hundred thousand dollar’ operating loss due to some transactions being pushed out of the year end and into the following quarter. We could have argued this, but determined it to be meaningless in the grand scheme of things and the last thing we want to do is make the process take any longer than it already has. There unfortunately isn’t any single item or aspect that can be pointed to in order to say, “this is why it took longer then expected”. It is just the process in its entirety. Also, when things drag out as long as they have, and with the company continuing to forge ahead, the subsequent events list just keeps growing and that too must be constantly revisited. I feel like most of our 2018 audit will already be completed as it’s being checked for the multi year 2017 audit. What I can say is that we had some down time for a few weeks due to people involved with the audit not being able to 100% dedicate their time to it, but this week and last they have been going full force to get it wrapped up and out the door. For the first time, CFO Squad and RBSM met this week face to face regarding our file to try and hash everything out and get it wrapped up. So, it would appear that we are close and we are pushing daily for completion. I believe it will happen very soon and we can finally get the elephant out of the room and move on. I want to also clarify that every date that I have ever relayed on to the shareholders regarding completion was given to me in writing and not just a guesstimate on my behalf. After so many times of relaying on what I am being told and seeing the dates missed, I decided to stop providing dates because the frustration I relay on to our auditors is relayed ten-fold onto me by our shareholders which does nobody any good. In hindsight, no dates should ever have been mentioned from the get-go, but I only did it because I kept truly believing the next date had to be it. I am just as anxious as everyone else to have this off our plate. It will come to an end. We are closer today then ever before, with one last open item to complete now. Once the item is satisfied, I believe within one day we can get the signatures. The final process will be to provide an updated shareholder list and legal confirmations to ensure no changes for subsequent matters, of which there are neither so this should take all but a couple hours to do. Then it is just signing of management rep letters and getting the sign off. I also want to reiterate that the first audit is always the worst. Moving forward, things are much easier for everyone as the auditors are familiar with the file, are going off their own closing and opening numbers, not deriving them from scratch and are more up to speed in general with the file. For an auditor to provide audited statements on let’s say a one-year period, 2017, they have to essentially audit 2016 in order to be comfortable in their opening numbers for 2017. So, on a multi year audit, tack on an additional year even though its not part of the audit. Let me give a specific example of a single item that takes months the first time around on a first-time audit but a mere couple of days on subsequent audits moving forward: Auditors have to physically view inventory at year end. We hadn’t even begun our audit on June 30th of last year which was our year end. So, the auditor could not physically view the inventory. When you have to basically do a rollback from the day the inventory was actually viewed, in our case I believe it was around October of last year, you have to tie out every in and out transaction from June 30th to the date of viewing to provide the support to prove inventory was X as of year end. You know how many SKU’s the company has and how many transactions take place in three to four months? A LOT. That literally took months. For 2018, the auditors came and viewed the inventory right at year end. That one item of time savings alone saves months on the process, and there are many similar examples… At the end of the day, I am just trying to provide some indication of why the process in its entirety takes so long as there is no one singular item that can be pointed at and say, “This is the cause of the delay” which would be so much more satisfying. But the truth is it is the entirety of the process which is extremely time consuming. A word on the company: This time last year, there were two locations. We are now approaching four and the amount of work being done and success to date by the expansion team indicates we could and should be into double digit locations next year. At this time last year, we didn’t have our own publishing division which resulted from the all cash acquisition of Morning. We now have many very cool and trending titles coming to market before the holiday season. Distribution and fulfillment is gaining significant traction. Orders are increasing, profitability is increasing, exposure and the brand is ever increasing, location numbers are up, revenue is up, coast to coast locations are now in the works…. yet the audit took longer then expected and seems to be casting shade on the outstanding achievements during the process. We are fighting to get this initial monkey off our back, and we will succeed. It is just a matter of time. We are all part of this company because there is one major thing we do right, EXECUTE. And we will continue to do so. I apologize for this initial nightmare of an audit, but we will get past it. In the meantime we keep plugging away to get to signature stage while the company keeps growing by leaps and bounds. We expect everyone’s patience will pay off once audit/uplist is completed, then we proceed to complete the spinoff of I.K. and special dividend back to existing shareholders. Thank you for owning and being a part of this great company and let’s continue to forge ahead like we do best! #worlddomination Roger Mortimer http://dlvr.it/QhDhhL